by Tina Gower
He shoves the death notice back at me. I catch it with a clumsy sort of grace. Hank had accused us of forming a pack before, but neither Becker nor I would confirm it. Becker probably wouldn’t be pleased to find out I gave his nosy partner, soon to be ex-partner, so much personal information, but Becker had told my cousin Ali. I guess that made us even.
Hank smacks his palm against his forehead a few times, pacing the waiting room that looks miniscule with his large body taking up most of the space. “Let me get this straight. Becker and you have formed your own little pack.”
I nod.
“He’s attracted to you.”
I can’t really answer that for Becker, even though we had just decided to try at a relationship a mere six hours ago. I stand still and follow Hank’s progression around the room. He’s pacing in more of a triangle pattern around me. Likely because the chair set-up is too tight for him to circle me like a lion about to rip out my guts.
He pauses, points an accusing finger at me. “You’re attracted to him.”
I nod, because, yes, I am hot for my department liaison.
“So you’re his pack. His only pack. The first pack he’s attempted to form since his last pack was murdered, slaughtered years ago in a crime that to this day hasn’t brought in all the suspects. He’s so attracted to you it’s embarrassing to watch and you like him.”
I shrug. That’s an accurate assessment. But gods, did he have to put it so bluntly?
He flicks the death note in my grip. “And you’re dead.”
I frown. “I’m not dead. It’s a sixty percent chance at best. And I’m…” I catch myself before I say it out loud.
He cracks his knuckles, sucking in his lips and executes the king of all eye rolls. “That is not how Becker is going to read that note, Kate. If there’s a one percent chance he’s going to see two zeros behind it, but sixty? He’s going to flip his lid.”
“But it’s likely”—I glance around to be sure nobody is near or skipping down the hallway at the exact moment I divulge my little personal secret—“fake. I’m fateless.”
He grunts. “Hate to break it to you, Katie Cupcake, but that little slip of paper says otherwise.”
I keep my voice low, inching in close to Lipski. More than anything I don’t want this news to get out. Especially now that the fateless were all over the morning news as being potentially dangerous, because the public was wrongfully led to believe fateless could change an oracle’s vision.
True, I had used my inability to be predicted on by the oracles to get the upper hand while Becker and I were pursuing Liza Hamilton. She’d been using her own seers and abducted precognitives to make a predictions net to use against our oracles. Because I’m fateless, I was able to make a move against her plan without her knowing. There had been a few studies on the fateless, but nothing had ever indicated we could change predictions.
Or they. Not we. I couldn’t get used to the idea that this death notice could be legit. A death oracle had touched me during my last investigation. Being touched by an oracle might lead to personal predictions. Except my death note didn’t have Rosa Germain as the predicting oracle. It had someone named Jayesh Patel. Having only worked in Accidental Death for a few months, I didn’t know all the death oracles. Jayesh wasn’t one I’d worked with or had any memory of on the roster.
I wave my death notice like a flag. “This could be a fake. I got too close to whoever is altering predictions and this is their message to back off.”
Lipski plants his fists on his hips. “Yeah, but their message is a homicide based death prediction.”
Beth walks by, scanning the hallway and waiting room. She stops with a little hop and a smile when she sees me. “Oh! There you are. I’ve got your case floating around. There are a lot of people who remember you, Kate. I’m sure someone will take it.”
“Great.” I bet they remember me.
“You should come up and say hi.” Beth waves me toward the direction of the elevators.
“Well, I…maybe…hmm. I should go—or you could send someone down.” I babble out each excuse, not quite sticking the landing on any of them.
Lipski hooks his arm in mine. “She’d love to.”
He unceremoniously drags me down the hallway to the elevators. Beth runs ahead and pushes the button. It opens instantly. I imagine it’s a large mouth with fangs ready to swallow me and digest me during a thousand years of pure torture.
And I thought the worst that could happen today was a death notice, getting suspended from my position, and contemplating how I’m going to tell Becker about it.
Now I’m on my way to face all my ex-coworkers. When they saw me last I’d been crying ugly tears after my boyfriend broke up with me, went back to his wife, and turned me in to Human Resources as having an inappropriate relationship with a superior.
Which was him. My boyfriend, Kyle Dillingham was also one of my bosses. Sort of.
He got a slap on the wrist and an eventual promotion. I spent years in Traffic Predictions hell. But I already mentioned that. I repeat things when I’m nervous.
The elevator opens and Beth marches us through a maze of hallways, around the outskirts of Homicide’s main hub, and deposits me into the nearest waiting room. Along the way I see faces of coworkers I haven’t spoken to in years. They whisper and follow me with their gaze. Matilda, one of the office managers, glares. Her lips press together and her chin goes up like a toddler refusing the airplane spoon.
