by Josie Hunter
Stephanie’s jaw tightened. “Oh we’ll keep her alive all right, and if she wants a moment of peace in her life, or any life at all for that matter, she’s going to cooperate.”
Jake wrapped his arm around Dorothy. “Is your car nearby?” When Dorothy nodded, he said, “Let’s get you to a doctor. I want to be sure those cuts and pecks are taken care of.” He glanced toward Medea with disgust. “You might need a tetanus shot.”
He led Dorothy toward the trees. Stephanie grabbed her muddy jacket from the ground, and she caught Dylan smiling as she rummaged in three pockets before she found her phone.
“Can’t find the phone, and yet you knew exactly where those zip ties were.”
“That’s work.” She shrugged. “It’s different.”
“You’ll never change,” he said.
She shrugged. “Any reason I should?”
“Not a one.”
She punched in the number she wanted. “Mr. Laughton, yes of course, Gabe…Can you send a team upriver? We’ve captured what we believe to be our murderer, and based on a recent attack on Dylan Winston, we also believe she—yes, she—has possible ties to Diego Garcia.”
Dylan wandered away, moving toward the woman who’d nearly stolen his life. One red-rimmed eye was open, staring at them with malice. Stephanie wondered how such a psychotic mind had become trapped in such a beautiful woman, one who harbored an equally psychotic animal inside.
Gabe’s voice pulled her from her thoughts. “What makes you think Dylan is more than a random victim?”
Stephanie stuck her finger in her mouth, gnawing for a moment. She took a deep breath. “She seemed to be aware that Dylan is…unable to shift.” She swallowed hard.
Her words were met with silence. She let that thought settle into his mind, and finally Gabe said, “He’s unable to shift. That certainly explains a lot.” She could almost hear his mind working through the signal.
“We have the formula we used on Rosa,” Stephanie said. “Would it work?”
“Hard to say,” Gabe said, “but I’ll get people on it right now.”
“If I may, I’d like to request something at this time. A reward for a very brave citizen.”
“Go ahead.”
“Dorothy Stanford. Can we arrange to have her see an eye specialist on our dime? Maybe see about some laser surgery?”
“I’ll arrange it. Good work, Agent Cooper. ETA on the team, half an hour. Hang tight.”
The line went dead.
Stephanie hurried and dressed, pulling filthy clothes over her filthy, sweaty body. She thought briefly of sliding into the cool water of the river, but even the idea of being in water Medea had occupied turned her stomach right now. She slid her phone back into the pocket and headed toward Dylan. Medea, now awake, stared at them with pure fury.
“Sucks to be you today, doesn’t it?” Stephanie gave her a bright smile. She took Dylan’s arm and led him away before Medea could respond.
“Dylan, I have a question.”
He smiled down at her. “Shoot.”
She drew in a deep breath and cupped his arm. “Woman or swan, she would have been no match for your wolf. You could have torn her throat out in moments, and yet, she managed to do this.” She gestured down his body at the cuts, abrasions, and bruises littering his skin. “Had Dorothy not intervened, this woman might have killed you.”
* * * *
“I…” He scrubbed his hands over his face, wincing as he encountered several lumps on his cheeks.
“I know you can’t shift.”
Steeling himself, he met her eyes. There was no hiding it any longer. “I don’t know why I can’t. The confinement, the torture, the pain…I can feel my wolf. He can feel me. We’re still one, but he can’t get out, and no matter what I do, I can’t help him.”
She tightened her grip on his arm. “Oh, Dylan, why didn’t you tell me before?”
He yanked away and took several steps back. “Because I’m half a man, half a shifter. I was hoping…” He threw up his hands. “I don’t know what the fuck I was hoping, but how can I come to you, how can we be anything to you if I’m not whole?”
“Is that why you wanted Jake to be part of our lives?” she asks softly.
“No, yes…maybe. I don’t know,” he mumbled.
She glided across the distance that separated them. She looped her arms around his neck and drew him downward, kissing him softly on the lips.
