True Nature

by Neely Powell

  Hunter blew out a deep breath. “I imagine raising you was quite a trip for them.”

  Cyn laughed. “You have no idea.”

  Evan approached their table. He nodded to Cyn and handed Hunter a cup and box of doughnuts. “A dozen, glazed. Coffee with two sugars and a cream.” He looked back at Cyn. “Can I get you anything?”

  “I’m fine,” she answered with the smile that all the ladies, except Zoe, gave Evan.

  “Then I’ll be over here,” Evan took sentry duty at a table near the door.

  “You’re well protected,” Cyn said.

  “I need it.”

  “I know.”

  Now he was intrigued. What could this woman, a stranger to him a little more than a week ago, know about his life?

  “It’s complicated,” she said. “You know I write about the paranormal.”

  “You know that world, I guess.”

  “I know a lot about it. I know the MacRaes are special, and under attack.”

  “How did you find out all of this?”

  “Years of research,” she explained.

  “For a book?”

  She bit her lip, then took a deep breath. “It’s for my son. He just turned fifteen.”

  “You’re kidding. Fifteen? You don’t look old enough—”

  “I was fourteen when I got pregnant. Fifteen when he was born.”

  Hunter was surprised but not shocked. “Does your son see the other world, too?”

  “Sometimes. But mostly he’s a nice, normal teenage boy who lives with his grandparents and wishes his mother would live there with him, too. Next year, however, I don’t know what he’ll be.”

  Hunter frowned.

  “If all my research is true, when John turns sixteen, I’ll know for sure about him,” she said. “About what he is.”

  Only then did Hunter realize what she was saying.

  “Does he know?”

  “Did you?”

  Hunter closed his eyes, remembering that confusing summer. They couldn’t be sure until he was sixteen. There, in the forest, where it was safe, he had imagined himself a tiger. And he was.

  “What do you need?” Hunter reached out a hand to her. “How can I help?”

  She blinked back tears. “John will probably be chimera.”

  Hunter stiffened. “You were with a chimera?”

  Her smile was thin and brief. “It’s a long story I don’t really want to share now. But what I want you to know is that Chymera, The Killin, the Lion of Wall Street, is very dangerous. I’ve been tracking him and his kind for years. I wanted to know, so that when John changes, if John changes, I’ll know what to expect.”

  Thinking of half-man, half-beast creature he’d seen in the woods, Hunter shuddered. It was difficult to imagine a monster like that being part of the beautiful woman in front of him.

  “I don’t like what they are,” she added. “I don’t want John anywhere near them.”

  There was more Hunter didn’t understand. “Why have you come to me?”

  “Because you’re strong. I saw that from the start. The chimeras are strong, too, but they can be beaten. You could do it.” She nodded toward Evan and the other guards. “You and those who stand with you.”

  “Are you offering to join the fight?”

  “I guess I am. I have a lot of connections. I know others who are ready for war. I could provide information.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “We shouldn’t be seen together often. I don’t know what they know about John, but I know they’re watching you.”

  “Of course,” Hunter agreed. “For what it’s worth, if your son does become chimera, maybe he won’t be like them. He hasn’t been schooled in hatred, murder, and vengeance.”

  “He’s a good boy,” she said, reminding Hunter of his Nana’s last words to him. “But even in the other world, there’s not a sure answer about nature versus nurture. All I know is John can’t be with them. Ever. That’s why I prefer they were destroyed.”

  Her sudden fierceness sparked something in Hunter. Not desire, exactly. That had been simmering below the surface since the moment he had scented her. No, his feelings now were more…appreciation. He had respect for her fiery protectiveness toward her son. And the two of them were added to the list of those Hunter wanted to protect.

  “You need to go.” He glanced around the shop. The only other patrons were Evan and the two guards. “You have my cell number. Call with any information you think can help me, but don’t take any chances.”

  Nodding, Cyn closed her computer and got to her feet. “Thank you for trusting me.”

  Hunter wasn’t sure why he did, but he knew she was telling him the truth. And they had the same goal: destroying the Killin dynasty.