Biggs, one of my fellow interns. We had a nice healthy competition and friendship. Until she realized I’d been sleeping with our boss. She blocked my emails and each one bounced back, flagged as spam with a warning. She crosses her arms tightly across her chest as I walk by.
The door taps shut, but all the windows facing the cubicles alert me to the fact that everyone is openly staring at me like I’m the three-legged unicorn or the giant angus cow that can make a thousand hamburgers exhibit at the circus.
I slink into a chair, which is much nicer than the chair in my office. Figures that Homicide would have cushier chairs for criminals in their interrogation rooms than Accidental had as standard issue. But that’s government trickle down for ya.
“This is a very bad idea,” I say in a very small voice.
Lipski’s eyes narrow. He glares at all my ex-coworkers and flips the blinds shut. “Don’t let them see you sweat, Cupcake.”
Beth, probably sensing the awkwardness, twiddles her thumbs, looking at every chair, wall, and corner in the room except at me. “Well, I should go see if they’ve found anyone to take the case yet.” She pulls down the front of her blouse and wrings her hands. “They’re likely just making sure to get the best actuary in Homicide for the job.”
She darts out of the room.
Lipski snorts and peeks out into the main office through the blinds. “More likely they’re fighting over who gets your wishbone. What the hells did you do to these people?”
“I slept with one of the supervising actuaries.”
He quirks his eyebrows up in question.
“I was going through a really destructive stage.”
He grunts a laugh. “You’re extremely amusing. You and Becker together are fodder for your own comedy show.” He sits down and tips back in the chair, placing each of his boots with a hard thunk onto the marble conference table. No Formica for Homicide. He squints out the one window where he kept the blinds slightly open. “Aw shit.”
The door yanks open and two hundred pounds of very pissed off, vibrating with anxiety werewolf steps through. He points a finger at Lipski. “What the fuck. You knew?”
“I didn’t know. I just ran into her while I was here for my interview.”
Becker shakes his head, hands holding his skull together as though it might fall apart. It’s like he’s trying to compute the excuse. “It’s fine. You can go now.”
Lipski sits up in the chair. “Come on, Beck. You know I’m not going to leave.”
Becker paces, sh
aking. “You should go.”
Lipski gets up from his chair and quietly closes the last set of blinds. “I know about you and Kate. She just told me. Go ahead and hug your girlfriend.”
Becker doesn’t bite off his usual go-fuck-yourself response. He just continues pacing and pulling at the neck of his police uniform like it’s strangling him. His eyes aren’t gold; they’re dull and devoid of his usual vibrant teal. In its place is a pale blue. That’s how I know it’s bad. Whatever is going on in his brain, it’s not good.
I dig out the note from my laptop case, holding it to my stomach, wondering if it’s a smart move to show it to him or if I should try to distract him. I go for distraction. “How did you find out?”
“I went by your office. You weren’t there. Gretchen told me.” He says each sentence as if it’s shards of glass in his throat.
“It’s fake. You know it’s got to be. We’re getting too close. This is the only way to stop both of us from investigating further.”
He slams his fists down on the table. “But the threat is real.”
“He’s right, Katie,” Lipski interjects. “Even if it’s fabricated, they’re still sending a message of what they have planned for you.”
I pin him with a look. “You’re not helping.”
I turn back to Becker, inching forward. My fingers lightly skim his whitened knuckles, dipping under the hem of his sleeve to his wrist. I’d read in a book on werewolves that certain pressure points could help with emotional regulation. Not that Becker’s behavior follows any textbook in print. “Hey, this isn’t bad. It’s very near a fifty-fifty chance. These kinds of predictions are much easier to break, even if it were real. Which it’s not.”
Beth peeks her head into the room. “I hear we got a taker. I just got a call from Finance and there’s been a tiny little stock market blip predicted. They think because of the Traffic incident earlier, but I have to leave and deal with that.” She balances her card on the window ledge. “Please call me.”
And she bops off.
I watch her leave with envy. “We should go. We can handle this case better ourselves.”
Some of the fire returns in Becker’s eyes. “Agreed.” He pushes himself from the table, snatching my hand.
Lipski stands in front of the door, arms out to stop us. “Whoa, wait a second. There are by far more resources in Homicide that we can’t tap into if we don’t have someone on the inside.”
“That’s the problem.” Becker lowers his voice to a point I can barely hear him. Both he and Lipski have more advanced hearing, but we don’t know if anyone in the office behind us has that same ability. “The people we’re trying to find also have someone on the inside. We put this case through Homicide we’ve given them everything they want. Kate’s whereabouts. Kate’s status.” Becker taps his ear and points to the office chaos.
Lipski’s eyes widen. “How do you know? We already bagged one. We likely got them all.” He taps his ear, then his temple.
Some sort of communication is going on between them. During my first case with Becker we’d discovered an office manager’s assistant in Homicide that had been holding back predictions. It nearly got an oracle killed and almost brought down the predictions net.
