High Moon (A F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad Investigation Book 4)

by Jennifer Harlow

  And I believe him. Be it the sincerity in his voice, the way he meets my eyes, or experience hard earned, I believe him. “There is one way to prove it.”

  “Anything.”

  “Your superiors have been slow to send us your schedules. We know when the people were abducted, approximately when they were killed, it’s a simple cross-reference.”

  He nods. “I think I can help you there, actually.” He moves toward the desk and sits in front of the computer, clicking away. “Our HR department is massively understaffed after all the government layoffs. That’s why we’re down to two permanent and one floater. There’s my girl,” he says with a grin. “Been meaning to call her anyway.” He picks up the telephone and punches in the number. “A temp in HR.” He listens for a few seconds. “Hey, Kayla. This is Ranger Rick Mills. How you doing, pretty lady?” He listens. “I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been working around the clock. One of the reasons I’m calling is to remedy that. I got two tickets to the Trace Atkins concert next week. Wanted to know if you want to go with me?” He listens. “Well, who doesn’t love him? You better wear your best badonkadonk shorts though.” Rick chuckles. “If you got it, flaunt it, baby, and boy do you got it.” Dear Lord he and Oliver probably get along like a house on fire. Mills chuckles again. “Can’t wait, babe, because let me tell you, things are nuts here. The damn FBI won’t leave me alone. They keep bothering me about my schedule and if I was working the nights those people were killed. I thought you guys were gonna fax them to the agents. I just don’t want this hanging over my head, you know?” He’s quiet again. “Oh, babe, that’d be great. You got their e-mail?” A second of silence. “Can you do it right this second? Just for my own peace of mind?” Another second. “You’re an angel. I’ll pick you up next Wednesday. Can’t wait. Bye.” Mills hangs up. “She’s sending it now.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Any chance you might want to show your gratitude by buying me a drink?”

  “Only if my boyfriend can come too.” I grin. “Enjoy Trace and Kayla.”

  “I will do my damndest,” he says as I step toward the door.

  My smile grows when I step outside. That was worth the trip. I hope. I wait until I’m safely out of the park—it’s like a damn obstacle course with all the cars and people—before I pick up the phone and call mobile command. Unfortunately, Chandler is the one to answer. “Agent Chandler,” he says, already displeased with me.

  “It’s Alexander. I just left the park.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  My job, jerk? “I wanted to re-interview Ranger Mills.”

  “Why? Oliver cleared him two nights ago. Glamoured him and asked point blank if he was involved. He wasn’t. Do you really think we’d let him work this case if we weren’t a hundred percent sure he wasn’t our perp? It was in Oliver’s report. Did you even read it?”

  “I…” Skimmed it. Maybe.

  “Jesus Christ, Alexander. What—”

  “Before you yell at me, just go check the e-mail in-box. The ranger’s schedules should be in waiting in there. Ranger Mills called in a favor.”

  “I’ll check.” And he puts me on hold. Oh God, I need to stop giving this guy ammo to rake me over the coals. He thought I was a problem before Will and now probably believes I should be riding the short bus. Maybe I should. I really should have just read the damn reports. “Got them. Finally.” He pauses. “Thank you.”

  “Just doing my job. Do you need me to come back? I was going to return to the college to pull Imelda and Tim Acker’s transcripts. Maybe—”

  “Sounds good. If we need you, we’ll call.” And he hangs up on me.

  “Jerk,” I mutter before throwing my phone onto the seat. Fine then. I’ll stick to my plan. Got to college, re-interview Anika and Tim, interview Imelda’s professors, campus security, then if there’s time, ambush Adrian Winsted and Kyle Taylor when he gets back tonight. Heck, maybe it won’t be necessary. With any luck the park records will lead us to the wolves accomplice, and I can be back in Kansas by tomorrow.

