Ranger Knox (Shifter Nation: Werebears Of Acadia Book 1)

by Meg Ripley

  The sun was almost blinding in its brilliance, but Elizabeth thought it was just because she’d been in the courthouse since before dawn, like always, finishing up the remaining bit of paperwork from the last week. She represented two young shoplifters whose fathers bought their way out of serving time and scored them a few hours of community service. She was glad to see the end of the case; the teens had been rude on top of unrepentant, and she was sure she would see them again if she stuck around Claiborne. The types of teenagers she wanted to help weren’t born with silver spoons in their mouths, or at least didn’t take them for granted.

  The drive back to her house was short, since most people were already at work or school at nine thirty; Elizabeth loved driving her little Honda through the empty surface streets and counting all the elderly couples walking hand and hand past all the kitschy looking storefronts on Main street. The shops were all covered with fake wood paneling in front so that the town looked more “Old Western,” helping to draw in travelers. In the middle of March, there were few tourists drifting across their paths, so the shoppers were mostly stay at home mothers or teenagers ditching school. By the time she pulled into the driveway of her two bedroom house, she’d only counted three couples, and one hunch-backed old man with a bright green cane making his way into the bank.

  A soft chime sounded when Elizabeth walked into her darkened living room, startling her even though the sound was low; she started to panic before she remembered it was just the answering machine attached to the ancient landline she’d had installed. Her cellphone service would sometimes fade out in parts of town, and when her mailbox got full, there was no other way to reach her. Apparently, she had forgotten to clear her messages again. She walked across the room to punch the glowing red button and collapse into the easy chair next to the phone and began taking off her shoes.

  Beep. “It’s Matty. I was just wondering how you’re doing...maybe we could meet up for a drink? Call me; let me know how you are.”

  “Not nearly desperate enough to call you back,” Elizabeth said under her breath as she nervously tugged on the loose coils of her hair. I have to get this re-weaved, she thought absentmindedly. Maybe next week, in case I get in an interview.

  Beep. “It’s Douglass. Chase’s agent wants you to meet with him this evening, six pm. Don’t be late!”

  Dammit. She’d have to meet with him before she got a chance to line up another job; she’d been hoping the arena cowboy would drag his feet since his trial wasn’t set to begin for another few weeks. Why was he so eager? Guys like him got off so easy they often never had time to feel anxiety before they were out the door again. God knows she’d had enough arrogance for one lifetime, and Chase Brighton was probably so coated in it you couldn’t keep his grip in a handshake. Maybe I should just turn down this case, she thought desperately. But they’d probably try to fire me before I could quit.

  She opened her phone and caught sight of a headline from a news app on her home screen: HARE’S HARASSMENT WOES, read the block letters. The article detailed the dozens of sexual harassment lawsuits brought against Mayor Hare, many of which were settled out of court. It was just one more horrifying reason to get out of this town. I wish there were some way to take him out with me.

  Elizabeth stripped down to her panties and climbed under her sheets for a quick nap, vowing to search the want ads for a few hours before she had to go meet with her new client. If she was lucky, maybe she’d have something by the end of that week. If she was really lucky, perhaps the end of the day.

  And if luck had any real weight in this world at all, you’d have never been in this town in the first place, Elizabeth thought. Seconds later, she was fast asleep.

  ****

  When she woke up, she assumed the blackout curtains were doing their job, and the twilight in her room was artificial; then she remembered she hadn’t pulled the blackout curtains before he laid down, and she was out of bed so fast she nearly tangled herself in the sheets.

  Her bedside clock read five twenty eight. Fuck! There was no time to eat anything, or even do more than hop in and out of the shower. Elizabeth raced around her home, grateful she hadn’t acquired much in her short tenure in Claiborne; it made finding and organizing things far easier. Some of her things were still in boxes, in fact—never unpacked from her initial move. After the first six months, it was a priority issue, and after that it was about comfort. Elizabeth never felt welcomed by the little town, and being in a constant state of unease delayed her putting down roots until it was too late. The soil here was sucked dry, and she had to tumble on.

  It took her twenty minutes to shower and pull on her black pantsuit, and another ten to drive to the courthouse. Her fingers were gripping the steering wheel so tightly as she drove that her hands were numb by the time she pulled into the parking garage with five minutes to spare. Deep breath and focus. This might be your first and last time meeting this dipwad. Elizabeth straightened the lapels of her deep blue shirt and buttoned her suit jacket as she climbed out of the car. It was chilly for March, even for the evening. Maybe we’ll get hail again.

  The security guard on duty waved her through immediately, too engrossed in his Soap Opera Digest to bother greeting her or to look in her purse. The courthouse was oddly empty at this hour; normally it was swarming with cops, lawyers, and criminals from open to close. She got all the way to the third level before seeing another person—a lone janitor pushing a dirty mop around outside the men’s bathroom. There was a fluorescent light flickering above him, and it cast the entire hallway into a sickening yellowish glow that nearly caused Elizabeth to reconsider the meeting. What are you, superstitious? Just go to the conference room!

