Peter considered Shaun. He believed he had an explosive bit of information but didn’t take it to his boss. Why?
“What does Gregory think about this? Why isn’t he here with you?”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“Why not?”
Shaun finally stopped smiling. He picked up his photos one by one and slid them back in the packet.
“Because he already knows.”
3
When Cleo arrived at Carmichael’s for her date with Peter, she had changed her outfit, even though he’d told her not to.
But she didn’t think he would complain.
She glowed in a tight emerald green dress that showed as much cleavage as humanly possible without being indecent. Her legs were bare but shiny because she had slathered them with glittery chocolate-mint scented lotion that she’d gotten from Amy’s store, Peace, Love, and Chocolate. She was wearing new black stiletto heels.
She was at peak hotness, which for her was pretty freaking hot, if she did say so herself.
“Damn!” was all Peter said when he saw her.
Carmichael’s was one of the fanciest restaurants in Seattle, and their specialty was grilled meats and fine wines. The walls were half-covered with elegant wood paneling and half-covered with muted red wallpaper. The tables were draped with thick white tablecloths. The all-male staff wore black tie. Peter was already sitting at their table in a secluded corner of the restaurant, a bottle of champagne on ice beside him.
She was right on time.
Exactly five minutes late.
Five minutes was the perfect amount to keep a date waiting in a restaurant. Not enough time that he could complain. But still enough that he was stinging with anticipation when she arrived.
“Peter, how nice to see you,” Cleo said.
She slid into the chair the maître d’ was holding out for her.
Peter smiled and leaned back in his chair, admiring her. He was still wearing the same suit he’d had on this morning, but he looked impeccable, as if his suit had just emerged from the dry cleaners.
“How was your doctor’s appointment?” he asked, pouring the champagne. “You never said.”
“The doctor’s? Oh, right. I had almost forgotten. It was just a checkup. Nothing special.”
She took a sip of the bubbly. Delicious. She nodded and smiled. If she was going to be pregnant next week, she’d better enjoy all the champagne she could now. Once she was pregnant, she would be a perfect fucking angel.
“Cheers,” she said, taking another sip. The bubbles went straight to her head, tickling her nose on the way.
“How was your meeting with Shaun Randall?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing special,” Peter said. “Just routine.”
“Really? I’ve never seen you two have a one-on-one before.”
“He just wanted to bring me up to speed on a few concerns.”
“I’m glad there’s nothing to worry about,” she said.
“Tell me, Cleo...” He paused and looked at her outfit. “You look stunning, as always, by the way.”
“Thank you.” She felt herself blushing.
“Why today? What happened to make you want to have dinner with me tonight after saying no for so many weeks?”
“Maybe it was your tie? I have a thing for rainbows.”
“Really?” He smiled and lifted an eyebrow. “Rainbows?”
“Do I have to have a reason?”
“You don’t have but I know you do. I’ll find out eventually. But I don’t want to spoil our evening.”
“Nothing will spoil this evening,” she said, taking another sip and sitting forward in her chair. “Tell me, you’ve been mayor for six years. Is it everything you’d hoped it would be?”
“There’s nothing like serving the city I love.”
“What will you do after you leave office?"
“I’m considering a few options. Possibly a Senate run. Possibly a foundation for children.”
She nodded. How could she get him feeling sexy without being obvious? She shifted in her chair and wet her lips, gazing up at him.
When the waiter came to take their order, she smiled demurely. “Would you like to order for both of us?” she asked. This was Peter’s regular restaurant. He could take charge.
“Certainly. We’ll have the grilled salmon with filet mignon,” he told the waiter. “Oysters on the half shell to start.”
Oysters? Well, well. She’d heard oysters were an aphrodisiac but had never tried them before.
“Oysters are my weakness,” he said, as if reading her mind. “I get them every week.”
“You come here every Friday?” Why did she not know this? It seemed there was a lot she didn’t know about him.
“I like to get out of the mayor’s mansion on a regular basis. Little rituals. Friday nights at Carmichael’s. Saturday morning at the gym. On Sundays, I usually go to Whidbey Island, just to get out of the city. Do you have rituals with your friends?”
“We mostly go to spas together. Drinks at the neighborhood bar. Lots of gab fests. My roommates both recently found their life partners, and so everything is changing around our apartment. Amy moved in with Zach. Steph is always at Rex’s condo. I think the only reason she isn’t moving in with him is because she doesn’t want me to feel like I’ve been ditched. God, I’m babbling.” She stopped.
The waiter placed a plate of oysters on the table and refilled their champagne glasses.
“Oh, good! The food.” She stared at her plate so she wouldn’t have to look at Peter. What was wrong with her? Spilling her guts was no way to seduce a man. She took another sip of her champagne and smiled up at the waiter.
“You like oysters?” Peter asked.
“I’ve never had them, but I’d like to say, yes. I like them.” She nodded and looked at the plate of a dozen oysters. They were slimy and gray, each one resting in a briny shell. She wanted to like them, but would she?
He picked up a shell. “Let me show you how.” He lifted the shell to his mouth, slid the oyster in, and swallowed. “Yum,” he said, smiling. “Try one.”
