by Holley Trent
“Okay.” He let go of her, and she padded away, calling over her shoulder, “Answer the door if the delivery gets here before I’m out, will you?”
“Yes.”
He was dead curious about what she’d learned during her outing that her brain would start sending up red flags so far removed from the event, but he’d have to trust her judgment that whatever it was she’d figured out could wait until she was out of the bathroom.
He lay on the bed and reached for the remote control. No sooner had he figured out how to bring up the channel listing did her phone jump from vibrations on the dresser. He thought to let it ring, but maybe she’d like to know if it were going off.
He got up and grabbed it, already heading to the bathroom when he looked at the display. There was no name listed on the caller ID announcement, but the number was familiar. He’d dialed that number once.
He answered. “Hello?”
“Fabian?”
Ah, Sarah. He sighed, and said in simple Spanish, “Yes. Astrid just got back in and we’re waiting for dinner. She went to take a shower.”
“Hey, my Spanish is a little better than that now. Your brother seems to think I need immersion so he won’t speak English to me at home, but I appreciate the consideration.”
He laughed. That sounded like Felipe, all right. “Should I pull Astrid out of the shower?”
His sister-in-law made a sputtering sound on her end. “No, I guess it can wait until she gets out. We need to fly her home, and the next flight out is around dawn, so she’s got some time to clear out.”
He paused in front of the bathroom door and put his hand on the knob. “Fly her home?” What about him?
“We need another Shrew on the ground here. We’ve got a bit of a Bear mess on our hands. More so than the usual.”
What now? Astrid had told him her brother had been recently attacked, but had something else happened? He didn’t know why he cared, given he had no investment in the situation, but he did. He couldn’t very well let her fly east without him, but he wasn’t done in South Dakota.
Was he?
“You can stay on and work with the agents,” Sarah said, and her voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “They’re on the case until it’s solved. It’s in their wheelhouse now, so we don’t really need Shrews there.”
“I see.”
“What’s wrong? I haven’t spent much time with you, but whenever Felipe gets that tone in his voice, it’s because he’s plotting something.”
“I’m not plotting, I’m just figuring out how to do this. I don’t want to work with Rodriguez, and I suspect Astrid is having a problem with Rodriguez’s partner. I don’t know why, though.”
“I wasn’t aware that she had a partner.” She rustled some papers on her end. “What’s his name?”
Fabian closed his eyes and searched his memory banks. “Uh, David…something. David…” What was it? Ah. He snapped his fingers. “Marsh. Agent Marsh.”
Sarah was very quiet on her end.
Fabian moved away from the door and sank onto the bed’s edge. “You there?”
“Shit.”
“What?”
“I suspect her mood is sour right now, huh?”
“Yes, why?”
“Just do me a favor and distract her the best you can for the rest of the evening. I bet if she’s left alone, her disposition will become even worse, and it’ll be hard for her to work that way.”
“Am I allowed to know why she’s in a bad mood?”
“I don’t think she’d appreciate me telling you, but I’m going to tell you anyway and you’re going to swear to me right now that you won’t repeat it. You hear me?”
“I do, and I swear. Please tell me.”
“Okay. If this isn’t just a weird coincidence, David Marsh is Astrid’s ex-boyfriend. He was the person who signed her up for the SHREW study.”
“Wait…” He only half understood. Naturally, he understood the ex-boyfriend part and had an odd compulsion to stalk over to the guy’s motel and beat the ever-loving shit out of him just because, but the study part? That he didn’t get. “What do you mean he signed her up?”
“Fabian, we all got signed up by people who were supposed to care about us.”
“I see.”
“There went that voice again. What are you plotting?”
“I’ll behave, Sarah.”
“You’d better. Whatever you’re feeling for her right now, remember that she has four very good friends who wouldn’t bat an eyelid at torturing you if you make her life difficult.”
Astrid hadn’t been kidding about that hazing thing, and Sarah was his sister-in-law! Jesucristo. “Shouldn’t you be on my side? We’re related. I’m the uncle to your child.”
“Don’t try to confuse me. I’ve got enough holes in my brain right now because of the pregnancy hormones.”
“Like I said, I’ll behave.”
“Good. Just have—”
He cut her off with, “Can you get me a ticket out of here as well? If she’s flying back, I don’t want her to go alone. She hasn’t been sleeping, and she eats mostly shit.”
She was quiet again for a long moment, but this time, he didn’t give her the verbal nudge—he just let her think it out.
After a minute, she asked, “What about Jacques? I figured you’d want to stay on the ground and take care of him now that you’ve got some professional backup.”
“My gut says go with Astrid.”
“Your gut or your heart?”
Now it was his turn for silence. He pressed the phone between his shoulder and ear and picked at one particularly ragged cuticle. “I’ve only known her a couple of days.”
“You’re talking about a Shrew, brother. You’re batting about average. There are two kinds of men, really. Those who don’t get us and try to change us, and those who see what we are and like us anyway. You don’t need two days to figure that out.”
“You’ll get me on the same plane?”
“Pulling up the reservation right now. Get my girl to call me as soon as she’s out of the shower.”
