She was putting off leaving.
“I better go.”
Brauer nodded. “There’s a cab waiting, and before you ask, it’s on the house.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“I didn’t. It really is on the house,” he said, looking around meaningfully.
“Ah.”
She didn’t like taking charity, but seeing as the hospital didn’t know about it, she would let it go this once. She followed the signs past the security checkpoint, and out through reception, but when she saw the crowd outside held back by uniforms, she balked at going further. She couldn’t go out there, she just couldn’t. Why hadn’t Brauer mentioned this? Was this what he meant when he said everyone knew about her? Oh Lady, Mama would be frantic! She had to find a link booth. Looking around, she didn’t spot one, but she did spot a familiar face.
“Why are you still here?” she asked, marching straight up to one of Lephmann’s men.
“Hello to you too. I’m your taxi,” Lawrence said.
“Like hell!”
He cocked his head at the crowd outside. “You don’t want to walk out through that do you?”
Damn! “How do we go?”
“Follow me.”
She followed.
It was obvious he knew his way around the place. Not once did he hesitate at a corridor. She was lost in moments even after catching glimpses of the signs. X-ray this, and haematology that, they said. They might as well be Greek to her. Finally, they emerged into sunlight and she knew where she was.
Lawrence opened the back doors of the ambulance. “Get in.”
“You had better not be stealing this,” she warned.
“The driver is a friend of mine.”
“Oh.” She had assumed he was going to drive.
She climbed inside and sat in the med tech’s position. Lawrence shut the doors, a moment later the ambulance pulled away. Five minutes went by before the doors opened again. Lawrence motioned her out and she jumped down to find the taxi waiting for her that Brauer mentioned. She recognised the street. They were still in Monster Central, a couple of blocks from the hospital.
“Thanks, Harry,” Lawrence said through the ambulance driver’s open window.
“Glad to do it man. You take care now.”
Harry drove off.
“You coming?” Lawrence asked, and climbed into the back of the cab.
“Yeah.”
They rode in silence for a time. She was sitting next to a shifter, and he smelled damned good—kind of like roasting chestnuts. She hated it, hated it, hated it… but he did smell nice.
“What cologne are you wearing?”
Lawrence smiled crookedly. “I don’t wear cologne. None of us do.”
“But you—”
“Smell?”
“Yeah, you do,” she said, suddenly feeling flustered. “I mean it’s nice... kind of.”
“It’s Farris.”
“What?”
“The scent. It’s my beast—Farris.”
She blinked.
“You’ll get used to the strangeness in time.”
She couldn’t imagine that. “He send you?”
“David?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s my boss.”
“Your boss. That all he is?”
Lawrence shook his head. “He’s president of NSPCL. He’s alpha for my pack, he’s my friend, he’s your friend, he’s alpha at Sanctuary. He leads.”
“Quite a mouthful.”
“You asked.”
So she had. “What’s alpha?”
“The strongest in the pack.”
“That’s it? He leads and all the rest of that stuff because he’s strongest?”
Lawrence nodded.
“You’re bigger than he is.”
“Size has nothing to do with it.”
“What does then?”
Lawrence wouldn’t answer and no amount of badgering would work. She fumed in silence and watched the world go by outside. Everything was different now. She watched the people going about their routine, and hated them for their normality. When the cab pulled up outside her place, it looked the same as it always had, but she saw it through changed eyes. She had been happy here, but now…
“Here we are, delivered safely to your door. I’d bolt it if I were you.”
She stared at him. “Would you?”
“Those reporters won’t like you skipping out.”
“Screw ’em,” she snarled.
“That is why you need to bolt the door. Anger calls the beast.”
A chill ran down her spine at the reminder. “I’ll remember that.”
“Do.”
She climbed out of the cab half-expecting Lawrence to follow, but he didn’t. Instead, he leaned forward and spoke to the driver. A moment later, the cab was gone.
The street felt abandoned. Most of her neighbours worked days and it was only late morning. She was glad of the quiet, glad to be home, but the empty driveway told her Mark wasn’t in. Her own car must still be at Central waiting for her. She entered the empty house, and locked the door as Lawrence had advised. Mark was out, but he always carried his key, so that was no problem. On the dining room table she found a white envelope leaning against her vase of silk flowers. She opened it and read the three sentences written there in Mark’s hand. She dropped it and ran into the bedroom. She yanked open all the drawers.
Empty.
The wardrobe door swung open to reveal empty hangers. The tie she had bought him last birthday lay discarded in one corner. She smoothed the material in her hands, delighted with the feel of the silk even as anger roiled within her. She slumped onto the bed fiddling with the ends of the tie. He had loved it, but a year later it lay discarded, just as she was. She tied it loosely around her neck and gazed at herself in the full-length mirror of the wardrobe. Just like that, Mark was gone. He didn’t even have the decency to tell her face-to-face. A damn letter, not even that, a note!
I’m sorry, it said. I can’t handle it, it said. I’m leaving, it said.
“What about me? I can’t handle it,” she whispered.
