by Lisa Ladew
Kaci spoke. “Yeah, me too. But it’s harder when you didn’t grow right.”
Cerise put a hand on her arm. “Kaci…”
Beckett snorted. “Are you kidding me, Kaci? Guys love short girls.”
Kaci leaned forward to look at him like she didn’t believe him. “You think boys will be interested in me?”
“Of course. You’ll grow, darlin’, and if you don’t, it won’t matter, because petite is hot. So’s tall. So’s thin and thick. Believe me, boys love girls in all shapes and sizes.”
Kaci’s face pinched and she ran her hand over her face. “Do you… do you think I’m pretty?”
Beckett grinned at her, giving her his very best one, the one that had never failed to get him female attention. “I think you’re gorgeous.” He leaned over Cerise and pinched Kaci’s chin. “I especially love your freckles, and your red hair, and your smile. If I were 19 years younger, I’d snap you up.”
Kaci gave him an appraising look. “You’re 30?”
“Yup.”
Kaci pressed her lips together, her demeanor changing slightly. “Man, that’s old.”
Cerise barked out a laugh, then clapped her hand over her mouth, looking at Beckett, her eyes twinkling merrily.
Beckett sat back in his seat, swinging the truck to the right to catch their exit. “I guess it is. I’ll have to find me a lady my own age.” He winked at Cerise and her cheeks colored prettily, making him remember what she’d looked like when she’d orgasmed around his fingers. Shit, that had been a sight. If they could catch some alone time that night, he planned on doing it again and again.
“So what’s the address?” he asked.
Cerise’s forehead creased with worry and she recited an address. Beckett handed his phone to Kaci. “Punch it in the GPS for me.” Kaci had discovered she had an uncanny ability with anything technology related, even teaching Beckett a few things about his phone.
Kaci did, then looked at Cerise. “Wait, is this the address that was written on Zeus’s tag?” Cerise nodded, nibbling on her lower lip.
Beckett didn’t like the look of that. “Who is Zeus?”
Cerise waved a hand distractedly. “When Myles and Sandra stole Kaci out of her crib and put her in the back seat with me, she was asleep, but she had ahold of a small horse stuffed animal. It had writing on the tag. The name Zeus, and that address.”
Beckett looked at the phone screen. They were close to the address. “That’s what we’re basing this on? What if they’ve moved, or what if that wasn’t the address to their home?”
Cerise nibbled harder. “I think that is their address.”
Beckett nodded. He wasn’t going to argue. They would know soon enough. “It’s almost midnight, are we just going to knock on the door?”
Cerise stuck her thumbnail in her mouth and began to chew on it, staring out the front window. “Yeah.”
Beckett shrugged. Ok. This was her show. He was just there to keep them safe.
“I gotta pee,” Kaci said, also sounding nervous.
Beckett swung into a gas station. Kaci had the bladder of a gnat, but he thought this time might be more of a delaying tactic. He could tell she didn’t want to leave Cerise, and was more scared of meeting her parents than excited. He stopped and the girls jumped out, heading to the outside door marked Women.
Beckett waited, then got out also, leaned against his truck, and took a deep breath, sorting through the scents as best he could. Busy city streets always masked scents to some degree, but he did not smell foxen or bearen in the vicinity. Good.
Cerise and Kaci barreled out of the bathroom, Kaci holding her nose. “Smells like dead flowers covered in shit in there,” she said, her voice nasally. “Newsflash. Spraying perfume without cleaning the bathroom doesn’t mask scents near as well as this place thinks it does.”
A flash of understanding speared through Beckett’s brain. One he’d almost woken up with that morning, but hadn’t been able to put together until just now. The dead/flat foxen smell had been a masking scent, like a hunter who sprays deer urine on his clothes. A masking scent he’d smelled before.
The night his father and brother had been killed. Those fuckers from the rest stop…
Cerise came straight up to him. “Are you ok?”