* * *
Felipe Senior couldn’t believe his eyes. He sat up a little straighter in the hard, plastic chair of the airport terminal where he’d been studying a map, and watched his son and one of the Shrews walk past toward their boarding flight.
Fabian!
She’d found him, and thank God. That’d make what he had to do so much easier. If Fabian wasn’t caught up in the mix, Senior wouldn’t have to be careful.
Good. He’d been careful for too long. Now, it was time to shake things up a little. If Jacques was up to his old tricks, he’d have his troupe divided into groups, each shepherded by one of the shapeshifter guards that called themselves Visas after the goddess Visahari. He’d have to take them down one at a time and disband each cluster before the group rejoined, but if the performers were as restless as they had been in the past, he might be able to get some help from within.
He tapped his shirt pocket and made sure his borrowed credit card was still there. He didn’t know how long he’d have before Sarah reported it missing, so he needed to get moving. He knew exactly where to find the first group. Jacques always had one group hiding in plain sight. No one ever thought to look there.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Felipe had Fabian in his embrace before the younger twin could clear the doorway. In French, Felipe said, “Here we are again, the circling hawks.”
They rocked side to side a few beats, and from the interior Sarah shouted, “Baby, let them in. It’s drafty. And how ’bout switching to a language I know?”
Felipe thumped him on the back and drew Fabian in.
Fabian turned, looked at Astrid idling on the doormat thumbing her phone’s touchscreen, and waited for her to meet his gaze. When she did, he inclined his head toward the inside. “Dragón, ven.”
“I’m coming. I need to…” She pointed to the phone. “Messages. My brother; I need to check on him. Some
of his changes have started and he’s scared.”
He nodded. Hopefully, she wouldn’t take too long. Although this was his brother’s home, and Fabian should feel comfortable being in the company of people he knew and trusted, being separated from Astrid filled him with a sense of unease. It was irrational, of course, but nothing about his feelings concerning the woman was rational. Sometimes, being around her felt like swinging on a trapeze with his eyes closed. To make things more complicated, he had to perform some complicated flip and somehow find his grips when he was right side up again. He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a thrill.
Astrid pulled the door shut, and Fabian followed his brother into the warm farmhouse.
He didn’t know much about American architecture, but the place had to be at least a century old judging by the wear on the hand-carved banister and the lovingly repaired plasterwork on the ceiling. There’d obviously been some updating done, as the overhead lights were modern and the windows seemed new, but the house didn’t seem to have a fresh-off-the-assembly-line soul.
Felipe tapped his arm, rousing him from his study of the woodwork. “Sarah bought it off a veteran who was looking to downsize. He cut her a good deal because she’d been a Marine and thought she’d take care of it.”
“How big is it?”
“Uhh…” Felipe raked his fingers through his loose hair and stared at the ceiling. “A little over nine hundred square meters, not including the cellar or attic.”
“Might as well be a mansion.”
“I felt the same way for the first few months, but I’m adjusting to the American ideal of wide open spaces. Got a room for you, too.”
Fabian elbowed him and laughed. “Don’t want to get in the way. Where are you going to put the baby?”
“She’s got her own room. Doubt she’ll sleep in it for a while, though. Sarah’s mother insists we won’t be able to get her out of our bedroom for at least three months, and that’s if we’re lucky.”
“Do you care?”
“Not at all. I can sleep when I’m dead, right?” The lines at the corner of Felipe’s eyes deepened as he beamed. He was so proud.
Fabian couldn’t blame him. A little girl. A daughter. With the life they’d been leading, he’d never imagined either of them would have children. They’d certainly never wanted to trap another generation inside Jacques’s clutches, and with the gift they had, it’d be almost inevitable. Being able to phase to invisible wasn’t exactly a common skill. “Have you picked a name yet?”
Felipe’s smile waned, and he tilted his head toward the adjoining room. “Sarah suggested we name her after our mother, but…”
Fabian put his hands up. Felipe didn’t have to say it. It was unfortunate that her name was so similar to someone they despised. “Right. Well, how about her middle name?”
Felipe raised an eyebrow. “You know it? I assumed it was Jacqueline since she took the name Marie at confirmation.”
“No, she had another. I know she did, I just can’t recall what it was at the moment. I remember when we were very young, she was writing out her name on some papers and I asked her what all it said. It was Marie Jacqueline something…”
“I pulled all the paperwork I could find on her when I was in France, and I don’t recall seeing anything. I’ll look again, though.”
“Fabian, are you going to come say hello to the bloated mother-to-be of your niece?” Sarah called in Spanish from the adjoining room.
“Her Spanish is better,” Felipe said to his brother, already striding toward the archway.
“About as good as my English now.”
Sarah didn’t bother getting up when the men stepped into the bright living room. She had her feet propped up on the coffee table and held a stack of manila file folders on her lap.
He leaned down and kissed her on both cheeks, continental-style. “Vessel of a miracle, you are.”
“I’ve been called a lot of things”—she leaned sideways and dropped the files on the table next to the sofa—“but that’s the first time I’ve been called that one.”
He took the seat to her right.
“I’ll go get you a drink,” Felipe said. “What do you want?”