That might be true, but she had no choice but to try. Her eyes burned with the need to cry, but she wouldn’t. The pain was too great for tears to solve it, not that they ever did. She rubbed her arms and hugged herself, holding tightly to the hurt. Not letting it out.
She wandered from room to room finding no distraction big enough to take her mind off what had happened. A bomb going off under the house wouldn’t have been big enough to eclipse this. She had the disease, the plague, and Mark had left her. He didn’t want to catch it. She didn’t blame him... only she did. She needed him and he wasn’t here.
The doorbell sounding was enough to make her leap into the air and come down facing that way. Goddess bless her for a fool... her heart was pounding like tribal drums. Her brain caught up and her breathing slowed.
Someone at the door—it might be Mark!
She ran to answer it ready to accept his apology. Words of greeting were on her lips as she pulled the door open.
“Lieutenant Humber, our viewers want to know your thoughts,” Ed Davis said, shoving a microphone in her face. “What was it like being told you’re now a shifter? Do you support the proposed amendments to the Constitution?”
Dozens of cameras flashed in her face, and people jostled forward thrusting more microphones at her. Questions battered her, flashguns flashed, and vid cameras recorded.
She shielded her eyes. “Get that thing out of my face before I make you eat it!” she snarled.
* * *
9 ~ Bad News
Chris arrived at Central with ten minutes to spare for her second appointment with Doctor Carey. Carey was the psych automatically assigned to her after the attack. It was his fault that Cappy had ordered her to take three week’s convalescence, all of which she spent in the prison her home became after the newsies lay siege outside.
Damn the man!
> Three weeks was a lifetime in a murder case. Ryder’s trail had gone stale while she languished at home, unable to leave without instigating a riot among the rabid microphone wielding newsies. In all that time, Ken was the only friend to visit, but even he wouldn’t tell her how the case was going. Cappy had ordered him not to discuss details with her. She was both victim and witness. Telling her too much could jeopardise the case when it came to court. She didn’t like it, but she understood.
Flint and her mysterious colleague, Agent Barrows, were running their own federal investigation. Barrows had chosen to visit her alone a couple of days after the hospital discharged her. Lucky for him, her short-term memory loss had reversed itself with a vengeance. Nightmares had disturbed her sleep every night since her return home. Barrows had asked the questions she would have asked in his place, and a couple she wouldn’t have thought of, but for all of that she didn’t think he was any closer to tracking down Ryder than Ken was. Flint, like everyone else she knew, was avoiding her.
Her Dad was the only bright spot in her life.
After learning Mark had left her, she had packed her stuff and gone to visit her parents for a few days. The farm was exactly how she remembered it, not a good thing considering how hot to leave she had been when she was a kid. Mama had been teary-eyed and angry with her when Chris arrived, but Dad had smiled in welcome and hugged her as if nothing had changed. For him, nothing had. He said he didn’t care that she was a shifter; he would love her no matter what. It was harder for Mama to accept, but Chris hoped she would in time.
The elevator doors opened, forcing her to focus on the present and put away thoughts of her parents. She stepped out of the elevator onto Central’s fourth floor and strode resolutely to the reception desk.
“I have a ten o’clock with Carey.”
The receptionist’s smile seemed false, but her voice remained even. “Ah… let me check. If you would take a seat, it won’t take a moment.”
Chris nodded and chose the closest seat. There were a couple of magazines on it. She casually threw them atop another of the seats and sat watching the receptionist talking, one assumed, to Doctor Carey on the link.
“He’s running a little late,” the receptionist confided. “It will be a few more minutes.”
Chris sighed and checked her watch. It was five after ten already. “Okay,” she said, though it really wasn’t. “I’ll wait.”
She would wait all day and night if she had to. She couldn’t get back to work until Carey signed off on her. Regulations stated that an officer had to have a session with the psychs if she was injured in the line of duty, or when she discharged her weapon to injure or kill a perp. Doctor Nichols had held the last few sessions she attended. She had been wounded a couple of times over the past twelve years, but then there was John’s death and her run-in with Stanton.
Whenever she thought of her dead partner, she remembered Cappy handing her John’s badge bound with a black ribbon after the funeral. She had kept it with her like a talisman for months after John’s death, but when Cappy assigned Ken as her new partner, she had finally laid him to rest.
John’s badge was displayed on a shelf at home now, next to a photo of him taken at one of the many barbecue/beer fests the guys still laid on from time to time. She wished she could picture him as he was in that photo—laughing with a smoking burger upraised on a pronged fork—but the image that always plagued her was of his last moments. She had been right there when he died. She would never forget the look of surprise on his face. His eyes had widened and he said…
“Chris?”
She jumped and looked up to find Cappy looking at her. “You startled me, Cappy. I was just thinking about John.”
His eyes darkened and he nodded. “I’ll never forget that night.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “I need you in my office, Chris.”
She stood, checking the time. It was half past ten! “My appointment was for ten, but Carey’s running late again. I’ll come up as soon as I…”
Cappy was shaking his head. “He won’t see you today.”