  Cyn put on her coat, gathered her things, and he followed her to the door. “Watch her,” he said to the Evan. “Make sure she gets safely out of here.” He turned back to Cyn. “Two guards in the parking lot are going to follow you home.”

  “No, I need to stay under the radar. I’m used to looking after myself. Don’t follow.” Her eyes locked with Hunter’s, and he reluctantly agreed. Then she was gone into the dark, cold night.

  “She’s human,” Hunter said in a low voice, anticipating Evan’s question. “And you were right. She’s a friend.”

  Chapter 22

  Lydia’s house looked peaceful as I parked in front of it Wednesday afternoon for our second visit with Kelly.

  While Kelly hadn’t talked to us yesterday, she had stroked Hunter in his gray cat form and snuggled with him briefly on the couch. She had been excited when I told her we’d be back. Lydia called last night, reporting Kelly had drawn pictures of herself with the gray cat. These were the first pictures without the angry red and black.

  I didn’t know if it was woman’s intuition or my newfound psychic power, but I felt success was imminent. Whatever that success might be. No matter what Kelly had locked in her mind, Kinley was dead. I hoped I wasn’t giving her child more pain.

  As I walked up to the door, I turned the pet carrier around so that Hunter faced me. “You okay in there?”

  He meowed softly and rubbed his nose against the cage door. I rang the doorbell.

  Hunter had been remarkably patient yesterday as a lively gray tabby, doing as much as he could in his animal form to provoke a response from Kelly. His intention was to distract her so she talked without thinking, sharing secrets without realizing she was doing so. I looked over my shoulder and saw Evan park Hunter’s car behind mine. He would go to the kitchen and listen through a baby monitor while Hunter and I were alone with Kelly. Evan would record whatever she said for the police.

  As usual, my fear became an uneasy roil in my stomach.

  Lydia opened the door. “Kelly’s really excited about seeing her cat friend again today.”

  I smiled at Kelly who leaned around Lydia’s hips to sneak a peek. “Here’s Tiger, and he’s excited about seeing you again too.”

  Hunter purred as Kelly stroked his forehead through the wire cage. He’d forced me to use the ridiculous name to keep me from calling him Kitty or Fluffy.

  I gave Lydia my coat and gloves and while she put them away, I opened the carrier. Kelly sat on the arm of her uncle’s recliner, adorable in embroidered blue jeans, a Tinker Bell shirt, and tiny UGG boots.

  “Come on, Tiger,” I said. “You can come out now. It’s your friend, Kelly.”

  Hunter meowed and stuck his head out. He looked around and sniffed before slowly creeping out. He scanned the room and licked his paws. With a graceful leap, he was in the chair with Kelly and bumped his head against her arm. She immediately pulled him into a hug and placed little kisses on top of his head.

  Hunter never had a problem getting females to adore him.

  “How long have you had him?” Lydia asked.

  “He has been a part of my life a long time,” I said. “Sometimes he’s an aggravation but mostly I love having him around.”

 
; Hunter meowed and Kelly laughed.

  “He didn’t like you saying that,” the little girl whispered with a giggle.

  Lydia and I froze. Lydia put her hand across her mouth to stem her emotions and brushed her other hand down Kelly’s hair.

  Kelly laughed as Hunter’s purr vibrated against her belly. He snuggled closer and she made long strokes down his back to the end of his tail. As she petted him, I asked her questions about her day, about school, about anything that would keep her talking.

  But it didn’t work. She nodded and kept rubbing Hunter and snickering at his antics.

  When Kelly relaxed, I pulled out the pictures I brought from Kinley’s refrigerator. Kelly had always expressed herself with art. We needed to understand what she was trying to tell us. When I showed the first drawing to Kelly, she stiffened.

  I moved over to sit on the sofa and laid the two drawings on the coffee table. “I really like these drawings, Kelly, especially the flowers in the yard and the blue dress you drew on Claire.”

  “It’s her favorite,” she whispered, never stopping the motion of her hand on Hunter’s fur.

  I asked Kelly if she wanted to hang the pictures in her room. The baby monitor transmitter was also there, as it had been since the girls moved in.

