Quinn Security

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Grinning, he followed her and asked, “You gonna join me?”

  She couldn’t help but smile at him but told herself it was only her raging hormones as she slid and locked the sliding glass door. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  When they reached her cabin, having trekked across the grassy lawn, she keyed in and Shane locked the door behind them.

  “Join me in the shower?” he pressed and she agreed.

  “I’m going to grab a change of clothes,” she told him. “I stink, too.”

  Shane pulled her in and as his lips brushed against hers, he said, “I like the way you stink,” then he kissed her.

  Damn, she really couldn’t resist him, could she?

  “I’ll be right there,” she told him, as she turned for the stairs.

  She heard Shane turn the shower on in the downstairs bathroom, leaving the door wide open for her, as she padded quickly to the second floor.

  When she entered her bedroom, however, planning on grabbing a light sweater and a pair of long jeans, she froze, staring at the bed.

  Delilah’s dress had been laid out.

  Her heart punched hard in her chest and her vision tunneled, she was so alarmed.

  She crept slowly towards the dress, her green gaze locked on two square images that had been placed over the chest cups of the garment.

  Polaroids.

  Her heart skipped another beat as she stood over them. She was almost too terrified to take hold of them for closer examination. The images they depicted were shocking enough. She didn’t need a closer look to understand the dark story they told.

  The picture on the left was of Shane and Delilah in the throes of what appeared to be a violent struggle. She recognized the setting. The photo had been taking when the two had been inside Shane’s living room.

  She gasped, lifting the photo to her face. Delilah’s dress had been pulled off one shoulder, her breast exposed, her head flying sideways, Shane’s open palm moving in the same direction. He’d struck her. That’s what it looked like, but it wasn’t as bloodcurdling as the second picture she was now daring to study.

  “Oh, God,” she breathed, eyeing the horrifying image of Delilah Dane, unconscious on Shane’s living room couch. She recognized it, recognized the whole setting. It was his cabin, without a doubt, and Delilah look nearly dead. “Oh, God,” she repeated.

  Her hands were trembling.

  She couldn’t think straight.

  Delilah had been inside of Shane’s cabin—of course she’d figured as much, but she’d never imagined that something like this could’ve taken place. They’d fought. The result of which had been Delilah laying limp and loose on his couch, wearing the same dress that she had when he’d struck her, the same dress that was also laid out on the bed, bloody.

  She’d been such a fool!

  She knew it, could feel it in her brittle bones as an unshakable chill shot through her—Shane had killed Delilah.

  He’d dumped her body behind his cabin.

  He’d gone on with his life, courting Whitney like nothing had happened, and she’d eaten it right up.

  She had to get out of here! She had to get to the station! She had to get past Shane who had left the bathroom door open and she would have to bypass that open doorway to reach the front door.

  Bile lurched up her throat and she grimaced.

  Then, moving quickly and decisively, she shoved the photos into her pocket, balled the dress up, and made her fast and quiet way to the top of the stairs.

  She listened out. Hard. Straining to make sense of where Shane was in the bathroom. The stuttering rhythm of the shower stream told her that he’d already stepped into it, water hitting his head and shoulders as he stepped in and out of the hot stream.

  Racing down the stairs as soundlessly as she could, her heart in her throat, she prayed he wouldn’t catch her.

  God! How could she have fallen in love with him!

  Then it hit her, just as she reached the foot of the stairs and crept through the living room, coming upon the open bathroom doorway. Shane was violent. He did as he pleased. He didn’t regard anyone but himself. Hadn’t he proved to her as much when he’d sunk his fangs into her wrist, turning her into something she hadn’t yet decided she wanted to be?

  Of course he could’ve taken Delilah’s life. Shane took whatever he wanted. Well, she told herself, he wasn’t going to get away with it this time!

  Moving as fast as her shaky legs would carry her, she sprinted past the open doorway of the bathroom and flung the front door open the second she reached it.

  “Whitney?” she heard him call out, but it was too late.

  She was already running straight for her parked Jeep.