“Listen to me. You were enough for me as Brandon Carlisle, and you’re enough for me as Dylan Winston. No matter what the circumstances. Do you understand that?”
He nodded.
She narrowed her eyes and then gave him a little smile. “Do you really? Be honest.”
“Yes, I know how you feel. I’ve always known, which is why it’s hard to forgive myself for leaving you. I keep wondering how you can forgive me…”
“Because I love you,” Stephanie whispered. “I’ve never stopped.”
“I love you, too, little bunny.”
He crushed her to him and stole a kiss, devouring her mouth with all the desperation and fear he’d felt in his heart. When he pulled away, she smiled again.
“Wait, how did you know I couldn’t shift?”
“Medea told me.”
“How did she know?”
They both cast a glance to the woman lying still on the ground. She seemed somewhat resigned to her fate. She couldn’t shift or she’d probably break a wing, but Dylan also had a suspicion she wouldn’t care about that. The answer was pretty clear. Medea couldn’t shift without being surrounded by water. That gave them extra leverage.
“I don’t know how she knows,” Stephanie said, “but I intend to find out. The fact that she does know, though, indicates there’s a reason for it, something beyond your control.”
“So it’s not psychological? I thought maybe I was emotionally damaged.”
“I don’t think so. If I’m right, I think I might have the answer to your shifting problem. A possible cure.”
His heart lurched as hope filled him. “What? How? I don’t understand.”
“You’ll have to trust me for a day or so. Gabe is going to check out a few things. Can you be patient a bit longer?”
He ran his hands over her shoulders. “I can be patient for as long as I have to.” He glanced toward the woods where Jake had disappeared with Dorothy. “And, cure or not, I think Jake could be an important part of our lives. What do you think?”
Stephanie winked. “I think you always know what’s good for me. And I could love him very easily. He’s a good guy. You two have a lot in common.”
“Our feelings for you?”
She laughed. “No, your amazing ability to deal with me.” She began to pat her pockets again.
“Inside pocket,” he said with a smile. When she lifted a brow, he said, “It’s where you always put it.”
“Thanks.” She reached into her jacket and plucked the phone out, dialed, and lifted a finger. Agent Cooper had returned. “Rusty, I’m going to need you and Barry at the office ASAP.”
She dropped the phone to the ground, and they listened to Rusty’s less-than-thrilled reaction from a distance as she leapt into Dylan’s arms.
Chapter 15
Late October
When Jake pushed open the office door and Stephanie stepped inside, a wave of blissfully cold air swept over her, and two pairs of eyes honed in on her. She dropped her purse on her desk and peeled her suit jacket off, hanging it over the back of her chair. Jake and Dylan stripped off their coats and ties, and Jake immediately rolled up his sleeves.
Renee clicked out a few more keystrokes then folded her hands on her desk, leaning forward eagerly.
Talon stood up from where he crouched near a wall, obviously fiddling with an electric socket. He shouted down the hallway. “Yo, Scarecrow! They’re back!”
Rusty loped into the room, spinning a screwdriver in his hands.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to run w
ith scissors?” Stephanie asked.
“Yes, and this isn’t a pair of scissors.” Rusty sat on the edge of her desk. “So spill. You weren’t much for updates in the last week.”
“Well, first, let me say that Dylan has received numerous injections this week while we were gone. It was based on the chemicals Barry gave me when we rescued Rosa. It worked on Rosa, but…”
Steph pushed her glasses up.
“Quit stalling,” Talon said. “It’s not working?”
Dylan shook his head. “Not so far.
“That bites,” Rusty said. “Sorry, wolf-boy.”
“They’re still hopeful,” Stephanie said brightly. “They’re working on modifying the formula at the Cattail lab. We’re going there this afternoon and see what they’ve developed. We’ll keep going as long as we have to.”
“What’s it like being a big ol’ guinea pig?” Talon asked.
Dylan smirked. “As Rusty said, it bites. But it beats the alternative.”
Talon nodded, looking solemn. “I hear ya, brother. I saw the repercussions of that first-hand with my brother.”
