Following Fabian

by Holley Trent

  FOLLOWING FABIAN

  -Shrew & Company Book 4-

  By Holley Trent

  ___

  Learn more online about the Shrew & Company series.

  FOLLOWING FABIAN

  Believed to be kept under guard by his traveling circus’s owner, Fabian Castillo hasn’t been seen or heard from for more than seven months. Astrid Falk has one week to root him out. The private investigators at Shrew & Company always find their men, and Astrid is no exception.

  When Astrid pulls the bewitching acrobat from captivity, however, he refuses to cut and run. He’s got a score to settle with his former foster father Jacques, and Astrid can’t leave Fabian on his own. He speaks no English, and she speaks no Spanish, but when they touch, they don’t need words. There are some perks to being psychic.

  Solitary Fabian wants Astrid to be more than just his translator, and she just might be on the market for a new partner. But, the last man she gave her heart to left her high and dry when she needed him most. Committing to Fabian would require a leap of faith she’s not sure she can muster, especially if there’s no net below to catch her if she falls.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Private investigator Astrid Falk dragged her sleeve across her damp forehead and rooted her feet against the ground, balancing her stance. She tightened her grip around her charge’s wrists and willed her muscles to cooperate.

  She needed to be quick, nimble, and silent in the near dark, but every step she took heightened her awareness of not only how heavy he was compared to her small frame, but also the feel of his skin.

  He was so cold. Clammy.

  If it weren’t for the fact that he’d expelled a long breath when she’d given that initial yank toward the tent opening, she might have thought he was dead. And if he were dead, his brother Felipe would likely set the entirety of South Dakota ablaze while exacting his revenge. Being who she was, Astrid couldn’t blame him. The ladies of Shrew & Company were known for their tempers as much as for their success rate.

  She stepped and pulled.

  Stepped and pulled, dragging Fabian Castillo’s heavy weight against the gritty earth, swearing under her breath until they’d both cleared the opening.

  Risking discovery, she turned on her flashlight and shone the beam onto his face.

  His cheeks were dirty and his jaw slack with sleep, but all the right chisels and planes were there. He had the same lips as his twin Felipe, same aristocratic nose—minus the jut from an improperly healed break—and same dark blond hair.

  One could say they’d made a living from being identical, but that would imply their boss—well, former boss—had actually paid them. Jacques hadn’t, but that wasn’t the reason Astrid was abducting the unconscious acrobat from Jacques’s encampment.

  Fabian had already been abducted, and all Astrid was doing was balancing the scale. Pulling him back to the right side of it.

  She turned off the light, tucked it into the back pocket of her cargo pants, and made a quick scan of the site around her.

  Still. Very still, but it should have been. She’d been tampering with the campsite’s potable drinking water for two days. Drugging them in a way not too different from the way they’d, apparently, been drugging Fabian. So, unfortunately, poor Fabian was getting it from both sides.

  Who knew when he’d wake up? If he did at all.

  At the moment, though, Astrid didn’t have the mental energy to devote to pondering it. She needed to remain vigilant so she didn’t end up a captive of the same deranged band of circus freaks and hangers-on that had taken Fabian.

  Jacques collected and exploited people with preternatural abilities. There were witches, shapeshifters, and probably some beasts locked away that even Astrid had never heard of—things that weren’t described in painstaking detail in legend books or passed down through oral tradition.

  The investigation company she worked for—Shrew & Company—prided itself on its information-gathering skills. They knew more than anyone about the trouble Jacques had been stirring up on five continents during the past forty years. Wherever he left, chaos remained behind. Missing children. Unexplained deaths. He was ruthless in his recruitment. Couldn’t say no.

  Felipe had been with the troupe for most of his life and had shared everything he knew with the Shrews, even he didn’t know what sorts of plans Jacques had in store. Jacques was unpredictable. Diabolical, even.

