The one with the mirrored glasses spoke up. He had a heavy inner-city accent. “Something we can do for you, Miss?”
“I just wanted to get a closer look at those big cannons.”
The stockier, bald one crossed his meaty arms over his chest. “Is that so? I think you need to move along, lady.”
The other sniffed the air. “I smell cop. You a cop?”
“No,” Sidney said. “Just a gun enthusiast.” She eyed the weapons.
The first man, in the glasses, stood up, blocking her view. He was tall and rangy like Smoke.
“Awfully big for this range. You guys military?” she said, looking at the triangle earring in his ear.
“We’re rabbit hunters,” said the one sitting down. He slipped a buck knife out of the sheath on his waist and shaved a few hairs off his forearm. “I like to skin them. Cook them. Eat them.”
“I don’t imagine there’s anything left once you shoot them with that,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t shoot them. I sneak up on them.” He showed his calloused hands grasping in the air. “Catch ’em and squeeze them until they snap.” He made a breaking motion. “I’ve killed lots of them like that.”
Sidney’s stomach soured. The man wasn’t talking about rabbits. He was a killer. Both of them were. Hard-eyed, compassionless men. She ran her eyes up and down their arms and over their necks, feigning fear and fascination. No black suns. Mostly snakes, skulls, sharp blades, and guns. She started to back away.
“Where you going, little lady?” the first one said, tilting his head to the side and coming closer. “Don’t you want to hear more about our rabbit hunts?”
The second man slid in behind her. “Yeah, why don’t you come with?” he bumped up against her.
“Watch it!” she said. She tried to move around them, but the pair of them hemmed her in. Her cheeks flushed. “Move it.”
“Or what, sweetie?” said the one with the long neck. He cornered her against the stand. His eyes were like a hungry predator’s. Hypnotic like a snake’s. Paralyzing her limbs.
Her knees weakened. “Go, go away,” she said, trying to tear her eyes away from the long-necked man.
“You’re coming with us, honey,” he said.
Her shoulders sagged and her mouth dropped open. Heart pounding, she said, “Okay.”
CHAPTER 3
“Boy!” Jake said, sticking his gun barrel against the long-necked man’s ear. “You might want to step back, unless you want a ravine in your head.”
The man who had cornered Sid froze and slowly lifted his arms. “That would be foolish, old man. And I’m unarmed.”
“Don’t give a damn.” Jake pulled the gun’s hammer back. “Get the hell away from the lady.”
The man slipped to the side of the one in mirrored glasses and lowered his arms. “Just having a little fun with your daughter. She shouldn’t be so nosey.” He flicked his nose with his thumb and narrowed his eyes. “And you, foolish old one, shouldn’t be so, heh, bold. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
“I know your kind. Seen my share of men with venom in their eyes.” He glared at them both. “My gut’s telling me I outta shoot you both down where you stand.” He stuffed his pistol back inside his holster. “Damn me for letting you live. Come on, Sid.”
On instinct, she took his hand. Her eyes widened. She took a deep breath and followed him back down the range without looking back. Behind her, she heard the two huge men laughing. She swallowed. She’d lost herself to them somehow. Their hypnotic stares had sapped her will. Much like it had been with the wolf man, Adam Vaughan. “Thanks.”
“You all right?” Jake said, helping her to a seat. “I hate to say this, but I saw your lights go out. You don’t have a medical condition, do you?”
She rubbed her temples. “No, no.” She couldn’t shrug off the horrible feeling she had inside. She started stuffing her guns into her duffle bag. “Thanks, Jake, but I’ve got to go.”
“Let me get you a beer. Settle your nerves.” He looked beyond her shoulder. “Besides, those grease balls are moving out. Probably drug dealers.” He hitched his thumbs in his belt. “I’m gonna have a few words with the owner about guys like that. Their kind seem to be coming around more often.”
She slung her bag over her shoulder. “I’m fine. Don’t do anything on my account. I’m a big girl. Nice meeting you, Jake.”
