by K. B. Draper
Since Norm’s little body invasion my senses are heightened beyond normal human abilities. This includes my sight and hearing, as well as my speed and strength. When Norm fully surfaces, it feels like every muscle in my body is on ’roids. My vision is that of an eagle on the clearest day. It’s even better at night, so much that it would rival that of an owl. My sense of smell is as keen as a wolf, and my speed falls somewhere between the fastest man and a deer. Yep, I’m all kinds of cool badassery except for one small caveat: These abilities are used to fight demons that have escaped from hell. Oh, and one other small thing: With Norm front and center right now, that means my pupils have gone to pinpoints and my irises have changed from their normal hazel to a supernatural smoky white. A super-not-good thing while one is on a date or in moments like now when I hear a new voice enter the scene, a door slam, and the sheriff’s angry footsteps head back my direction.
“It’s not a good time, Norm,” I whispered.
I tried to steady my breathing, talk Norm back down into his little hidey-hole where he hung out when he wasn’t sending my body into hyper-alert, superhuman status. The voices were getting closer; therefore, I didn’t have time to determine why Norm was trying to alert me as he never just pops in for a chat over muffins and chamomile tea.
My efforts were quickly becoming desperate as I could now hear two distinctive voices with two distinct types of soles hitting the hallway floor and then stopping outside my door.
Two female scents commingled in my nostrils, the musk of old coffee and last night’s whiskey that I now recognized as the sheriff, and a new soft, clean scent mixed with the wild of the forest. The second woman spent time outside and her perfume was the perfect pairing, just a hint of spice to mix with her natural sweet scent. I took a deep breath, enjoying the soft scent as most of the women I encounter smell like they’ve stewed in a vat of potpourri.
As the doorknob turned, my head was back resting on the table with my eyes closed, covering any lingering evidence of Norm’s presence. “Come on, buddy, I need you to go nighty-night for me,” I coaxed. I sighed in relief when I felt my body temperature cool and the extra boost of strength dissipate, a clear sign that he’d slid into the background.
The sheriff slapped her meaty hand down on the metal table, making my head bounce. “Wakey, wakey, Sunshine.” The sheriff smirked when I raised my head to glare at her.
I wiped away fake sleep from my eyes with the knuckles of one fist and blinked though I had no problem bringing the woman accompanying the sheriff into delicious focus. I gauged that the woman would nearly match me in height, just shy by an inch or so, maybe 5’8”-5’9”. Her face was the kind that made my insides stand up and scream, “Yes, please! I’ll take two with extra whipped cream.” Soft features were atop a well-toned body with a cute smattering of freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks. Her hair was several shades lighter than mine, and her sun-kissed highlights told me she too spent the majority of her waking hours outdoors. As if the package wasn’t lust-worthy enough, her eyes could steal a person’s soul, a mesmerizing pale green with streaks of golden brown racing through them. They were alluring and kind, curious and intelligent, and I couldn’t help but smile when I heard her heart pick up as they locked with mine.
“Miss Mattox, this is Ranger Parker,” the sheriff started, “Ranger Parker, this is your …” Here she scoffed, “Bigfoot hunter, Addison Jo Mattox.”
“I prefer AJ or Mattox,” I advised.
Ranger Parker stepped forward and extended her hand in greeting.
I simply looked down at my handcuffed wrists.
She grinned. “Right. Sheriff Linn, I think we can uncuff Miss Mattox while we continue our conversation.” She turned her eyes to me. “You’re going to behave yourself, aren’t you?”
She was knowingly using her sexy smile to persuade me into cooperation. I countered with a not-so-innocent smirk. “Absolutely, Ranger Parker,” I returned in a tone that hopefully conveyed I’d pretty much do anything she’d ask me to do, if she kept that smile aimed at me.
“Thank you.” She nodded at the sheriff, who huffed out her best ‘I’m a grumpy bitch’ protest but leaned over and uncuffed my wrists anyway.
The sheriff gave me a glare before turning to the ranger. “I’ll be outside if you need anything.”
“I need a coffee and a warm snickerdoodle cookie if you have one? Make that two cookies. That would be super great. Thanks.” The sheriff just glared at me.
“I’m sure we’ll be fine, Sheriff Linn. Thank you,” Ranger Parker replied as she pulled out the chair across from me and sat.