Cleo picked out one of the smaller oysters, lifted the shell to her mouth, and slid the oyster down her throat. It was crisp, clean, and salty. “These are amazing.”
“Have another.”
She nodded and slid another oyster down her throat, followed by a sip of champagne.
The feeling was cool and surprising. She loved them! They devoured the entire dozen. She settled back in her chair as the plate was removed. A feeling of contentment washed over her and she smiled at Peter.
“Having fun?” he asked.
She nodded. “I should have said yes to dinner weeks ago.”
“That’s what I’ve always told you, Cleo.”
“I thought you were kidding this whole time.”
“I never kid about dinner.”
“You don’t?”
“Never. Dinner is my most important ritual. Food. Drink. And good friends.”
Good friends?
“Here’s to us,” he said, lifting his glass.
So he didn’t want to be lovers after all?
She raised a glass and took a long sip.
God, champagne was good. She licked her lips.
Well, who cared what he wanted. All she needed was enough sperm to make a baby. Surely she could get that from him. She sat up tall in her chair and pressed her breasts forward, looking down and checking. Yup. Still covered and still exposed.
She noticed his gaze following hers. She felt a blush rise from her chest.
Peter was accomplished and tall and gorgeous. Any child she had with him would be a beautiful little boy or girl. His blond hair. Her charm.
Along with their entrees, the waiter brought a bottle of red wine, and poured a taste in Peter’s glass. He sipped it.
Peter narrowed his eyes at Cleo, as if he were trying to figure out something. Then he nodded to the waiter, who filled both of their wine glasses
, carrying the empty champagne glasses away.
“Are you sure everything went alright at your doctor’s office?” he asked.
She nodded. “Of course, why?”
“Just want to be sure you’re okay, Cleo. I care about you.”
“Doll, I’m fine. Tell me more about the children’s foundation you want to start.” They both dug into their meals as he told her about his vision to empower children through education and literacy.
The food was amazing, perfectly seasoned with a charred edge of crispiness while the center of the meat was rare and tender. The plates came with grilled vegetables and herbed fingerling potatoes. Cleo would soon be eating for two, so she devoured every morsel.
So did Peter, which was good because he would be needing his strength later tonight.
“If we can put the tools of knowledge in the hands of the powerless,” he said, “we can turn around the story of their lives.”
“Sounds wonderful,” she said. And she meant it.
Peter was the perfect sperm donor. Besides being incredibly attractive and smart, he really cared about the world.
He had said he cared about her, too.
For a moment, she considered telling him what had happened at the doctor’s to see if he would agree to be the sperm donor with full understanding of what he was doing. Maybe he would want to do it.
The waiter took away their plates and refilled their wine glasses.
Nah, she couldn’t take the chance he would say no. She had no viable alternative to his sperm this weekend. She drained her wine glass and slid her hand across the table to take his. “Peter,” she said huskily. “You’re such a wonderful man. Take me home.”
Then she passed out.
4
After taking Cleo to the mayor’s mansion and tucking her into a guest bed, Peter scooted an overstuffed chair close by to watch her sleep.
There was nothing easy about this woman.
Thank God. He didn’t like things to be too easy. That would bore him. She was beautiful and complicated. Lucky him.
He knew Cleo well enough to see that this was not her usual behavior. Obviously she was upset about something. He just hoped she would come to trust him enough to tell him the truth.
She had drifted into a calm sleep. She’d drunk a lot tonight, but she had also eaten a healthy dinner so he knew she would be fine.
He tucked the covers under her chin and then left her for his own room down the hall.
When he woke up in the morning, he showered and then checked on Cleo. She must have gotten up in the middle of the night to wash her face and remove her dress. She was completely naked. The covers had slid below her breasts and the bounty of her gifts took his breath away.
With her face stripped of makeup, she was even more beautiful. He pulled up the covers, and then reluctantly left for his meeting with Shaun.
The county morgue was near the waterfront in Seattle, and Peter had only been there once before. It was when he had first become mayor and had toured all the city buildings with an entourage of his staff.
He remembered the morgue as a tidy and efficient operation, with autopsy suites and a holding room for unclaimed bodies. He didn’t remember any hidden labs in the back of the building, but maybe things had changed in six years.
Or maybe it had been hidden from him.
Although he wouldn’t have considered that six years ago, he’d learned so much about the secrets of the city over the years. He wasn't as naïve as he had once been. So much happened in this city that would surprise the ordinary person on the street. Not only shifters, of course.
And it wasn’t just Seattle either. The world was a harsh and beautiful place. His job as mayor was to keep the scales tipped toward good. He hoped that someday he would be able to do more.
Peter walked into the morgue expecting to see the same tidy place he’d seen six years ago. But it had changed.
Blinds covered the windows and the lights were all dimmed, giving the lobby the feel of a moldy closet. He scowled.
This was unacceptable. Even for a Saturday. What if someone had to identify the body of a loved one and was greeted with this horrible place?