  She jumped into the driver’s seat and fumbled with shaking hands to get the key into the ignition, her watchful, wide eyes locked on the cabin door, heart racing in anticipation that Shane would barrel out of her house and catch her.

  As soon as the engine turned, she snapped her gaze up to the rearview mirror, knowing she would have to swing out in reverse, but the second she did, she found a pair of black eyes staring back at her from the rear seat.

  She screamed, barely recognizing the slick, handsome face—Dante Alighieri!

  WHACK!

  Pain, unlike any she’d ever felt, cracked through the side of her skull…

  …and Whitney Abernathy’s world went instantly dark.

  ***

  It was hotter than hell out here and the merciless, Wyoming sun wasn’t about to let up any time soon, Rachel observed as she squinted up to the sky, one hand shielding her eyes, the other resting on the butt of her holstered Glock, the day after Delilah’s Dane’s body had been discovered on Shane Quinn’s property. She’d brought it up several times to the sheriff over the years, every time another summer heatwave pressed in over the Fist—alternative uniforms. Other counties had them, short-sleeved uniforms with shorts instead of slacks. Keeping a cool head started with keeping a cool body. How in the hell was anyone supposed to work out here in this kind of heat with every inch of their skin covered in a stifling cotton-poly blend? She was damn near ready to shave her head to get some relief, but cutting sheers weren’t included on her heavy utility belt.

  She couldn’t believe the sheriff had stuck her with this nitwit.

  Expert, my ass, she thought as she glared at Professor Gaylord Geer III.

  The third!

  There were three of these numbskulls! Though Rachel would like to think that the first two had died off some years back. Judging the current Gaylord’s age, she had to figure as much. The guy had to be at least eighty years old, the so-called werewolf expert.

  The professor was dressed in, to Rachel’s admittedly untrained eye, what looked like a cross between a newsies Halloween costume and a golfing outfit. Argyle knee-high socks, funny-looking loafers that were downright inappropriate for stalking through the tall grass, a v-neck sweater that had to have him sweating worse than a pig in this heat, and a floppy Stetson flat cap that didn’t do a damn thing to shield his twinkling eyes from the sun.

  It wasn’t quite as bad as babysitting being stuck out here with good ol’ Gaylord, but it was right up there along with refilling the sheriff’s thermos and fantasizing about ways to take her own life. All the while, Rick was back at the stationhouse, sitting cool as a cucumber and going over the footage from the impromptu interview he’d conducted last night with Ronnie McDowell. Last she’d heard, Ronnie hadn’t given the sheriff much of anything except a break from his barbeque with Shane Quinn. Rick probably wanted to avoid the heat and elements of stalking through the old Halsey land with a professor who was probably just as old as the acreage itself.

  She girded her determination, sucked in a deep, fortifying breath, and asked, “Professor, did you want to check out the cave that a suspected werewolf kept one of our residents in unlawfully?”

  Gaylord was crouched in the tall grass, only his rear-end visible from where Rachel had been watch
ing him. As she neared the professor, she scrunched her nose, realizing what he’d been examining so closely.

  Christ, it was poop.

  “Wolf scat!” Gaylord excitedly exclaimed as he popped up from the grass. “But is it werewolf scat or just plain old regular scat?”

  It bothered her that he was referring to a coil of fecal matter as scat, but not more so than his genuine interest in it.

  “When did you say you retired from the University of Wyoming?” she asked, questioning his expertise and sanity. Maybe a screw or two had twisted loose years back and that’s why the institution let him go.

  “I’m still an adjunct professor,” he said cheerfully.

  Oh, good Lord in heaven! Was he scooping the poop into a vial?

  “I’ll have this tested at the lab,” he commented, treating the specimen gingerly before tucking the capped vial into his saddle-bag knickers.

  “Wouldn’t a werewolf use a toilet like the rest of us?” she asked. “You know, when it’s in its human form?”

  “One can always wonder,” he allowed with a bright smile. “There’s a wealth of specimens out here.”

