“So, presuming that he was dead doesn’t explain why they didn’t miss him before now. What did he do to cover that?” Rogen told him that she was looking into that too. “You think that someone is dirty on the inside, don’t you?”
“Yes. I’m sure of it. Junior isn’t the first convict to pull this shit. Six months ago, two other ‘bodies’ were taken out. The coroner isn’t really aware of it, I don’t think, but I’ll get into that after I figure out who the dirty person or persons are.” Thatcher said that he had no doubt that she’d figure it out. “Such confidence. I am worried about Anna, however. She claims that she’s a half breed, or something along those lines. I have a few questions for you.”
“All right. But I might not know the answers, just so you know. Mom and Dad will if I don’t, I’m sure of it.” Rogen told him that she was asking him first so as not to get them involved just yet. “Why? Is it bad?”
“I think it might be. Is there any way that you can figure out if someone is only partly tiger? I mean, other than a search of her background.” He said tasting her blood would work. “Okay, barring that, because I’m not sure she’d let you at this point, is there some other way?”
“I don’t know. But I would think that there is.” She said that she had an idea. “You don’t think that she’s a Hayes, do you? Do you suppose they kidnapped her or something? Is that what you’re thinking?”
“There are traits that I know only a full blooded shifter can do, correct?” He said there were a great many of them. “I thought so. I’ve yet to see her tiger—none of us have, for that matter—but I’d bet anything that with her green eyes, she is no more related to the Hayes family than I am. Hayes Senior has brown eyes, and from what I was able to get from the search on her mother, she too had brown eyes. Could be just as she was told, there was a tiger back along the way, but I have my doubts. She has magic.”
“What sort of magic?” Rogen told him what she’d figured out. “That is one of the traits of a pure blood. We all age very slowly, and we heal just as fast. Anna doesn’t look a day over twenty, if that. Okay, what else? I’m sure you have a couple more.”
“I do. The other day, quite by accident, I saw her shift only her hand into a claw. She was in the field behind Morgan’s house, and had brambles all around her. She simply pulled them away with her shifted hand. Is that anything that can be done?” He shook his head. “I didn’t think so. I can’t do it either. I tried. It would be handy when you get all shitty with me. I can, however, bring down a world of hurt on you in other ways.”
“I know that. Please don’t. I love you.” She laid her head on his shoulder and watched Jimmy sleep. “He’s a cougar. I wonder what he’s going to be like. Probably just like you.”
“Thanks.” Thatcher just laughed at her. “I’m going to tell you right now; I’m not going to share him with everyone tonight. He’s mine, and I’m going to lay claim to him as soon as anyone wants to touch him.”
“Are you planning to kill them all? Because that’s the only way I can see this even remotely working.” Rogen looked up at him. “Mom and Dad will take him from you without asking. My brothers will hold you in a head lock, which now that I think about it, you’d be able to get free from. Why don’t you just share him tonight, and we’ll work on your tendencies of being extremely violent concerning our kid?”
“He’s the first kid I have.” Thatcher laughed. “Oh, all right. I’ll share, but I’m not going to be nice about it at all. You can take that to the bank.”
“No one would expect you to be anything but not nice, love.” Rogen wasn’t sure how he meant that, but she let it go. “When I spoke to Morgan earlier today he told me that he and Anna were going shopping. I have no idea why, but he sounded like they were going to go and have a blast. I hate shopping about as much as you do.”
“I don’t mind shopping online.” Her pager went off. “I have to go and work now for a little while. Not long. I have a new program running, and it said it would take ten hours to download. I’m only giving it five hours. If it’s not ready by then, then it’s not right. I can’t have programs running that long to download onto a server when it might be something needed right away.”
The office that she had set up in the basement was a gamer’s dream. Twelve monitors had been installed so far, along with her own server, as well as so much other gadgetry that she could power the entire state with Internet and not drain on her work at all. But it was hers, her own private system that could take out a person doing bad shit all the way around the world, even if he was surrounded by twenty other people.
The program was finished downloading. According to her computer it had only taken about two hours to work. Giddy, she moved the curser around until she was centered on Junior Hayes. She could see him so well that Rogen could tell that his face was tatted up, he needed a shave, and his fly was unzipped.
Putting the little blue mark on him, all she needed to do was tell it to run and it would give her everything she needed on the man. Not only that, it would give her a flashback—that’s what she was calling it—of things that he’d done in the last twenty-four hours. As that information appeared on the other monitor, she moved the camera around that had caught him to figure out just where he was.
The funny thing about having the longitude and latitude of a person’s whereabouts was that she still would need a map to figure out where they were. Not with this new program. She had an exact location of not just numbers as to where he was now, but it updated every time he moved, as along with the street address he was closest too. Also—and this was personally what she wanted; it gave her the direction of the next camera to catch him on.
“Mother fuck balls.” He was already in Tennessee. At the rate he was going, he could very well be there in about four days. She didn’t need that. Not yet. Morgan and Anna had to settle things between them first. If not, then one or both of them could be seriously hurt.