His eyes rolled as he tried to figure out if he was or not. They had been after him! So why had they tried to get Cerise and Kaci? Just because they were with him? He gave his phone to Kaci and waited till she climbed in the cab, then clamped down on Cerise’s wrist and pulled her to the back of the truck. Why hadn’t he called Wade? Told him exactly what he was up to? Wade would have sent a team out to help him.
He stiffened. That was exactly why he hadn’t called him. Because a team, even of his friends, being near Cerise would have triggered him in ways he didn’t want Cerise to see. Or Kaci. They didn’t need any new violence from males in their lives. If they saw him acting like Trevor had with Mac, or like Graeme had with him, just because a male got too close to Cerise? He never would have been able to gain that trust back.
Shit. Now he had no choice.
He pulled Cerise face to face. “Listen. I want you to carry a gun. I’m going to give you one when we get back in the truck. I think I’ve met up with those males from the rest stop before, a long time ago, and they might come after me again.” Although he couldn’t see how they would find him. Not until he got back to Serenity.
He lifted his head to scent the air, then looked her in the eye again. She was shaking her head. “I don’t think I should. I’ve never fired one. I might be better off using…” she held up her hands.
“They got you the last time.”
“I wasn’t ready. Didn’t think he’d hit me.” Her face and voice said she didn’t know why she’d thought that. Her past experience had taught her the opposite.
Beckett took her wrist and pulled her hand to his mouth, kissing the fingers gently. “Don’t hold back, you hear me? Don’t hesitate to kill if you can. These men are murderers.”
Cerise nodded, her eyes far away, as if she were remembering something she’d rather forget.
“Can you kill, do you think?”
Cerise stared at him, worrying her lower lip with her adorable white teeth. “Maybe. I could tell someone to jump off a roof and they would do it, I think. Or tell their heart to stop beating? I could try it.” It was obvious she didn’t want to. But he thought she would if she were faced with the worst.
He nodded. “Wait here.” He ran to the open door of the truck and wrote something down on a scrap of paper, then ran back to her. “If something happens to me, you call this number and talk to Crew. He’ll take care of you.”
Cerise took the paper and put it in her pocket without looking at it, her expression dubious. He caught her face in his hands and kissed her, hard, then spoke again. “I mean it, Cerise. Promise me you will. He won’t just give you some money or put you up in a hotel room for a night. He’ll take care of you for life. Kaci, too. Get you a house, give you money, everything.”
Her eyes were wide and scared. “How do you know he would do that?”
Beckett shook his head. She still didn’t know what she was. The simplest answer was probably the best. “Because I would do the same for him and anyone he cared about.”
She nodded once. “I promise.”
Chapter 33
Beckett stared out the side window as they cruised past the house once, slowly, his window down, cold air hitting him in the face with a story. Nothing to be worried about. Three newspapers lying at the end of the driveway. One dim light visible glowing past the shades, but the rest of the house dark. Someone had left in a hurry? Or someone was holed up inside? He parked Cooter in front.
Cerise and Kaci stared at the house for a long time, until Cerise said, “Here we go!” in a falsely-cheery voice, and motioned for Kaci to get out.
Beckett hopped to the ground, eyes, ears, nose open. Head on a swivel. But he scented nothing but humans, their
emotions dulled by dreams.
Cerise and Kaci walked to the front door, hand in hand, then stood there. Beckett joined them. “You going to knock?”
Cerise shook her head. “No one is inside.”
“How can you-?” Beckett broke off, mid-question. Oh.
Cerise let go of Kaci’s hand and stepped off the porch. “I’ll be right back.”
Beckett grabbed her. “Wait, you’re not leaving my side.”
Cerise twisted her hand in his grip and grabbed him back, looking sweetly into his face. “I just want to see if it’s the right house or not. I promise I’ll be right back. And I’ll be ok.”
Beckett let her go, his heart following her down the steps and around the corner of the house. He’d never quite understood, before, what it was like to be in love with someone. He’d always enjoyed women, but could take them or leave them, not caring if he hung out with the same woman twice. But this. This was like being stabbed in the chest every time she left his sight. How did people live like this?