  The Shrews hadn’t caught up to the swindler in half a year, and now they were practically shooting in the dark. The only reason Astrid had found them now was because of a tip from someone inside. Not Fabian. No one had heard from him.

  She ground her teeth and smoothed her thumbs over his bony wrists. “Hope you wake up, guy,” she muttered.

  She’d dumped enough sedatives into the camp’s water supply to knock a group of plain ol’ humans out cold for eight or ten hours, according to the Shrews’ company physician. There were probably some creatures in the mix that wouldn’t be put off by human medicine, but it was the best weapon she’d had to deal with a group of unknowns. Hell, drugs intended for humans didn’t particularly affect her, either. Being a mutant meant she couldn’t get drunk, couldn’t get high, and couldn’t take pills to ease a hurt, should she have one worth her notice.

  Fabian, though…even with what he and his brother were, he was human enough.

  “Please wake up.”

  She braced her feet on either side of his waist and cringed as she warmed his cold hands in hers. Shit, he was asleep. He wouldn’t know how cold his hands were, but she cared. Didn’t know why she cared, but she did. Maybe it was because he should have been one of theirs. He was Felipe’s brother, and Felipe might as well have been a Shrew. He lacked the appropriate genitalia for membership in the sisterhood, but Astrid’s boss, Dana, had hired him anyway. He filled in nicely where his wife on bed rest couldn’t be. If it weren’t for Sarah being off her feet, it might have been Felipe out searching for his brother and not Astrid. Shrews went where they were needed, though. There had been no one better for the assignment.

  “All right, darlin’. Here we go.” She pulled, hauling him to sitting position, and then hoisted him up onto her shoulders in an awkward fireman’s carry.

  After all these months being hidden away, and probably starved, he was nowhere near as solid as his brother, but still heavy e-damn-nough for a woman of five feet and four inches to bear. Felipe easily cleared six feet tall, so Fabian had to be in that range. Sure felt like it as she hobbled him toward the hard-packed path. Her balance was totally fucked. He was dead weight.

  If she’d gotten the backup Dana had referred her to, this chore would have been less taxing, but Astrid had seen an opportunity and took it. There’d been no time to bring others into the loop and up to speed. She’d listened to her gut and acted.

  “Fuck. Wish you could walk a little,” she said under her breath. She hiked through rock formations, ignoring the burn of her calves and shins as she navigated sudden inclines and ruts in the ground.

  “¿Qué?” came a ragged voice.

  His. Fabian’s.

  She stumbled, but found her footing while bracing one hand against a dusty boulder. Maybe she was hearing things. Stranger shit had happened, especially considering what she was. Shrews weren’t just physically enhanced humans, but tended to be at least a little psychic, too. None of the five women had many similar abilities after recovering from the research study that had altered their cellular make-up, and they were still trying to understand all the changes. Sometimes, new abilities seemed to crop up out of the blue, for lack of previous need of them.

  Squeezing though an especially tight formation, she bumped his head against a rock.

  He stirred on her shoulders, upsetting her ba
lance and sending them both toppling to the ground, although they didn’t have far to fall.

  “¿Qué pasó?” He pushed up onto his forearms and dragged his silvery gaze up her torso to her face. His forehead furrowed, evidence that recognition didn’t settle in. It shouldn’t have. They’d never met.

  She put up her hands, palms-out, in a calming gesture. “We need to be quiet. I’m here to help you.”

  His eyes widened a fraction, and he shook his head. “Help? I…I do not…” He sat back on his heels and ground his fists against his eyes. “Uh…”

  She didn’t need a play-by-play to know his thoughts. He didn’t know her, didn’t recognize her, didn’t understand her, and didn’t trust her.

  “My name is Astrid,” she whispered, and slowly stood. They were easy enough words for a man with only a rudimentary grasp of English to understand. “I work for Shrew & Company.”

  “Shrew?” His hands fell away from his face, and the furrowing of his brow softened. He’d recognize that word, even if he didn’t know what it meant. “You…do the work for Dana?”

