by Clara Cody
“Nope, nothing.”
Sarah crossed her arms, leaning against the armrest of the couch, grinding her teeth. She was a Level 2 Special Agent, she was not used to just sitting back and keeping quiet so that the men could talk. She had her own questions to ask, her own blanks to be filled. They were talking to each other as if she wasn’t there at all. She sat forward, clearing her throat. “And what about you, Mr. Turner? Is it possible you might have done something recently to set someone off?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Yeah, Hazelwood, what exactly are you saying?”
“Nothing,” she said with a shrug. “I’m just asking. Maybe you made someone mad, maybe you had a run in with some unsavory people?”
“Are you suggesting that I brought this on myself?”
“I’m just asking a simple question.”
Andrew’s nostrils flared. “I’m the victim, here!”
Dane cut in. “Yes, of course, you are. I think what Agent Hazelwood is saying is that—”
“You know what?” Andrew Turner stood from his chair and crossed his arms in front of himself. “I think we’re done here. If you have any other questions, Chief Brody can fill you in.”
Sarah shook her head in disbelief.
Dane sighed and stood. “Thanks for your time.” He turned on her as soon as they were outside. “What the hell was that?”
“What? It was just a question. How was I to know that he’d get all huffy about it?”
“Because you’re a witch! He’s a shifter! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s a bit of a touchy situation.”
“Uh, I’m so sick of this petty witches vs shifters bullshit.”
“Get used to it, sweetheart. People of this town aren’t changing anytime soon. Besides, if I was going to Witchville, USA, do you think I’d be throwing my weight around and advertising I’m a shifter? No.”
“I’m not going to hide who I am because of the stupid, small-town minds around here.”
“I’m not saying—you know what? Nevermind.” He threw his hands in the air. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. I’m sure in a few days you’ll be back at head office, and I can finish this investigation properly. On my own.” He turned on his heel and stormed off toward the car. “Are you coming or not?” he shouted over his shoulder.
The ride over to the next house was tense. “Don’t think I’m just going to sit on my hands and wait for permission to speak,” she said as they waited in front of the door.
“Of course not. I’ll just wait for you to put your foot in your mouth. Should be entertaining.”
The slow sound of shuffling feet traveled through the door before it opened a crack. “Hello?” came a small, weak voice. A woman’s face peeked out at them.
“Uh, hello, ma’am,” Dane started. It surprised Sarah that his voice could be so soft and gentle. “We’re—”
“From the agency, right?”
“Yes. Can we come in and talk to you?”
She opened the door a little wider and nodded. Sarah noticed that the woman wasn’t as old as she had originally thought. She was probably only in her forties, but she looked much older thanks to the disheveled hair and dark circles under her eyes.
The weight of the energy in the house was crushing. The lights were off in the front foyer, leaving them in dim light. In the kitchen, a solitary, yellow light hung above the round table they sat around. Sadness and worry filled every inch of the house.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” she asked, standing in front of the fridge. “Not that I have much at the moment. Haven’t gone shopping in a few days. No time what with going to the woods every day. My son promised he’d drop some things off. He went to visit Melissa.” Her eyes wandered further away with every word she spoke. “It’s getting harder to find her day after day. She’s getting—” She blinked, seemingly noticing them there, listening to her. “I have coffee. Or tea?”
Both of them declined anything. “We just wanted to ask you a few questions about what happened to Melissa. She’s your daughter?”
The woman nodded, sitting down at the table with them. “She’s a student, you know? She just got home from Berkley for the summer. All A’s. That’s my Melissa.”
Dane took his time going through all the questions. Sarah listened, taking notes. Not because Dane told her to, but to make it easier on the poor woman.
Like Andrew Turner, she didn’t think Melissa had any enemies or anyone who might want to hurt her. As far as the mother knew, she wasn’t into anything illicit. But then again, how many mothers did know about that sort of thing. Melissa was a young woman, a little bit wild, but also very hard working and driven.