Morgan and Anna just pulled in the drive. They’re a bit early. You want to come up here to show off Jimmy? She said to give her ten minutes. Rogen told him that she was working on a location for Junior. All right. Jimmy just went up to his room for a nap with the nanny, so they’ll not know anything. Oh, I’m to tell you to please be nice to Anna. She’s very insecure about her clothes. I have no idea what that means.
I’m sincere. Does this mean that she’s dressed in something that is going to make me have to bite my tongue until it bleeds? She did some more work on the computer and realized that Thatcher hadn’t answered her. Thatcher?
Honey, you are going to be blown away by the way she looks. It’s amazing what fitting clothing can do for a woman. Now she had to go up, but paused long enough to print off some of the pictures so that she could look at them to see where Junior had been, Rogen picked them up and took them with her. Christ, she’s beautiful.
As the picture spit out of the computer, two of them caught her eye. Going back to that camera to see if she could make better sense of what she was seeing, Rogen pulled out a thumb drive and saved the picture. Junior was going to get his ass killed, hopefully before he made it to where his sister was.
Even though they were only human, she was sure that they could still harm Anna; if—and Rogen always thought about the “if” of something—they could get past any of them. She hoped they couldn’t, but you couldn’t tell with idiots. Nor could she dispel the fact that they were Anna’s relatives—people that she’d grown up with, anyway.
Going up the stairs, she saw Anna. Christ, she was gorgeous. The dress was a honey yellow. It made her porcelain skin look so much softer, lighter even. While not washing her out at all, it made her cheeks glow, her eyes sparkle in a way that made it appear as if she had a touch of wildness about her that only few would ever know. The slit up the side made her legs look longer, thus punctuating the fact that she was tall. Even in her yellow sparkling heels, she only reached to Morgan’s sho
ulder. Beautiful did not cover how she looked at this moment.
Rogen could hear Anna talking and realized that she was on the phone. Whoever had called here for her would soon know that their asses were Rogen’s if they threatened a hair on Anna’s head. Rogen would tear them up, and not necessarily with her cat.
Chapter 3
Morgan didn’t know what to do with himself. He could feel the anger and the fear surrounding Anna while she was on the phone. But since she wasn’t speaking at the moment, he didn’t know how to comfort her with this.
Should he take the phone from her? He thought that would get his ass kicked. Could he lean in and listen in on the conversation? No, he was sure that if she wanted him to hear it, she would have offered.
As soon as Rogen came up from downstairs, she handed him a stack of what he thought was about ten snapshots. The top one, he assumed, was of Junior standing over a dead woman with a knife in his hand.
Then she did something that he’d not been able to convince himself to do. Rogen took the phone from Anna. It didn’t go to her without a fight, though. Finally, surprisingly to him, Anna won the battle. Rogen told her to talk to him, then showed her the picture that he’d looked at.
“You killed someone? Christ, Junior, what the hell are you doing? As much as I’d love to see you back in prison, killing someone isn’t good. You’ll be there as soon as they find you if I have anything to say about it.”
Rogen reached over and pushed a button that put Anna’s brother on speaker phone.
“What are you going to do, Anna? Turn me in again? That only worked for you the one time—I want you to remember that shit. I’m not going back to prison for you or anyone else.” Anna asked him about the women he’d killed. “I don’t know how you figured that out about me killing those women, but you can bet your ass whatever I do to you is gonna be much worster.”
“What the hell do you think is going to be worse, not worster, than killing me, you moron? Christ, you should have been smothered as a kid. And you’d better have all your worldly possessions taken care of, Junior. If not, then I guess I’ll have to deal with them.” He asked her what she was talking about. “Coming here. You think you’re going to just be able to do what you did to me as a kid? I got news for you now, buster. Once I’m able to sniff you out—and I will, most certainly—I’m going to make sure you never bother anyone again.”
“Did you just threaten me, Anna? And if you call me Junior again, I swear to you I’m going to carve my name into your head so that you don’t ever forget it. I’m Noah, you fucking bitch. Say it with me.” Thatcher laughed when she called him Junior once again. “You got someone listening in on us? Mother fucker, you gots no rights to do shit unless I allow it. I’m going to enjoy taking you apart, Anna. Just you wait and see.”
“You might have let this slip your mind at some point of you getting ass fucked, dumbass, but I’m a tiger. You are not. I’m not anywhere as afraid as you should be.” He said that a bullet would take care of her. “Do you really think so? Well, come on then, you come here and try to put a bullet in me, and we’ll see who walks away. And Junior, you should be watching your back too. I’m turning you in for murder as soon as I hang up on you.”
The phone slammed down hard against the cradle. When Morgan started to reach for her, Anna put her hand over her mouth and Rogen told her where the bathroom was. Morgan watched his mate run down the hall. Christ, he thought, she is as bad as Rogen. He started to go to her when Rogen put her hand on his chest.
