The Shifter and the Dreamer

by Crissy Smith

  A Total-E-Bound Publication

  www.total-e-bound.com

  The Shifter and the Dreamer

  ISBN #978-0-85715-476-7

  ©Copyright Crissy Smith 2011

  Cover Art by April Martinez ©Copyright March 2011

  Edited by Stacey Birkel

  Total-E-Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Total-E-Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2011 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank,

  Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, United Kingdom

  .

  Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has been rated Total-e-burning.

  Secrets

  THE SHIFTER AND THE DREAMER

  Crissy Smith

  Dedication

  To the bond between sisters, old lovers becoming new friends, and the love that got away.

  A special thanks to my dad for the number of times we sat and talked about this story and all I wanted it to be. I couldn’t have done it without your support.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmark mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Jeep: Daimler Chrysler Corporation

  Chapter One

  There was nothing mysterious or intriguing about murder, especially when the victim was a beautiful young woman who’d had her entire life in front of her. Sheriff Katy Rose stood from her crouch beside the body of such a woman and closed her eyes. After a few minutes, she reopened them and took in the scene.

  The woman was lying face down, her hands secured behind her back, her ankles bound with zip ties. She was completely nude. Her long, blonde hair was matted with blood and dirt, as was her torn, beaten body. However, the most upsetting part was that she was missing her right pinkie up to her knuckle.

  “Hey, Davis,” she called back to one of her deputies. “This scene look familiar to you?”

  Scratching his greying beard, he nodded. “Sure does, Sheriff.”

  “Christ, Davis! Do you know what this could mean?”

  “Yeah.” He frowned. “I do.”

  “Could be a copycat,” she offered. “Dallas is a long way from here.”

  “Could be,” he agreed, without emotion.

  With her latex-covered hand, she pushed her bangs from her eyes. “Probably not.”

  “Probably not.” It was too close to all the murders east of them. The serial killer that was haunting one of the biggest cities in Texas should have been too far away to reach her small town.

  Five women had been found in the last year. The media coverage on the murders was huge. As much as she had tried to ignore the reports, she had been intrigued and had been pulled in. Of course pieces of the case had slipped through to the outside. It could be a copycat. But something inside her screamed that life in the small town was about to change.

  The victim’s name was Amanda Caldwell. Katy and her partner watched as the medical examiner loaded up her body. She had been twenty-eight, a teacher at the local elementary school, young, single, and the perfect target.

  Katy surveyed her surroundings. The woods were thick and dense. No one would have seen him dump her body way out here. It was private property, but nearly everything out here was. This far west, most areas were owned by oilmen or ranchers. Each took the possession of his land seriously but had too much to be able to monitor every inch.

  “Who owns this land?” she asked without turning around.

  “This is LambertLand,” Davis informed her.

  “Lambert?” Katy asked, facing him. She should have known that, but it had been over a dozen years since she’d been there.

  Davis nodded while taking out a packet of cigarettes.

  “Great,” she mumbled to herself. Lambert Oil was old money out here. A very formidable family that played by their own rules and had little use for anyone else. She’d had run-ins with the sons numerous times. The five Lambert boys found trouble like they found oil—plentiful.

  “Well, let’s head up and see what they saw,” she told Davis, and headed for her SUV. “Who found the body?”

  Davis pulled out his notebook and flipped a page. “That’d be Clint Lambert. Said he was taking a drive after dinner. At first he thought it was a mannequin or something, stopped and took a look, threw up couple yards over there.”

  Katy chuckled, thinking of Clint Lambert being sick. She knew it was wrong but, with their past, it gave her a small amount of satisfaction that the big, cool man had lost his lunch. Her amusement quickly left when she thought about the body. It had been one of the worst she’d seen in her career.

  “Been living in Colorado last couple years. Got himself a spread out there. I hear he does all right for himself,” Davis continued and gave her a knowing look.

  Katy nodded as they drove closer to the big house, mentally sorting through the information. She didn’t comment on Davis’s unspoken meaning. She’d grown up with Clint, and at one time they’d been more than just friends.

  The front door opened before they came to a stop. A man in his mid-thirties stepped out of the house and stood with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Katy.” He nodded to her as they approached. “Davis, how you doing?”

  Davis shook the man’s hand. “Fine.”

  “Mr. Lambert…” Katy interrupted, not liking being ignored.

  He threw his head back and laughed. “Mr. Lambert? You call me Mr. Lambert and you’ll have half a dozen male voices answer. And haven’t we moved past using last names, Katy?”

  “Sheriff,” she corrected.