“As hard as she worked, she liked to let loose and have fun. She and her girlfriends would go out and party all night.” Her lip trembled. “I never said anything because…because who was I to tell her what to do? Even as a teenager she was more responsible than me. I never did my homework at her age or had a job to pay my own way through school. Who was I to say that she couldn’t have fun too? She deserved it.” Heavy tears started rolling down the sides of the woman’s cheeks. “Was I wrong? I keep thinking it was my fault.”
“No,” Sarah said, patting her hand. “You weren’t wrong. I’m sure this didn’t happen just because she liked to go out.”
The woman sucked her bottom lip in, giving a nod. “Thank you.”
They asked a few more follow up questions but didn’t learn much more than they had from the file. Melissa changed a few days ago and had been living in the woods outside of town ever since. But her mother said she was getting wilder. She worried that Melissa’s wolf was taking over and that one day she might wander off, away from the protected woods.
“Do you mind if we take a look at her room?”
The woman shook her head. “It’s up the stairs, first door on the right.”
Melissa’s room was much like any college-aged girl’s. Movie posters on the wall, one of Kurt Cobain, and Rosie the Riveter. A bookcase lined with old paperbacks. A desk with a laptop and disorganized papers.
Dane went to the papers and started looking through them. Sarah went to her nightstand. Lip gloss, pictures of her with her friends, pictures of her with her family, doodles on scraps of paper. At the back, she found a small vial. She held it up to the light. It was green and shimmered in the sun.
“What is it?” Dane asked, squinting at the vial.
She shrugged. “There’s no way to know. Every witch’ and warlock’s spells are a little different. It might do more harm than good trying to find out.”
“Where’d she get it?”
A few minutes later, and they’d done what they came to do.
“Go on,” Dane said, pointing to the car when they’d finished. “I’ll be there in a second.”
She nodded, walking out to the car by herself. She sat in the front seat, turning over the events of the past day. She and Dane had been at each other, in one way or another, since they’d landed in Hill Haven. It couldn’t go on. Meeting with the victims proved that. If they continued going after the other person, there wasn’t going to be anyone left to go after whoever was doing this.
They had to start working together as a team if they were going to get anywhere with this case. She owed it to the victims, to the people she swore to protect, shifter or not, to rise above this petty nonsense.
A moment later, Dane climbed into the car. “She doesn’t know where the vial came from. Says Melissa was never involved in anything like that, she didn’t know any witches or anything.”
“Right.”
“She’s destroyed.”
“Can’t say I blame her.” She cleared her throat, straightening herself in her seat. “Look, Dane, we—we have got to start working together on this.”
He nodded. “Yeah.” He looked back at the house. “A truce? We get off each other’s backs until this thing is finished?”
“Deal.” They shook on it, his massive hand
engulfing hers. The touch sent a warm shiver through her. She didn’t pull back, though. Not right away.
Her phone rang. “Shit,” she muttered, letting go of his hand. Her skin still tingled where he’d touched her, as she pulled her phone out. It was Olson, her boss. “I have to take this,” she said, climbing out of the car. “Hello?”
“How’s it going there?”
“Uh…okay. We’ve just met with one of the victims and the other’s family. We’ll have to meet with the other vic—”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s great. But what about with your new partner? How’s it going?”
She looked back at Dane, who sat in the car, looking intensely out the window. “Um…fine, I guess.”
“You guess? Look, Hazelwood, I don’t need to tell you that this is an important case for you. That promotion isn’t a done deal, not yet. It’s no coincidence that you got put on this job with this guy.”
Her stomach sank. “It isn’t?”
“No. If you get this promotion, you’re going to be in charge of various lower level field agents. That’s not an easy job. You have to prove to me that you’re up to it, capiche?”
“Yeah—I mean, yes, sir.” She glanced back at Dane who shrugged his shoulders at her.
