by Sophie Stern
“Miss Martin.” I smile politely, but that’s all I’m offering right now. I don’t have anything else to give her, and even if I did, I wouldn’t share. All of my energy right now is going toward finding out what happened to Charlene Hill and Marie Martin is nothing but a distraction.
“Sergeant Dixon,” she repeats my name as she gets closer. Within seconds, she’s managed to scurry across the office floor in her five-inch stilettos. How the woman manages to walk in those things, I’ll never understand.
“What can I do for you?” I say.
“I was wondering if I could get a statement from you on the Charlene Hill case.”
“I believe I gave you a statement just last week, Miss Martin.” I meet her gaze, but now my smile is gone. I can’t fake that anymore. I’m much too tired, and it’s not because I didn’t have any coffee this morning or the fact that I didn’t sleep well.
No, this fatigue is something much deeper, something much worse.
This is the fatigue of a man who has been searching for a killer and coming up short.
This is the fatigue of someone who just can’t seem to get ahead.
“Surely there’s been a development since last week,” Marie says. She smiles, but I notice that it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. I’m not sure if she’s pushing me to make a statement or trying to needle me because we haven’t made much progress on the case. Either way, I don’t have time for her crap.
Not today.
“Miss Martin, you know I’m not at liberty to discuss the details of an ongoing case,” I say, standing up. I might be a bumbly, quiet bear in my personal life, but at work?
Here I’m in charge.
I cross my arms over my broad chest and stare at her. I give her my best badass glare. There’s no way Martin is a shifter and if I’m correct, she doesn’t realize I am, either, or why this case is so important to me.
Logan Smith stole a girl.
I’m sure of it.
He kidnapped her, probably hurt her, and I want to save her. He didn’t have the right to do what he did, and shifter or not, I plan to see him punished to the full extent of the law. I just wish this asshole didn’t seem to be one step ahead of me at all times.
“I…Sergeant,” Marie Martin shakes her head. She seems a little bit intimidated, but I can see her inwardly chiding herself for that emotion. I know why. As a reporter, she can’t be scared by anyone or anything. She can’t back down when someone yells at her or when someone sounds scary.
But this isn’t like the other fluff pieces she’s worked on before.
This is different, and Logan Smith is dangerous.
I don’t want Marie Martin poking around because I don’t like her. She’s conniving and she’s sneaky and she’s shrill. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s shrill. That’s not why her poking around is a problem, though. My personal opinions aside, she needs to back down because Logan has an agenda and I don’t know what it is.
He’s gone about his normal life without any changes to his routine. He hasn’t varied his days. He hasn’t done anything unusual or strange. We’ve had to pull surveillance off of him to pursue other cases, and I hate knowing he could be doing something right under our noses.
Every search of his home has turned up clean, though.
His office?
Clean.
His car?
Clean.
If Logan is the one who took Charlene – and I’m sure he is – then he’s doing an incredible job covering his tracks. I don’t like the idea that another shifter is getting the better of me, but that’s what this is. He took her.
I know he took her.
“Sergeant Dixon,” Marie tries again. “I know you’re telling me you can’t say anything about an ongoing case.”
“That’s correct.”
“But I know that you regularly discuss this case with other people who are not reporters, nor are they law enforcement.”
“Is that right?”
It’s bullshit, but I’ll listen to what she has to say. I’ve got a few minutes before I go insane from this conversation.
“I have it on authority that you discuss this case with other people related to this investigation.”
“You’re going to have to give me something more than that,” I growl. “Because I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Really? You aren’t even going to admit to it?”
“Admit to what?” This time, my voice turns to a growl, and I know we’ve reached the end of our conversation. I have to stay calm, cool, and collected at all times. I have to stay in control of the situation. It’s my job as a cop and my job as a shifter. I am in control.
“Joyce Lawson.”
“Yes, the ex-girlfriend. We’ve spoken with her several times.”
“I think you’ve done a little more than talk to her,” Marie pushes, and I shake my head. I haven’t. I actually haven’t even met Lawson in person. We spoke on the phone several times, but that interview was handled by another shifter cop. I was originally scheduled to speak with her, but something else came up in the investigation and I was needed elsewhere. My deputy recorded the interview and I listened to it several times, but I haven’t met her in person.
So why does Marie think I’m feeding this woman information?
“I think you’ve done a little more than speak with her,” Marie says, and she suddenly looks very smug.
“You would be incorrect,” I tell her. “And I think our time here is done.”
“I went to the Red Oak,” Marie says.
“Look,” I growl. “I don’t know what the hell you’re getting at, darling, but I haven’t been to the Red Oak in weeks and I don’t know what you’re insinuating.”
I should know because I’m a cop, she’s a reporter, and I’m smarter than her, but I don’t, and that grates on me.