We’ve been working on the assumption that there are still traitors among us.
I grip Becker’s hand tighter. “We can use this.” I motion to my death note. “We can use me to get to them.”
Becker lowers his head, eyes squeeze shut. He knows this is the best plan we have. A little crazy, but—
“No.” He doesn’t say it to me. Becker’s focus zeros in on Lipski. “Move. Get out of our way. We’re doing this on our own, with or without you.”
“I’d rather it be with,” I interject.
Lipski stands a little taller. “I won’t let you do this. Later when you’re thinking clearly, you’ll thank me for pulling you back from the ledge. Look at you. You’re scared shitless that history will repeat itself. You’re in no shape to make decisions right now.”
He lunges at Lipski. “Fuck you.” He grabs ahold of the lapels of Hank’s coat.
Lipski shoves Becker forward. The back of Becker’s leg catches on a swivel chair and he plops into it, sliding back until he hits the table. His face goes red, his jaw clenches, fists ready.
My eyes widen. It’s like watching a train wreck and knowing there’s no way you can stop it. But my brain searches for the most logical solution.
I tumble forward, blocking Becker’s ability to spring forward in counterattack. My hands on his shoulders break my fall, and Becker, unable to allow my head from cracking into the table as momentum pushes me forward, hooks his arms around me and pulls me into his lap.
It’s enough. His grip tightens. He buries his face in my hair, taking in a deep trembling breath to calm himself. My arms wrap around his body, pulling him in close.
I send a flat-lipped look to Lipski, who promptly turns around, giving us privacy.
Several years ago, Becker lost his pack, and I’ve since replaced them. His pack was more than a family, more than friends. They kept him regulated and able to function. As a nearly full-blooded werewolf, he’d suffered from behavioral and emotional issues without the constant reassurances of touch from someone he trusted. Now he was facing the possibility of that loss all over again.
Lipski runs his fingers through his hair over and over. He cracks his knuckles and shifts from one foot to the other. Hank, as Becker’s partner, had been there for the first fallout, and the look on Hank’s face now—he doesn’t think either of us is watching—tells me he isn’t as cool as he pretends. He’s just as scared for his friend. He doesn’t think Becker will make it through that same tragedy again.
“You know,” Lipski says, “although I don’t think it’s smart, I’m willing to do this your way. It’s all about what Kate wants, and if she thinks this is the best option, I’m not going to strand you both.”
Becker shakes his head. He looks to me for confirmation and I nod slightly to let him know it’s okay with me.
His hugs me tight again. “No. You’re right. I’ll step back and let you take point on this.” He chokes on the last words, like it kills a little part inside him to give up that much control.
“Then it’s settled.” I stand and brush my skirt down. I hold a hand out for Becker to grasp and he does, pulling himself up from the chair. “We see what kind of information we can get from Homicide. At worst they can’t tell us anything. We’re no better than where we started.” But my hope is that Beth has secured us with someone trustworthy, someone who wants to break this open and sniff out the leak as badly as we do. Becker will know if we can trust whoever is assigned to the case. He can scent a lie.
And as if on cue, there’s a knock at the door. It opens at the same time as the knock, as if the person behind it knows he will be welcomed. As if he has every right to the space around him.
There’s only one person in my life who ever took those liberties. He appears before I can even accept his presence. That he of all people would be the one to take my case, but you know, it makes sense. He’d never let anyone else have the privilege.
“Kate,” says my ex. “My gods, I came as soon as I heard.”
Kyle Dillingham.
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to everyone who makes this series possible. To my growing list of early reviewers and readers. I absolutely love the email from fans of the series who are finding Kate and Becker and the rest of the gang as enjoyable as I do. You all rock.
To my husband who uploads covers for me and helps me with the more technical aspects I can’t figure out on my own (well I probably could, but times ten on the frustration level to get there).
To Krystal who made the joke about Becker and Ali fan fiction—hope you liked the resulting scene from that comment.
To all the people asking when the next book will come out. It
’s encouraging to know people are looking for it! Thank you!
About the Author
Tina Gower grew up in a small community in Northern California that proudly boasts of having more cows than people. She raised guide dogs for the blind, is dyslexic, and can shoot a gun or bow and miraculously never hit the target (which at some point becomes a statistical improbability). Tina also won the Writers of the Future, the Daphne du Maurier Award for Mystery and Suspense (paranormal category), and was nominated for the Romance Writers of America® Golden Heart® (writing as Alice Faris). She has professionally published several short stories in a variety of magazines. Tina is represented by Rebecca Strauss at DeFiore and Company.
Get the latest updates and learn more about the Outlier Series and other books by Tina Gower by signing up for her newsletter at her website www.tinagower.com or visit her blog www.smashedpicketfences.com
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