by Milly Taiden
Chief Charter looked around sheepishly, then leaned closer to Milkan. “Was your boy really a rat?”
Milkan looked around for Mayer. He wasn’t hard to find—he was following Detective Gibbons like a puppy on a string. “Well, Chief. Right now, I’d call him a hound dog. But your detective may call him a pest. Really, though, he’s probably able to be all of the above. A multishifter can do and be anything.”
Director Milkan sighed. “Seems like you have it well in control here, Sonder. I’ll be on my way to get started with the weekend. Get this circus wrapped up and out of here. Show’s over. Make sure the crime scene is secure until forensics leaves. Have a fabulous weekend. Don’t call me unless you’re dead.”
Devin replied, “You got it, Boss.”
Charter stepped toward the police car securing the suspect. “Let’s talk to our lady, then get her booked at the station. Milkan is right. Time to get this show on the road.” He opened the door the female police officer had closed a few minutes ago. The woman inside sat with her head leaned back, staring at the roof’s interior. Her mouth gaped.
Devin didn’t like how this looked. He approached the car she’d been put in. He placed a hand on the blanket on her shoulder. Her body slid to the side and slumped over. Devin reached in to grab her while Charter yelled to the remaining EMTs packing up the ambulance.
Devin checked for a pulse at the base of her jaw. The beat was strong. He held her head in his hands and tapped on her cheek. She was still unresponsive, eyes never focusing, her body limp with no muscle control.
Medics arrived with a gurney. Devin ran through physical symptoms as he swapped places with the lead EMT. The medical technician flashed a light in her eyes. “Not good.” He pulled out of the car. “Let’s get her to the hospital. No pupil response.”
No pupil reaction? Devin watched as they moved her from the backseat to the roller bed. “What does no pupil response mean?”
The technician frowned at him. “Serious brain damage. Coma. Death.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Devin leaned against the water utility building, arms crossed, no smile on his face. Most of the emergency responders had left, and things were quieting down. Chief Charter followed behind the ambulance with their perp—their comatose, brain-dead perp. How the hell did that happen? Shit. They were all standing right there, a few yards from the car.
The puzzle pieces didn’t fit. Hell, they weren’t even from the same puzzle box. They had solved the immediate crime, but Devin knew in his gut there was more to this. A lot more.
He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in clumps. He was so tired right now, he didn’t even care that hairs were out of place. Russel laid a hand on his shoulder. “Ready to go home? I’m bushed.”
Devin smiled. “Get anywhere with your mate?”
“If you mean alone, no. If you mean friend-wise, no. If you mean anything-wise, no.” A grin spread across his face. “She’s playing hard to get. And I love a great hunt. And she’s worth every slap in the face.”
Heartache rose in Devin. He was once again reminded of what he didn’t, and probably wouldn’t, have.
Russel glanced at him after a sniff. “Sorry, dude. Forgot you haven’t met yours yet.”
“She doesn’t exist,” Devin said.
Russel huffed. “You can’t think that way, man. You have to be positive. I mean, look. Fate brought me here to meet my mate. You are on your path. You’re working your way toward her.”
Time to change the subject as far as he was concerned. “Tell me about the woman. Did you get anything from her?”
Russel thought for a moment. “She was zombified at the computer. Like she was on autopilot, doing something programmed into her brain. Then, when I scratched her, she snapped out of it. I think she responded wildly because I was a rat. Instincts. Somebody else and she might’ve been fine.”
“Why was she at the computer in the first place?” Devin said out loud to himself.
“Maybe she wanted free water and was setting up her account. I mean, who better to hide an account than a person who knows all the secrets to finding them?” Russel asked.
“Shit, Mayer. You may have something there. Not only a free account, but someone who is using enough water to warrant being checked on. Someone who doesn’t want anyone to know what they’re up to. There’s another person involved.”