  Yeah, and Rachel hoped she wouldn’t step in any of them.

  “I’ve run some labs myself,” she mentioned as she started through the field next to Gaylord. “What I discovered was that the DNA samples were coming back as canine. Are you familiar with this?”

  “Fascinating,” he marveled, and she hoped he wasn’t referring to another coil of poop. He wasn’t, she realized when he angled his big, twinkling eyes up at her. “No, no, I haven’t had occasion to run any labs on werewolves.”

  She sincerely hoped she didn’t have more experience with werewolves than the professor.

  “But I’ve seen them in transformation with my own eyes,” he assured her.

  “Where? When?” she asked, highly interested.

  “Oh, all over, my dear Clancy.”

  He’d been doing that, referring to her as his dear Clancy. It had been marginally endearing at first, but since this entire excursion seemed to be panning out not at all, it was losing its charm and she was losing her patience because of it.

  “In Montana and Utah, and in our great Cowboy State of Wyoming,” he listed proudly.

  “Did you get to know any of those individuals?” she asked, partially skeptical though she challenged herself to keep an open mind.

  “No, no, my dear Clancy,” he chuckled. “That would’ve been much too dangerous. You see, werewolves have an instinct for keeping their packs secret. They’ll go to great lengths—”

  “Killing?”

  “No, turning those who suspect their presence.”

  “’Turning’?” she asked.

  “They’ll bite the mortal, mix their blood together, and turn them into werewolves. If the secret is shared, it’s protected.”

  “Huh,” she grunted, considering the information.

  “Technically, it’s a disease, an infection, highly contagious and spread from blood to blood,” he explained.

  “But you saw transformations?” she questioned. “Men shifting into wolves?”

  “And women,” he added. “But I’ve always kept my distance as one would if one were to observe a bear in its natural habitat.”

  “I see.”

  “Oh, look!” he exclaimed before bounding through the tall grass towards what Rachel hoped wouldn’t be yet another lump of cold, crusty defecation. “A tuft!”

  As Gaylord stooped and examined a cluster of tall grass blades that had trapped a wad of dark fur, Rachel joined him and eyed it.

  “Could be wolf,” he commented as he collected it into a plastic bag.

  “So, what labs are you going to run to determine that it’s werewolf and not just the fur of a regular wolf?” she asked, still not entirely understanding his determining methods.

  “A magician never reveals his secrets, my dear Clancy!”

  “Right,” she said dryly.

  “Hidy-ho!” the sheriff called out from twenty yards off.

  Rachel had never been happier to see the arrogant, sexist, obstacle to her detective badge in her entire life.

  “Rick!” she called out, giving him a great big wave of her arm. “How goes it?”

  “I was about to ask y’all the same!” he said as he made his way over to them. “Professor! I see you’re making out well enough with Officer Clancy!”

  “Indeed and indubitably!” he sang cheerfully as he vigorously shook the sheriff’s hand for longer than any man should.

  Rick was frowning at the professor by the time he reclaimed his hand.

  Quietly, Rachel asked him, “Where did you find this guy again?”

  “At the university,” he said, speaking low as the professor presented the plastic bag of what everyone hoped was werewolf fur and not a colossal waste of time. “Why?”

  Rachel shot him a look that conveyed Gaylord might be off the rails, but Rick paid her no mind.

  “My colitis tells me,” Gaylord happily informed him, “that this is werewolf fur.”

  “Most people just use the term gut,” she grumbled at his overshare.

  The sheriff took a determined tone and reminded the professor, “We want to locate the pack, it’s hub or nest or whatever.”

  “Ah, but werewolves aren’t wolves,” he informed him. “In terms of their natural dwellings, well, I’d imagine they’d stay in houses just like you and I.”

  “Great, so how do we sniff ‘em out?” asked Rick.

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” said Gaylord as he snugged his flat cap down his forehead with conviction, “I can spot a werewolf from a mile off, or my name isn’t Gaylord Geer the Third!”

  Just then, Shane Quinn came charging through the field towards them.

