by C. D. Hersh
She’d been killing bad guys all her life. What would Owen think if he found out what she’d done? Suddenly, she realized she was no better than him.
Standing on shaking legs, Kat said, “I need some time to absorb all this. You’ve shattered my shape shifting knowledge. Everything my world has been built on.” And everything I believe about myself.
“I understand. This isn’t easy to accept. I hope you can handle it and keep the secret.”
“I don’t have a choice. Besides, who would believe me?” If she couldn’t convince the captain of homicide, a shifter, to punish one of her own, how would she ever convince anybody else? “I’ll destroy the toxicology report and the blood samples. No one will ever know these men didn’t die of heart attacks.”
“Thank you, Katrina.”
With a dismissive wave of her hand, she left the captain’s office, wishing she had never met Owen Todd.
Trying to calm his heaving insides, Owen stared Alexi down as she sat perched on her desk, her heels lightly tapping the metal front. He’d seen his mother take that same position many times when trying to strike fear into her underlings. He was afraid, but not because of her. Kat’s appearance and accusation left him off balance.
“You going to book me based on your M.E.’s word?” The shock of hearing Kat call him a murderer had eased while he cooled his heels in the conference room, but he would never forget the appalled expression she shot him. The emotions on her face pierced his heart like an arrow.
“Not in a human court of law. However, you’ve admitted to killing shifters. I’ve got a morgue full of them which proves your statement. Whether or not you join us, your actions could have repercussions. For now, my M.E. isn’t going to say anything.”
“Why?”
“I told her you were cooperating in an investigation and we’re not going to pursue the evidence any further at the present time.”
The roiling in his stomach eased. Maybe she doesn’t know what I am.
“She accused you of murder. Want to tell me how that could be?”
He shrugged.
“Are you in a relationship with her?”
“No.” Not anymore. The less Alexi Temple learned about his relationship with Kat the better.
“See that it stays that way.”
No need to warn him. He’d already screwed up plenty with Kat. Still, having her think him a common murderer pained him.
“What I really want to know is why you killed those shifters.”
“They forced me to join them.”
“Those low-lifes in my morgue? Don’t think so.”
“I don’t know why you’re upset over the death—”
“Murder,” Alexi interjected.
“Death of a few rogue shifters,” he said. “I would have thought you’d be glad there were fewer left to fight.”
“There’s one important thing you need to know. We don’t go around killing unnecessarily. We defend ourselves, not hunt down the enemy.”
“Seems like a pattern for defeat, if you ask me. The ones who win wars attack.” Like he had done. When she didn’t respond, he knew she had no answer. Why would she? History had proven the point.
Ignoring his barb, she continued, “I suppose you have something for me today?”
“Falhman bought the lie you decided to help me. He’s expecting something from me soon.”
“That’s not what I asked. What do you have for me?”
“The shipment he wants me to get is scheduled to arrive two days from today. There’s a change in the delivery location. He wants it taken to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city.”
“Why would he want the delivery taken there?”
“Bargaining time,” he said. “That piece of information requires a favor for my mother.”
Slipping off the desk, Alexi neared until she stood only inches away. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Your mother tried to kill me and Rhys. Why would I give her the time of day, much less raise my hand to help her?”
“Because she’s family.”
Alexi snorted. “Family? Would family try to kill you? With family like her I don’t need enemies.” Waving her hand at the guards holding him down, she said, “Take this piece of shit away and throw him in a cell.”
As the men jerked him out of his chair and hauled him toward the door, he cried out, “Falhman’s going to expect to see me.” If he disappeared the rogue kingpin would take it out on his mother. He couldn’t let that happen.
“He can come visit you. Then I’ll throw his ass in jail. You can have a big reunion while you hold hands through the metal bars.”
Digging his heels against the tile floor, he called over his shoulder, “Falhman’s got a mobile lab in the warehouse.”
“Bring him back,” Alexi commanded.
The men jerked him back so fast he thought they dislocated his shoulder. Then they shoved him back onto the chair so hard his tailbone hit the wooden seat.
“Go on. I’m listening.”
“He told me to retrieve the shipment wearing a gas mask and protective gloves.” Owen had her attention now.
“What’s in the shipment?” Alexi asked.
“I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s not good if I have to protect myself.”
“You have to find out what he’s doing with it.”
“Not without some guarantees. Falhman has my mother on his hit list. I want her protected or I won’t get you anything else.”
She waved her hand and the men yanked him out of his chair.
“Not a bargaining chip, cousin.” He emphasized the last word. “Protect my mother if you want me to cooperate any further.”
Indicating the men should stop, she pinned Owen with an intense stare. “She’s an evil woman, you know.”