  For the first time he gave her his full attention. He took his time looking her up and down. Katy refused to shift to show that it bothered her. She was still getting used to the town folk assessing how well she could do her job.

  “I apologise, Sheriff Katy. I hadn’t heard Roy retired,” he told her, with his bright blue eyes showing amusement.

  Roy Johnson, the sheriff before her, had been a good ole boy. Too hard drinking to care much about what the citizens were doing.

  “Over a year now,” she informed him.

  He shrugged. “Been a while since I’ve been home. Only arrived last night.”

  Katy nodded in acknowledgement. “Why don’t you run through what happened tonight.”

  Running a hand through his sandy blond hair, he took a deep breath. “I decided to take a drive after dinner. I needed…to get some air. So I took the road down to the creek. That’s when I saw her.”

  Katy could tell he was agitated thinking about it.

  “I…hell, Katy… Sheriff, I mean. I thought it was a doll. You know one of those big life-sized dolls. I thought maybe one of my brothers had been out here messing around…”

  “Did you see anyone around?” she interrupted before he could get off the subject.

  He shook his he
ad. When Davis pulled out a packet of smokes, he gratefully took one.

  “How about anyone around this morning? Last night?”

  She questioned him for another twenty minutes, not getting much more. All of his family, except for his father, were in Houston. And his father had left after they’d shared dinner, the same time he’d decided to take that drive.

  She thanked him for his time while ignoring the flirtatious wink Clint sent her as she left.

  As she sat in her car and waited for Davis to buckle up, she stared at the man on the porch. He stared back at her before smiling and lifting a hand. Trouble, that’s what came to mind when she looked at Clint Lambert.

  The drive back into town took thirty minutes. Katy brooded the entire time. The media coverage of the serial murders was all over every channel, including the description of the victims, details of the gruesome killings, and the two special agents in charge of the case. Katy knew she had no choice but to call the FBI in Dallas—her old job and her old partner. She was dreading it, and not only because they would come out here and take over the case.

  She knew the minute she saw her old partner, the town was going to feel the rapture.

  * * * *

  Special Agent Ryan Waters answered the blinking line and almost choked on his coffee. The familiar voice that greeted his had him looking around for his partner. Luckily Cameron had already left for the day.

  “Special Agent Waters, this is Katy Rose from Greenwood, Texas,” she told him in a professional and calm voice.

  “I know who you are, Katy.” He deliberately didn’t use her last name.

  There was silence before she cleared her throat. “I thought you would.”

  “You asked for me personally, so what can I do for you?” He wasn’t friendly. He knew the history between her and his current partner. Well, maybe not the entire history, but enough. If she was calling to get information on Cameron, he would gladly tell her to go to Hell.

  “I’m calling on official business, Special Agent.”

  He had to admire the fact that she knew what he was doing and responded in kind. “So how can I help you…officially?”

  She sighed and for a moment he felt a twinge of guilt. But thinking of how closed off his partner had become, he quickly quashed it.

  “I had a murder up here today.”

  “Uh huh,” he mumbled, leaning back in his chair.

  “Young woman, twenty-eight years old. A teacher at the local elementary school,” she continued.

  Ryan sat up. Dread began to pool in his stomach.

  “We found her body dumped off on the side of the road. Hands tied behind her back, ankles bound, and…and she’s missing her right pinkie.”

  Ryan closed his eyes before he cursed out loud and grabbed a pen. “Tell me everything.”

  Twenty minutes later, he hung up the phone and rubbed his temples. Katy Rose—Sheriff Katy Rose—he mentally corrected himself, had a murder all right. One that was all too hauntingly familiar. He picked up the phone and dialled his partner’s cell.

  “Cameron, we got something.”

  After he hung up, he sat to wait. He didn’t know what was going to be worse—telling his partner they may have another murder, maybe a copycat, or with whom Cameron was about to become reacquainted.

  * * * *

  Cameron sat at his desk and stared at his partner. He’d only been partners with Ryan for about a year now. After the separation from his last partner, he’d made sure that whoever he was assigned to was more of his own ‘kind’. Less to hide that way. He was pleased with his choice. The special agent in charge of his division was one of the few people who knew his secret—because they shared it. When Cameron had informed his boss that he wanted a partner who would understand his unusual quirks, he’d been introduced to Ryan.

  Ryan had been newer than Cameron would have preferred but by now that didn’t make a difference to him at all. Ryan was a good, solid agent, smart and willing to put the needed time into the cases.

  So Cameron knew that if Ryan had called him in for this, it was important.

  After several minutes he finally spoke. “So this sheriff called, asked for you, and decided to share this case.”

  Ryan shrugged. “She’d seen the news coverage.”

