Blame It on the Moon

by Shara Lanel

  After two weeks of the hottest sex he’d ever had in life, though, he sensed Kitty’s restlessness. Or maybe it was his own dissatisfaction. He liked her sense of humor, her tell-it-like-it-is attitude. He wanted to get to know her beyond touch and smell, but deepening the relationship meant deepening the risk, and for her own reasons, Kitty seemed to feel the same way. She kept conversations light, either about work or the world in general, and from this he knew that they had things in common, like a sense of environmental responsibility, a liberal bent in politics, and a love of crime dramas. But they never went deeper to talk about the things that really mattered, like family, dreams, history. He couldn’t…so it wasn’t fair to ask her to.

  Days when he caught himself dwelling on this fact were dark indeed.

  And now the moon’s pull dragged on him again, making him crotchety at work and jumpy at home. He spent too much time on the Internet, searching hopelessly for clues to Leslie’s murder or to his own existence, when he should be sleeping, but when he did sleep he dreamt of a forest teeming with living creatures that scattered as he loped past, fast and free. His heart ached with longing. Personally, he’d rather deal with flashbacks to Leslie’s death than with the gnawing thought that this month he shouldn’t hide from the moon.

  * * * * *

  Angelica slipped into her skirt and zipped it up as she stood before the long, antique mirror in Richard’s bedroom.

  “Angel.”

  “Yes?” She glanced over her shoulder to see Richard, sitting on the bed shirtless, tapping on his Blackberry. His dark nipples stood out against his tan pecs.

  “I think it’s time to do something with the bag I gave you. You still have it at work, correct?” His tone said she sure as hell better have.

  “Yes, it’s there.”

  “Does your boss have a personal space? You know, somewhere that only he puts things?”

  She pushed the back on her earring. “Well, there’s the one safe that I don’t have access to. I believe he keeps the business license and ledgers in there.”

  “Anywhere else? Someplace that you could get to if you wanted?”

  “He keeps his wallet and other personal items in the bottom drawer of his desk.”

  Richard smiled. “That’s perfect.” He set the Blackberry on the pillow next to him and leaned forward. “Do you close by yourself this week?”

  “Thursday night.”

  “Splendid. After the others have left, I want you to place the bag I gave you into Haden’s desk drawer.”

  “Why?” She bit her lip as soon as the word was out of her mouth. Richard raised an eyebrow, and Angelica knew she’d been chastised. “I’m sorry. Of course, I’ll do just as you ask.”

  “And we’ll celebrate afterward when I know you’ve completed the task.”

  Angelica prayed he’d make love to her then, no ropes, no commands, no punishments. Just simple affection. She needed it, because she was beginning to doubt his love for her.

  * * * * *

  Five minutes after four on Friday afternoon, the police arrived, sirens blaring.

  Okay, seeing her lover hauled out of his restaurant in handcuffs ‑‑ not the highlight of Kitty’s day. Definitely not a write-home-to-mother moment. Actually, it was a call-her-best-friend-and-wail-hysterically moment, but she hadn’t had time to do that yet.

  Gina had dragged her outside to check out the commotion. A half-dozen cop cars, lights flashing, drew onlookers from every business in the shopping center, and a barrage of unfamiliar thoughts hit Kit at once, like snippets of conversations heard on a CB radio, moments of clarity broken by loads of static. She scanned the faces, recognizing only a few. The rest must be customers and clients. The backdoor to the pub opened. Haden, head high and flanked by two officers, walked out with his hands bound behind him. Kit’s heart sank to her stomach.

  What was going on?

  Then she sensed the malevolence, almost like an attack. Images pierced her brain through a red film of hatred, images of Haden as he walked interspersed with flashes of ropes, knives, and naked, bruised flesh. Someone in the crowd was watching Haden and hating him. Kit scanned the crowd, searching for the source, but there were too many people shuffling positions, jockeying for a better view, and too many other thoughts crowding her head. Some of the shopping center folks wondered what Haden had done to draw the police. Others were glad to have a bit of excitement during an otherwise boring afternoon.

