by E A Price
Ling looked around the now tidy room. What the heck just happened? Heavens, her mother was a master manipulator; she ought to have gone into politics.
She lay back on the bed, thoughts whirling about Myron and Robert. She hadn’t realized at first, by Myron was just as bad as Robert. Why did she keep attracting these losers? Why couldn’t she meet someone honest, who could actually keep it in his pants?
She thought of her upcoming blind date, and her panda yowled unhappily. That was definitely not something she was looking forward to.
Chapter Four
“What are they saying in there?”
Mia tapped at her keyboard. “I don’t know.”
“What do you think the Detective wants?”
Mia breathed in and out. “I’m sure I have no idea.”
“Do you think it’s about one of the current skips?
The rabbit shifter’s nose twitched in irritation. “I know as much as you do.”
Carly cocked her head on one side. “Are my questions really annoying you?”
Mia sighed and smiled. “Maybe a little.”
Carly shrugged and apologized. Detective Wyatt Leeman, a lion shifter, came into the office ten minutes ago, and immediately asked to speak to Marcus in his office. Alone. Carly was dying to know the reason why, while Mia was too frazzled to care.
They had to get rid of their most recent temp, Gladys, a middle-aged, ex-secretary and owner of seventeen cats. For one thing, she kept throwing all the coffee into the trash; she said it was the devil’s brew. Carly brought a box of Happy Heart donuts to work, for the office to share. Gladys threw them out; she said they were the devil’s snack cake. Jackson noted that the devil had good taste, and Gladys then started to try and exorcise him. She wasn’t good for business.
Carly flipped through a copy of The Daily Lunar before an excited look flashed across her face. “Do you think it’s about the Blind Date Killer?”
Mia quirked an eyebrow at her bouncy colleague, “Why would Detective Leeman want to talk to Marcus about that?”
“Maybe he needs Marcus’ help in tracking him down.”
Mia got up to get herself an aspirin. “It’s a bit early to get us involved; we, usually, have to wait until the criminals are actually caught.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Carly folded the newspaper and dropped it onto the desk.
Mia shook her head and disappeared into the kitchen. It was hard to believe Carly ever worked in an office before now; to Mia, the red fox seemed too energetic to be contained by four walls.
Carly’s face lit up as Jackson and Logan came in through the door. They had been off catching skips all morning while she was relegated to the office. She launched herself at her mate, who eagerly caught her and smothered kisses over her face.
Logan asked where Mia was, and Carly waved her arm toward the kitchen. As Logan disappeared, Marcus’ door opened, and the snake shifter cleared his throat.
Carly drew away from her mate’s ardent kiss, while Jackson growled at the other males. Or rather, he growled at Detective Leeman. The lion had once arrested his mate for murder, and Jackson couldn’t forgive him. It was all sorted now, and Jackson conveniently forgot the fact that he had actually tried to hunt Carly down, and drag her to the cops himself, but it still rankled.
Marcus cocked his head. “Isn’t this why we have a bathroom and a supply cupboard?”
Carly disentangled herself from the passionate embrace, with a little trouble, and seated herself behind her, temporary, desk. Jackson stood behind her, scowling at the lion.
Detective Leeman turned back to Marcus. “Give me a call if he tries to contact you.”
Marcus shook his proffered hand. “I will, thanks for stopping by, Wyatt.”
The Detective said a quick goodbye to Carly, studiously ignored Jackson’s furious glare, and left.
Marcus leafed through the open case files while Carly almost exploded with curiosity.
“What did he want?” demanded Jackson before Carly could.
She beamed at him. Yep, she knew she could rely on her mate to be just as nosy as she was.
Mia and Logan came back into the office, whispering. They hushed when they saw Marcus.
“Everything okay?” asked Mia. She could swear her uncle looked a tiny bit worried, but it was hard to tell, he kept himself so closed off.
His beast was circling uncertainly. He wasn’t sure whether he should be worried about the possible threat or not. “A python shifter I caught, four years ago, has just been released from jail. When I caught him, he was trying to flee to Mexico, and he promised he would kill me when he got out of jail.”