“Looks like you don’t approve of our lobby, mayor.” A short pale man approached to shake Peter’s hand; he was wearing a lab coat, so Peter assumed he was a doctor.
“It’s gloomy as hell. What’s the reasoning?”
“I’m Dr. Marcus Smith. Nice to meet you, sir. The previous coroner had such an optimistic look and feel to the place that everyone who came here expected good news. There is no good news at the morgue. I got tired of disappointing people.”
All Peter knew was he wanted to get the hell out of there.
“Where’s Shaun Randall? He was supposed to meet me.”
“He’s been delayed and asked me to show you around until he gets here.”
“We need to make it snappy. Sorry to be curt, but I have ten minutes.”
Peter needed to get away from the place. Every worker Peter passed by was drained of life. Pale. Listless. How could Marcus stand to be spending his life working here?
If Peter had been the coroner, he would have done the same thing as Marcus’s predecessor. Even if it was just for the mental health of the people who had to work there.
“What Shaun wanted to show you is back here.” Marcus led Peter down a dark corridor to its very end.
“Does this really have to be so creepy?”
“It’s the morgue. What did you expect?”
He pulled a key ring out of his lab coat and unlocked a door. They walked in.
Marcus flicked a light switch and fluorescent lights buzzed across the ceiling, giving the room a purplish pall. Two large glass cylinders holding the wolves were smack-dab in the center of the room. The animals were suspended in thick, blue liquid that reminded Peter of Nyquil, and lit from below. A row of refrigerated vaults lined one wall and shelves with a variety of animals suspended in liquid jars lined the other wall. It would have looked absolutely medieval if it hadn’t been for the computers and robotic equipment that surrounded the wolves.
Peter walked around each animal. They were large wolves, one brown and the other pale, almost pure white. They could have been shifters. There was really no way to tell, but he knew the wolf shifter communities would have some idea.
“What the hell are you playing at here?” He turned on Marcus. “These animals have no business in the county morgue. Human remains. That’s what you’re funded to study and investigate. Not animals.”
“These aren’t animals.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“They’re shifters.”
“You may have been able to fool Shaun, but not me.”
“I thought you might say that,” Shaun said from the doorway. “That’s why Julianna needed to be here with me. I apologize for being late, she didn’t want to help out her cuz.”
Officer Julianna Lee hung back by the door as if she didn’t want to enter the room. She was a small woman who wore her black hair in a pixie cut. She had on a blue police uniform, carrying a cap in her arms.
“See? I told you,” he said to Julianna, giving her a shove into the room.
“We aren’t cousins,” she said, grabbing Shaun by the collar and slamming him into the door. “And if you ever touch me again, I’ll break your nose.”
“Just tell him how you found the beasts and you’ll be off the hook, Julianna.”
She stared him down.
“Please.”
She dropped him and turned to Peter.
“I owe him a favor. One favor,” she said to Shaun. “And this is it.”
Julianna seemed reluctant, but once she started speaking the story spilled out.
“My partner and I were the officers to respond to the bath-salt deviants last summer after they attacked a high-speed train. We chased them into an abandoned cement plant. My partner shot the two men when they turned on us. We watched them die. Two minutes la
ter, when my partner was calling for backup at our cruiser, the men... transformed... shifted... into the creatures you see here. When my partner returned, he found me passed out next to these wolves. I couldn’t explain what had happened to our supervisors. We were both put on administrative leave until the precinct psychologist gave me the all-clear. Then, I returned to the force. They told me the animals had been taken to a vet for an autopsy and they were ordinary wolves.”
She walked over to the coroner and touched Marcus’s arm.
“Marcus is my husband. When I told him about the shifters, he insisted on bringing the bodies here after the vet was done with them. But his studies have shown nothing unusual. Nothing at all. Tell him, Marcus.”
“Under my microscope, they’re wolves. Nothing more. It would be career suicide to let the public know that Julianna thinks she saw shifters without some kind of proof.”
“Maybe I was just in shock. I’d never seen anyone shot before.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what I saw.”
“You saw shifters!” Shaun yelled, pounding his fist into his other palm.
“Shaun doesn’t care about proof,” Marcus said bitterly. “He doesn’t care about Julianna’s career.”
“I’m a lawyer. I live for truth.” Shaun slapped his hand on the glass cylinder, shaking the wolves inside like jelly.
“Stop hitting things,” Marcus implored, moving his body between Shaun and the cylinders.
“I’ve got to go to work,” Julianna said, rolling her eyes. “I’m out of here.” She gave Marcus a peck on the cheek and walked out.
Shaun took a moment and then continued. “When I discovered that Gregory knew about these shifters and didn’t bring the situation to the mayor’s office, despite seeing you every week without fail, I knew I had to act.”
Peter shook his head. “You look at these animals and see magical creatures. I see wolves, which is what any other rational person would see. Including Gregory.” He’d had enough. Shaun had nothing. “This is over.”
Peter moved toward the door.
Shaun grabbed Peter’s arm. “Why wouldn’t he have told you about this? That’s what I kept asking myself.”
Shifters in Seattle: Box Set Books 1 - 5 Page 15