“I do. In spite of what she might have done, she’s still my mother. I have an obligation to protect her if she needs me. She needs me right now. I’m sure on some level you get that.”
Alexi’s eyes softened.
She understood.
“I can’t make the decision without consulting Eli and Rhys. I’ll get back to you.” Nodding to the guards, she said, “Let him go.”
As soon as the guards escorted him out of police headquarters, Owen went to the morgue where he found Kat sitting at her desk. As he approached, she looked over her shoulder.
Pressing a key on the computer keyboard, she sent the screen into sleep mode. “What are you doing here?”
“Could we talk?”
“About what? Your despicable deeds? The fact I’ve been ordered to cover them up?”
“I’m sorry, but there are extenuating circumstances.”
“So Captain Temple told me. I don’t like being made accessory to murder.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Then why don’t you tell me what it really is?”
The slight emphasis she put on the word really took him aback. Made him think she knew more than Alexi said.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me,” she said. “I have a high tolerance for the weird and strange.”
He chuckled. “It’s weird, all right.”
Leaning forward, she gently touched his hand. “Anything would be better than what I’m thinking of you now.”
She thought him a murderer. That might keep her away from him, safely off the game board, but would it be enough to protect her? Maybe she needed to know the real truth so she’d go running into the night. Get as far away from him and Falhman as possible. She would be safe, but his heart would be broken.
Swiveling, he checked the room. When he was certain they were alone, he pulled a chair close to hers and sat, their knees a hair�
��s breadth apart. He’d get the confession out of the way first. If she didn’t run away when he admitted killing all those men, he’d move on to the really difficult part.
“Yes. I did kill those men.”
Her muscles tightened, and her knees drew away with the motion.
She didn’t run, so he continued, “But it’s not what you think. They’re not men, not like you know men.” Still no reaction from her. He pressed forward. “They’re supernatural.”
“Like ghosts?” she asked.
“More along the line of vampires or werewolves or zombies.”
“So you’re a . . . zombie killer?”
She said the sentence as if discussing zombies was perfectly normal. That confused him.
“Except those men weren’t zombies. Or vampires. Or werewolves. Wait a minute. Maybe they were werewolves.”
He leaned back in his chair, relief and anxiety knocking around in his gut. “You know?”
“Yeah. But I still want to hear you say it. All of it.”
Sitting forward, he reached for her hands, but she drew them away. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I’m a shape shifter. I killed those men because they are bad shape shifters. Rogues who run around doing evil.”
“And the bear in the alley?”
“He was a shifter. A really bad shifter. He killed one of my friends.”
“So you killed him?”
He’d revealed enough. He changed the subject, putting the focus back on her. “You knew it wasn’t a bear, didn’t you?”
“I saw it change.”
“Yet you didn’t freak.”
“I was a little busy at the time saving your butt. I had to get us out of there before the cops came. After all, how would I explain you shot a bear which turned into a man? Then later, I thought you didn’t know what you’d really killed. Boy, was I wrong.”
“You don’t seem very surprised at any of this.”
“I’m surprised all right. I’ve just had some time to adjust to the news. I witnessed your change from Olivia into Owen, and later into a Marilyn Monroe lookalike. I was there after you killed your last victim. I know you purposefully fixed the lab tests so they wouldn’t show the poison you used to kill all those men.”
He stared at the floor. His deeds, coming out of the mouth of the woman he loved, sounded horrific. Scooting his chair back, he rose. “What I’ve done is unforgivable. Yet, I know I’m going to get by with it, at least as far as humanity is concerned. If it’s any consolation, I’m trying to atone for my deeds by helping the captain fight against the bad faction of shifters. I just want you to know what I felt . . . feel . . . for you is real. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for what I’ve put you through.”
“I understand why you might have killed the bear, because he killed your friend. Why did you kill the others?”
“Because the only good shifter is a dead shifter.” He stepped toward her and kissed her softly on the top of her head. “Goodbye, Kat.”
Chapter 29
The only good shifter is a dead shifter?
Did Owen really think that? Because if he did, was he cooperating with the captain? Or duping her?
Quickly shutting down her computer, Kat hurried after him. She had to find out where he was going and what he was doing.
She tracked him to an upscale apartment house where he disappeared into the elevator and took it to the fifteenth floor. Popping into another elevator she checked the buttons. The topmost floor was keyed. A penthouse. Exiting, she went to the lobby desk.
“I’m looking for the apartment of my friend. He said top floor, but fifteen is a locked floor. Could you call and ask him to let me in?”
“Are you here to see Mr. Falhman?” He checked a log book. “I don’t see any more guests on his log.”