The assembled groups’ eyes bulged. They didn’t know whether to be more alarmed about that or the fact that Marcus appeared nonchalant.
Marcus shrugged. “It’s probably nothing. He’s probably forgotten me, but Wyatt thought it best to warn me.”
He started to walk back to his office when Mia stopped him. “Wait, are you sure it’s nothing? He could have been sitting in his prison cell stewing for the past four years and thinking up different revenge scenarios.”
Carly nodded. “Yeah, he could have a total Cape Fear thing going on.”
Marcus thought back to his last encounter with the python. It had been pretty brutal; the python didn’t want to go down without a fight, and Marcus had given him one. Marcus had broken several ribs, and it had taken him days to recover. The python had screamed at him as he left him in the cop station. At the time, he hadn’t thought anything of it; he was too busy worrying about his wife to care about much else.
Marcus squared his shoulders as his beast hissed in satisfaction. Well, if the python wanted to kill him, he was welcome to come and try. Marcus was more than ready for a rematch. He did, however, worry a little about collateral damage.
He placed a hand on his niece’s shoulder. “I’ll be fine, but I do want you to be extra careful. And you too, Carly,” he said, before looking between Jackson and Logan. “Make sure you keep an eye on them. I don’t think the python is a threat; he was just a low-level thug who knifed his friend when he got high. But, just in case, I wouldn’t want anything to happen to either of them.”
Mia smiled sadly. “Thank you, but I’m more concerned about you.” Truth be told, she was a little worried about her uncle. His lack of fear and apparent apathy to his own safety were worrying. He seemed to grow more distant by the minute.
He waved away her worries. “I’ll be fine. He’s just a python, what could he possibly do to me?”
She rolled her eyes. Clearly, he wasn’t that despondent; the old, prejudices against other species of snakes still lingered. Having been born a rabbit, Mia wasn’t affected. But she grew up in a den of snakes, who were all convinced that boa constrictors were the greatest species of snake ever created, and all others pales in comparison. Snakes were ruthless in nature. Rabbits were fluffy in nature.
Wanting to change the subject, Marcus asked if they were making any progress in catching Norman, the sneaky camel shifter.
Mia grimaced as Jackson unsuccessfully tried to stifle his guffaws. “The only person I could find to take the bond was Zeke…”
Marcus steeled himself, trying to control his rumbling snake. When Zeke was good, he was very good. But when things went bad, they were catastrophic.
Marcus let out a deep breath. “Alright, let me have it.”
Mia wrung her hands. “It’s actually not that bad…”
Carly covered her face with her hands, trying to hold the laughter in. Mia ignored her. “Apparently, things were going quite well, and Zeke found out that Norman visits his grandma on a regular basis. Which is more than anyone else found out!” she said, loudly, trying to drown out the chuckles of other bounty hunters.
“So, he laid in wait for Norman to turn up to visit her. Zeke found an elderly camel shifter who he thought was Norman’s grandma, and kept her under surveillance. So, when a male camel shifter came to visit her, he assumed it was Norm
an.”
Marcus chewed on his bottom lip; he thought he could see the direction in which this was heading.
Mia knit her brows together. “Unfortunately, Zeke didn’t read the file very thoroughly, or even look at Norman’s picture. He grabbed the guy while he was visiting the old female camel, there was a struggle, the old camel was screaming, the male camel was going berserk and started hitting Zeke with a walking frame. Zeke got a little pissed after the camel broke his sunglasses. So, when he finally had the camel cuffed, he decided to… to… attach a rope to him and let him run by the side of his car back to the police station.”
Marcus arched an eyebrow. Okay, that wasn’t great, but if the camel had a problem with that, he could file a civil suit against Zeke. “Could have been worse.”
“It is,” admitted Mia, glumly. “When they got to the station, that’s when Zeke realized his mistake…, all the cops knew who the camel was… because…”
“Because, what?”