  At the first stoplight a few miles from the park, I have to wait across from a Walgreens. Ugh, just what I need. More reality. I sigh. I really should stop and get the pill. I mean, a baby? How is that a good idea at this time in your life, Bea? We’ve been together less than a week. We have a dangerous job. We live with monsters. Heck, we practically are monsters. There is absolutely no space in our lives for a child. It’s irresponsible and just downright insane. You know that. Despite what Will thinks, we are moving too fast. According to Cosmo, you should be in a relationship at least two years before progressing to the next level. You can’t fully know a person in less than a year. Of course I was with Steven for two years and had no idea he had psychopathic tendencies, so strike one for Cosmo, but still. What do I truly know about William R. Price?

  I know his favorite movie is Patton, his favorite color is blue, he’s smart, protective, considerate in bed and out, he cares about things more than he lets on, he’d be a wonderful father…and I love him. I love him so darn much. Cosmo also said before taking that next step the most important things you need to know are how he is with money, if you’re sexually compatible, if your life goals are the same, and if he’d make a good parent. In those respects, he earns an A+ in each category. And he is right on one front. Life is so precious. It’s a crime to waste even a second of it. And—

  A car horn knocks me out of my head. Oh fudge, the light’s green. I turn the wheel and drive on. Jesus, if I were any more distracted a werewolf could transform right in front of me and I wouldn’t even notice. Just as it takes me several seconds to realize the Walgreens fades away in my rearview. Huh. Guess my subconscious made the decision for me. Am I okay with it? As the pharmacy disappears, a smile creeps across my face until my stretched lips can’t move any further. Guess so. Okay then.

  Let forever begin.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bitch Fight

  Next stop on the “Bea Ties Up Loose Ends Because She’s Been an Ineffective Lust Crazed Moron” tour—the name needs work, I know—is Crawford College and Tim Acker. Despite the airtight alibi, he deserves a second look. Due diligence requires I interview those in the study group and his friends. Maybe they’ve remembered something new in the past year. Heck, maybe he could have had someone else abduct her. Like a pack mate. I stop dead in the middle of the college courtyard as this realization smashes into my consciousness. Motherfu… I fall in love and lose a hundred IQ points.

  Tim Acker could be a werewolf. Easily. What did Anika say? Really, I can’t remember so I have to sit on a bench and check my notes. Here we are. Became secretive a few months before, then broke up with Imelda a week before she vanished. Goes to class, goes home. All about school. Thought he’d been cheating. Yeah, okay not a lot screams, “Here’s a werewolf!” I didn’t get that vibe from him either but that means precious little. Unlike werewolves us psychics don’t have preternatural radar. According to Will, whenever he’s around me he can literally feel my power prickling his skin like ants on the march. He’s either gotten used to it or has hopefully grown to like it, as if I’m licking him. Like last night. Oh, I can still feel his tongue slowly trailing down my flesh and biting my…okay, there I go again. I’ve morphed into a crazed, hormonal teenage boy. Head in the freaking game, Alexander. Head in the game.

  I phone Tim Acker, but once again it goes to voicemail. Avoiding me? Not for long. I have to ask two students, and still get lost, but do eventually find the Administration building. After a short wait, where I get to hear student after student whine about their grades to the attendant, it’s my turn. The student aide prints out Tim and Imelda’s class schedules and transcripts. The power of an FBI badge and threat of a warrant. As they’re printing, my phone plays, “Hips Don’t Lie.” April.

  “Special Agent Beatrice Alexander,” I say.

  “You had sex!” my best friend shouts over the phone.

  The aide must have heard, heck people
two buildings over probably heard, because she chuckles while handing me the transcripts. With a nervous smile, I take my papers and scuttle away. “Will you keep your voice down? I don’t think they heard you in freaking Canada!”

  “But you got laid! Finally! It’s been years. I was worried you’d forgotten how.”

  “No, it was just like riding a bike.” I bite my lip before gushing, “A flipping amazing, earth shattering, I’m surprised I can walk bike that I would sell my soul to be back on right this moment.” I step out into the sunshine and hustle over to a bench. “He rented us a cabin. We made love in front of the fire on a sheepskin rug. Then the couch. Then the bed. Then in a rocking chair as the sun came up.”