“No. That’s not my friend’s name. He must have meant the fourteenth floor. My mistake.” Backing away, she entered the elevator and punched fourteen.
When the doors opened for a passenger, she disembarked and took the stairs down to the lobby. As soon as the desk clerk went into the room behind the desk, she scurried out of the building and took a position across the street where she could see the door.
Half an hour later, Owen emerged from the apartment building and hailed a cab. She did the same, ordering the driver to, “Follow that cab.”
He pushed the gas pedal to the floor. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” he said as he swerved through the traffic at breakneck speed.
“Get me there in one piece,” she gasped as he narrowly missed an oncoming car, “and you’ll get a bigger tip.”
Owen’s cab stopped near the alley where she’d tracked him on the night she discovered his shape shifting secret. When her taxi pulled over, she gave the driver a generous tip.
“Want me to wait?”
“No, thanks.” She had no idea how long she might have to wait or how Owen might choose to travel next. No use spending cash she didn’t have.
In the daylight she could clearly see the name of the bar. Rogueman’s. She slipped behind the dumpster choosing a place that gave her a view of the door, yet kept her hidden. If she kept occupying this same spot, she’d have to bring a comfy pillow.
Settling down against a mostly clean section of the building, she breathed shallowly trying to avoid inhaling the scent of rotting food and beer as much as possible. Trash day apparently hadn’t arrived in this alley.
An hour later, Owen exited, his arm looped through the arm of a beautiful woman with shoulder-length, black hair and dark, almond-shaped eyes.
“You need to pack an emergency travel bag, Mom,” Owen said. “I’m working a deal with Alexi which will get you out of here before Falhman orders his hit on you.”
“She’s agreed to help me?”
“Not yet, but I’m close to talking her into it.”
“And the baby?”
“We’re not compromising the child.” His voice got hard. “That’s a line I won’t cross, and neither should you. Understand?”
“Are you coming with me?”
She heard the pleading tone in the woman’s voice. His mother was worried about his welfare. Was he in danger as well?
“I still have a score to settle with Roc’s killer. I can’t leave until his brother is taken care of.”
She didn’t like the sound of that.
The pair passed out of earshot. Coming out of her hiding place, she crept after them, her heart lighter notwithstanding her worries over Owen’s last declaration. Despite the awful things he had done, he still had some integrity. He was trying to save his mother, and he wouldn’t harm a child. On some level that gave her hope.
But who was the child? Why was Owen visiting the same man who planned to kill his mother? And what did he plan to do to Roc’s killer, whoever that was?
Clutching the flash drive with the lab test results, Kat knocked on Captain Temple’s office door then entered. The film director started to rise, but sat back down when she saw her.
“I shredded all the paper files and deleted the information on the hard drive. The only evidence left is here.” Kat handed the captain the flash stick.
“Thanks. I know this wasn’t easy and I appreciate you trusting me.” She dropped the drive into her desk drawer.
Taking a step closer to the captain, she said, “Owen came to see me this morning.”
Captain Temple tipped her head toward the door and the director rose then stepped out of the office. “What did he say?”
“That he killed those men. That they were all evil shifters. He admitted to everything, including being a shifter. But he also said he was helping you. Then he told me goodbye.”
“That’s probably best. Shifter non-shifter relationships are hard.”
“I know. I’ve had my share of paranormal boyfriends. They’re not what I want for my life, but . . .”
“. . . the heart wants what the heart wants.”
“Exactly.” Kat stood silent, sorting out her tumbling thoughts. Trying to decide how much she should say. “Is he really helping you?”
“That remains to be seen. He’s bargaining with information. I’m not sure how much we can trust him.”
“He said something else that bothered me . . . the only good shifter is a dead shifter.”
The captain’s eyebrows rose and her mouth formed a surprised O.
“You’re a shifter. I wondered if he wants you dead. So, I followed him. Now I’m even more conflicted.”
“Why?”
“Apparently, someone named Falhman put a hit on his mother, and he’s bargaining with you to help her. I had no reason to think what he said wasn’t true, because it was said privately to someone he called Mom.”
“Black hair and dark, almond-shaped eyes?”
“Yes. You know her?”
“She’s tried to kill me on several occasions.”
A tiny gasp escaped from Kat’s throat. “No wonder you don’t trust him. What he said to her makes me think he’s trying to do good. But the rest of his conversation mentioned avenging someone named Roc and taking care of his brother. Didn’t sound upright to me. So you can see why I’m conflicted.”
This time the captain gasped. Her eyes rounded and filled with anxiety.
“What? Did I say something important?”