  “Yes. Dana. I work for Dana and with Sarah.”

  His nod was slow, but he’d understood. He knew those women, and trusted them, but still, he didn’t stand.

  Astrid knew why. She was neither of those women, and he’d likely been tricked enough in the past thirty years to make him wary of people armed with a little information about him.

  “Um…” She sank down again, sitting on her heels, and draped her forearms over her knees.

  Meeting his stare shouldn’t have been so hard, but his face was just so familiar, and yet so different. He really was identical to his brother—her coworker—but there was something haunting in his eyes. Something unsettled him in a way she’d never seen in Felipe.

  Fabian knew too much. She saw it in the tension in his jaw, the shake of his hands.

  His knowledge made him both dangerous and a flight risk, but for the Shrews and Felipe, he was a risk well worth taking. Shrews didn’t let family fall through the cracks, not when they could help it.

  “You have to trust me,” she whispered.

  He stared for a long moment, and then blinked.

  Dana had been right. His English was far worse than Felipe’s had been when he’d run from the circus.

  Slowly, she extended her empty left hand and rested it on his wrist.

  He flinched at the contact, but before he could draw away from her, she pushed the thoughts through. Those didn’t need translation.

  “You have to trust me. I bet that’s hard for you, but I need to get you out of here before sunup. It’s important that we be well on our way before they wake.”

  His eyes widened. Mouth opened, and closed wordlessly, and he looked down at her hand. He touched it, tentatively.

  “It’s weird. I know. One of many unusual abilities of mine,” she thought at him.

  He seemed content with that explanation, because he curled his fingers around hers. “Why sunup?”

  “I drugged the water supply.”

  He made some sound that was half scoff, half chuckle. “I suppose it’s a good thing I haven’t had any in a day.”

  “No shit, it’s a good thing. If you can walk, even a little, we’ll double their pace.”

  She shouldn’t have been surprised he didn’t stand immediately upon hearing that.

  “Why should I trust you?” His eyes narrowed. “You could be anyone. I’ve never seen you.”

  That was because Dana didn’t drop bombs when single bullets would do.

  Sarah had worked Felipe’s case solo for the most, with Dana coming in for backup at the end. By then, Fabian was already missing.

  “You don’t have to trust me,” she conceded, rolling her tense shoulders back and swallowing hard. Her throat tightened, and breathing became less rhythmic the longer they touched. She needed to let go of him. Break the connection.

  Touching was hard for her. It raised anxieties she’d never known when she’d been growing up. She’d been a confident child. Sure of herself in spite of her stature, but now, men put her on edge. They made her second-guess her actions. Muddled her thinking.

  And, through her anxiety, she could sense his curiosity about her. He thought she was unusual…and pretty.

  While she was receptive enough to feel flattered, even at a time like this, she knew better than to let down her guard. She may have been working, but she wasn’t blind. Of course Fabian Castillo was gorgeous. She’d known he was, but she didn’t think he’d affect her this way. She’d hoped she’d be able to compartmentalize this like every other job—push the apprehension aside and do what needed to be done.

  She wasn’t sure she would manage it.

  Felipe never came on her radar screen one way or another, but that was because he was already claimed, more or less, by the time she met him. She’d never thought that way about Felipe, but this man in front of her—the one with sad eyes and no reason to trust her—was setting off sirens, alarms, and fireworks in her head.

  She itched to draw her hand away, but held it firm, struggling to direct her thoughts. She could do this—be the one in control in the way she always needed. “I have a message from Felipe. He said to give it to you and you’d know to come with me.”

  One of Fabians eyebrows inched upward, but he nodded.

  “He said to tell you your mother used to call you and Felipe her circling hawks because you always stayed so close to her. Always swarmed around her legs, made her stumble.”

  He didn’t respond, not aloud, and nor did his thoughts form any statements she could glean. However, his soft grin told her what she needed to know.