“So what happened with our swan?” Renee asked.
Jake fell into a chair. “Pretty much a lot of nothing.”
“That can’t be good,” Rusty said. “The bitch is guilty as hell.”
“We’ll get her on the murders,” Steph said. “We have enough evidence for that. With the enzyme evidence, Dorothy’s testimony, and Dylan’s personal encounter, Medea’s days of freedom are over. We left her in a nice little enclosure at the compound, and someday, when she’s desperate enough, she just might give us evidence on Garcia to earn some blinds and a swimming hole. Until then she can just squirm in the light and deal with dry feathers and no shifting.”
“So we go on business as usual?” Renee asked.
Dylan nodded. “With the evidence we have, she’s just a serial killer striking random shifters. Enough to keep her confined for a very long time, but not enough to link her to the others.”
“Do we know for sure she’s associated with Garcia?” Rusty asked.
Stephanie frowned. “Well, no, but we assumed she is because of her hit on Dylan and the fact that she knew Dylan couldn’t shift.”
“You know what they say about assume, rabbit mine.” He flipped the screwdriver and caught it easily.
“Fuck you, Rusty,” she said with a smile.
“I think I was a deliberate target,” Dylan said, “but Rusty might have a point. I know Diego Garcia, and Medea doesn’t seem the type to associate with a man like him.”
“Not psychotic enough or too psychotic?” Talon asked.
Dylan chuckled. “Good point. Crazy as it sounds, Medea’s methods are much too cut and dried. She sets her sights on something, completes her mission, and moves on to another. She doesn’t seem to dwell or even revel in the kills like some psychopaths. Garcia has a completely different modus operandi for his hits, and none of what happened here in Catamount reflected any of that.”
“Care to share?” Jake asked, leaning back.
Dylan’s eyes slid over Stephanie and then moved to Renee.
“I can handle it,” Renee said. Talon moved closer to Renee’s desk.
“He…” Dylan scrubbed his face and then shoved his hands in his pockets, but before he did, Stephanie saw them tremble. “I think I understand what happened to me a little better. Keeping me from shifting was their form of psychological torture. But since I didn’t know of the injections, I never realized it works both ways.”
Stephanie frowned and shook her head. “I don’t quite understand.”
“He kept me from my animal,” Dylan said, “and I nearly went insane. But he had an alternate injection, one I did know about. It kept shifters from returning to their human forms. It kept them in their animal state.”
“And this was part of his protocol for hits?” Jake asked.
“Only once he’d grown bored with the torture.” Dylan sighed. “Garcia did his own kills when possible, squeezing the life from his victims, and as an anaconda-shifter, he’s capable of killing almost any known species on his continent, including human.”
“Species…” Jake said. “So he killed them in their animal state.”
“Yes, after he’d given them an injection to guarantee they couldn’t shift back before death. And after that…”
Stephanie wasn’t sure she wanted to know where this was going. But if what she suspected was true, Medea probably hadn’t been hired by Garcia. Too many bodies just left behind to decay.
“Go on.” Talon reached down and took Renee’s hand.
“Garcia has an interesting hobby,” Dylan said.
“Oh, Jesus…” Rusty said.
Renee let out a moan and put a hand over her mouth.
“Looks like you all figured it out.”
“Taxidermy.” Stephanie started to chew on a nail, and Dylan pulled her hand away from her mouth. “How many?”
“Dozens, maybe hundreds,” Dylan said. “He has victims, all different sorts of shifters, spread all over the compound in various death throes. Granted, if he really wanted me dead, he might have given up the thrill of having my body as a trophy for all eternity, and he’d already given me the serum to keep me from shifting. So…”
“The serum…” Stephanie smacked her forehead. “How could I be so stupid?”
Rusty and Talon exchanged a look with raised brows. She saw it and held up her hand. Now wasn’t the time to get those two started on who could come up with the most stupid-Stephanie jokes. She began to pace.
“What are you thinking?” Jake asked.