She looks at me like she’s got some sort of dirt on me, and I wonder if she’s going to try to blackmail me about something. The truth is that she can’t because I have followed this investigation to the letter. I’ve been nothing but completely professional when it comes to dealing with people and interacting with them. I’ve taken this case more seriously than I’ve taken anything else in my life, but then Marie Martin holds up the picture, and everything goes to hell.
Chapter 3
Joyce
“So let me get this straight,” Landon says. We’re in my office, but he’s sitting at my desk now, and I’m sitting across from him. It’s the place where a client would sit, but right now, it feels more like I’m a little girl who has somehow managed to get herself in eight kinds of trouble.
Oliver and Ronan are on either side of me. They’re standing, towering over me, but I’m ignoring them. Instead, I’m focusing my gaze completely on Landon. One giant shifter at a time, please.
“You’ve been following Logan in your free time, you’ve managed to somehow,” he rolls his eyes. “Managed to get copies of all of the official police reports, along with the not-so-official police reports. You’ve created a scenario in which you think he was originally going to kidnap you, but he took her instead, and now you think he’s going to come after you.”
“She wasn’t the one he wanted,” I say, pleading, knowing I sound like a complete idiot. “Did you see the emails?”
“I don’t even want to know how you got those,” Oliver groans. I know he’s beyond stressed right now, but it’s his own fault. He shouldn’t have pushed me. I was perfectly fine with my investigation into Charlene Hill’s disappearance. I was fine. I was doing fine, and I was moving along, and I was figuring out what happened to her.
He shouldn’t have questioned me.
That’s the problem with being part of the shifter club, though: these guys are my family. They’re my life. They’re everything to me. I never had brothers growing up, but Ronan, Landon, and Ollie are exactly that. They look after me and they protect me and they take care of me.
And now?
; Now they’re just doing what they think is right. They’re trying once more to keep me safe, to protect me. The problem is that this time, I don’t want their protection. I don’t need it. This time, I’m totally fine on my own, and I wish they would understand that.
“It’s not what you think,” I protest lightly, but I immediately know it’s the wrong thing to say. This is a group of lawyers, for dragon’s sake. They’re used to people being in denial. They’re used to liars. What they’re not used to is honesty.
Maybe it’s time I get honest with them.
Maybe it’s time I trust them, a little bit.
I might as well because despite the fact that I am a grown-ass woman, something tells me if I don’t fess up really, really soon, I’m not going to be leaving this house without an escort for a very, very long time.
“Okay,” I finally say. “It is what you think.”
Immediately, they all start talking at once.
“What do you mean?”
“Why would you look into this on your own?”
“Don’t you know there are police officers who handle things like this?”
“It’s not your case to look into, Joyce.”
“Anything could have happened to you!”
“He could take you, too.”
I sit there while they talk over one another, pushing and shoving to be the top dog in this fight, and I close my eyes.
It should have never come to this.
The fighting.
The yelling.
I should have skipped this entire part. I should have just been honest with them. They would have understood. I know it. These are good, honest, hard-working men who deserve to be trusted because they have all always trusted me.
I just didn’t want them involved in this miniature investigation because I didn’t want them to stop me. I knew it was stupid. I also knew they’d do anything they needed to do in order to protect me, and I couldn’t have that.
Charlene Hill is still out there.
She might be dead, and she might be alive, but someone needs to find out what happened to her. Someone needs to find out what caused a straight-A college freshman to sleep with her English professor. Someone needs to find out what she saw in him. Someone needs to find out how he tricked her.
Someone.
That someone could be me.
I don’t know what I expect to find. I’m going to keep digging, though. That much is certain. I’m going to keep digging and searching and turning over every damn rock I find if it means justice for Charlene.
Someone needs to rescue her.
And if I find her, and she’s already dead, I’ll probably never forgive myself. I’ll never let myself forget that he wanted me, but he took her. He wanted to steal me away, but Charlene was a replacement. I’ll never forget that I’m the reason she’s gone.
I will never forget.
“Joyce?” A hand is on my shoulder. I look up into Ollie’s warm eyes. “Are you okay? You’ve just been staring straight ahead, darling.”
“You do look a little white,” Landon says. His voice is also quiet, and I realize they’re trying to calm me down.
“I’m sorry,” I shake my head. “The noise just…it got to me.”
“Can you tell us everything, Joyce?” Ronan asks carefully. “Can you start from the beginning?” He looks at me like he believes in me, and even though I’m not really sure if I can do this, I know he thinks I can.
“Please,” Landon adds. “It would help us understand what’s been happening.”
“What we’ve been missing,” Ollie adds, and I know he sounds sad. For him, this must feel like a betrayal, and I’m scared to look back into his eyes. Is he going to think less of me? Is he going to feel like I tricked him?
Of course he is.
And it’s all my fault.
“You guys know Logan and I went out for a few months.”
“We didn’t know at the time,” Oliver points out.
“Right. Well, I’m not that open when it comes to my relationships,” I tell them. “I’m kind of a private person, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Yeah, we know,” Landon says.