  Kit’s own brain was as chaotic as the scene in front of her, leaving no room for her to form her own opinions. Another flash, distorted by a red haze, seemed to be a memory of Haden fucking a blonde on a couch. The view was from an odd angle ‑‑ through a window, maybe? Was that the same woman Haden frequently thought about? Had someone been watching them together? When had this happened?

  But then Haden’s thoughts came to her, crystal clear compared to the others. Look at me, Kit. Please look at me. I want to explain all this to you, make you understand. Look at me. I need you to look at me.

  She gave up her search for the evil and focused on Haden, saw him looking at her. She met his gaze, held it, and smiled. She doubted that her smile was reassuring with the jumble of thoughts and emotions crowding her brain, but it was the best she could manage at the moment. However, his expression transformed, not quite to a smile, but the worry lines eased. Apparently she’d given him enough reassurance to keep calm in the face of a bad situation. She wished she could read him better, but there was too much mental noise from the crowd.

  As an officer helped Haden duck his head to get into the back of a cruiser, Kit noticed Angelica at the pub door. She was wringing her hands and scanning the crowd. Suddenly her thoughts came through loud and clear: Where is he? Where is he? He said he’d be here.

  “I can’t believe they’re taking Haden.” Gina reached for Kit’s hand. “What could he possibly have done?”

  “I don’t know.” Kit closed her eyes for a moment, recalling the dream of bloody sheets, a woman’s torn neck, and platinum hair. Kit didn’t know for sure what the police wanted with Haden, but she certainly had an idea, and that scared her beyond measure.

  Blame It on the Moon

  Chapter Ten

  “I’m here to see Haden Blackwood,” Kitty told the husky officer behind the desk, blinking at the grit in her eyes. She hadn’t slept most of the night, and she’d been driving for three hours, almost to West Virginia in fact. It had taken several phone calls and a lot of on-hold time this morning to even locate Haden. Apparently, the Richmond police had only lent their services on the search and arrest at Blackie’s Pub yesterday. The cops from Wolf’s Crossing had been invited in to do the honors.

  “You know that’s not his name, don’t you?” the officer said without looking up from the computer screen. He typed a few more letters in a hunt-and-peck method, which had Kitty focusing on the close-cropped red hair atop his head. He scowled, deleted a word, and typed a few more.

  Kitty took a deep breath. She’d coerced Marsha into helping Gina and Matt cover the store for the weekend. Marsha had a bit of retail experience, but Kitty wanted her mainly to make sure the teens didn’t take her absence as an unearned vacation. Maybe her relationship with Haden didn’t warrant such drastic measures. Maybe she should be washing her hands of him, but she needed to know why he’d lied to her.

  Then there was the hate she’d felt from one of the spectators yesterday. It had been directed at Haden. Could it have been one of his employees? Such a strong emotion had to be personal, and she hadn’t sensed that from anyone at the pub, even Angelica. Maybe it was the person who’d called in the tip to the police. A relative of Leslie, perhaps, or the actual murderer? Hell, it could even be the would-be robber that Haden had helped her run off a few weeks ago, but it had seemed more personal. She didn’t know, and that was enough to make her drive all the way out here in search of answers.

  The officer, dressed in a crinkled uniform with a bulky gun belt around his waist, finally looked u
p. He had kind green eyes. “You know that’s not his real name, right?”

  Kit sighed. She’d pried part of the story out of the cop who’d answered the phone, then found the rest online. A man named Aidan Blackthorne, who looked suspiciously like Haden, was wanted for the murder of Leslie Ann Shefferton on June 1, 2002. The article had boasted a prom photo of all things. The caption stated that Aidan and Leslie had been prom king and queen for the Class of 1995. When Kit saw that photo side by side with Haden’s mug shot, she’d finally burst into tears. All the stress of the arrest, all the doubts she’d had about Haden, crashed in on her. She’d cried for half an hour while Fergie licked her face and whimpered.

  “Yes, I know,” she said to the officer, glad that most of the shakiness had left her voice.

  He smiled and offered his hand as he stood up. “I’m Daniel Byrd, by the way. Sheriff. I went to high school with Aidan.”

