She turned off the television and put her hand on his upper arm. The feeling of her touch ignited the passion inside him and he had to resist pulling her into his arms. He didn't want her to have to see what he had to show her.
"You have to look at something in the trunk of the car.”
"Okay."
Jessie led Dana back to the garage and popped open the trunk of the car. She screamed when she saw it and he closed it quickly
"You didn't know anything about this?" he asked.
"Of course not!" she cried, shaking. He went to her and gathered her in his arms.
Stroking her hair, he said "I'm sorry you had to see that. I wanted you to know before I called the authorities."
"What should we tell them?"
"The truth," Jessie said.
Chapter 4
Dana bit her lip and looked up into Jessie's big blue eyes. She glanced around the garage at all his tools. Jessie had looked so yummy this morning when he had saved her on the side of the road. She hated that their time together was ruined by dumb Chuck Updike’s dead body. Now she would have to go to the law.
She’d just found her fated mate, and now the Bear Patrol would probably think she had killed Chuck. Her luck hadn’t changed, it was still getting worse and worse. Fate had given her Jessie just to snatch it all away again.
Jessie put his hands on her shoulders and gathered her up into another bear hug, pulling her tight against his hard and welcoming chest. She breathed in his scent, full of sunshine and rain and rested her head against his burly chest. The fox inside her purred with contentment. All she wanted was to be home like this with Jessie once and for all. She had to trust that this was all going to be okay.
"Are you going to call the police?" she asked.
"I'll call Rollo Morris. He and my brother are friends."
"I'm going to trust you," she said, clenching her teeth.
"Everything is going to be okay. You'll see.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said nervously.
Jessie smiled at her and pulled his cellphone out of his back pocket. He dialed the direct number for the chief of police. Dana examined Jessie’s face as he listened to the phone ring.
“This is Jessie Kincaid. I need to speak with Commander Morris.”
Jessie waited. Dana took a deep breath and let it out, trying to get her heart to stop slamming around her chest. She’d been a prisoner of the Updikes for so long that the thought of the authorities scared the hell out of her. Jessie nodded at her and smiled as he listened to the phone.
“Hi, Commander Morris. This is Buck Kincaid’s brother, Jessie,” he started. “We have a situation at the Timber Bear Ranch. You should come out here and take a look.”
Dana raised an eyebrow.
“It’s hard to say over the phone, sir. But we seem to have found a dead body in the back of a car.”
Dana could hear Commander Morris’s voice grow intense over the phone. “That’s right,” Jessie said. “You’ll be here in a few minutes then? Good. We’re in the machine shop.”
Jessie flicked off his phone and shoved it into his back pocket.
“What did he say,” Dana asked.
“He said he’d be out here in a few minutes to investigate. He’s bringing the rest of the Bear Patrol.”
“Oh,” Dana said weakly.
She wanted to run away as fast as her feet would take her. The urge to shift into fox form and take to the woods overwhelmed her. The voice of her fox inside her mind yipped and barked to run away. But she couldn’t. Jessie was her mate and this was her chance to have the life she’d always wanted.
Jessie, seeming to sense her concern, walked to her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her into his warmth. She felt a tear threatening to roll out of the corner of her eye, and she sniffed it back.
“I know we just met, Dana. And you don’t have any reason to trust me. But I will do everything in my power to protect you and take care of you. Whatever I have, it’s for you.”
“How did you get so sweet?” she asked, looking up at him with a smile on her lips that belied the tears collecting in her eyes.
“Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, stepping back and breaking away from his embrace.
“Just that, among the Kincaid brothers, I don’t think I’d be considered the sweet one.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because, well, I’m generally the brother who everyone knows likes to have a good time.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” she said, wiping the stray tear from her cheek.
“I’ve had a lot of… dates,” he said.
“Oh, then we’re a perfect fit. I’ve had exactly zero.”
She burst into a nervous giggle, and he patted her shoulder.
“This is strange for both of us,” he said, looking her in the eye. “Honestly, I never wanted to find a mate. Until I met you. And that was kind of an accident. My family kept pestering me to join Mate.com and I finally did it last night. That’s the only way we got matched.”
“Why didn’t you want a mate?” Dana asked.
“A lot of reasons,” he said with a sigh.
She could tell the subject distressed him. She didn’t want to press it too hard, but the curiosity was killing her. Jessie was her mate, and she wanted to know everything there was to know about him.
“What was the biggest one?” she asked carefully.
“Probably… what happened to my dad after my mother died. She had an accident when I was a kid, and my dad never got over it. Even twenty years later, his love for his mate ruined him. It almost ruined the family and lost us the ranch. I couldn’t imagine ever being that dependent on another person. I vowed to live my life on my own terms.”
“I see,” she said quietly. It was a very sad story, but she felt she understood where he was coming from. “It must have been hard for you, growing up without your mom.”
“It was. Especially considering how her death was my fault.”
Just when she was about to ask how his mother’s death could possibly be his fault, black SUVs marked with Fate Mountain Police Dept rolled into the parking area outside the machine shop. Dana’s heart leapt and she gulped hard, trying to force it back down into its proper place. Jessie took her hand as the police cars parked and the officers stepped out onto the gravel drive.