We both watched the sheriff reluctantly leave the room. When the door shut, Ranger Parker turned and laid another will-melting smile on me. “So I hear you found a little mess in my forest?”
This was so the best good guy routine I’d ever seen. The only problem with their good ranger, bad sheriff plan was the fact that the only thing I would be confessing to today would be me wanting this good ranger in a very bad way.
Ranger Parker wasn’t one of the park volunteers or a simple gate greeter; she was the law enforcement side of our National Park Service. She wore the standard green tactical pants and button-down, complete with a duty belt and an empty gun holster on her hip. I guessed her weapon was probably out in the gun locker in the hall per the golden rule of not bringing a gun into an interview room. But she did have her ASP, OC spray, or maybe it was bear spray, and two sets of handcuffs around her oh-so-perfect waist. Which meant that pretty little Ranger Parker was a fully licensed federal police officer and she, not the sheriff, would have jurisdiction over the crime scene. Lucky her. Even luckier me.
When she quirked an eyebrow at me, I realized I had taken too long to answer. “Yeah, I just happened across the guy.”
She nodded in understanding. “And you were out on the park road looking for …” She trailed off, wanting me to complete the sentence.
“Bigfoot,” I supplied.
“Right. Bigfoot. So, Miss Mattox-” she started.
“Call me AJ,” I interrupted.
“Okay, AJ.” She smiled her approval. “How long have you been a Bigfoot hunter?”
How long have I been in here? I thought. “Years,” I answered instead. Again, it wasn’t technically a lie if we went by the very loose definition of Bigfoot as big, bad, hairy dudes. Just a month or so ago, I had taken down a hairball of a demon with a taste for Nilla Wafers and humans. I’m just guessing on the wafers part as the demon had ransacked the campsite of a young couple outside Yellowstone, and all I found was the familiar yellow box shredded among the blood and destruction. The incident had been reported as a rogue bear attack, as were a lot of demon attacks near forests, but Danny and I had tracked the demon for three days before catching up to him and having a little showdown throw down, ending his little wafer-raiding party.
“Years?” Ranger Parker asked.
“Yep, years,” I repeated, adding a convincing nod, clearing that little matter right up.
“Interesting. In all these years have you seen any evidence of Bigfoot?”
I pondered. Ranger Parker was an intelligent woman, and she wasn’t simply curious about my success in my nonexistent career as a Bigfoot hunter. She was trying to lead me down a path I really didn’t want to go. So, vague would be my weapon of verbal choice today. “Some, maybe. But you know how it goes, it could also be a large bear, bobcat-”
“Really? So specifically, what kind of evidence have you found? Footprints? Claw marks? Dwellings?” she countered.
“Yeah, you know,” I said with a nonchalant shoulder shrug, “some of all of that.”
“No, please, I’d like to hear the details. I’m extremely curious. Creatures in my forest are kind of my thing.” She tapped the patch sewn on her sleeve, displaying the distinctive arrowhead, bison, mountain, and tree scene.
My eyes glanced at the patch, then the badge, but quickly wandered off, finding other things in the immediate area that I
found a tad more interesting. The open V of the ranger’s uniform shirt led me to her long sensuous neck, one which I wouldn’t be opposed to getting a taste of later. My eyes roamed back to her face as I watched a dimple activate in her left cheek. Ahh damn, Shazam, cute woman dimples were totally my kryptonite. When I met her eyes again, they were lit with curiosity or maybe amusement; either way, at that very moment I vowed to curiously amuse her … often.
“AJ?” Ranger Parker prompted in a whisper.
“Yeah?” I responded in an equally soft tone.
“Bigfoot evidence?”
Okay, ditching vague and going with flirt, I leaned forward and smiled the smile that has served me well over the years. “I didn’t say I was a good Bigfoot hunter, Ranger Parker.” As I’d hoped, I heard the sexy ranger’s heart accelerate in her chest. I grinned wider. This little trip to bum-fuck might not turn out too bad after all, I thought as she placed her arms on the table and leaned forward.
She countered with her own wicked grin that in turn made my heart go all boom da’ boomy. “I’m going to take a wild guess here that you’re good at just about everything.” The way she drew out the word “everything” in a sex-laced whisper made my insides go weepy.