“Well, one night, I was supposed to be in wine class, but the teacher bailed, so I just went back to Logan’s place. I didn’t have a key or anything. We weren’t that close. I had texted him, but he didn’t respond, so I just drove over to see if he was around and wanted to hang out.”
I take a deep breath because this is the hard part.
This is the part where things get rough.
This is the part where I wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn’t walked through that door.
“Joyce,” Ronan reaches for me. His hand is on my shoulder, and he grounds me. “Take as long as you need, okay? There’s no rush.”
“It’s true,” Landon says. I look up at him and he smiles. “We cleared our schedule for the day.”
“But what about the Peterson case?”
“I think we all know the Peterson case can wait another day.”
“Okay.”
I take a deep breath, and then I start talking once more.
“I went up to the door and I knocked, but no one came to the door. His car was outside, so I thought maybe he had headphones in and couldn’t hear me.” I shake my head. “He used to wear them to block out the noise from the cars while he was working at home.”
“It’s understandable you thought that might be what was happening,” Oliver agrees.
“I didn’t think he was ignoring me or anything like that. I didn’t think he was up to no good. I just thought hey, he’s working, and he can’t hear me, so I’ll surprise him, you know?”
I was so stupid. I was so naïve. I was so ignorant of the way the world works. How could I have really thought he was just in his office working? How could I have really, truly believed that?
“I turned the knob. The door was unlocked. I walked inside.”
“Did you call out for him?” Ronan asks.
“No,” I shake my head. It’s a good thing I didn’t because I wouldn’t have caught them in the act if I’d given them fair warning. Then again, if I hadn’t caught them, I wouldn’t have broken up with Logan, and I would have been the girl he stole away.
Although it’s been weeks since that night, the visualization is still so clear in my head. I can still smell the candles burning in his house. I can still picture the clothes tossed on the floor. I can still remember wondering why his place was so unusually messy.
Normally, Logan was very neat. We’d only been together a short time, but I understood that fully. He was very tidy and very organized. He never left dirty dishes in the sink or dirty clothes on the floor. He was meticulous, and I should have registered what the clothes meant.
They meant he was with someone.
They meant he was a liar.
Those clothes meant that any idea I had about what my life meant was fake. I was being tricked, and I had no idea. I was being pushed away, and I didn’t realize it. I had absolutely no clue that Logan was about to completely screw me over. I didn’t know what he was capable of.
“I walked into the house. It was dark, but I didn’t turn any lights on.”
“Why not?” Landon asks.
“There were candles everywhere,” I tell him.
“Romantic,” Oliver mutters.
“No,” I shake my head. “It’s common for Logan. He likes to have candles burning to help him think. He thinks they’re better for creating thoughts than regular lights are.” I shake my head. It’s such a stupid theory.
“What happened next?” Oliver asks.
“I went down the hallway. There were clothes on the floor, but I didn’t look closely enough to realize they were a woman’s clothes. I thought he just had come home and tossed his clothes onto the ground. Looking back, I realize that was stupid. I should have known.”
“It’s not your fault, Joyce.”
Once again, Oliver is the v
oice of reason.
“I feel like it’s my fault,” I whisper, and Oliver instantly pulls me up and into his arms.
“Never say that again,” he says.
“It’s not your fault,” Landon echoes.
“You’re not responsible for what other people do,” Ronan agrees. “It sounds like this guy is completely insane, honey, and you’re lucky you got out when you did.”
After a minute, I feel calm enough to start talking again, and I sit back down.
“I went around the corner and into his office, but it was empty. That’s when I realized something was weird. Logan lights candles and goes into his office. He doesn’t really hang out in his bedroom, so when I started to go toward the bedroom, I realized something was wrong.”
So wrong.
I didn’t realize at the time that this moment would change my entire future: my entire life.
It would change Charlene’s, too.
“I went to the doorway and they were in bed together. Naked. Both of them.” I shake my head. “She saw me first, and her eyes went wide. She shrieked, and hopped out of bed, and wrapped herself in a blanket or a sheet or something. I’m not sure.”
“And what did he say?” Oliver asks gently.
“He asked what I was doing there. Can you believe it? He wanted to know why I’d come into his house without asking permission, as if the entire situation was somehow my fault, as if this entire thing was simply because I couldn’t be bothered to knock at his front door.”
His words made me feel gross, dirty. They made me doubt myself. Even now, I still doubt myself when I think of the things he said to me.
How could you have betrayed my trust like this, Joyce?
Why would you break into someone’s house, Joyce?
Do you know I can call the police on you, Joyce?
“He yelled at me. He threatened to call the police and have me arrested. I knew the stuff he was telling me was crap. I’ve worked with you guys long enough to know I wouldn’t be charged with breaking into his house or anything like that, but it unnerved me. I almost felt bad for Charlene. She didn’t seem to know Logan had a girlfriend. She apologized to me, but I couldn’t even look at her.”