Small fingers curled around his and he glanced down to see Kaci’s pixie face looking up at him, her eyes dark and bottomless with nerves. In that moment, he could see in her face the woman she would become, and he hoped he could be around to help guide her there. A rush of affection filled him and he squeezed her hand, as fresh understanding filled him. The opportunity to feel love for even a moment was worth a lifetime of potential pain.
His brother’s face filled his vision. The memory of his brother shoving him out the back door. Run, Beckett. Me’n Pa’ll hold them off.
Cole had wanted him to have a chance to grow up. To experience life. Even though he’d only been a few years older than Beckett, he’d understood more about love than Beckett had. “Thanks, bro,” he whispered, his eyes on the twinkling stars above them.
Kaci squeezed his hand and he smiled at her.
The door behind them opened and they both whirled around. Cerise was standing there, her expression horrified. “It’s the right house,” she said, holding up a pamphlet.
Beckett ushered Kaci inside, then closed the door behind them. What were they doing? But the pamphlet took his mind off the breaking and entering for a moment. He read it over Kaci’s shoulder.
MISSING
Lillian Roth: Aged 11
Taken from her home in Loma Linda at 14 months old. Age now: 12
Two pictures sat side by side below the words on the paper, and both hurt Beckett’s heart equally. One showed a chubby toddler in white pajamas with feet, taking an unsteady but adorable step, a horse toy clasped in one fat, raised hand.
The one next to it was labeled, age progression photo. What Lillian may look like now.
It showed an obviously computer-enhanced, but totally human picture of a pretty girl with long, flowing red hair and a shy smile. Beckett frowned at the freckles on her cheeks, wondering how they had known she would develop freckles.
The picture was eerily accurate, except Kaci’s actual eyes looked larger and her cheekbones much more pronounced. Beckett looked from the picture to her, then realized what it was. Kaci looked slightly malnourished, while the girl in the picture did not.
Cerise knelt and gathered Kaci into her arms. “We found them, Lemon. You’re home.” Kaci balled the piece of paper up in her fist and buried her face into Cerise’s shoulder, the smell of her indecision so strong Beckett could identify it. Beckett stepped deeper into the house, seeing and dismissing the stack of more signs on the table, then frowning. He scented wolven.
He moved into the kitchen, then down a hallway to a bedroom. He bent over the bed, smelling both sides. A human male lived here, along with a half-breed wolven female. Non-shifting.
He couldn’t scent that, but if she were shifting, he would know that she existed. All living female shiften who could shift around the world had notoriety, half-breed or not. But the concoction Khain had spilled into the drinking water, tainting it, had seemed to treat non-shifting half-breed-or-less females the same as it did the males. It had made some of them sick, but most had noticed no ill effects.
Beckett grinned and headed back out to the girls. If this was her parents’ bedroom, Kaci was one quarter wolven. He knew he liked her for a reason. One-quarter was normally not enough to pick it up by scent, the wolven nature so very buried under the human.
Beckett stopped midstride, the coincidence bearing down on him. A certainty gripped him, running cold fear through his veins. He had to get to his phone.
He burst into the living room, finding Cerise holding up a DVD case. ‘Lillian’ was written across the top in block letters. She opened it, but it was empty. She went to check the DVD player below the TV.
“Kaci, I need my phone.” Kaci pulled it out of her pocket and handed it to him silently, her eyes on Cerise.
Beckett pulled up Wade’s number and began to text him, his thumbs flying over the tiny keyboard. He didn’t want to call, his conversation would scare the girls.
Wade. In Loma Linda. The guys who killed my father and brother tried to attack us in Colorado. They tried to take Kaci and Cerise from me.
He paused, wondering if Wade even knew who Kaci and Cerise were, then shook his head and finished his message. He would have put it together by now.
There is some sort of a connection between the three of us. Kaci was kidnapped as a baby, probably by these guys. Maybe Cerise too. Deatherage? I will be here for a few days. Send me help. And contact local PD so they know who I am if I call. Tell them to stay away from Cerise if they come to us! You know why.
He typed in the address they were at, then turned around as the laughter and coos of a baby filled the room. Cerise had pressed play on the DVD player, and Kaci-Lillian was racing across the screen, as fast as her roly-poly legs could take her.