  “Holy shit. It is a miracle you can walk. But was he good? Did you…shatter the furniture?”

  “There wasn’t a lamp left in the joint,” I chuckle. “I never knew sex could be so…yummy. With Steven it was always so mechanical. I mean, it wasn’t terrible, but I could have lived without it.”

  “Well, he was a psychotic asshole. Making sure you reached the end zone probably never crossed his mind. Which is why he burns in hell now.” She pauses. “And, you know, for all those people he fed to that troll.” She pauses. “So where are you now? Not in Kansas if you needed a cabin to sneak away.”

  “North Carolina. Wolves, witches, drama at every turn. Oliver beat up Will, I smacked Oliver, everyone hates me again, Will sort of proposed, I—”

  “Okay, wait. Stop. Back up. Start at the beginning where everyone beats everyone else up to holy shitballs! You’re getting married?” she shouts again.

  I unravel the whole sordid tale, minus the attempted rape part, instead whitewashing it to a simple assault, all the way to the traffic light. The other end is silent for several seconds, then several more. “April? You still there?”

  “I’m here. I just…don’t know what to say.”

  “You’re happy for me? You’ll help me plan the wedding?” I suggest.

  “Bea, of course if I’m happy…you’re happy. But, I just,” She pauses, “I think you need to slam the brakes a little here,” she chuckles. “You’ve been a couple less than a New York minute. Three months ago you were at each other’s throats because he was acting like a jealous asshole for absolutely no sane reason.”

  “We settled all that,” I snap. “And I thought you liked him.”

  “I barely know him. Hell, you barely know him. And the majority of the time you have, you didn’t particularly like him. He treated you like a child, your words, not mine. Not to mention all the practical shit you haven’t considered. Have you discussed where you’re going to live? What you’ll both do for work? How you’ll handle his not so little condition?”

  “You’re being a real big buzz kill right now, you know that?”

  “No, I’m being your good friend, Bea. If I came and told you I was actively trying to get pregnant with a man I’d only been with for a week, you’d lock me in a closet and lecture me for a day. I’m going easy on you here.” She pauses to calm herself down. If she’s half as pissed as I am right now, it’s gonna take her a year to cool off. “As long as I’ve known you, all you have talked about is having a family. A husband and babies and a house on Pooh corner. Even with Steven you very seriously considered his offer, remember? You didn’t love him, but you were still a hair’s breadth from moving in and having children with him.”

  “But I didn’t because when it came down to it, I didn’t love him. I love Will.”

  “That is not enough, Bea. Not by a long shot. At the end of the day, you dumped Steven because he wasn’t your friend. You had no similar interests, you didn’t have fun together, and you had nothing to talk about. He bored you to death. What do you and Will have in common? Does he make you laugh? When everything goes to absolute shit, can he be trusted to have your back? Be your champion when no one else will? Smack some sense into you even when he knows you won’t speak to him for days after, like I know you’re not gonna speak to me after this call? Can you, at this moment, answer ‘Absolutely yes’ to all of those questions?”

  “Um glass houses much? You were only dating Javi four months before you got pregnant,” I spit out.

  “Yeah, but I’d known him since I was ten, and you were the one who asked me those exact same questions. And I could answer yes to them all.” She sighs. “Look, I’m not saying break up with him or anything, just slow down, Bea. Please. If it’s meant to be it will be months from now too.”

  My teeth are clenched so tight I could very well chip one. God, I so want to reach through the line and throttle her. I thought she’d be happy for me. The one person who would be. Is that so much to ask? One freaking person to congratulate us? Share our fraking joy for even a minute? What the hell is the matter with everyone?

  “I have to go now. I’m working a case.” Really I have to get off this call or I may begin shrieking at her and saying things I can never take back.

  “Oh, don’t do that. Don’t you dare be pissed at me for telling you the truth. I—”

  “Talk to you later. Bye.” I hang up, fall back against the bench, and sigh.

