by Pamela Fryer
The door to the craft slid closed automatically and the ramp retracted into the floor of the ship. A few steps took them outside the cloak’s protective shield. From the inside traveling out, it was hardly noticeable, except for the sudden assault of heavy raindrops smacking her face.
Her clothes had dried to a crust stiff with grime. Now the rain moistened it, and reanimated that nasty smell as well.
They didn’t need Jager’s super flashlight. A small patch had opened in the clouds to the west, letting a fat, glowing moon shine through.
As they walked, the rain slacked off to a drizzle, and then a fine mist.
She used to love nights like these when she was a teenager, sneaking out to drink beer with her friends before her memories of Ridgemont turned bad. The silver light of the moon glinting off minty pine and the rich, earthy odor of damp, Oregon soil were sensations she’d nearly forgotten in her years away. Morosely, she realized that after tonight she’d never look at the forest the same way again. It had become a frightening place, filled with hidden, alien dangers.
They rounded the fallen trees to see her car sitting on the road, lonely and dark. It was an ominous sight. Brooke suddenly had visions of slasher movies.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” she asked him. Was that the stink of the spider again, or was the stench merely coming off her foul clothes?
“The Tetra will most likely stay near its clutch, now that it knows we are no longer pursuing it. It has food to feed the hatchlings. It will not risk the nest to hunt again.”
She didn’t appreciate the grim reminder her client’s daughter was soon to become puppy chow. When he spoke of Sara he sounded like a politician, as though he were afraid less for the girl’s life than for the repercussions his planet might face for letting one of its dangerous zoo animals escape.
His planet. Did I really just put those two words in a rational thought?
Brooke activated the door locks with the remote. The dome light came on. She snorted cynically; it was paltry technology to Jager and his super-gizmos. Still, the warm light filling her car, proving there were no giant spiders hiding in the back seat, brought a rush of relief.
She opened the back door on the driver’s side. “Sit her down. Put her feet there.” She pointed at the foot well. He placed her in the seat and Brooke fastened the seatbelt around the girl. Jill’s head slumped back against the headrest and her mouth sagged open.
Brooke shut the door and Jager stepped up behind her as she opened the driver’s door.
“You need to get in over there.” She hopped in and reached over to throw his door open. Jager rounded the car and folded his large body into the passenger seat. He seemed too big for the mid-sized rental.
“Like this.” She demonstrated with her own seatbelt, even though she’d have to hop out and open the gates at the highway.
He had trouble with the mechanism. She reached over to help him. Their fingers fumbled together as she helped guide the fitting into the clasp. His closeness made her body temperature rise a few degrees above normal.
“Release it like this.” She thumbed the button to show him, and then secured it again. Her fingers brushed his thigh where he seemed to spread over the edge of the seat. She snatched her hand back.
He may be from another planet, but he was solid and masculine like any hunky Earth man. Those two together meant keep your distance, Brooke Weaver.
She turned the engine on and the clock in the stereo illuminated. Was it really eleven thirty?
“Some of the FBI agents are staying at the local hotel. I think that’s as good a place as any to take Jill. I need a shower and a fresh change of clothes.”
Even though we’ll be heading right back into the sewer to tackle a man-eating spider.
She stopped at the gates and hopped out to push them open herself, grateful for the momentary distance from Jager. The man inspired a strange mix of fear and arousal, and right now she wasn’t fit to handle either. If only he didn’t have to be so nice on top of it all. She’d done nothing to earn his friendliness but punch him in the mouth and zap him with her Taser.
Brooke drove the car through and then jumped out to close the gates behind them, leaving the area looking undisturbed. When she got back in the car, she wondered if that was indeed best.
“I think this is too big for us alone,” she said hesitantly. No matter how amazing it was meeting a real-life alien, the best thing to do was extract herself from this situation.
She turned onto the highway and headed for town. The clouds had closed around the moon. It was darker than death out here, and there wasn’t another car on the highway.
“An Earth-assigned agent has been dispatched to help,” Jager told her. “But his time of arrival is unknown. I do not expect his assistance will come in time.”
“I think we should call the police, or military. Of Earth.”
“Your agencies are ill-equipped to deal with a threat such as this. There are no weapons advanced enough to destroy the Tetra.”
She eyed him. “You’ve got to be kidding me. That thing won’t stand a chance against a handheld rocket launcher.”
“Can you shoot a mosquito with a rifle?”
Good point. “My Taser made it unhappy.”
“That is all it did. Regardless, I cannot reveal my true identity to Earth authorities. It is a direct violation of Article Twenty-three.”
“But you’ve told me,” she argued gently.
“You had already encountered the Tetra.” He glanced at her. His expression was deadly serious, frighteningly so in the green glow of the dashboard. “I had no choice, under the circumstances.”
She swallowed and stared ahead at the dark road, waiting for him to finish with “And now I’ll have to kill you.”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t try to get in contact with this other agent you mentioned?”
“Your assistance is all I require. Be assured, I will find the Tetra and destroy it.”
Was that a defensive tone she detected? She hadn’t meant to insinuate he wasn’t capable.