“Because it was Deputy Commissioner Blake,” she said in a rush, amongst the hoots of laughter coming from the other shifters in the office. “Okay, he attacked and made a Deputy Police Commissioner run behind his car for five miles.”
Marcus groaned inwardly. This was Zeke all over, running in gung-ho and blundering around half-cocked. Zeke was an alligator shifter, with survivalist leanings. He didn’t have an official address, just a PO box. He refused to tell anyone where he rested at night. He owned dozens of guns, knives and was even rumored to carry around live grenades. He made Jackson seem like a perfectly reasonable guy.
Zeke had proven quite effective when it came to some of their more rambunctious bounties, but evidently, this one had not been a good fit.
“I take it Zeke will be unavailable for the foreseeable future?”
“For three to five years I shouldn’t imagine…” muttered Logan.
His snake perked up a little, he knew what this meant, and he was raring to go. “Right, we’re out of options. I’ll capture Norman.”
His beast found hunting very calming, and was always thrilled whenever Marcus took another skip; although, unhappily, it happened less and less often with each passing month.
Jackson and Logan offered their services once again, but Marcus scowled at them, and they hushed. They’d had their chance, and Marcus was sick of waiting. If you want a job done right…
Mia nodded. “You will be careful, won’t you?”
He gave her a genuine smile. Her concern was, as always, touching, but, as always, it was misplaced. Mia worried he had a lack of fear because he was uninterested in life, but it wasn’t that… well, not entirely. Marcus was just smart enough never to put himself in a situation he couldn’t handle. While the other hunters barreled in, he waited, and planned and assessed the danger. He had learnt over the years that being cunning was much more useful than being brave.
He ignored the question and instead focused on Carly, who was sitting typing at a computer. Or rather, she seemed to be attacking the computer. Her frustration at being in the office was palpable. “I take it the temp didn’t work out.”
“That’s an understatement,” muttered Logan.
The tired little rabbit shifter let out an annoyed grunt. “No, and I’m starting to think we’ll never find someone. I mean all we need is someone who’s reliable, honest, can use a computer, has no problem working with shifters, and can start tomorrow. It’s not really asking that much, is it? I thought the job market was bad at the moment, but apparently it’s not that bad if no one will work here!”
She panted a little; she really was at her wits end. Working with Margie had been dire, but Gladys made her want to pull her hair out. “I mean, is it too much to hope that there’s an office whiz out there just aching to have a job here?”
Carly snapped her fingers as her face lit up. “Ling!”
The rest of the office looked at her questioningly while Jackson clucked his tongue. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“It’s a brilliant idea!” she cried. “My best friend Ling is great; she’s worked in an office for years and there’s no way she’d steal, or start a sex chat line, and she absolutely would not throw donuts away.”
Ling had the same body type as Carly – curvaceously plump. She had never thrown a donut away in her life; she shared Carly’s addiction to Happy Heart donuts.
Mia relaxed a little. “Well, if she’s as good as you say…”
“She is!” gushed Carly. She couldn’t say enough about how wonderful her best friend was; she just couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of this earlier. Working together would be fab! She just hoped Ling would go for it too. The panda shifter had been a little morose and uninterested in anything but takeout pizza and marathons of The Sands of Lunar Beach – the tackiest but most popular soap opera on TV.
“Why isn’t she working at the moment?” asked Marcus soberly.
Carly hemmed and hawed. “She kind of… sort of… she was…”
“Fired,” provided Jackson.
Carly frowned at him and slapped his hand, which had been trying to snake its way around her waist.
Marcus appeared unconcerned. “Why was she fired?”
“Well…” Carly tried to think of a diplomatic way to tell him.
Jackson had no such qualms about being diplomatic. “She boinked her married boss, and his wife found out.”
“Jackson!” Carly snarled.
He held up his hands. “What? It’s the truth.”
Carly scowled at him. “It wasn’t quite like that.”