  “Sheriff!” he shouted. “Sheriff! It’s Whitney!”

  Rick looked immediately concerned, so Rachel did the honor of making introductions, not that Shane paid Gaylord any mind.

  “What a nice fellow,” commented Gaylord as he smiled up at Shane.

  “Rick,” said Shane as he caught his breath. “She went missing last night—”

  “Went missing?” Rick blurted. “And you’re telling me this now?”

  “I’ve been out all night looking for her!” he barked.

  “Christ, Quinn, this is my daughter we’re talking about!”

  “I can handle it, Sheriff,” Rachel offered, but Rick was already starting back through the field with Shane.

  He waved her off dismissively and called back, “You stay with the professor! Find me something I can use!”

  “The thing I like most about army men,” Gaylord mentioned as though a crisis wasn’t breaking out all around them, his eyes still on Shane, “is that with them, what you see is what you get.”

  “Keep movin’ professor.”

  “Oh, look!”

  “Is it more shit?”

  “Indubitably!”

  ***

  Whitney regained consciousness thanks to the skull-splitting agony of a tremendous migraine that felt like it was bleeding through her brain.

  She groaned and reached for her head, but her arms were restrained, both wrists roped together tightly and tied to her bound ankles.

  She cracked her eyes open, which caused her headache to flare even worse, and she moaned, her vision blurring.

  The room was titling, her brain hurt so badly. She felt dried blood crusted down the side of her head, from temple to cheek, and then the sharp sting of what she imagined was a gaping wound at her hairline sliced through her. She was in so much pain that even her toes hurt, but she forced herself to focus her vision and glance around.

  She was definitely indoors, and as she began to recognize certain distinct details of the decorum—bohemian scarves pinned up over the ceiling lights, beaded lamps on the floor, and other accents, she was in Delilah’s apartment!—she suddenly heard low, aggressive growling.

  She gasped and tried to scramble back on the wooden floo
r, but she was already lying against the wall.

  Two wolves were stalking in, having risen off of their haunches. One of them, the larger of the two, was a mangy brown color. It looked sickly and hungry. The other, smaller and more jittery, was a deep brown, its eyes rimmed with pink as though it had once been human and weeping.

  As terror crashed over her, turning her skin to gooseflesh, another more violent transformation broke out across her skin and she began growling defensively back at the slow-stalking pair of wolves. She’d turned wolf herself, but it did nothing to free her from the ropes that held her.

  When she demanded, “Who are you?!” she realized she’d shifted back into her broken human body.

  But so too had the wolves, one shifting up to become Larry Hardcastle and the other transforming into Ronnie McDowell, in the blink of an eye.

  “You!” she breathed, glaring at Ronnie. “You both killed Delilah?”

  “I would never!” Ronnie cried, but he soon collapsed, keeling over into ball of emotion.

  Larry clenched his jaw in disgust and reminded him, “She’s dead. Stop complaining.”

  “She shouldn’t be!”

  “Grow up!” Larry barked, taking rough hold of the younger man’s hair and jerking him upright.

  Ronnie could barely hold his head up, he was so remorseful.

  “Why?” Whitney demanded. “Why did you kill her?”

  “Is that what you think we did?” Larry sneered heartlessly.

  But Ronnie had more to share. “It was our dark lord. He turned us. We have no control.”

  “Dante?” she breathed, horrified as she scanned the room in fear that the rogue werewolf was with them. “He turned you?”

  “There are so many of us,” Ronnie said on a quavering exhale and Larry slapped him upside the head.

  “Stop complaining,” he warned. “But it’s true,” he told Whitney. “He’s building an army. Soon his damned will outnumber the Quinn pack. We’ll outnumber the residents and take this town.”

  “Why Delilah?” she pressed, unsatisfied. If she was going to be killed, she wanted to die knowing the truth. “Why her?”

  Larry sneered, “She resisted. She refused to accept what she’d become.”

  “She was turned, as well?” she asked, pained to grasp how scared Delilah must have been, how hard she must have fought to retain her freedom. Her wild spirit.