“Jager, I don’t doubt you, but I think you believe I’m going to help you more than I can.”
“I need only that you find me the schematics of your transfer tubes.”
“It’s called the sewer. The tubes are pipes.”
“You possess valuable knowledge about this planet, and time is short. You will be of great assistance to me. I understand you must find the missing girl, and I will help you rescue her.”
All things considered, it was a generous claim. And Brooke understood she needed Jager, because in the end it was the stinky spider that would lead them to Sara.
She didn’t tell him that once she found Sara Brown, he was on his own.
They entered the outskirts of the small town in silence. Ridgemont rolled up its sidewalks at nine o’clock. After midnight, with a thin layer of ground fog seeping through the streets, the town resembled the set of a horror flick. She half expected a guy wearing a hockey mask to step in front of her car, wielding a chainsaw.
I have to stop watching scary movies.
She stopped the car at a red light in a desolate intersection. Brooke felt him watching her and glanced over. “What?”
“On my planet, women do not captain vessels. Not even women soldiers.”
She wouldn’t exactly call driving a car “captaining a vessel” and the statement irked her. It sounded subtly chauvinistic. “Is my performance lacking in some way?”
“Not at all.” He smiled. She glanced away. That devilish grin was too beguiling. After the situation with Richard, trust was hard to come by. Especially with men from another planet.
She could just hear it now. “I’ll interstellar-call ya, babe.” She snorted.
“What is funny?”
Brooke shook her head. “Nothing.”
It didn’t matter. A police career made relationships practically impossible. What she did now only removed the “practically” from the equation. E
specially long-distance relationships. Very long-distance relationships.
“So, um, what planet are you from?” Brooke groaned inwardly. Had she really just asked that question?
“It is called Ocreon. It is in the fifth quadrant.”
“Ah yes. The fifth quadrant.”
She glanced over. His half smile showed in the dashboard’s glow. So they recognized sarcasm on Ocreon, in the fifth quadrant.
“Outside your solar universe, there is a vast expanse with many living solar systems. I traveled here through a channel similar to what your scientists call a black hole.”
It was almost too much to fathom while trying to concentrate on the road. Her mind was tired, plain and simple. She sighed. One thing was clear—he was treating her rather well considering she’d shot him full of fifty thousand volts.
“I guess I should say…sorry for zapping you.”
She glanced over and met his questioning eyes. She tapped the Taser she’d set in the center console cup holder.
“I believe I understand why you did it.”
Sexy and generous. I’m doomed.
“And, um, thanks for saving my life. Twice.” The light turned green and she let off the brake.
“Thanks are not necessary. I am a soldier. It is my job to protect any who fall in danger of the Tetra.”
He was staring again. She glanced sideways after she cleared the intersection. His eyes rose from her bosom, but he didn’t try to hide the fact he’d been perusing her. She swerved the car back into the right side of the road. In the back seat, Jill moaned.
“You’re staring at me.”
“You are a very beautiful woman, Brooke Weaver.”
She turned all warm and fuzzy inside, even while she guarded herself. Still, a compliment was a compliment, and when it came from an incredible hunk like Jager, it jazzed her beyond words.
“Are you fertile?”
Whoa. “Excuse me?”
“Can you reproduce?”
“I know what it means!”
“Have I offended you?”
She blasted a sigh. “No, I’m not offended. But you shouldn’t go around asking women questions like that. It’s very personal.” She glanced at him, scowling. He looked so genuine she felt guilty. “I’m not married,” she said defensively.
“Are there laws here restricting procreation?”
She recalled there were some laws in Georgia about...somehow she didn’t think that was what he meant. “A few very loose ones.”
“Why do you not take a husband?”
Like it was that easy. “Eligible men don’t just grow on trees.”
“Is there a shortage in the population?”
“On the contrary, there are too many jerks to sift through.”
“If you are permitted to marry, then why do you not?”
God, it was like having a conversation with her mother. “Are you married?”
“I am a soldier. I am forbidden to marry.” He said it like that explained everything.
A warrior who was not permitted to marry. Not that she was interested, but it seemed a tragic waste that all those sexy muscles were destined for loneliness.
And wasn’t it just her luck that the first hot guy to find her attractive in what seemed like centuries was not only from another planet, he was off-limits.
* * * * *
The kid at the front desk was probably ten when she left Oregon, yet the minute she walked in to the hotel office, he bolted upright and turned down the volume on the small TV behind the counter. “You’re Brooke Weaver, aren’t you? I saw your name in the register.”
She nodded, too tired to tell another wide-eyed teenager about her glamorous and exciting cloak-and-dagger career.
“Is there a problem with your room? ’Cause I can switch you to another. We have one step up from crap we call the honeymoon suite.” He made finger quotation marks as he said the word “honeymoon.” Typical teenager, bad-mouthing his parents’ livelihood.
“Are there any FBI from the raid this morning staying here?”
“Yeah, about six of them. Man, we’re damn glad they came along. That cult was a freak show. Animal sacrifices and shit.”