“Good,” he said. “If not, you can kiss that promotion goodbye.”
Chapter 6
“It’s good to see you, bro.” Lance Brody held up his mug of beer in cheers.
Dane lifted his, hitting the edge against the other. “You too, man.”
“So where’s the battle-ax at?”
Dane felt his wolf growl. Not that he could argue with the sentiment. After all, she had practically called him a low-level loser. “I left Agent Hazelwood at the hotel.”
“Good.”
He ignored Lance and took a drink of his ice cold beer. The bar was semi-busy for such a small town. Night had fallen and all the locals had come out for good music, cold beer, and a baseball game. Dane wasn’t really sure what had brought him here tonight, other than needing to get out of the hotel and away from Sarah. Even just being in the next room was difficult. Knowing that she was just beyond the thin drywall separating them, wondering what she was doing, what she was wearing.
They’d called a truce, which was necessary for the job, but he was still sore about what she’d said. How could he not be?
“Hey, Carl!” Lance shouted across the room to some big burly man with a chest like a barrel and a thick red beard. “Come over here a second.” The man lumbered over. “This is my buddy, Dane. We were at the academy together years ago.”
They shook hands. Dane sniffed at the air. “You’re a bear?”
He nodded. “Welcome to Hill Haven, Dane. The more shifters these days the better.” He sat down at the table with them.
He figured word had spread about Sarah’s presence. The last thing he wanted was to hear more griping about that and let it slide.
“Dane here,” Lance continued, throwing an arm over his shoulder. “He’s the fastest, strongest damn wolf I’ve ever seen.”
Carl chuckled. “Yeah, I bet you’re fierce…for a wolf.”
“Don’t laugh,” warned Lance. “I’ve seen him take down bigger bears than you.” He nudged Dane. “Remember that kid, Johnson? Ha-ha, he was such a little brown-noser, always kissing the instructors’ asses. A big bear of a guy.”
Shit, I forgot all about Johnson. Dane wished Lance would shut up. The prank had been relatively harmless, but still, pinning the kid down and writing all over his face was hardly Dane’s proudest moment. He didn’t like being reminded of it. Johnson was a damned good agent, which was more than he could say for a lot of people. What had been Dane’s problem back then, anyway? So what if the kid was a suck-up?
“We had no idea that he had a date that night, either! So, he had to show up with permanent marker dicks all over his face.” Lance was still yucking it up, slapping Dane on the shoulder. Carl was laughing like it was the best damn story in the world.
“I take it, if you’re here, that means you didn’t flunk out like this guy,” Carl said, nodding to Lance.
“Hey, man I didn’t flunk out! I quit.” He huffed. Clearly, this wasn’t the first time he’d had to make the distinction. “That academy was bullshit, anyway. They made you take all these stupid classes that you weren’t ever going to need. Like Fae Studies and Vampire History. Tell me, Dane, have you ever needed to use that stuff?”
“Not really. Not yet, at least.” He’d hated those classes, too. He and Lance had skipped most of the theoretical classes like that. Luckily, Dane had still scraped by with C’s. Lance hadn’t.
He didn’t feel so lucky now, though. He took another swig of his beer, trying to wash the bitter taste from his mouth. Why did he care what she thought? He didn’t even know her. Sure, she was beautiful, but she was hardly the first beautiful women he’d met. So, then why did it still sting? You don’t need the headache, he told himself, not sure if he was referring to her or the job. That’s how he’d always felt. Climbing the ladder meant more headaches, more responsibility.
“Bah, who needs it?” Lance moaned.
“What?” Dane asked, snapping out of it.
“The academy, the Agency. Fuck it, who needs ‘em?”
Dane leaned back, away from Lance. He shook his head, ignoring him.
“Sons of bitches,” he swore.
“I didn’t even get in,” Carl said. “Trust me, I tried. I didn’t pass the physical.” He patted his belly for emphasis.