  He seemed perversely happy about this. Hadn’t Haden said he’d grown up in Las Vegas? Another lie? Kit scowled but shook Daniel’s hand.

  “If looks could kill.”

  She scowled harder, which made his grin wider. She didn’t understand his mirth in this situation, but it was kind of infectious.

  “Aidan finally found himself someone, didn’t he?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’ve got to be his girl, right? And you strike me as someone loyal, too, not the way Leslie was.” He pictured Leslie behind the school making out with some Goth kid. I warned him, didn’t I? But did he ever listen where she was concerned?

  “Um, is this some odd interrogation technique? I really just want to talk to Haden. I’ve been driving for hours.” She was hungry, thirsty, and needed to pee, but all that could wait until she made sure he was okay. Irrational, since where safer than a police station, but this need had nothing to do with the rational part of her mind. And it was that same irrational need that kept her from calling him a stranger’s name.

  “No problemo. He’s just down this hall.” The sheriff jangled the keys in his pocket until Kit wanted to thrash him, but he tempered that by showing her memories of Haden as a teenage shortstop. He’d been handsome even then, especially in his pinstriped uniform, but lankier and with a bad haircut.

  “Aidan and I were best buds,” Daniel said conversationally. “Still are, I hope. Though he made that a bit difficult when he ran off a few years back. That was the first time I was ashamed of him, sorry to say. He should’ve gotten a lawyer and fought the charges. Running made him look guilty.”

  “So you don’t think he’s guilty?”

  “Aidan murder Leslie? That’d be like cutting his pecker off. Wouldn’t do it. No way.”

  Kit smirked, glad to know where Daniel stood and damned relieved to know that someone here was on his side.

  Finally the officer unlocked the barred door that led to the holding cells. The first area was unoccupied, but the second held a pair of grungy teens with matching brown dreads clanging the bars with their sneakers.

  “Put your shoes back on,” Daniel said. “And shut up, or I’ll call your mama instead of your daddy.” To Kit he muttered, “That’ll put the fear of God in them.”

  Kit bit her tongue to keep from laughing at the mental images she received from the boys of their mama, Mrs. Howetz, snapping a belt on their behinds and shaving their heads. Apparently she practiced a very hands-on form of discipline. Daniel was thinking about how soon he could get the twins before a judge, since the charge was just possession, and he was sick of listening to them. He was also thinking that Kit was downright sexy, and if that fool can’t treat her right and get his ass out of this mess, then I damn well will.

  The last cell appeared empty except for a bunk bed, but familiar thought patterns filled Kit’s brain, knocking out all the others. Haden remembered Daniel as a gawky boy and found the contrast between that Daniel and the officer in the uniform amusing. Kit scanned the cell from behind Daniel and realized Haden, eyes closed, reclined against the wall on the top bunk.

  “Howdy, Sheriff,” he said, wondering how such a noisy man ever caught the bad guys.

  “Why don’t you come on down from there and make yourself presentable?” Daniel said. “I brought someone to see you.”

  Haden sniffed the air, knowing he’d get a good whiff of the Howetz brothers’ BO, but overtop of the rank jail smells, the most pleasant fragrance of vanilla sailed across the air. Kitty was here.

  He’d bitten his tongue so many times to keep from asking Daniel to call her, or to give him the phone so that he could do it, so she’d know where to find him. He’d wanted so badly to see her, but he had no right to involve her in his mess. Instead he’d called the pub and talked to Emilio, who’d told him that Angelica hadn’t shown up for work. Luckily, the barman seemed to have a knack for management despite his lack of experience. He’d promised to keep Blackie’s running smoothly until Haden returned. More importantly, he hadn’t asked a single damn question about the cops.

  He breathed deeply once again. Kitty had found him on her own.

  She could have written him off as guilty, as so many had. Even Daniel thought he was guilty, it seemed, though his childhood friend never said it to his face. Instead, he’d cuffed Haden on the ear, called him pea-brained, and asked him if he knew a good lawyer. He did. The Richmond firm that handled Haden’s business needs also had a strong criminal law component, something he’d taken into account when he’d hired them.