Devin thought back to the info from the DC group. The woman had been a missing person from across the country. If he remembered correctly, they told him and Russel that she was human. Well, they got that part wrong. She was definitely a shifter. And where was the money and jewels?
“Mayer, what do you know about the armored truck incident?”
“Not much. Haven’t even seen the scene yet. When Milkan called earlier, he mentioned the truck was forced off the road. Then human and bear footprints were found leading to the creek not too far away. We’ll know more when we get evidence results next week.”
“Want to drive around with me for a little while?”
Russel looked at his watch. “Yeah. It’s only 7:30 p.m. At night. On a Friday. Before Saturday, a day off. Let’s cruise Main.”
Devin grimaced. “Right, sorry. I forgot I’m not in LA anymore.”
“No, dude. You gotta rest or you’ll wear yourself down. You will burn out.” Russel paused, then said, “And that’s why you’re here in Oregon, isn’t it? You were burned so badly, you considered everything a waste of time. Even breathing.”
Devin stared at Russel for a second. He saw a spark of kinship in his coworker’s words. Russel may have been a horny shifter who seemed anything but professional, but he went much deeper than that. Devin had a feeling that others saw only what Russel wanted them to see. Maybe fate did play a part.
“Yeah, well. It’s late,” Devin said. “Better to go home. You’re right. See you Monday.”
Russel watched him walk away. “Shit. Wait! My car’s at the department.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Saturday morning, Charli stood in the hospital’s patient pick-up area while Barry opened the front passenger door to Detective Gibbons’s car.
“Detective Gibbons—” Charli started.
“Please, call me Tamara. Detective Gibbons is reserved for Agent Mayer only.” Both ladies laughed. The back door closed, and Barry scooted to the middle of the backseat.
“Okay, Tamara. Thank you so much for coming to get us. With the shooter still out there, I— We don’t feel safe anywhere.” Charli glanced at Barry in the back.
Tamara gave her a quizzical look. “I guess nobody told you. We found a rifle in the vehicle that ran you off the road. We don’t have any ballistics to compare marks, but we’re thinking he’s your guy.”
Charli laid her head back against the seat. Relief poured through her, almost making her tear up. She’d never been in a situation where someone was trying to kill her. Repeatedly. She didn’t realize the stress she was carrying until the second it was gone.
“I know there is at least one bullet in my house’s siding on the back porch. We can bring it Monday for your lab.”
“That would be great. We share forensic equipment and people with other counties since we’re small and usually pretty quiet. The team works weekends at our lab when needed and two others during the week. So it will be several days before we get results back.”
Barry spoke up from the back. “But you feel certain this is the man. He came after us twice. I will keep Charli in hiding all week if I have to.”
Tamara smirked and looked sideways at her. “Lucky woman.” Both ladies giggled. Barry’s face turned red. Charli thought he looked so adorable. She was a very lucky woman. Russel told her what having a shifter mate meant. He would love and protect her to his dying day. His eyes, heart, and mind would never roam to another female. He would always find her desirable no matter what she looked like—old and wrinkly, scrawny and pale.
Was that true? It sounded too good. Way too good.
She found it hard to believe. Time would tell.
“So, where are we going first? New car dealership or the tow truck lot?” Tamara asked.
Charli turned to Barry. “I thought we could get our stuff for the hotel out of the back of the truck, then we can take a cab to the dealership downtown later.”
“Great idea, babe. You’re going to be sore for a while, so later would be good. After a long soak in the hotel’s hot tub.” That did sound like heaven, as long as a naked bear sat with her. Barry sucked in a deep breath and his fingers dug into his legs. A low grumble filled the air.
“Have they learned anything else about the guy who shot us? Like who he was or why he was after us?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Tamara said. “The body was too mangled to get much.”
“What?” Barry and Charli said together.
“It seems that in between the time you left in the ambulance and the time police arrived on the scene, a wild bear attacked the body and did some hefty damage to the head and limbs.”