“But it was his office that made the appointment.” She glared at the receptionist. “I’ll find out what’s going on and make a new one.”
Cappy sighed. “He won’t see you. It has to do with why I came down here. Let’s go up to my office. It’s more private.”
She followed him to the elevator, but waited until they were inside and on their way up before trying to get some answers. She glanced at him as the elevator ascended. She could sense he was uneasy, and that darkened her mood. It could only be she that made him feel that way. What else could it be? She was one of them now, a shifter. No one with sense would feel easy being near one in a confined space like this, but it still hurt. Cappy was her boss, but he was more than that. They were friends as much as anything. If he felt like this about her, she doubted their friendship would survive. How it would affect their working relationship, she didn’t know, but it was bound to put a strain on it.
“Can you give me a hint?” she asked when the silence became unbearable.
“Watson is in my office.”
She made a face. “What does he want?”
Commander Watson was Cappy’s immediate superior in rank, but he was in no way his superior in other ways. Watson might have the rank, but his rapid rise had more to do with politics than good police work. He was a very good friend of Chief Simpson and owed his position to him. It wasn’t that he was an incompetent officer; he was simply an indifferent one, and that could be worse. Competence could be taught, but you had to care to learn the lessons. Watson cared about nothing except looking good in the media and making Simpson happy.
She suddenly had a horrible thought. “Please don’t tell me he wants to hold a press conference. You know how I feel about that kind of thing, Cappy. If he makes me stand in front of the newsies and…”
“It’s nothing like that.”
“What then?”
The elevator chose that moment to arrive and the doors slid aside. Cappy stepped out of the elevator and looked grimly back at her. “I don’t want to be the one to tell you, Chris. I’m sorry.”
She shivered. “You’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that!” She followed him toward his office.
People she knew stopped to stare. Ken was at his desk and looked up when she came by. He was going to stop her and talk, but then he saw Cappy with her. Whatever he had been going to say was forgotten. Cappy opened the door to his office and ushered her inside.
Watson was sitting in Cappy’s chair behind the desk when she entered. That was going too far! How dare he usurp Cappy’s place… and he was making free with the stack of files on the desk! She glared, not noticing at first that Watson was not alone.
The sound of breathing made her turn to find its source. Another man sat unhappily next to one of Cappy’s huge potted plants. She recognised him—Shawn Macklin. He was her Guild Rep and an old hand in the Department. He had backed her up on the streets a few times over the years, but he manned a desk now, and was close to retirement. She would always remember him as someone to rely on, but his presence usually meant she was in trouble.
“Hey, Mac, how goes it?”
“Hey, Chris, my feet are killing me,” Mac groused.
She smiled. “Your feet are always killing you.”
“Yeah, life’s a bitch. How you doing, kid?”
She glanced at Watson. He closed the file he had been reading, and added it to the pile already in danger of toppling off the desk.
“Seeing you sitting with him, I would say not too well. Am I right?”
Mac grimaced. “Yeah, I think you can safely say that.”
Cappy sighed and took a seat. “You better sit down, Chris.”
Whatever was going on, she knew she wasn’t going to like it. Sitting down might be a good idea.
She took the last empty seat next to Cappy and tried not to fidg
et as the emotions in the room swamped her senses. She scented a profound weariness in Mac and underneath that a deep sadness. She knew Cappy was nervous, but he was also angry. Maybe it was Watson that made him feel that way. She couldn’t be sure; she wasn’t a mind reader. Watson though, was terrified of her. It surprised her, because she hadn’t known he was that good an actor. He looked completely at ease where he sat behind the dubious safety of Cappy’s desk, but under that phony poker face he wore, he radiated terror. Goddess help her, she could taste his fear and liked it. She tensed as something stirred and rolled through her body in a wave of heat.
Something? You know damn well what it is!
She forced herself to cross her legs and sit back as if she had meetings like this every day. “What’s going on?”
Watson interlocked his fingers and leaned on the desk. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it straight out. The Department has discussed your situation and has decided to retire you on medical grounds. You’ll get full pension and benefits—”
Shock slammed through her. The roaring in her ears blotted out the rest of his obviously prepared speech. She shook her head and tried to rally her wits as the import of what he had said finally got through to her addled brain.
“You said medical grounds, but there’s nothing wrong with me!”
“Chrissss,” Cappy said her name like a sigh. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Lycanthropy is a medical condition; it’s a disease and infectious as hell. You know that.”
“That’s not the reason.” She clenched her fists to stop herself pounding on him.
“It is.”
“No it’s not. You’re worried I’ll go furry and eat a suspect.”
“That too,” Cappy admitted. “I trust you, Chris. If you say you won’t let it happen, then I believe you. But it’s not my decision.”
She forced herself to look at Watson without launching herself over the desk at him. He must have seen the struggle on her face because he paled. Absolute terror rolled off him and swamped her in its intoxicating embrace.
She swallowed thickly, forcing away the howl she wanted to voice. “The Chief?”
Shifter Legacies Special Edition: Books 1-2 Page 64