“The serum links Garcia with Santos Pharmaceuticals. It has to. It’s highly doubtful Garcia managed to create his own formula independent of Santos. Esteban Santos used it on his daughter, and Garcia used it on Dylan. We’ve suspected they were linked for various endeavors, and Dylan confirmed it with his intel. Since Medea had a completely different style, and keeping bodies fresh didn’t seem high on her list of priorities, couldn’t she have been hired by a man desperate just to have Dylan erased? It would be tough for Garcia to get any of his personal thugs into this country. They’ve got to be on watch lists, right? Maybe Medea was a local agent, sent by Santos as a favor. Her hit, her rules.”
Stephanie pursed her lips as thoughts ran through her head like a runaway freight train. They were getting closer to finding evidence Santos was involved in far too many nefarious activities for a well-respected, Nobel prize-winning scientist.
“She’ll never admit to that,” Jake said.
Stephanie lifted a brow. “She might when the sun hits those black feathers too many days in a row. Blinds might seem like a fine idea soon, and her skin will dry out faster than a sugar mama’s in Palm Springs if she can’t shift.”
Talon leaned down and whispered something to Renee. The woman nodded and typed a few keystrokes. The printer whirred to life.
“Well, cheerleader,” Talon said, “you’ve worn me down.” He began to gather pages off the printer. “Here’s a bit of light bedtime reading. Just don’t expect to get much sleep when you’re finished.”
“Oh my god…” Stephanie dashed forward and snatched the pages out of his hand. “Seriously?” She couldn’t contain her excitement. She jumped up and down as she started to read.
“Not sure how much my word is worth, but I’ll testify for you.” Talon lifted his chin toward the pages. “Even if it’s not worth a shit, I’ve listed places where you should be able to find some hard evidence. Santos is such an arrogant asshole I know he won’t have destroyed everything. It’s not in his nature.” When Stephanie glanced up with a smile, Talon said, “That fuckhead is going down.”
Chapter 16
Halloween Night
Dylan gazed at the pretty little white Cape Cod house surrounded by flowers and beautiful shrubs. Black shutters flanked the windows, which were framed with white curtains, and the front door opened onto a wide, open porch filled with bright f
urniture and glowing jack-o’-lanterns. Tiny ghost lights strung between pillars twinkled merrily in the late afternoon, and stalks of dried corn had been tied around the lantern post in the front yard. It looked like a slice of Americana. He knew because he had studied all the details for the last five minutes, waiting for Steph to make a move to get out.
“I can see why you bought the place,” Dylan said. “It’s like a little bit of New England right here in Texas.” He laughed. “New England in spring or summer, of course. I still don’t miss those winters. So what’s the surprise? Halloween party? I probably should have thought of a costume.”
“It’s not that,” she murmured.
Dylan turned to her. Her fingers were clenched around the steering wheel in a death grip. He caught the edge of her jaw with his finger and tipped her face toward her. “Hey, what’s going on?”
Stephanie shook her head, her curls spilling over her shoulders. “This was a bad idea. A really bad idea.” She finally unlocked her hands from the steering wheel and poked a finger into her mouth to chew on the nail.
He gently pulled her hand away just as the front door opened. An attractive older woman stood in the doorway. He hadn’t seen her in a while, but it was Janet Cooper. He had no idea how he’d be received. No mother wanted to deal with her daughter’s broken heart, and Dylan knew he had pretty much shattered Stephanie’s at the time. Janet probably wouldn’t forgive him in this century.
Her gaze ticked between the two of them. She took one step on to the porch, and that’s when Dylan saw what stood behind her.
A tiny girl dressed in some sort of fleecy outfit. She hung onto Mrs. Cooper’s skirt and peered around her leg.
“What a cutie. Does your mother babysit?”
“Yes, well, no, not exactly.” Stephanie tugged her lip between her teeth. The woman was going to gnaw herself to death before he found out what was going on.
He opened the SUV door and put a foot on the driveway.
Her frantic voice froze him. “Where are you going?”