Charli gave him a questioning look and he shrugged, not having a clue what Tamara was talking about. They continued silently until pulling into the tow truck facility. Her SUV was so smashed, she barely recognized it. She wondered how she survived such a horrible crash. Emotions flooded her chest. She felt as though she could barely catch her breath.
Barry reached forward and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You’re safe, my love. I’ll be here to make sure nothing else happens. I’d give my life for yours.” She wiped away the wetness on her cheek and nodded.
Tamara pulled up to the chain-link fence and parked the car. They climbed out as the front door to the small aluminum building opened. “Howdy, Detective Gibbons. Good to see you again,” the man coming down the sidewalk said.
“Hello, Mr. Donnelly. Good to see you, too. I have the owner of the black SUV you pulled in last night. She’d like to get what she can from the vehicle.”
“Should be fine,” he said. He put a key into the padlock around the gate and popped it open. “Both vehicles were released from evidence before I brought them in.”
Barry took her hand and led her forward. Her other hand covered her mouth as if that would hold back the mountain of emotion rolling through her. The roof of the SUV almost pressed the top of the seats, it had been smashed so low. The passenger front door was jammed opened. Only the strength of a shifter would’ve been able to force the bent metal.
The driver’s side window was busted away. She didn’t remember how she got out of the truck. Only that she called Milkan and shot at a bear attacking her mate. A bear dragged off by another in a very short time span.
Barry busted out what was remaining of the back window and brushed away the scattered glass pieces. He reached in and pulled out two suitcases. Charli climbed onto the passenger seat and searched the inside for her purse and phone. She also snagged the registration papers and insurance from the glove box. She’d need all that later. She didn’t want to deal with it now.
“Hey, Tamara,” Barry called from behind the SUV, “would a bullet still embedded in the door work for forensics testing to match gun marks?”
The women joined Barry to see what they had. The lift gate had a deep dent in which the bullet looked wedged.
“Looks like it’s not damaged that much. We could probably use it.”
Barry squeezed and jammed his fingers into the indent and pried out the slug. “You said forensics were at your lab today. Do you think they could do a quick test to see if there is a heavy possibility one way or the other that this bullet and their gun match?”
Tamara shrugged. “All we can do is ask.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Charli and Barry followed Tamara through the halls of the Shedford Police Department. For a Saturday, there was more activity than Charli anticipated. But criminals don’t take weekends off, so neither can the police.
They reached an area with smaller stations that looked like they housed equipment for specific purposes. A lot of microscopes and extra-bright lights, beakers, tubes, computer monitors. Some looked similar to stuff at FAWS, but here there was just a lot more of . . . everything.
Tamara knocked on a glass door, then proceeded inside to find a man wearing goggles, blue gloves, and a white lab coat. She stopped abruptly and crossed her arms over her chest. Out loud she said, “Is that the most unprofessional, lamest excuse for an examiner you’ve ever seen? I mean, look at him.”
Charli and Barry shared a concerned look, both speechless. Charli assumed their chances of getting a quick test was about zilch now. She was ready to sneak out before the guy noticed them.
The examiner had salt-and-pepper hair, closely trimmed. When he spun around and whipped off his clear safety glasses, she noted deeply etched crow’s feet around his eyes. Probably from squinting into microscopes all his life.
Charli braced for a verbal knock-down, drag-out fight. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Then Barry smiled. She about elbowed him in the ribs when Tamara wrapped her arms around the man. He hugged her in return.
“Hello, baby girl. I was wondering if I was going to see you today. Your mother is expecting you for dinner, you know.”
Tamara stepped back from the technician. “I know, Dad. I’m helping out a friend today. Sort of official, but not totally.” She gestured to them. “Dad, this is Charli Avers with FPU Oregon, and this is Barry . . .” Her expression said she didn’t know Barry’s last name. Which was fine, since he currently didn’t have one. Charli hadn’t shared much about Barry with her yet. “Uh, just Barry, I guess.”