Marcus shrugged. “I don’t care; ask her to come down for an interview.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” squealed Mia and Carly together.
He grabbed the camel’s file and started heading out the door as the two women were bouncing around happily.
He could care less about this Ling woman getting fired. His niece needed help, and, although she was a little on the lively side for him, he liked Carly, and doubted she would recommend her friend without good reason. As long as she could type, she’d do.
His thoughts briefly moved onto the python shifter. Derrick Meyerson. He was just some idiot boy, susceptible to any shifter who was more dominant than him. He ended up being an errand boy for a slimy ‘legitimate businessman’ who worked out of the meat packing district. Derrick was an idiot. He got high one night and was convinced he could perform an appendectomy on his friend; apparently they made it look really easy on Grey’s Anatomy. His friend almost died, and Derrick was arrested, bonded and then he ran. He actually tried to go to Mexico, but Marcus caught him. He used Derrick’s mom as bait. Derrick put up a hell of a fight, which Marcus won, of course, but Derrick threatened Marcus, and said he would never forget what he had done. Derrick even sent him a sizeable amount of hate mail from prison in his first year. After that, nothing. Until now…
Marcus stopped at a red light and fingered the camel’s file, lying on the passenger seat. Feeling restless, the other night Marcus had gone back to the office and read through every one of their open case files. Even if his snake hadn’t been so agitated, he would have found time to do that. He liked to know everything that was going on in the agency; he liked to stay on top of things. He already knew the file cover to cover, and at this time of day, he could make an educated guess that the camel was making his way over to the Arcana Avenue branch of Lunar Burger. He dealt pot out of the parking lot.
Norman was an oddball. When Marcus took the bond, he had a feeling Norman would skip his court date. He assumed the young man would be too stoned to remember when it was. He was starting to think his first assessment of Norman had been way off. It was hard to believe, but the shaggy camel was actually kind of calculating. It was odd that Norman hadn’t tried to skip town, although, on reflection, given his adeptness that avoiding capture, he had no reason to flee. Marcus was surprised the cops caught him in the first place.
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He wondered
at his beast’s increased temper in recent weeks. He’d never had the most sanguine of beasts; he was a snake, but he was surprised and unsure what his animal wanted from him. He thought, after Kelly died, they were completely at peace with one another. Things had apparently changed recently.
Marcus stared open-mouthed as Norman, the camel shifter and his quarry, sauntered across the road in front of him. He was whistling nonchalantly and generally looked like he hadn’t a care in the world. He turned his head and caught Marcus staring at him. After a few seconds realization hit the camel as he recognized just who Marcus was.
Norman shouted, “Oh, fuck!” and started loping away, his gangly limbs flailing.
Marcus cursed himself for his inaction and bolted out of the car. He ignored the irate honks of the cars that were now stuck behind his, and smoothly, sprinted after him. He was easily gaining on him, his fingers reached out and grazed the camel shifter’s sweatshirt.
The camel let out a small yelp and… Marcus was tackled to the ground.
His snake hissed in fury as Marcus thumped onto the hard sidewalk, and his bounty fled, arms and legs waving madly.
Marcus was hurled to his feet by a sneering cop. He was an elephant shifter. “You can’t just abandon your car like that!” he snapped.
Marcus felt his jaw tremor as his animal encouraged the shift. Ooh, he’d love to digest this dickhead!
He tried to calm his animal as he explained the situation to the cop. He showed him his bounty hunter license, and grudgingly, the cop agreed to let him off with a warning. But, he shouldn’t just leave his car running in the middle of a queue like that again.
With barely concealed rage, he agreed and began stomping back to his car. The camel got lucky. That was all it was. It was just a matter of time until he got caught. His luck wouldn’t hold out forever; that was for damn sure.
His snake rumbled unhappily for a few seconds, and Marcus felt a pinch of uneasiness. He had the oddest feeling he was being watched. He shook his head and ignored it, making his way back to his car.
Chapter Five
“Hey, Ling,” called Carly carefully. “You upstairs, sweetie?”