  Cameron ran a hand through his black hair. He needed a haircut, but who had time? For the past several months they’d been looking for a monster. “We need to go down there and at least check it out,” he conceded.

  “I agree. I wanted to tell you first before I requested it,” Ryan told him.

  Cameron nodded. There was still something nagging at him. His partner was acting different.

  “Also…”

  Cameron waited.

  “The sheriff that called…”

  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. To move so quick to get hold of us. That’s unusual to say the least.”

  “Well, this isn’t an ordinary sheriff.”

  “Oh?” He lifted his brow in question.

  His partner seemed to stumble over his words before blurting it out. “Yeah…well, the sheriff…was one of us. I mean FBI…our FBI…I mean… Hell, man, it’s Katy.”

  Cameron felt as if he’d just been punched in the stomach. “Katy?”

  “Yeah, your partner…ex-partner…”

  Cameron fisted his hands. Katy had called. She’d called and asked for Ryan. If she’d seen the news, she knew he was involved. She’d known that when she called, he would come. He shook his head. “Katy?”

  “Yeah, man.”

  Anger hit him first, followed quickly by annoyance. It had been so long since he’d last seen her. His chest tightened just at the thought of looking into her eyes. His partner was watching him closely so he did his best to shake off his reaction.

  “Well, no matter. We better talk to the boss.” Cameron headed away from his desk with Ryan following silently behind him.

  Try as he might, he couldn’t get the picture out of his head of the last time he’d seen the woman who had turned him inside out, then ran away, never looking back over her shoulder.

  Chapter Two

  Katy hadn’t slept well. Dreams chased her throughout the night. The past, the present and the future all twisted and turned. Cameron’s face smiling at her the first time they made love, then his face when she told him she was moving, and finally the pity when he’d found out her secret—or one of her secrets.

  It had been a stressful day when they’d made it back to her apartment. It was always her apartment they spent the night in. Katy knew that bothered Cameron, but she couldn’t help that she felt more comfortable in her own space. Ever since she was very little and had no control over her life, she’d clung to what she could call hers. Her apartment was one of the few things she was never able to relent on her control over.

  The day had started normally enough. But they’d been sleeping together for too many months without anyone knowing. Of course it couldn’t last. Another member of their squad had finally seen them sharing dinner the night before.

  It was strictly against the rules to become romantically involved with your partner. Knowing this, Katy had tried to fight her attraction to Cameron, but he’d pursued her so skilfully, she’d fallen in love long before they slept together.

  That day the special agent in charge had called them both into his office. After a stern warning about rumours inside the building, he’d cautioned them against continuing any relationship that wasn’t purely professional. Katy had done her best to avoid both Cameron and the subject for most of the day. But once they’d walked into the apartment, Cameron had turned on her.

  “I don’t care what the rules are,” he’d said. “You’re mine, and I won’t give you up.”

  Katy hadn’t agreed. While they were good together, it was no reason to end one or both of their careers. She’d argued with Cameron for hours but when he’d asked her point-blank if she loved him, she couldn’t lie. She should have told him no and demanded he l
eave. Requested another partner and put everything they’d had behind her. But she hadn’t. She’d cried in front of him for the first time. He’d opened his arms and she’d walked to him, accepting his love and giving in.

  He’d made love to her almost desperately that night, holding onto her so tightly she had bruises the next morning. It had been glorious and was imprinted in her mind for all time.

  And then the next morning her sister called. She’d been in the shower and Cameron had answered. He’d been as shocked as Allysa had been. And by the time Katy had walked into the bedroom wrapped in a towel, they’d already spoken for several minutes.

  And that was when everything else fell apart. Cameron had offered the phone to her without a word. When Katy put it to her ear, she could hear her sister still talking.

  “An only child?” Her sister’s words echoed in Katy’s head. “Katy told you she was an only child?”

  Katy had hurt them both more than she’d ever meant to. But her sister was a part of her life she hadn’t shared with anyone. She knew one day she would have to return to her old life. Turned out she was right. Cameron had stormed out while she tried to calm Allysa down.

  That was the last time Katy had been with Cameron.

  Katy had already accepted the job in Greenwood as Sheriff when she told him she was leaving. It may have been the coward’s way out, but by then she didn’t care. Her apartment had been boxed up and the truck packed. He couldn’t have talked her out of leaving if he’d tried. Not that he had.

  “Earth to Katy.”

  Katy’s head snapped up and her sister laughed. “What?”

  “Oh, nothing!” Allysa continued to laugh as she poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot that Katy had made. “I’ve just been calling your name for five minutes now.”