  Conference room D was the smallest room, but it was the only one with a couch. It also was without cameras, but she wasn’t worried about being attacked. When she pushed open the door, a waif-like woman with short red hair curling around her ears was sitting cross-legged in a desk chair while a tall, tanned man with dark brown hair stretched out on the plush green couch. The woman sprang to her feet as Elizabeth entered, extending one hand as she offered a tight smile, but the man didn’t move at all. Jerk.

  “I’m Ella Miner,” the woman said, “Chase’s agent. You must be Ms. Coin.” Her handshake was firm but brief, and her hands were almost colder than the room.

  “I am,” Elizabeth answered, turning toward the couch where Chase was lying down, eying her with a passive interest with his emerald eyes. His square jaw was covered in black stubble, and his full lips were smiling impishly. “And you must be Mr. Brighton.”

  At the mention of his name, the man got up from the couch and shot Elizabeth the goofy, charming smile she was used to seeing on his show posters and TV ads; it was no less cheesy in person, but Elizabeth was somewhat disarmed, nonetheless. His handshake was also firm, but he lingered, and that made Elizabeth take a step back from him in alarm; he chuckled as she did, apparently finding her surprise funny.

  “Sorry,” Chase said good-naturedly. “They told me my lawyer was E. Coin; I suppose I was expecting a man, and you caught me off guard.”

  “That’s quite sexist,” Elizabeth pointed out, eyeing him warily. He was oozing charm, so it was hard to take him seriously, and that frustrated her even more.

  “Quite,” he agreed. “But I hope you can forgive me. Being charged with something you’re innocent of doesn’t put you in the right frame of mind.” He kept his eyes on her as he spoke, moving from point to point on her face and body, and it made Elizabeth feel as though a spotlight was being turned on her. She was used to clients avoiding her gaze as much as possible. He had a constant energy about him that was clear even in interviews and photos, and he was displaying it now with the restless motion of his eyes. Elizabeth was no stranger to male attention, so she knew his gaze was doing the usual stop around her full breasts, shapely thighs and what was visible of the curve of her bottom, but he also seemed to be looking right through her. It was unnerving; this man was lookin
g at her as though he already knew her intimately, but she’d never spoken to him in her life.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Elizabeth finally said. Chase smiled, and this grin was more tired and genuine than the last, and she had the feeling her forgiveness really had been needed. Was he being polite, or did he feel desperate for her approval? A showbiz cowboy with an insecure streak? Not the furthest story ever fetched.

  “Anyway, now that there are charges, a lot of that will stop,” Elizabeth continued. “But you may still be called in for various reasons, and some may not seem perfectly valid to you.”

  “They’ve been dragging this out for a few weeks now,” Ella said desperately. “They keep bringing him in and then releasing him without charges. Getting the official charge read to us finally was almost a relief, because every time they got him out of bed, we kept wondering if he would be able to come back. And they cops were so rude. It was like they didn’t care about treating us fairly at all.” The fear in the woman’s voice wasn’t lost on Elizabeth. Poor woman, she mused; she actually thinks he’s in trouble. She kept looking anxiously between Chase and Elizabeth, wringing her hands in front of her in an almost comical fashion.

  “I know what you mean,” Elizabeth said as she sat down at the table in the center of the room. She really did feel bad for them—at least for agent—so she tried to keep her voice soothing and low. “But that is a common tactic. They want to break you down, wear down your spirit before they charge you so you’ll cave more easily to their demands.”

  Chase and Ella exchanged a complicated look, pregnant with layers of meaning, and Elizabeth wondered what they weren’t telling her.

  “They will throw everything at you, guys,” Elizabeth warned, looking between the two and trying to mine their unspoken conversation for clues. “They’ll dredge up your past, try to destroy your career, go after old friends and family…anything they can do to beat you and get you in jail faster.”

  “They can’t do that,” Chase said stiffly, flopping on to the couch in outrage. “I’m innocent, they don’t even have—“

  “Mr. Brighton,” Elizabeth cut in, “I don’t mean to be rude, but you do have a well-documented history of drug possession, occasionally with the intent to distribute. Those are serious charges that are definitely going to be a factor in the decision, whether you like it or not. I’m going to need a little bit more than your solemn oath of innocence.” Like a hair sample, for one, which you’ve refused to provide thus far.

  Ella looked at Chase again and widened her eyes, and they had a tense battle in complete silence. It went on for so long that Elizabeth almost said something again—then Ella started shaking her head slowly in a clear gesture that Chase seemed to be choosing to ignore. He leaned forward on his knees, and Ella made a noise between anger and defeat, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation as she leaned back in her seat.

  Elizabeth finally spoke. “Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Well, how about this, Lizzie?” Chase said, his eyes glimmering with excitement. “I’m being set up to be sent to the slaughter, and your boss is in on it.”

  Several things happened at once: Ella stood up in anticipation of Elizabeth’s move to leave; Elizabeth herself anticipated Ella’s move to block her; and Chase thrusted himself in the middle of the action, grabbing Elizabeth’s arm to stop her from leaving. The next thing that Elizabeth was aware of was Chase’s six feet of muscles being sent crashing to the floor after she swept his right leg out from underneath him. He lay on his back, wheezing, while Ella backed away into the corner, watching the abrupt escalation with frightened eyes.