***
Back inside the Dodge Hellcat and roaring down the road, her nerves began to settle. She wanted distance between her and the men at the range. The abnormal men. Long-faced and fluid. Smooth. Crass. Seductive. This is exactly what Allison fell for.
When it came to men with power, her sister was a moth to a flame. The Drake probably didn’t have to promise her too much to get her to stay. A nice place to live and a line of credit. Allison would be all over it. Those were Sidney’s first thoughts about her sister. She hated herself for it. Shame on me.
Allison wasn’t without a heart. Not entirely. She loved her daughter, but she was weak. Still, Sid held out some hope that maybe, just maybe, Allison had done what she did to save her and Megan. Any loving mother would do that for her child. And a loving sister would do that for her sibling, too. It was that part that Sid struggled with. After all the years of bailing Allison out, had Allison made a sacrifice that bailed Sid out?
“Crap!” She banged on the steering wheel. “I don’t know.”
For the last three months, she’d put all her energy into Megan. She put the FBI behind her, even though they still called. She blew off Sam and Guppy whenever they reached out. Mal Carlson had sent her a box, wanting his gear back. She’d been happy to oblige. And Smoke … she did her best to forget about the man. His handsome façade and odd musings. It angered her that he’d come into her life only to be gone again.
She eased off the highway and pulled into the first gas station. She exited the vehicle and scanned her card. Pumping the gas, she leaned against her car and sighed. She noticed a couple police officers coming out of the convenience store. They were loaded up with sodas and hotdogs. They were smiling and laughing, too. She grimaced.
I miss Sadie.
She’d been blowing off her best friend. Her excuse was that Ted and Cyrus wouldn’t want them communicating. The truth was, Sadie had called and texted numerous times. She’d even gotten pretty ugly about it when Sid fired back a bunch of canned excuses. Sid thumbed through her phone and read the last text Sadie had sent.
It read, “You see! This is why you’re going to die single!”
Laughing, Sid took the nozzle out of her gas tank and placed it on the rack. Seconds later, she was driving down the road again, trying to sort everything out inside her head. Keeping Megan around kept her distracted from other things. The news. The job. The lies. With the girl gone to her grandparents’ house, Sid’s thoughts raced through everything that had gone on. It was driving her crazy. She didn’t like not being able to carry a gun like she used to. She felt naked without it. Her concealed carry permit still hadn’t been approved. I should move to Texas.
Her phone rang. Her mother’s picture popped up.
“Hey, Mom. How are things going?”
“Hey Aunt Sidney,” Megan said.
“Oh, hey, Megan. How are you doing?”
“Well, Grandma and Grandpa keep taking me to places that smell really old.” Megan sighed. “And I’m getting tired of biscuits and gravy every morning. And smelling like bacon. They always eat bacon.” She kept rambling on another ten minutes. Finally, she said, “When are you picking me up? I miss you.”
The words crushed Sid’s heart. It had only been a couple days, but Sid felt guilty. How do parents do this? She had decided to sacrifice everything for Megan, but not having a steady paycheck was starting to take its toll. At some point, she needed to find a job somewhere doing something. But she wasn’t going to just take anything. “Can you hang in there until tomorrow?”
“Morning?”
“Come o
n, Grandma and Grandpa aren’t that bad.”
“They’re boring. Nice, but you know, boring. And my bedtime is way too early.”
“All right, no promises, but I’ll try to be there by morning. Okay?”
“Okay. Bye.”
The line went dead.
Sidney shook her head. How long can I keep this up?
CHAPTER 4
The following Monday morning, Sally and Keith had left on their vacation and Sidney was back inside her apartment getting Megan ready for school. The little girl sat at the kitchen table, eating cereal. She had a yellow bow in her hair and wore a khaki skirt and a white Oxford dress shirt. “I like cereal, so long as it doesn’t taste like bacon,” Megan said.