“Commander Morris,” Jessie said, holding out his hand as the handsome, uniformed chief stepped toward them. The commander shook Jessie’s hand and his eyes turned to Dana, scrutinizing her face.
“I don’t believe we’ve ever met,” Commander Morris said. “I’m Commander Rollo Morris. And you are?”
“I’m Dana Myers. I’m a fox shifter who’s been staying with the Updikes for the last two years,” she said meekly.
“Staying isn’t exactly the right word for it,” Jessie corrected.
“What is?” Rollo asked.
“She was a captive. Sold to the hyena pack to pay off a debt.”
“Like they tried to do with Cyrus’s mate Daisy,” Rollo said, pulling a notepad out of his breast pocket.
“Exactly.”
“Well, not really,” Dana corrected. “One of them was going to marry Daisy. They just wanted to use me as a servant.”
“All right. Now where is this dead body?” Rollo said, pushing his aviator sunglasses up the bridge of his nose.
The officer who’d come with him was pulling equipment out of the back seat of the SUV.
“This is our technician, Damien Fellows. He’ll gather the forensic evidence and snap some photos of the crime scene.”
“I found the body in the trunk of this car,” Jessie said, popping the trunk.
Damien clicked a photo as the trunk swung open. Dana buried her head in Jessie’s chest, squeezing her eyes shut at the sight of the dead body. The smell was overpowering, just like raw meat kept in a hot car.
“What time was that?” Ro
llo asked.
“Right before I called you.”
“Whose car is this?” Rollo asked.
“I borrowed it from the mansion. There are a lot of cars there. When I decided to leave. I just took one.”
“I see,” Rollo said, looking her up and down.
Dana gulped. She’d been scrutinized many times at the Updike mansion, but never by someone with legal authority. She felt sweaty and her heart thumped in her chest. Dana’s inner fox was about done for; the beast scratched and clawed for escape.
“Why did you leave last night?”
“Everyone was drunk.”
“So, you left without them knowing?” Rollo said.
“Yes. “
“What time was that?”
“About four in the morning.”
“We’ll have to examine the body,” Rollo said as the ambulance approached.
It pulled up to the machine shop and the back doors opened. Two EMTs hopped out of the back with a stretcher in tow. They pulled the stretcher to the car where Damien was taking samples of the crime scene. He placed a hair in a vial with tweezers.
“We have all we need here,” Damien said to the waiting EMTs before they began to remove the body from the back of the car.
“I’d like to have a few more words with you down at the station,” Commander Morris said, squinting at Dana as he removed his sunglasses.
“Really?” she squeaked.
“I have a lot of questions for you, Ms. Myers. We should conduct our interview in private.”
“She’s not going anywhere without me,” Jessie interjected.
“I’m getting the impression that you two are mates,” Rollo said.
“Just found out this morning,” Jessie affirmed.
“We met on the side of the road,” Dana added. “It was very romantic. He saved me.”
“Is that right?” Rollo said, writing in his notepad. “What time was that?”
“About five am. I got her text on Mate.com. I thought maybe she was making a joke about being broken down on the side of the road. But I went out with the tow truck anyway.”
Jessie laughed, his smile broad. It seemed to glint in the late morning sunlight that streamed through the open shop doors. The EMTs wheeled the body into the ambulance and drove away as Damien continued to snap pictures and take samples. Dana eyed the technician as he went about his job. She knew that with her luck this murder would somehow be pinned on her. Jessie kept saying everything would be fine, but she didn’t believe it.
“Why don’t you both come down to the station with me,” Rollo said. “You can help us get a clear impression of what happened here.”
“The biggest question is, who would want to kill Chuck Updike?” Jessie asked, scratching his chin.
After two years with the Updikes, Dana knew the answer to that question: A lot of people.
Chapter 5
Dana and Jessie climbed into the backseat of Rollo’s police SUV. Damien rode in the front passenger seat and Rollo drove them back to town. When he parked in front of the police station, Dana felt her heart up in her throat so tight, she doubted she’d be able to answer any of Rollo’s questions.
Dana climbed out of the car and followed Jessie into the police station, gripping his hand until her knuckles turned white. He shook her hand a little and looked down at her with a warm smile on his face, his eyebrows narrowing above his eyes. She could tell he was as nervous as she was. But she appreciated his attempt at comforting her.
Jessie was right about one thing, they had just met. Even though they were both shifters and mates, that fact remained. He had no real reason to trust her or help her, just as she had no reason to trust or help him. Dana had waited for years for someone to love. It was the big gaping hole inside her heart. And now, as she had the chance to have everything she wanted, it was in danger of being taken away from her.
Rollo separated her from Jessie and took her to be fingerprinted.
“Am I a suspect?” she asked as he pressed her finger into the ink.
“We need to differentiate the prints on the car. We’re taking Jessie’s too.”