They each shook hands with Tamara’s dad. “Frank Gibbons. Nice to meet you both.” Frank looked to his daughter again. “Since you are sorta official, I’m assuming you’d like something off the record, but not totally.” He smiled at his daughter rolling her eyes.
“Dad, you make me sound like a fugitive trying to sneak evidence out.”
He feigned surprise. “What? My daughter do something not by the book? How dare she?”
She laughed nervously. “Okay, Dad. Now you’re embarrassing me.”
He chuckled, unperturbed by her bright blushing. “Isn’t that what parents are for?”
“Yeah, yeah. We need your expertise. Put that AFTE training to use.”
Her dad smiled brightly, almost like a kid in a toy store. “Do we get to test-shoot guns in the tank?”
Tamara pulled out a tissue from her coat pocket to reveal the bullet taken from the back of the truck. “Only if you get Mom to make pudding for dessert tonight. Butterscotch.”
He grabbed tweezers from the table and carefully lifted the item from the tissue. He held it up and eyeballed it. “I’ll make pudding if it comes down to that.” He turned the slug side to side. “This was shot from quite a distance. Was it stuck in the side of a vehicle? Looks a couple days old, exposed to the weather. The vehicle was driving away when the bullet hit, yes?”
Tamara looked at Charli and Barry. Astounded, Charli fumbled out, “How do you know all that?”
“My dad”—Tamara stood straighter, pride in her voice—“is a certified Firearm and Tool Mark Examiner. He received the National Lab Analyst of the Year three times, won the Goddard Award for Excellence, and has published several highly rated resources for the firearm industry.”
Charli wondered if she should warn Russel about his mate’s dad’s expertise with guns. Nope. Let him find out the good old-fashioned way. When he got chased down by her father.
Her dad preened under the attention. “And I hit a hole in one at the Shedford public golf course two years ago.”
Tamara huffed. “Dad, you treat that stupid golf thing as if it’s the culmination of your life’s work.”
“When you get to be my age, you will understand, daughter. Until then, we have guns to shoot.”
After Tamara returned from signing out the rifle from the evidence room, her dad filled out papers and attached them to a folder. “Might as well do this by the book
so it’s official. Don’t want to do it again.”
He picked up the rifle and ran a finger down its length. “Gun barrels are made with grooves along the inside that make shooting more accurate. It’s like throwing a football. A spiral is much better than a wobbly throw.
“Now, inside the grooves are marks called striations. These striations make every gun barrel like a snowflake: unique. So when we have two bullets that have the same striation pattern etched into them, then it’s more than likely the bullets were shot from the same gun.”
Frank turned to a microscope with two glass plates at the bottom. “This is a comparative microscope. It allows us to analyze both bullets at the same time to see if they match.” Tweezers in hand, he placed the slug from the SUV on one of the plates. When he flipped a couple of switches, the image from the microscope appeared on a screen on the wall.
On the bullet, he pointed to a row of vertical lines that varied in height and distance from each other. “Those different lines are the striation marks from the barrel.” He lifted the gun from the table. “Now the fun part. Follow me.”
They walked to the back corner of the room where a metal box the size of a big casket sat on the floor. Frank loaded the rifle, slid the barrel through an opening in the front of the box, and pulled the trigger. Barely any sound was heard.
After setting the gun on a side table, he lifted the lid to reveal water filling the inside. He fished the test bullet from the unit and placed it under the microscope on the second glass plate. A second image showed on the overhead screen.
Immediately they could see the lines on each bullet were identical in all the striations. Frank did a few more things, then turned off the scope. “There are more tests to run, obviously, but I would say this gun, more than likely, shot the bullet found in your truck.”
His words set off a reaction in Charli that she didn’t expect. Her knees wanted to give, relief and happiness fought for the tears in her eyes, and the tightness around her chest released. Barry wrapped her in his strong arms and rocked with her, whispering softly into her ear.