Dane laughed.
“Trust me, you’re better off,” Lance said, waving a hand. “It’s never enough for them. You can be the fastest and the best. Look at me and Dane, for instance.”
Dane rolled his eyes.
“We were top of the class in fighting, weapons, all that stuff. But it wasn’t enough. Now, look at us. I’m a small-town cop and Dane here’s only a low-level special agent.”
“I’m doing just fine,” Dane said, feeling his blood start to rise. “I made it through training, so don’t put me in the same group as you.”
Lance raised his hands. “Oh, I’m so sorry, your majesty. I guess a lowly, hick-cop like me should be bowing at your feet.”
“Calm down, Lance. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Whatever. I need another drink.” He stood up from the table and started shuffling towards the bar.
“Don’t worry about him,” Carl said, leaning in. “He gets like this when he’s had a few too many.”
Dane couldn’t say he was surprised. It had been years since he’d seen Lance, but he was always a bit too cocky and full of himself. It seemed getting the boot from the academy had cut him deeper than he let on. Years of nursing that bitterness had left him angry and pissed off at the world, and particular the agency. Dane shook his head.
Lance was standing at the bar, flagging down the bartender. He was cursing about something. Dane was relieved to not hear his name or the agency. He didn’t need Lance getting pissed off at him, too.
A woman stood at the bar close to where Lance was moaning about something or other. She wasn’t paying any attention to Lance, though, she was staring straight at Dane. She turned away, looking shy when he noticed.
She was pretty and petite, with long blond hair. Dane turned his gaze away, just as another woman, this one older with a similar look as Carl sat down. Dane looked between them. “You must be related.”
The woman gave a hearty laugh. “Carl here’s my brother. I’m Ollie.”
“Dane,” he said with a nod.
“Looks like Lance is at it already,” she said with a sigh.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s just pissed off,” Carl answered. “Like the rest of us.”
“Yeah, but bitching about it in a bar isn’t going to do anything. We have to do more.”
“Uh, more of what?” Dane asked. “What’re you guys talking about?”
“The new plan our town mayor has.” Ollie spat out
the word mayor like a curse. “He wants to take the woods that we have outside town, the one that’s restricted so that only us shifters can use it—”
“Yeah, so the humans in town don’t notice, and we can shift and hunt from time to time.”
“Protected land,” Dane answered with a nod. Of course, he was familiar with the notion. The agency would sometimes acquire a bit of land and through a deal with the US government, have it declared a nationally protected area. Which meant absolutely no trespassing. It was good for populations of shifters to have a site like that so that they could shift and let their animals out a bit now and then. Otherwise, they ran the risk of getting caught or seen by humans. “What’s he trying to do, then?”
“He wants to take it away from us. A shifter, too! He’s turning his back on his own kind.”
“But why?”
“He’s sucking up to the humans in town,” Ollie said. “To them, it’s just a waste of good land. They want to be able to hunt and fish on it. Can’t say I blame them. There’s a good fishing stream in there.”
Carl nodded. “Best fishing in the world. Me and Ollie go out there every weekend to fish together. How are we going to be able to do that and let our bears out if the damn humans are around?”
“It’s not right,” Ollie said, shaking her head. “Betraying your own kind like that. Not right at all.”
Dane turned that over in his mind. On the surface, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the case, but it couldn’t hurt to ask around. “Was Andrew Turner as pissed off about all this as you guys are?”
“Andrew?” Ollie asked before giving a shrug. “I don’t know, I didn’t really talk to him about it.”
“Nah, not really. Besides, he didn’t really use the forest as much as some of us.”
Just then, Lance came stumbling back with his arm around a woman with enormous breasts, a short skirt, and big, bottle-blond hair. “Hey, bro,” he started, “sorry about before. I was just being an asshole.”
“Yeah, no worries, man.” He made a mental note to ask Lance more about this mayor guy when he was sober and not thinking with his dick.