After he took her prints and handed her an alcohol cloth to clean them off, he took her into a private interrogation room equipped with only a table with a chair on either side. The room was plain with a video camera set up in the corner, staring down at her. She gulped and wrung her hands as she rested her elbows on the table. Rollo dropped a file filled with papers on the table and slid into his chair across from her. She’d hoped someone other than the chief would do her interview. Looking up into his authoritative, stern face, made her heart race and sweat trickle down her brow.
"Can I get you some water or coffee?" Rollo asked.
"Water would be nice," Dana said, gulping.
Rollo looked up at the video camera and said, "Bring in a bottle of water."
A moment later an officer in a blue uniform entered the room with a bottle of water and set it on the table. Rollo handed it to Dana and she slowly opened the bottle, taking a long draw.
“I want to get a little more background from you, Dana,” Rollo said. “You came to live with the Updikes two years ago, correct?”
“That’s right. It was the month after I graduated from high school. I still lived with my great uncle and his second wife. Because my great uncle ran the fox pack, I think he believed he had a right to use me as a bargaining chip. It didn’t help that his new wife never liked me, or my parents for that matter.”
“How old were you when you came to live with the Updikes?” Rollo asked.
“I would’ve been nineteen. I’m twenty-one now.”
“And during the time that you stayed with the Updikes you never felt tempted to alert the authorities to your situation?”
“I didn’t feel I had that choice. None of the Updikes’ dealings are legal. Exchanging a girl for a debt didn’t seem like something that the law would care much about if they’d never done anything about the rest of it. No one batted an eyelash when I was given to the Updikes, so why would I think that anyone would care?”
“We could have helped you.”
“How would I know that? They told me I had to stay or they’d kill my uncle. That threat worked on me for a long time. Even though my uncle sold me to the hyenas, I still cared for him. He was my grandfather’s brother and even looked like him. I retained a sense of family loyalty even after what he did. Before he got involved with the hyenas he had been a good foster parent. I tried to hold onto that while I lived with the hyenas.”
“You know you deserved better than that, don’t you?” he asked, his voice turning fatherly.
“I don’t see what that has to do with the murder investigation. I can tell you that I had nothing to do with Chuck Updike’s death. I didn’t know he was in the car.”
“Was there anything else out of the ordinary when you left the mansion?”
“Well the drunkenness wasn’t out of the ordinary. They had just finished brewing a batch of very strong moonshine. They drank heavily that night, even for them.”
“Do you know who would have a reason to want Chuck Updike dead?”
“Half of Fate Mountain. If you’re wondering if I wanted Chuck dead, then the answer is no. I hated the bastard as much as I hated his brother Brandon. But I would never kill anyone. I was just waiting to leave when the time was right. My uncle died so they had nothing else to hold over me. I had money I’d saved. I was ready to go and start my life over. That’s it. The car broke down on the side of the road. And Jessie came to pick me up right after I found out he was my fated mate. It was a miracle that he showed up to help me with my car. But it’s just my luck that on the day I finally decided to leave the Updikes, I find my fated mate, and a dead body shows up in the trunk of the car. Seriously, it’s just typical of my life.”
Rollo began to rifle through the papers in the folder on the table in front of him. He pulled out a sheet of paper and began to examine the contents.
&
nbsp; “Can you explain why your hair was found on the body of Chuck Updike?”
“I helped him with his hair. He came to my room to have me do it, and I used my brush.”
“I see,” Rollo said looking through the rest of his papers.
“Do you know of anyone at the Updike estate who had access to a firearm?”
“Most of them. There are all kinds of guns at the mansion. I don’t know if they’re legal or illegal or what. It really wasn’t any of my business. As a fox shifter and servant, I wasn’t part of their gang. They didn’t include me in such things. All I know is what I overheard. The Updikes run a criminal enterprise. If you’re looking for Chuck’s killer, I would investigate the hyenas staying at the mansion.”
“It’s unlikely that one hyena would kill another in today’s climate. They’d take evidence to their grave. They’d even serve jail time to protect their own nowadays.”
“I know they have some kind of weird honor code. But I also know there was a lot of competition at the mansion.”
“How so?”
“Chuck and Brandon were always competing with each other. From bike racing to duck hunting. It didn’t really matter, they were always trying to one up each other. That attitude infected the rest of the pack. They were all always competing with one another. It’s hard for me to say who would have been more interested in offing him than any of the others. As they all always seemed to want to off each other.”
“I have all that I need from you at this time, Dana. You’re free to go. I may have additional questions for you, so I would prefer you stay in the area.”
“Not a problem. Now that I’ve found Jessie, I’m not going anywhere.”
Rollo looked down at his smartphone and then back Dana. “It looks like Jessie is done with his questioning too.”
He grabbed his things off the table and stood in the doorway with the door open, waiting for Dana to stand and exit. She hurried out the door and down the hallway the direction Rollo indicated and found Jessie waiting for her in the waiting room. He stood and gathered her in his arms, kissing the top of her head.
Feeling his arms around her and the sweet softness of his lips on her scalp made her forget where she’d just been. It was so good to feel loved. Years of loneliness and desperation seemed to melt away as if they never existed. She let out a deep sigh and relaxed in his arms.
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