“Wait. There are a couple of things I need to tell you first. Her too, but I think right now, she’ll be better taking it from you.” He told Rogen that he wasn’t so sure of that. “Trust me, it will be better. This isn’t the first woman that he’s killed. There are three counting this one. All the same MO. He rapes them until they’re nearly dead, then he slits their throats. Anna knows how he does it too.”
“Where is he?” Rogen told him. “I see. And being that close, I’m sure you have someone on him every step of the way now.”
“I have since he was out, but now I have my own set of eyes on him. Junior won’t be able to kill again, not if I can help it.” Morgan thanked her. “You have to bond with her, Morgan. She’ll be stronger than she is right now. We all know that. The time for getting her used to us is up. He’ll kill her, or try to, if she is taken by him. With you and her bonded, you know what she’ll be after that.”
“Yes. Not only stronger, but she’ll also have whatever little bit of magic I got when I was able to shift.” Rogen nodded. “Anything else you need from us? I mean, you know I’ll do anything to keep her safe.”
“Just make sure that she has enough strength and guts to take the fucker on. Also, you might not like this, but she will need to know what is said when he’s killed, if it comes to that. If not, then I’m afraid she’ll have to live with the unknown.” Morgan asked her what she meant. “If she thinks he might have had some second thoughts about his life. He might. It has happened before, you know.”
“Do you think he will? I mean, honestly, do you think for a moment he sounded like a man who had a change of heart?” She shook her head. “Okay then. I understand what you’re saying. She’ll need to be the one that orders his death, or even does it herself, so that there are no what ifs later on. I can’t promise you anything except that I’ll try to not kill him for her. But if he touches her with intent to harm her, all promises are off.”
“You bet your sweet ass they are.” Rogen looked at her mate and smiled at him when he stood in the doorway looking all mean and pissy. When he spoke again, she could almost feel his anger toward Junior. “My parents and brothers all just pulled up. Show time.”
“What the hell do you have going on?”
She simply walked away from Morgan when he asked. She could hear him laughing, so Rogen made her way to Anna. The other woman was coming out of the bathroom when she stepped into the hall. She asked her if she was all right.
“I’m not sure.” Rogen told her that she could understand that. “I don’t know that you can. I just signed my death warrant concerning my brother.” Without thought as to what Anna would do to her, Rogen smacked her in the face. “What the fuck was that for? You do know that I can take you on, don’t you?”
“I’m sure you can. And I have to be honest with you, Anna. I’m thinking that you could beat my ass about half the time too. I’d rather not put that to the test, but I’m betting that you have almost as much training as I do in the protecting yourself kind of precautions.” Anna only nodded. “There are some things I feel you need to talk about with Morgan.”
“You need for us to bond.” Rogen wasn’t impressed by many people, but she was with Anna. Not only did that impress her, but she had a feeling that Anna could beat the shit out of her more times than not.
Anna had grown up on the streets. So had Rogen, but not like Anna had. For Anna it had been fight for her every meal or die. The same with her home life. While Rogen could beat her in a combat setting with weaponry, Anna could beat her with her smarts. How to fight dirty. And there was no doubt that she would, too.
Hearing the front door open, Rogen asked her if she’d hang around after the others left. She wanted to show her a few things. After Anna agreed, Rogen wrapped her arm around her waist and gave her a handgun, without a thought to what might happen when she did so.
Rogen was surprised once again by Anna, who not only checked the magazine for the handgun being hot, but stuck it in the back of her pants as Rogen would have done. This was a woman she thought she could work with, if she’d agree.
While his family was in the living room, Rogen noticed that Thatcher was missing. She knew where he was, and told them all to have a seat, that they had something that they wanted to share with them.
Thatch snorted. “I know you ain’t breeding. Whatever else you have to tell us isn’t going to be any kind of goo
d surprise. I don’t know about the rest of these here people, but I surely could use some news like that.” She glared at him. It was that or squeeze him in a hug for being just like she’d hoped he’d be. “Well, we all came over here, and that son of mine just took off like he wasn’t going to visit with us none. Also, there had better be a dinner coming. I’m about starved. I was too nervous to think about food when we was ordered to come here.”
“If I had ordered you anywhere, you old shit, I would have sent armed guards after your skinny ass. And there is dinner involved. But I’m not sure you’ll want to eat it when it’s ready.” He asked her why not. “Because I’m going to maim you in a way that you can’t eat. Why are you so cantankerous all the time?”
“Probably the same reason you’re a mean girl all the time. What is this supposed surprise?” Meggie told him to behave. “I don’t want to behave. I want this done so that I can get on with what I was doing before.”
“You weren’t doing a darn thing but taking your afternoon nap. After you’d had your lunch nap. Rogen is right, you have become cantankerous lately. Why is that?” He told her what he wanted. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I hear you right. You want a what?”
“A grandbaby. And don’t you go acting like you don’t want one too. Darn it, Meggie, they been married for a month. Surely in that time a grandbaby might well have been—” He looked at Rogen when a sound from the hall caught his attention. “You’re not nice, making a noise like that when I just told you that I wanted a grandbaby.”
Morgan: Robinson Destruction – Paranormal Tiger Shifter Romance Page 3