  Haden opened his eyes and peered down at Kitty, trying to judge her expression. She smelled nervous, but that had to be natural since she’d watched her lover ‑‑ what else was he? ‑‑ get arrested. She also smelled faintly of coffee and gas, and her hands trembled. He couldn’t see her eyes clearly from this height, so he jumped off the bunk, landing easily on his feet. He crossed the space to the bars. Kit had met his eyes after his arrest ‑‑ that alone had made the long night bearable.

  “Hi,” she said with an embarrassed smile.

  Haden glanced at Daniel, who stood just a few feet away. The class clown had survived police academy. Who’d a thunk it? “Can you give us a few here?”

  “Do you mind being alone with the criminal element?” Daniel asked Kit, waving his hand in the direction of the twins.

  “I’m good,” Kit said, but her voice chimed an octave too high. “Bars and all.”

  Daniel grinned and marched back the way they’d come, jangling with keys, change, and God knows what else. The barred entry clanged shut behind him.

  “He seems to like you,” Kit commented, facing the bars of Haden’s cell, but not looking up. She seemed to find his feet fascinating. He wished he could read her thoughts. Did she hate him? She didn’t smell like anger, but he missed her usual smell, which for the past few weeks had been arousal.

  “Yeah, likes me so much he locked me up.” He couldn’t keep the derision from his tone.

  “That’s his job, but I think he’d be your friend again if you let him.”

  The job part was the truth, and he had to respect him for it. He didn’t know about the friend part. Haden had broken his trust, which most folks found hard to forgive. “I don’t want to talk about him. Why are you here?” He tried to sound gruff, disapproving. He ought to scare her off. Hell, she ought to have been scared off already.

  “That’s a dumb question.” Now she did look up, right into his eyes. “Did you do it?”

  “Hell, no!” But the guilt rode him as Leslie’s bloody flesh swam before his eyes again.

  “So why do they think you did?”

  “I was there.” He closed his eyes thinking of the moments before he’d found his lover ripped to shreds. No memories of sleep, he’d risen from the bed cautiously, trying not to wake her. He’d tiptoed to the bathroom and ran the shower as hot as it would go. Standing under the steaming stream, he’d relived the night before. Spicy sausage pizza, beer, and an action movie, followed by a chick flick to get her more in the mood. They’d made out on the couch, then moved to
the bedroom, where they’d had hot and heavy sex, but not rough or kinky. He’d passed out for a few hours after that. The shower had revived him some, though he’d still felt groggy. Groggy and horny, an interesting combination.

  “It must’ve happened while I was in the shower, but the medical examiner said the time of death was between two and three a.m.”

  “You showered at what time?”

  “Sun was up, so probably around six.”

  “Why couldn’t it have happened earlier?” Kit asked calmly, her voice soothing.

  “How could I have slept through something so violent? Why didn’t I notice when I first woke up?” That was the question that still plagued him. His wolf senses had failed him ‑‑ why?

  “Tell me all the details you know. There’s got to be something to make sense of all of this.” She faced him with an earnest expression. He thought of Little Red Riding Hood conned by the wolf.

  “Why are you here?” He wanted to reach through the bars and grab her shoulders, shake some sense into her. “You dreamed it, I know it, so why are you acting like you think I’m innocent?” She needed to think about her wellbeing, not his.

  “Haden, focus.” She snapped her fingers, the sound loud despite the raucous laughter from the next cell. “The point is I am here, and we need to figure this out. How did they find you this time?”

  There were so many other questions that she could be asking, that she had the right to ask, but she was ignoring the nonessentials. He pushed aside his amazement as several facts fought for dominance in his brain. He recalled the sense of being watched one night, Angelica’s strange scent, the search warrant, and the evidence they’d found in his desk. “Someone planted evidence in my work desk, something from Leslie’s murder. They haven’t told me what.”

  “Don’t they have to give you that information?”

  “My lawyer’s going to find out.” His lawyer, Tim Walton, had advised Haden that even if they proved him innocent of the murder, he’d likely face charges for forgery, bail jumping, and fraud. But his lawyer planned to argue that the stress of being falsely accused had caused him to act irrationally. Hopefully the judge would feel like he’d gone through enough.