  “I like being here with the cat,” she mumbled.

  “He’ll go wherever I go.” I stood. “Let’s go put these on your bulletin board.”

  Kelly didn’t move until Hunter jumped down, stretching and yawning. He looked up at me and meowed.

  “Come on, Tiger, let’s go upstairs with Kelly.” I headed for the stairs.

  Hunter raised his tail in the air and followed me. Kelly trailed after us.

  I put the pictures along the bottom edge of the bulletin board with tacks. “There. That looks nice.”

  Kelly sat on her bed with Hunter curled up beside her. The quilt she’d helped her mother make looked sweet on her bed.

  “He really likes this.” I scratched under the cat’s chin. Hunter purred louder and Kelly giggled, copying my actions.

  I rambled on about things in the room. Lydia and her husband had made it homey, filling it with stuffed animals and dolls. A Barbie dollhouse was in the corner with Barbie’s dream car parked beside it. When I asked about her favorite Barbie doll, Kelly showed me Teacher Barbie.

  “I want to be a teacher,” she whispered.

  When she laid the doll on the bed, Hunter stretched and walked to it. He sniffed, rubbed his face on the doll’s hair, and then laid a paw on Teacher Barbie’s chest. I pulled the doll away. “Let’s put this over here. I don’t want Tiger to scratch it.”

  I laid the doll on the table beside Kelly’s latest drawings. I saw she was still drawing the dark pictures. “These are very different from what you used to do.” I turned back to Kelly. I pointed to what was obviously a bed in the picture. “What is this?”

  Kelly kept stroking Hunter and watching him. She glanced up briefly and then went back to the cat. “My bed.”

  I held the picture up to compare it to the bed where she and Hunter sat. “It doesn’t look like this bed.”

  “It’s at my Nonna’s house. Me and Claire have our own bedroom over there.”

  While I scrambled for the right questions, my anxiety grew. My palms were sweaty and I felt a moment of pure panic.

  Hunter rubbed against my calf. His comfort eased my distress, and I went to sit beside Kelly. Hunter jumped up and lay across Kelly’s lap.

  “Tell me more about your room at Nonna’s. Do you have dolls there too?”

  She kept petting Hunter. Finally she said, “Nonna doesn’t like Barbie dolls. I only have baby dolls over there. She says little girls should play mommy and take care of their babies.”

  “Well, that’s fun too,” I glanced back at the picture and asked about the lamp and struggled not to laugh when Kelly identified the square box beside the bed as a “chester drawers.”

  “This looks like a person,” I pointed to the red figure outside a door. “Is this a person?”

  She nodded her head and didn’t look up as she ran her fingers through Hunter’s soft fur.

  My heart rate increased as I pondered my next question. I wanted this precious little girl to tell me something horrible about her father. I watched her and Hunter. He licked his paw. When he finished, she ran a finger over the damp fur as if testing it.

  Hunter stretched and yawned and bumped his head into the paper I’d let lie across my lap. He knew I was stalling. I picked up the picture and pointed to the person covered with red.

  I kept my tone as even as possible. “Who is this, Kelly? Who is the person by the door?”

  Kelly stroked Hunter and kept her eyes down. Her single word response made me gasp aloud.

  ****

  Hunter, Evan, and I stood beside Hunter’s SUV and watched the police activity at the home of Eric Russo’s mother. Eric was corralled in the front yard by two uniformed officers. Other officers were moving in and out, carrying boxes to a waiting van.

  It was Thursday morning and already near 45 degrees, perfect weather for an arrest.

  We had taken the audio tape to Mike last night. He worked half the night to get the search warrant.

  “That’s the fourth box they’ve brought out,” Hunter said.

  “I can’t believe a little girl held that knowledge inside her and didn’t just shatter,” Evan said quietly.

  “She sure as hell shocked me.” I was still wrestling with guilt over what I’d put Kelly through. But we knew Eric’s mother had killed her daughter-in-law.

  “Once Kelly started talking about it,” I added, “she couldn’t stop. She’d actually watched her grandmother wash blood off her face and arms. She said Nonna left the bathroom door open while she washed and changed clothes. She had no idea Kelly saw her.”