“Lemon do it! Lemon do it!” she cried, her toy horse in her hand. The camera panned to a woman who was trying to sweep the kitchen floor. She laughed and smiled at the little girl and handed her the broom as the camera panned in on her face. Her red hair, generous smile, and freckles covering her cheeks, chin, and forehead were so reminiscent of Kaci that Beckett knew immediately who she was. Kaci’s mother.
She helped Kaci sweep the floor, holding her horse so Kaci could grab the broom with both hands, then she put the broom aside and picked Kaci up, kissing her under her chin and making her laugh. She spoke to her obviously-revered child. “Lemon did so good! Such a helpful baby!” The unseen man spoke, and his voice was playful. “Put her down, Sharon, I want to see her sweep some more.”
Kaci sank to her knees on the floor in front of the TV, her mouth open in an O, her eyes liquid pools of what could have been. What should have been.
Cerise drifted to him, and took his hand. “That’s why I call her Lemon. She said that from the very first day. It was the only word she would say for a while, and then she stopped talking completely. When she was four or five she started talking to me again, but only when we were alone. She never spoke to Sandra or Myles.” She bit her lip. “I never knew it really was her name.”
She looked at him, tears in her eyes. “Thank you for getting us here. We never would have made it without you.”
Beckett was about to reply, when a strange scent reached him. Humans. Lots of them. All men. Strange because it was the middle of the night and he was inside a house with the windows closed. He crossed to the window and peeked outside, but saw nothing.
He pulled out his gun anyway, his phone in his other hand, his thumb poised. But who to call? Wade? Or 911? Wade hadn’t returned his text yet.
He decided. 911. But first, “Cerise. Turn off the TV and take Kaci somewhere to hide. Don’t argue with me, just do it. And don’t come out until I tell you it’s all clear. No matter what you hear.”
Cerise moved toward Kaci, her face full of fear, but she didn’t move nearly fast enough.
“Hurry!” he hissed at her, instinct telling him it was already too late. She moved then, snapping the TV off and grabbing Kaci under the a
rmpits, heading for the hallway at the same time as the front door and the back door burst open.
Beckett leveled his gun, but a stinging pain caught him in the ribcage, then another in the thigh. His vision blurred and his muscles relaxed. He fought to stay upright. He looked down at his leg. A dart stuck out of it, with a red feathery tuft at the end of it. Tranq… and he couldn’t shift because of the humans…
He fell to the ground, his brain refusing to work, watching Kaci and Cerise’s feet as they disappeared up the stairs at the end of the hallway.
Chapter 34
Cerise covered Kaci in blankets in the very back of the closet. “Shhh, don’t say a word,” she breathed. She would peek out. See what was happening. She’d heard the doors fly open, but no gunshots. Beckett might need her help.
Before she could move, heavy footsteps strode into the room. A male’s voice. “Mudge. Mudged. Pudge. Nudge. Mudgett!”
She shrank back into the closet, knowing she’d heard that voice before. The cop who had shown up both times she had run away with Kaci. The one who had put her in jail. Put Kaci in foster care. He was behind it all. No wonder their luck had always seemed so poor. He had rigged the system.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he sang and she could tell he was right outside the door. He ripped it open, and smiled down at her, making her guts twist. He’d grown his hair long, pulled it back in a ponytail, and he had a dark goatee now, but she would recognize him anywhere. Same conniving look. Same big-framed body. Same flat, dangerous stare. His lips were split, bloody, and his skin seemed to be bruised.
In his right hand he held a chain, like a thick necklace chain, and at the end of it was a kind of jewelry, a piece of gold or metal that was just over an inch high, a snarling wolf on one side, an angel in flowing robes on the other. It was glowing.
“That’s mine,” she cried, even though she’d never seen it before.
“Indeed it is!” the man said. “Let me introduce myself. I know we’ve meet before, but your manners were ghastly back then. Hopefully they’ve improved. I’m Grey Deatherage, and I’ve been keeping this safe for you until you were old enough to use it.”