“Don’t spoil me with choices. I don’t want to get used to it.”
“You should get used to it.”
Well, Fabian didn’t know about that. “Surprise me.”
Felipe nodded and strode away.
Sarah reached across her body and gave Fabian’s arm a pinch. “You’re a sack of bones, practically. Wait’ll my mother sees you. She’ll want to fatten you up. That’s her hobby.”
The front door clicked closed, footsteps sounded down the corridor, and Astrid poked her head into the room. Seeing them there, she stepped in, looking from one to the other, and looking a bit stressed.
Sarah switched to English. “I was just telling him he’s too skinny.”
Astrid raised an eyebrow, blew out a breath, and cocked her head to the side—the tension she’d been carrying easing somewhat. “I guess he’s height-weight proportionate, though on the slim side at the moment. If I had my druthers, I’d put twenty pounds on him.”
Fabian wasn’t quite sure what they were saying, but for some reason he felt like a stud bull up for auction. He hoped some of what they were saying was good.
“He’d be heavier than Felipe, and Felipe is ten pounds heavier than when I got him.”
“I like ’em to look a bit corn-fed.”
Sarah laughed, and pressed one hand to the bottom of her belly as it shook. “Oh, God, my bladder. Are you kidding me?”
Astrid shrugged. “I like what I like.”
Felipe came back to the room just in time and handed Fabian an uncapped beer.
“What are they talking about?” Fabian asked in French. It was just like the old days—switching to whichever language the people around them were less likely to understand. It made it easier for them to make plans, even if they didn’t act on them.
Felipe took a long draught of his beer and settled onto the love seat across the room. “My beloved told her friend that you’re scrawny.”
“And what did her friend say?” Fabian asked, careful not to mention her by name or look in her direction.
“She said she’d like you twenty pounds heavier.”
“I’ve never been that heavy.” Fabian looked at first one Shrew, then the other, and both gave him serene looks. He turned back to Felipe.
Felipe took another long drink. “If you care what she thinks, and I suspect you do, you’d better start eating.”
Of course he cared. He’d shaved off the beard that had been protecting his face from the wind chill, hadn’t he?
“Go make me a sandwich.” Fabian sipped his beer and stared at his brother over the rim.
Felipe laughed and mimicked the sound of a cracking bullwhip.
Ass.
* * *
Astrid couldn’t remember the last time all five Shrews converged in one room. Before the Bear drama went down, they met almost every day unless one of them was on an extended assignment. Now they were stretched thin, running in all directions to put fires out. Since Sarah had been on modified bed rest for most of her pregnancy, she’d been the only one with easy access to the Durham office in months, besides their newest hire Drea Ridge, and now there they all were.
Felipe poked his head into the conference room door. He smiled at his wife, and then looked at Dana. “If you’ve got nothing else for us today, Tolvaj and I will cut out early and go work with Fabian and strategize about Jacques.”
Dana gave him an acknowledging wave, and he eased away.
No one said anything. The office’s heavy metal front door clicked shut, and suddenly, four pairs of eyes swiveled in Astrid’s direction.
She drummed the end of her pencil against the conference table and looked at each woman in turn. They didn’t let a single peep pass their lips. Just stared.
“For fuck’s sake, what?” she asked. Her
voice had taken on a certain shrill quality at the end, but she was feeling far too indignant for embarrassment.
Sarah cracked first. A broad grin dissolved her serious expression, and she let a low chuckle escape her lungs. “We were taking bets on whether or not you’d bucked the trend.”
“What trend?”
“The Shrew hookup trend,” Maria said. She squinted at one of her short-clipped nails and then worried her cuticle between her teeth.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning, we want to know if you hooked up with the guy you were sent out to look for,” Tamara said.
Astrid huffed and crossed her arms. “Who betted on what?”
“Dana, Sarah, and I betted that you did,” Tamara said.
Astrid faced Maria again, and this time her partner looked up at her. “You’re the only holdout, huh?”
Maria shrugged. “Can’t lie, lightning bug. I was on the fence about it. Statistics were in favor of a hookup, but I stood to make a cool thousand dollars if you didn’t.”
“Some friend you are.”
One of Maria’s dark eyebrows edged up. “It’s been, what, three years? Four? Humans are warm-blooded, sentient beings who crave touch. There’s no reason to punish yourself for being what you are. I wouldn’t fault you for a hookup.”
Suddenly, three of the stares that had been pinned on Astrid shifted to Maria, and Astrid thought she knew exactly why.
They’d all chosen celibacy following the study. They hadn’t wanted to open up to any other man that way given the treachery of their last lovers, but now it seemed Maria didn’t have that hang-up.
Maria blinked. “Do I get the thousand bucks? I’d like to make a donation to this remarkable charity that—”
“Who did you have sex with?” Tamara asked.
Naturally, it’d have to be Tam. She didn’t hash her words, and by now, no one expected her to.
“You assume they were men you know?”
“Men?” Astrid said, that squeak re-entering her voice. If she sounded like an uptight prude, she didn’t care. “And you’re just able to detach yourself from them? No hurt feelings, no rebounding?”
Maria shrugged. “It was just sex. No-strings-attached sex.”