  We all jerked as a woman’s shrill scream filled the air. Eric tried to get free, but hefty arms across his chest kept him in place.

  “Mama!” Eric screamed. “Let me go. She needs help.” He couldn’t move. “Let me go, you assholes, that’s my mother!”

  Eric was pushed to his knees.

  The front door opened and two female officers came out with Eric’s mother. I knew now that Nonna meant grandmother in Italian, but the screeching woman we were watching didn’t have the soft face and warm smile of a typical grandmother.

  Mike told us Antonia Russo was a second-generation Italian American. Her parents came through Ellis Island after World War II and she was born a year later. She didn’t learn English until she went to school. She still spoke with a heavy accent. Despite the Old World background, however, she was fashionable. Her black hair was short and stylish and a single silver streak ran from her temple to the nape. She looked like most women her age. Except she was raving at two police officers.

  “Let me go!” she screamed and then went off into a stream of Italian. “You cannot do this. I have done nothing wrong in the sight of God.”

  Neighbors gathered on the sidewalk, watching and whispering.

  “I did what I had to do,” Antonia yelled. “She was killing my son and destroying his family. Divorce is not an option, and I told her that. She didn’t believe I’d do anything about it. Death was the only answer. I had to kill her.”

  She pulled against her captors, but the women holding her were strong and tenacious.

  “Eric! Eric!” she screamed. “You know why I killed your wife. I helped her out of the marriage she didn’t want. Now you can raise your children in a godly household. Go and get your daughters. We can raise them together.”

  Though Antonia fought, she was shoved into the backseat of the patrol car. The door slammed on her screams. Eric collapsed, falling on his face in the yard and sobbing as his mother was driven away.

  A few minutes later, Mike came out and talked quietly with the stricken man and got a nod. The two officers helped Eric to his feet and escorted him inside.

  It had done me good to see Antonia tak
en away.

  Mike took off latex gloves as he walked toward us. “We’ve officially got the secondary crime scene. Kelly was right on the money. We found bloody clothes in the hatbox her grandmother kept in the bathroom closet. Everything was there, down to her underwear and bloody gloves.”

  He glanced over at the officers dispersing the crowd of neighbors before continuing. “What Kelly didn’t know about was the baseball bat wrapped in old newspapers in the garage. We’ve already had officers talk to the neighbors. They said Antonia had been noisy and violent for years, humiliating her late husband whenever she could. When they had an argument, the whole neighborhood knew, and she threw whatever she could get her hands on at him. One neighbor thought the poor guy died just to get away from her.”

  “But no one suspected her when Kinley died?” Hunter asked.

  “Could anyone expect this kind of thing out of a 63-year-old woman?” I asked.

  “We sure didn’t.” Mike shook his head. “We talked to Mrs. Russo the day after the murder and she was cool as a cucumber, saying they’d spent the evening playing games with the girls. She said they went to bed early. I had no reason or evidence that pointed in her direction.”

  “I’m just glad it’s over,” I said mentally exhausted. “Did Eric know what his mother did?”

  “When we showed him the warrant, he let us in without question,” Mike replied. “But his mother came tearing down the hall, screaming. They had to restrain her while we searched. I saw the hatbox as soon as I opened the bathroom closet. When Eric saw the bloody clothes inside, he threw up in the sink. I don’t think he was acting.”

  “How was Kelly able to see her grandmother so well?” I asked.

  “The girls’ bedroom is diagonal to the bathroom door, a direct line of sight to the bed. I figure Mrs. Russo thought she was safe. We believe she may have given Eric and the girls something in the cocoa they had before bed.”

  “But Kelly woke up,” I murmured.

  “Thank God,” Mike said. “If it’s any comfort, I don’t believe she understood what she saw. Then police were at the house, and her mother was dead. Instinctively, she may have known her grandmother was involved. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t talk. She didn’t want to put the pieces together in her head. Without Kelly’s revelation, we had nothing on Mrs. Russo and no reason to suspect her.”