She seriously doubted that, but knew how gossip and hearsay was inflated in a small town like this, especially when the FBI came rolling in.
“How about a blond woman, sort of pretty, about forty?”
He clicked through the computer. “Uh, maybe that’s Beth Dail. D-A-I-L. She’s the chick in charge. Room nineteen.”
Brooke smiled wearily. She must be tired. She’d forgotten the woman’s name, which she never did. In her line of work, ability to remember details was key. But Dail sounded right as she thought back to this morning, which felt more like a lifetime ago.
Truthfully, any of the agents would do. “Is that the first or second floor?”
“First,” he told her.
Great. She wouldn’t have to climb the stairs. “Thanks.” She turned to go.
“Hey, do you mind if I ask you some questions some time? It’s like, boss, what you do.”
She turned back. “Sure. How about any time but tonight? I’m beat.”
“It’s this morning already.” He laughed. “But I gotcha.”
Brooke’s room was number three, which meant the agent’s room was on the opposite end of the long, straight hotel made up of two wings divided by the office.
She parked her car on the side of the hotel near the agent’s room. Even though it was a rental, she made it a practice never to park her car near her own door. She’d learned the hard way when the three-hundred pound boyfriend of the drug addict she was trying to convince to return to her family kicked her door in at a flimsy hotel just like this. Too many people took offense to her occupation. She didn’t know how well-healed Jager’s ribs were, so this would make it easier on him too.
“Come on,” she told him. “This way.”
He got out of the car and lifted Jill into his arms. The lights were still on in the agent’s room, even though it was almost one a.m. Brooke knocked on the door. “Miss Dail, it’s Brooke Weaver, the PI from this morning.”
The curtains jerked back. It was indeed the blond woman who’d allowed her onto the buses. Her eyes moved from Brooke, to Jager, to the girl in his arms. She opened the door.
“Is this the senator’s daughter?”
“Unfortunately not. Her name is Jill Tucker. She sneaked out of the compound after the raid.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
Where to begin?
“Exposure. She’s been hiding in the forest for about five hours.” There, an explanation about where they’d found her. The last thing Brooke wanted was an army of FBI heading into the sewers and encountering Spidersaurus Rex.
Agent Dail pursed her lips. She looked less than thrilled about taking her on.
“I’m really sorry to disturb you,” Brooke pressed. “But the urgent care closes at midnight and the nearest hospital is in Portland.”
“No, you did the right thing bringing her here.” Agent Dail stood back and let them in. “Put her on the bed.”
She picked up a radio from the little round table identical to the one in Brooke’s room. After calling for an associate, she wrinkled her nose at Brooke.
“What happened to you?”
“I’ve had an adventure.” That was putting it mildly. “Right now all I want is a shower and a clean change of clothes.”
Agent Dail eyed Jager suspiciously. “And who is this?”
“My associate.” Brooke turned to leave, urging Jager out in front of her. “Thanks, Agent Dail. We’ll leave you to it, then.”
“Miss Weaver—”
Brooke stopped. The woman was cordial but didn’t approve of her. That much was clear in her tone. Brooke was used to it. It came with the territory when you carried the title Private Investigator. In most cases, that meant you couldn’t get a real job. Only in Brooke’s case, she’d had a real job, and it had nearly k
illed her. Private investigators might have a bad rap, but at least she got to choose who she chased down.
“When you find Sara Brown, you’ll bring her to the FBI.” Agent Dail raised her eyebrows, but the request was phrased so firmly, it didn’t even pretend to sound like a question. “There are extradition laws in Oregon preventing you from taking her out of state.”
Brooke forced a smile and, with great effort, summoned an accommodating tone. “Agent Dail, I know anyone in an official capacity considers private investigators the scum of the earth because when I was with the Portland PD, I did too. But while I’m licensed, it’s just window dressing. I don’t hunt fugitives or peek through hotel windows looking for cheating spouses. I track down lost people. My clients are always family or friends and my charges are not wanted criminals.”
“Miss Brown is a wanted criminal,” Agent Dail countered with warning in her eyes. “Not only do we want to question her about alleged contributions to a terrorist organization, but I’m sure you know about the assault charge pressed by the motorist in Nevada.”
Brooke thought the best thing to do was keep silent, rather than admitting she knew about it and, as an ex-cop, the extradition law as well.
But then to her surprise Agent Dail’s expression softened and she smiled back. “So what do you consider your real title?”
The question took Brooke by surprise. No one had ever asked her that before. She thought about it for a moment, not quite ready to accept the snarky reporter’s title. “I find lost souls.”
“That’s not something I would consider the scum of the earth.”
The other agent gave a quick knock and entered, and Brooke took the opportunity to leave. Their breath plumed in the frigid air as Brooke and Jager walked down the aisle to her room.
“You told her I was your associate.”
Brooke could only manage a weary chuckle. She was tired all the way to the marrow of her bones. “What else could I have told her?”
She opened the door to her room and flipped on the light. “Make yourself comfortable. I’m going to take a shower.” She kicked off her shoes and left them on the small square of linoleum in front of the door, and dropped her crusty jacket there as well.