“You need to finish up and get the rest of your lunch packed,” Sid said. She signed off on Megan’s homework and stuffed the notebook in the girl’s backpack. That was the thing she liked about the private school she’d enrolled Megan in: They ran a tight ship. And the school uniform made her life a lot easier than picking out different clothes. She could relate to the uniform. “And don’t forget your milk.”
“I won’t,” Megan said. She loaded a milk box, a juice box, chips, and a cheese sandwich into her lunchbox. “Can I take a chewy granola bar? I get hungry.”
“Sure.” Sid slung Megan’s little backpack over her shoulder. “Let’s go.”
The drive to school took about ten minutes. There were two teachers, a man and a woman, standing outside at the student drop-off.
Sid waved at them.
They waved back.
“Aunt Sid,” Megan said, “are you going to look for a job today?”
“Uh, I don’t know, why?”
“Well, you need something to do. You can’t just wait around on me all the time.”
Sidney caressed Megan’s face, looked her in the eye, and said, “I like doing this.”
“I like it too, but…” Megan’s voice trailed off.
“But what?”
“But you’ve got to be you.” Megan popped the door open and hopped out. “See you later.” She slammed the door shut and ran into the school.
After Megan made her way inside, Sidney pulled away. What did she mean by that?
***
Sid jogged around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. It was one of her routines while Megan was in school. Jog. Work out. She was as fit as she’d ever been. And the time between that and when Megan got out of school was torture. She’d read the paper. Skim the news. She’d picked up reading books again. Fiction. Biographies. Maybe go home and watch some old shows on Netflix. She tried to avoid anything that made her think of the Drake or the Black Slate. Huffing for breath, clothes clinging to her body in sweat, she kneeled down and tightened her shoelaces. She walked over to a bench and sat down.
The DC campus was beautiful, but there was darkness hiding in the shadows of the magnificent architecture.
Washington, DC. Home of the greatest truths and the greatest lies.
That’s what Smoke said. It had all been so very true. Sidney had learned the hard way that nothing in the world was as it seemed. More than she ever imagined was saturated with evil. Good men and women died for no reason because of it. People were careless in how they lived their lives. She couldn’t be that way. She wanted to keep herself and Megan away from those shadows. They had taken her sister. They could take anything.
Never underestimate evil.
She rubbed out the tightness in her calf muscles, watching other joggers and walkers make their way around the great pool. It was midmorning, and the sun warmed her face. People loaded down with strollers and fanny packs took pictures. Some moved at a brisk pace, others with more leisure, noses stuck in their smartphones. Every one of them seemed lost to her.
Just a bunch of people wandering around waiting for someone to tell them what to do.
She got up, ran in place a bit, and took off around the reflecting pool. She picked up the pace, made one more lap, and then fast walked back to her car. There was a small newspaper pinned under her wiper blade. She didn’t see any on the other cars parked nearby. She removed it. It was the size of a tabloid, only a few pages, similar to a college newspaper. She unfolded it, exposing the front. It was a copy of Nightfall DC. Her fingertips tingled as she scanned the area.
Grumbling, she spread the paper out on the hood of her car and started to read. There weren’t any pictures, just bolded headlines.
Missing Girl. Strange Lights in the Park. Senator Howser, Man or Alien? Muggers in Fur Coats. Loch Ness Monster in Mallows Bay. Man Shot Ten Times and Walks Away.
She skimmed through them. The stories were bizarre. Odd. And clearly designed for the gullible. Her eyes froze on the next headline that she read.
Vietnam Vet Murdered. “Jake Miller, known to his neighbors as Big Jake, was found dead inside his apartment, having been shot with his own revolver.”
She gasped.
CHAPTER 5
Russ Davenport’s home was on wheels, with no engine. The old trailer was long and weather beaten, with a railed ramp leading up to the front door.
Sid shut off her engine, checked the surroundings at the trailer park ten miles west of DC, and exited the car. With that edition of Nightfall DC crushed in her hand, she stormed up the ramp and pounded on the door.
“Geez!” a rugged voice said inside. A glass bottle fell and rattled on the floor. “Aw, great!”
Sid pounded on the door again.
“Who is it?” said the man on the other side.