  She doesn’t know. She can’t know. She lives in the boring little ordinary world. With all that Will and I have seen and endured together, it’s the equivalent of knowing one another since we were ten. We’ve seen each other at our best and worst, and I still love him. As for mutual interests, well I’m sure he’d spend the weekend marathoning Doctor Who or going to a karaoke club just like I’d suffer through football and war movies. When you’ve stared death in the face as many times as we have, it becomes infinitely clear you have to carpe some diem while you can. There is no time to waste.

  And thinking of…

  No more distractions. Tim Acker, where are you? According to his schedule he’s assisting a teacher in the Social Sciences building. Intro to Anthropology. Yeah, that’ll be useful in the real world. The class should just be ending. I hustle across campus, not easy in heels—Will would have packed my sexiest three inchers—but judging from the mass exodus through the doors, all classes inside have ended. I don’t see him among the crowd, so on the off chance he’s stayed late, I make my way to the second floor where a few stragglers remain in the halls. Okay, if Tim’s not here, I’ll try calling—

  When I step inside the small, nearly empty classroom and see who stands at the desk packing her belongings into her satchel, my body realizes the severity of the situation before my brain catches on. I stop dead in the doorway, and my mouth even drops, but I don’t know why the sight of this woman incurs such a reaction. I know her, I just don’t know where I’ve…oh, God.

  “Agent Alexander!” Patsy Winsted says with a smile. “Hello.”

  Park Ranger Adrian Winsted’s wife. Who apparently Tim Acker works for. All those puzzle pieces suddenly fit together in the blink of an eye, even the ones I hadn’t really noticed. All those cars in their driveway. The missing knick knacks. Anika’s comment about how Tim suddenly got obsessed with school. The Social Sciences building beside where Imelda was thought to have been abducted. Mills’ statement about Winsted being into plants and new age medicine. I’m a moron. If I’d asked more questions, paid more attention, I would not have just blindly walked into an empty room with a woman who can kill me with one word if she doesn’t decide to just rip my limbs off with her bare hands.

  I lose precious seconds assembling the puzzle, seconds the werewolf uses to study her prey. Once again my body is quicker on the uptake than my mind, plastering a grin on my face. I need to get the hell out of here. Wait for back-up to apprehend her, and by back-up I mean Oliver. The wolves can’t get near her in case they go full horn dog, and the others don’t stand a chance against a damn werewolf. But if I wait until nightfall, she could run. Of course if I take her now, it all ends. She goes to the Facility, I go home with Will. Shoot, I don’t know—

  “Are you okay, dear?” Patsy asks.

  “I, uh, yeah,” I say, shaking my frazzled head. Jes
us, pay attention, Bea. “I’m sorry, I just, I know I know you but…” I fake groan in frustration.

  “Patricia. Winsted. We met briefly when you interviewed my husband.”

  “Right! Oh my God, my ditz moments are growing more and more frequent. I’m surprised I can still tie my shoelaces. I’m so sorry. How is your husband feeling?”

  “Not well at all. His fever was almost at a hundred and four this morning. We think its pneumonia, poor lamb. I was just on my way home to check on him.”

  “Oh, don’t let me keep you. I-I’m actually looking for Tim Acker. His schedule said he’d be here.”

  “You just missed him,” Patsy says.

  “Do you by chance know where he went?”

  “Why?” she asks, perfectly pleasant.

  “Just need to ask one or two more questions to put him to bed as a suspect.”

  “Yes, he told me you’d interviewed him yesterday.” Yeah, he probably called her while he was in the bathroom to ask how to behave during the interview. “He was most upset to have all this resurrected. I remember when that poor girl went missing. The whole of the campus treated that boy as if he were The Yorkshire Ripper.”

  “I’m being discreet, I promise,” I say with a sweet smile.

  “Well, if anyone knows about being discreet, I suppose it would be you, wouldn’t it?” she asks with a matching smile.

  “I’m sorry?” I chuckle.

  Patsy fastens the strap of her satchel across her ample chest. “Of course, after watching this, I’m shocked you haven’t been found out by now,” she says, smile never wavering.