“When you figure out this virus or whatever’s going on, I’ll buy you that drink you mentioned before. And if we can still stand each other by then, I’ll even humor you on the action movie.”
“Deal.”
“You’re holding me to it, huh?”
“Absofuckinglutely.”
She followed me across the parking lot, and not only was I happy with our agreement, she seemed to be, too.
I clicked the fob and unlocked the doors to my rental before climbing in.
Juliana climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door.
The hem of her dress slid up just above her knees. I found myself staring at the curves of her legs, at the creamy tan skin, and forced my attention forward.
“I must say, this is an interesting choice in car,” Juliana said.
“You don’t like her?” I asked, and pulled out of the lot.
“Her? She’s fine. Just not what I expected.”
“All cars are ladies, meant to be treated with respect and cared for.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Turn right.”
I did as she said.
“And what did you expect?” I asked.
“When I first saw you stroll into the motel? Limo.”
“Limo, huh?” I asked. “You can tell how refined I am.”
“Fancy, sure,” she said. “Sunglasses at night, expensive suits, perfect hair.”
“You thought I was hot.” Smug as hell, I let my grin show how much the thought pleased me.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” I could see it on her pink cheeks, in the way her heart beat a little faster when she was close to me. Her pupils dilated just enough to dwarf her stunning sapphire irises.
Juliana pointed out the dash. “Just up there on the right.”
“You want me to drop it,” I said. It was both a question, and not a question. She didn’t need to answer for me to know what she was thinking. But she responded anyway.
“That’d be great.”
I parked the van in the grass by a wooden shack and climbed out. The sign above the door read Milly’s Diner.
The heavy, hot air smelled like grease, and beyond that, forest and swamp.
Everywhere in this town felt like the middle of nowhere. I kind of liked that. The tiger half of me loved the open air. The other half missed air conditioning, paved roads, and wifi.
Juliana looked from me to the minivan and back to me as if she was still questioning my choice in vehicle.
“She’s a rental.” I winked at Juliana, and shut the door.
“So you do ride in a limo at home?”
“Nope.”
“Minivan?”
“Nah,” I said. “There’s no back home, and it’s always a rental.”
“You don’t have a sweet bachelor pad by the CDC headquarters?”
Juliana led the way between buildings to the back of the restaurant.
“I’m always on the road,” I said.
“Not being tied down sounds nice,” she said. But her smile faded as she looked over the half-empty lot.
The air shifted, like the light had been sucked from the world, and all that was left was despair. A shiver crept up my spine.
“It happened here?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Juliana took a few steps farther and stopped in front of a black SUV.
There was a faint scent in the air, something herbal. Lavender and other plants. Like fancy soap.
“I was over there.” Juliana pointed. “Em was here.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“It’s probably all in the report already.” There was pain in her eyes, and as she shifted her footing, I realized she didn’t want to say. Was she afraid to relive what had happened, or afraid of something else?
“No judgement,” I said. “Promise.”
She nodded, but the look on her face didn’t change.
“She was standing there, and then she got sucked under the car.”
“Like someone grabbed her?” I asked.
“I don’t know how else to explain it,” she said. “But she wasn’t under the car. Or anywhere.”
“You don’t believe she walked away,” I said.
“No, no I don’t.” She put her hands on her hips, again squaring her shoulders. “I don’t believe we could sit and have a nice meal together, come outside and then she somehow just teleports a mile away and lies down in the middle of the road. She wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t have. And I don’t care if you believe me. It’s the truth.”
She shielded herself in frost. Hard as ice, hard as stone.
“I do believe you.”
“Oh.” Her arms dropped. The tension melted away, and she let me truly see her. Her sadness, her vulnerability—she let me in. I would do my damnedest not to fuck it up.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I agreed.
“If you don’t think she walked away herself, does that mean you’ve ruled out whatever disease you came here to investigate?” Her voice was soft.
My answer held weight. I knew it did, and I knew it couldn’t be the truth, at least not the whole truth. I knew nothing about diseases, nothing about the CDC. I couldn’t tell her.
But I also didn’t want to lie to her. There was something about her that made me want to tell her everything, and never lie. It was that same clawing, nagging bastard of a feeling that said she mattered, that she changed everything and that there was nothing I could do about it. The feeling that she was my mate.
“No,” I said. “I haven’t ruled anything out.”
I looked down, not avoiding anything, just admiring my fancy-ass dress shoes.
There was something there, black velvet on the ground. It could be nothing, but it could be everything.
“I don’t get it,” Juliana said. “What—”
“Hold on.” I lifted the car by the wheel well and pulled out the dirt-covered bag.
“What the hell, Lincoln?”
“What the hell indeed,” I replied.
So strong I sneezed, the herb scent filled my head like being covered head-to-toe in whatever crap they smashed together to make incense sticks. Soft beneath the crusted dirt, the small satchel was made of black crushed velvet, and tied off with a black string—a hex bag.