  She drew her hand back, breathed her relief, and waited for him to find his footing.

  He took a few tentative steps, his gaze focused on his feet.

  She offered her arm to him, but he shook his head.

  “No. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she conceded. “The terrain is awful, though. Stay close.” She pointed to her side, and he nodded.

  She handed him the half-filled water bottle that had been clipped to her belt, set off toward the trailhead, and farther to the ATV she’d parked near the road.

  They marched in silence for an hour at a mostly steady pace, occasionally stopping for Fabian to catch his breath. They were fortunate that March had been mild, and this particular South Dakota day wasn’t as blustery as it could have been, although Astrid was dressed far better for it in her fitted layers and hiking boots than Fabian was in his ripped jeans. His thin sweater looked to have been either borrowed or handed down numerous times, judging by its ill fit.

  When he straddled the ATV seat behind her, she touched the rough hand he draped at her waist and directed her thoughts. “I borrowed this thing from a park ranger. Been scouring this place and up into the Black Forest for a couple of weeks trying to catch up with you. Park Service isn’t too happy knowing they’re harboring fugitives in the backcountry.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ve got a rental car parked behind the visitor center. That’s half an hour from here, and then we’ve got an hour and a half drive into Rapid City. We’ll get you hydrated and get you something to eat before we head out.”

  “Head out?”

  “East. North Carolina. Your brother’s waiting for you. Worried about you.”

  Fabian slipped his left hand beneath the layers at her waist and pressed his palm flush with her skin. He seemed to understand that touch made the difference, and perhaps thought that there was some circuit between the two of them not quite connecting.

  She sucked in a breath, straightening her back at his careful touch, but he’d breached her armor, and muddled her thoughts. That big hand was too close to her heart, and…other things.

  “Thank you, but I can’t leave without tying off loose ends. I can’t go if—”

  She squeezed his right hand, cutting off the thought. “I get it. You’re wrong, but I get it. Jacques needs to be dealt with
, but not by you. You’re going to have to hang tight while my backup and I handle him.”

  “He’s my problem, not yours.”

  “I know some folks who would disagree. He is my problem, because he’s my friends’ problem. I like my friends happy. Happy is good for us Shrews.”

  “Your friends’ problem?”

  “Yes. Felipe’s and Sarah’s.”

  “Why Sarah’s?”

  “You have so much to catch up on. So, so much, and I’m not the one who should share everything that’s happened. You’ll find out soon enough. For now, we’ll get someplace safe and figure out a plan. I need to check in with Dana and make some calls.”

  “What happened? Did Jacques hurt Sarah? Is—”

  She squeezed his hand again.

  He crept his hand across her belly and rested his chin on her shoulder. “Okay.”

  “Thank you.”

  She turned the key on the ATV and ripped through the winding roads, struggling to keep her mind free of communicable thoughts without knowing if she was succeeding. She didn’t have practice at this as people usually broke the link after saying all they needed.

  Fabian didn’t seem to want to—he seemed to be using her as a lifeline after having to keep his own counsel for so long.

  And maybe she didn’t mind that so much, because no man had ever wanted her for that before. No man had ever been so upfront about his regard of her. And regarded her, he did. She’d felt it the moment he realized she was one of Dana’s girls. That meant something to him.

  He believed she had value beyond a pretty face. He believed she was worth pursuing.

  He could be a distraction for her. In fact, he already was, given the way she swerved across the road’s centerline.

  She’d just met the man, and already he was forcing her to feel things. Things she didn’t quite know how to process.

  She’d known it even before she’d laid eyes on him.

  Touching him would be a mistake.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Fabian watched Astrid with genuine curiosity as she paced the floor in front of the motel room’s king-sized bed, clutching her cell phone to her ear. Her English was rapid-fire and agitated, and although he could only parse about ten percent of what she was saying, none of it seemed to be in context.