  “Rule one,” Elizabeth said as she knelt over Chase’s red face, “You don’t get to call me Lizzie. Rule two: you don’t get to decide when I leave. Rule three: don’t ever touch me. Not if you want to stay out of the hospital. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Chase wheezed.

  “You’re supposed to help us!” Ella whimpered from her corner. She sounded so pitiful that Elizabeth regretted her action for a moment.

  “I am helping you,” Elizabeth said. “I’m probably the only person who will, if you’re telling the truth. Every person here is in the DA’s pocket, except me. Now, either you’re a complete idiot who believes the mayor would frame him but not have crooked employees stashed everywhere, or you’ve already checked me out.” She looked at Ella, whose pale face was slowly returning to its normal shade. “Why do I feel like it’s the latter?”

  “Because you’re smart,” Chase whispered as he stood. He used one roughened palm to gingerly rub his backside, which had taken about fifty percent of the sudden impact. “It’s why I picked you. I always knew you were smart…but now I know you’ll fight for me, too.” He walked back over to the sofa and motioned for Ella to join him. “Come on, you chicken. She’s not gonna hurt you.” He shook his head, annoyed. “Glad I didn’t happen to need a bodyguard.”

  “You were flat on your back!”

  “Quit squabbling!” Elizabeth shouted, and they fell silent immediately. “Now tell me how you got into this mess so I can get you the hell out of it.” Or if I can’t, maybe you can get the hell out of here when I do. Somehow, she wasn’t feeling too great about either possibility.

  ****

  An hour later, Elizabeth was staring at her hands in shock, trying to make sense of what she was being told. She kept hearing Ella’s words echo in her head—she couldn’t stop hearing them rattle around between her ears, no matter how hard she tried. My boss is partnering with the mayor to fill up the prison with drug arrests. My boss is worse than crooked; he’s full on corrupt. I’ve been working for an irredeemably corrupt man.

  Perhaps it was this more than anything else that finally fed her rage so that it burned hot enough to eat through her shock. “So, the DA has a deal with the Mayor to plant evidence so they can make drug busts, in order to, what…strengthen his anti-drug campaign?”

  “In this town, it’s his last foothold,” Ella said. Her voice was hollow and coarse from talking for so long, and from being so thoroughly drained by the day’s events. Elizabeth could see the dark circles under both of their eyes, even though the each of them had clearly attempted to use stage make-up to conceal them. “A lot of his voters are leaning more to the left, being swayed by their children or grandchildren. He knows he’s on his way out, so he’s pulling out all the stops, hitting them where they’re still vulnerable to alarmist tactics, or at least impressionable.”

  Chase was leaning back in his seat on the couch, bouncing one muscular leg nervously in place as the two women spoke. He hadn’t said much, and Elizabeth knew now that it was because he expected to be turned to when she came to his part.

  “How did you get wrapped up in this, Chase?” Elizabeth said. “How did you ever find out about this?”

  “I saw them,” he said simply, and his green eyes hardened as he recalled the incident. “My cousin has been to jail for misdemeanors twice, and he’s half black, so he was an easy target for Hare’s camp, I guess. I was smoking a cigarette in a field behind his house, and I saw two cops slip into his living room. I crept up on them to watch through the window, and they put something in the cushions and slipped right out.” Chase slammed his fist on his leg, and Ella jumped at his sudden burst of movement. “Before I could get back in, the cops were beating down the door with guns drawn. I’m not proud of what I did.” The man closed his eyes and dropped his chin. “I high-tailed it out of there.” His voice choked on his last words, and as he pressed one hand to his eyes, Elizabeth realized he was tearing up. Is he really doing this? She thought uneasily. Is this a ploy to get me to believe him?

  Then his broad set of shoulders began to shake, and she felt an icy tide guilt wash over her all at once. Elizabeth waited for Chase to raise his head again before speaking. “It’s a human reaction,” she allowed, keeping her gaze as gentle as possible. “Fight or flight. You’re not trained to fight, so it’s flight. Nothing to be ashamed of.”<
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  Chase laughed bitterly and wiped his eyes. “Maybe so, but I got what was coming to me for skipping out on their blood. They saw me, and even though they didn’t catch up with me right away, they caught up with me.” He stood then, and lifted his t-shirt to show Elizabeth a six-inch long gash running from his collarbone to just below his heart. Even though it had clearly been sutured and healed over, it was such an angry red color that Elizabeth knew it had been an incredibly deep cut. She gasped involuntarily, but didn’t flinch away from the wound. This is real, she thought frantically. They really tried to kill this man for catching them planting evidence.

  “Before that, I had started spreading word around, trying to see if anyone else had experienced anything similar with these guys,” Chase continued, dropping back onto the couch. “I had a little information, but most people were too afraid now to get back to me. Hare’s men sent their message, even if I didn’t die. Even so, they can’t have me living to tell the tale more…so they planted a load of synthetic drugs in my place. They even tested me when they brought me in, three times—but because they were negative, they were discarded as inconclusive, and they tried to get me to consent to another test. I didn’t, because I know the more I cooperate, the faster they can get me in prison to finish me off.”