Like a boss, I’d already solved the case. The culprit was a witch.
“Seriously, Lincoln, how the hell did you do that?”
“I’ve got the eye of the tiger, the sharp nose of the anteater, the bite of the shark—”
The impact of her fist on my shoulder was a bit of a surprise. “Ouch. You’ve got the right hook of the kangaroo.”
“Lincoln.” She stared at me, deadpan serious. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“I do?”
“I just watched you lift that car off the ground.”
Oh.
“I…”
“Don’t you dare lie to me,” she said.
I didn’t want to.
I shifted my feet, looked everywhere but at her. Her heavy stare pushed me to answer. I could feel it even when I chose not to see it.
“I won’t lie,” I said.
She waited, staring at me with her big blue eyes like I owed her an answer. Like my response was the tipping point between Juliana walking away or letting her guard back down. I didn’t take the responsibility lightly, but I still couldn’t tell her what I was.
It was my duty to keep the existence of shifters a secret, and even if that weren’t the case, if Juliana knew the truth about me, she’d sure as hell run.
So I changed the subject to one I knew she was passionate about, even more so than I was—the case.
“Come see,” I said. “We have a lead.”
Chapter Eight
Juliana
Torn, I stared at Lincoln.
He hadn’t lied, but he didn’t want to talk about his super-human, super-freaky strength. Maybe he was like those action heroes he admired. Superman
or Van Whatever. It would explain the looks. Sexy alien wears sunglasses in the dark, flashes a smile that charms and disarms those who grew too close to the truth—it sounded like a headline from a conspiracy tabloid. It also sounded like Lincoln.
I dismissed the thought.
The urge to press him further was nagging, but not as strong as my curiosity about what he’d found. He’d said it was a lead. He’d known it would distract me—tricky bastard.
Unable to resist, I accepted his misdirection. I had to help Em. Lincoln’s secrets would have to wait.
“What is it?” I snatched the black object from his hand.
“Maybe you shouldn’t—”
Ignoring him, I opened the string and looked inside. It was filled with flowers. The cloud of smoke that puffed out in my face was a strong, gag-worthy funk. And gag I did, cough too.
Lincoln sighed and took the bag back.
“Yeah,” he said. “I tried to warn you.”
The coughing refused to subside. The particles were like spiny thistles stuck in my lungs.
“It’s probably not poisonous,” Lincoln said.
My eyes went wide.
“I said not. Not poisonous.” He raised his hands in defense.
The severity waned, turning into a tickle, rather than a full-on need to expel the entire contents of my chest.
“Could this have been here the night your sister disappeared?” Lincoln asked, after I’d regained my composure.
“Sure,” I said. “It was dark. Also, I didn’t lift any cars to look for bags in the dirt while searching for my sister.”
Even I could hear the disdain in my tone, and I regretted it immediately. Lincoln was helping me, letting me in on his investigation, even though he didn’t have to, even though I didn’t have any real help to offer.
Lincoln brushed the crust from the cloth, seemingly unfazed by my attitude. Beneath the dirt was a design, painted in white.
“What’s on there?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” Lincoln said. He offered the bag on his open palm. It was a geometric design, of three overlapping circles and a triangle.
He was holding something back, at least one something, probably a whole lot of somethings. It didn’t matter.
“I’m sure,” I said. “I’ve seen that symbol before.”
His dark eyes sparkled with interest. Drawn in, trapped, I writhed under the intensity. He was two feet away, though it felt as if his hands were on my skin, his lips were touching mine. Citrus and spice filled my nose, washing away everything but Lincoln. I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours. I shook off the words he’d said to me at the motel and cleared my throat.
“Where?”
“I’ll show you, back at my place.” The words came out of my mouth, but I couldn’t believe them. I was inviting Lincoln back to my house, to a place we’d be alone, to the basement I hadn’t touched in eight years.
Lincoln stepped closer and my heart skipped a beat. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to say yes. He smiled at me, that alluring, devilish grin, and lifted his palm.
Like an idiot, I stared at his hand before realizing what it was he wanted. I obliged and gave his palm a slap.
“Yeah,” Lincoln said. “Let’s rock this thing.”
I shook my head, but I couldn’t help but smile as we headed back toward Lincoln’s pink soccer-mom van. And I stared at his perfect, grabbable ass with every step.
It was a strange feeling. I hadn’t brought a man home in the last five years, and I’d never led anyone into the basement.
My heart was a bass drum, thumping at cheetah speed, and I couldn’t calm it. The little hairs on my arms stood on end as I was hyper-aware of my surroundings. Lincoln was two steps above me on the staircase, waiting for me to open the door. He didn’t question what was taking me so long, and I was grateful.
When I turned the knob, my stomach knotted. I kept my eyes trained forward as I flipped the lights and stepped inside.
Libraries had a distinct smell, especially old ones. Dad’s was no exception. It was the contents of those books that made his basement different, that and the sweet scent of his cigars that forever lingered. Shelves lined the walls, with a single desk in the center of the room. Everything was exactly the way it had been before. Untouched by Em and me.