“It’s Sidney Shaw.”
Things got quiet for a moment. Then the familiar voice of Russ spoke up. “What do you want?”
“Answers.”
“Ever hear of a game called Jeopardy? Give that a try,” he said.
“Russ, are you going to open the door or not?”
“Eh.” The door handle started to turn and the door swung open. Russ sat in a wheelchair on the other side of the threshold. He wore a Washington Senators jersey. A sawed-off shotgun rested back against his shoulder. “I don’t like visitors.”
Sid stepped inside and tossed the copy of Nightfall DC into his lap. “This isn’t a social call.”
Russ wiped a little bit of drool from his mouth and rubbed his eyes. The husky man backed his wheelchair toward a small table and picked up some glasses. He put them on, studied the paper, and grunted. “So, what do you want? It’s my rag. So what?”
“Why’d you stick it on my car?” she said, noting all the newspaper clippings hanging on all his walls. The wood-paneled place was musty but organized. A computer was hooked up to three monitors, and a flat-screen television was on in the tiny living room. The trailer was plenty big for a single person. “Or did you have one of your reporters do it?”
“It’s nice to see you too, Agent Shaw,” he said. “You could at least ask how I’m doing, seeing how I’m back from the brink of death.”
“Looks like you’re doing fine. You even have new wheels. Good for you.”
“You’re cold.”
She stepped closer and glared down at him. “I’m angry.”
“I didn’t put this on your car. And even if I did, why are you so bent out of shape about it? It’s got nothing to do with you. Just more of my imaginary rubbish.” He folded the paper up and set it aside. “What happened? One of the articles cut too close to some FBI informants?”
She eased back, shuffled some papers over on his couch, and sat down. “What happened?” she said more softly.
“With what?”
“The wheelchair. Why are you on wheels?”
“Oh, now you ask.” He rolled his eyes. “Well, ever since I got shot, I have moments. I lose feeling in my extremities from time to time. It’s scary. Sometimes it lasts a few hours. Other times, for days. Doctors can’t figure it out.” His eyes became sad. “I woke up this morning and couldn’t move them at all. It’s like I’m cursed or something.”
“Sorry to hear that, but at least you’re alive.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not much for living. If it keeps up, I’m going to have to give up on Nightfall DC.” He wheeled toward the refrigerator. “Want a drink? I have cold beer and Gatorade.”
She made a stop gesture and shook her head no.
“Suit yourself.” He found a bottled beer and twisted the cap off. He flicked it with his thumb across the room into the trashcan. “I never miss.” He grabbed a prescription bottle, took out a large white pill, flicked it into his mouth, and washed it down with beer.
“I didn’t think you were supposed to take medicine with alcohol,” she said. She’d noted the label already. It was a narcotic for pain. “And I thought you didn’t feel anything.”
“Sure, from the waist down. But this wound in my chest still hurts like hell.” He took another drink. “You’ve seen action. You telling me you don’t have aches and pains? Surely you’ve got monster scratches on you.”
She did. Her scars and bruised bones would ache in the cold. Her knees would ache if she sat too long. Sometimes tiny, painful needles raced up and down her neck and arms. “So you still believe in monsters?”
“I know you’ve seen them. That’s good enough for me. There’ve been others, too. That look in their eye when I asked them questions and heard their stories. I know the truth when I hear it.” He wheeled closer and eyed her. “What brings you to me?”
“The Big Jake Miller story,” she said.
“Oh.” Russ nodded his round, scruffy face. “You knew him?”
“I met him, and I think I know who killed him.”
Russ’s eyes shone like moons. “You don’t think I did it, do you? Are you investigating me?”
“No.”
“Is this one of your cases?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t work for the FBI anymore.”
He cocked his head. “You’re serious.”
“I resigned.”
Russ smiled.
“What?” she said.
“I know you did. I just wanted to see if you’d admit it to me.”
The Supernatural Bounty Hunter Files Collector's Set: Books 1-10: Urban Fantasy Shifter Series Page 43