“This was my Dad’s library,” I said.
Lincoln looked around the room, his hands held behind his back as he examined the shelves.
The next part was hard to admit. It was the connection that had made my life difficult at times in this way-too-small town. “My Dad hunted shadows.”
“Shadows?” Lincoln turned, giving me his full attention. His expression was blank, completely, and frustratingly unreadable.
“He was convinced that ghosts and monsters were real. This is his collection on...” It was harder to say than I’d thought it’d be. Worst case scenario, Lincoln laughed in my face and walked away. It wouldn’t be a surprise, but somehow it was scarier with him. The stakes were higher than they’d been with anyone else. I wanted him not to laugh. I needed it. “It’s his collection on what he called the hidden world.”
Lincoln stepped closer, still not offering any sign of what was going on in that way-too-gorgeous head of his.
“And what do you believe?” There was no judgement in the casual stance, or in his soft expression, only interest.
“It’s funny,” I said. “I used to believe all of it when I was a kid. I’d come down here and sit in my dad’s lap and listen to his tales of chasing monsters and staking vampires. I didn’t know what that meant to everyone else.”
“What did it mean?”
“That they thought he was crazy. That there were stories that it was his fault my mom died, or that people either hated my family or felt sorry for us.”
“That must have been hard.”
“Eventually I learned,” I said. “And I stopped coming down to hear the stories, and eventually he stopped coming home.”
“He left you and your sister?” Lincoln asked.
“He did. I was sixteen and Em was nineteen. We looked out for each other, just like we always had.”
“So you don’t believe in the hidden world?” Lincoln asked.
I’d expected his next question to be about me and Em, not about the hidden world.
I shook my head no. Of course I didn’t believe in monsters and ghosts. I was a grown-ass adult.
Lincoln looked away, to the books on the shelves, and took a step back.
If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was disappointed.
“I’ve tried not to think much about all of this,” I said. It was true—I tried not to think about my father and his monsters. Still, I thought about them. So it was a half-truth. I knew that wasn’t fair, when I’d asked him not to lie to me. But if he could hold back, so could I. “But the symbol from that bag, I saw it before, down here.”
“Interesting.” Lincoln looked at me like I was a puzzle he was finally putting together. What he’d found interesting, I wasn’t sure, but I hoped he wasn’t put off by what I’d said. I wasn’t sure why he would be, but I didn’t know him, not really.
I sat on the edge of the desk and nodded, unsure of what else to say.
“Any idea which book?” Lincoln asked.
“Nope.”
This time it was Lincoln’s turn to nod. “Well then, we’d better get started.”
He took off his jacket and laid it on the desk.
We each took a stack of books and settled on the carpeted floor to read. When we finished with one stack, we got another. It was surprisingly comfortable, just being here with him. I hadn’t thought I could ever be comfortable in this basement again.
I caught glimpses of the muscular shapes of his arms and torso as his button-down shirt grazed against him. It made for a pleasant balance of work and enjoyment.
“This one’s interesting.” Lincoln slid the open book toward me. Across the two-page spread was a
naked woman with six very large breasts and the legs of a goat. Lizard-like scales covered her face, with a forked tongue sticking out between human-shaped lips.
“Quite.”
“I’m thinking the artist was a boob guy,” Lincoln said.
The laugh that escaped my lips was unexpected. Lincoln was good at that—catching me by surprise.
“What book is that?”
Lincoln flipped to the cover. “Sirens and Seductresses,” he said. “A Compendium of the Sensual Supernatural.”
“Glad to admit, Dad never told me any stories from that one.”
Lincoln’s playful smile broke through my barriers. I didn’t need those barriers, not with him.
His fingers brushed mine, sending a jolt of excitement through me. I didn’t pull away.
He was absolutely exquisite, long and lean, yet strong, toned. I imagined that beneath that white shirt was a set of sculpted, killer abs that would feel firm beneath my palms.
Suddenly I had to know, even though it came from nowhere, and I was terrified of what he might answer. “Do you think my dad was crazy?”
I needed him to say no, even though I knew that wasn’t fair. Part of me wished I could take it back. The rest didn’t.
“I believe, as a general life rule, that we shouldn’t trust what we’re given as truth. That we should take all the possibilities into account, and decide the truth for ourselves.”
The words on their own sounded like solid advice. But given the context, I wasn’t sure I knew what exactly he was trying to imply. It was his uncharacteristically serious tone that I found most alarming.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Lincoln rose to his feet. “It means, Juliana, that you should decide what you think of your father, and not let anyone else’s opinions matter.”
“Where are you going?”
“It’s already midnight,” Lincoln said. “I should go.”
I stood, and resisted the urge to ask him to stay. It was crazy. Everything that had happened with him, no, everything that had happened since that night at Milly’s Diner was crazy.
I wasn’t ready for Lincoln to walk away.
Suave as Shift Page 6