We sat there for a long moment, testing each other’s will. “Most everything, yes,” I finally confirmed.
She did her own once-over of me. I watched as her eyes rolled over my black tank top, the single talisman that I wore around my neck. Her eyes took a slow stroll from my chest, up my neck, to my jawline. Her stare traced my scar before landing back on my eyes. “You know, I’m curious about something …”
Please say how we would fit together naked in a bed, I thought. “I’m happy to help satisfy any curiosities you might have, Ranger.” That little comment got me a quick smirk.
“Good to know. What I’m curious about actually are the contents of your truck.” She let the sex and tease leave her eyes, to be replaced with the serious cop. “Most Bigfoot hunters travel with high-tech cameras, video recorders, and sound detection devices. When I took a glance in your vehicle, all I found was a cooler, a McDonald’s cup, a duffle bag, and a sleeping bag. No, sorry. Actually, I believe there were,” she held up two fingers, “two sleeping bags.” She leaned back in her chair awaiting my explanation.
So the good news here is that she apparently didn’t find my weapon stash. The bad news is that apparently there wouldn’t be any naked sexy time with the ranger. Maybe. I mimicked her movements, sitting back in my own chair. “I have a partner. A Bigfoot hunting partner,” I added for clarification.
“Ahhh. Care to share his or her name?”
“His name is Danny. He carries all the techie gear. I carry the food and sleeping bags.”
She nodded. “So this Danny, does he have a last name? And where is Danny now?”
“Whitefang. Danny Whitefang. And he is likely somewhere between here and McCall Creek where I left him.”
“White Fang, like the movie? He’s …”
“Whitefang, one word. And yes, he’s Native American. Choctaw Indian to be exact,” I offered.
“Why did you leave him behind?”
’Cause he ate the last of the Oreos and I’m PMSing or just bitchy. It’s even hard for me to tell sometimes. “He’s a late sleeper. I was stir-crazy and wanted to get a head start.”
“Just the two of you? No one else?”
“Just Danny and I.”
Ranger Parker tapped a thumb on the edge of the desk as she pondered. “Just the two of you and you drive separately?”
Ummm, we do now. “We were coming from different places when we met up, so yeah, two cars.”
“So where were you before here?”
“McCall Creek,” I offered, starting to tire of the question-and-answer game.
“Right. Where you left your boyfriend,” Ranger Parker stated casually.
I narrowed my gaze. “My partner,” I clarified for her.
“Sorry. Partner,” she repeated. “And before McCall Creek?”
And we were back to the dangerous line of questioning. A few pieces of information like that and I knew, between the ranger and the sheriff, they could track Danny’s and my little road trip across America. Eventually they’d connect the dots that Danny and I have mysteriously been in or around the scene of four suspicious murders in the past four months. The last two just so happened to have been in other National Forests. “Here and there,” I offered instead.
“Care to expand on here and there?”
Nope. Time to go on the offensive. “Ranger Parker, am I being charged with a crime?”
“Have you committed a crime?”
I couldn’t help but smirk at her super-cute attempt to incriminate me. “I didn’t have anything to do with the guy in your forest,” I answered.
She assessed me for a long moment. “I can’t help but notice that you didn’t answer the question. Not exactly anyway.”
“I can’t help but notice you didn’t answer my question either,” I countered.
She nodded touché, then replied, “I don’t have significant evidence to hold you,” she paused for effect, “and we haven’t found the body … yet.”
I pushed my chair back from the table. “So I can go then?”
“For now, but I’ll need you to stay in the immediate area.” She pushed her own chair back and stood. “I recommend the Shamrock Motel. Not the fanciest of accommodations but it’s clean-ish. And more importantly, it’s the only motel in the area.”
“I’m more of a fresh air, under the stars kind of girl.” I stood. “If you want to find me, I’ll be out by Lake Lanier, south side.” I gave her a quick glance over my shoulder as I reached for the door. “Feel free to find me,” I suggested before exiting the room.
I heard the ranger exhale a long “lord help me” as the door closed. I hoped that meant I would be seeing the sexy ranger again.
The sheriff was standing behind a tall counter that separated the desks and their work areas from the general public. I sniffed the air. A man’s cologne was still lingering. Was this the guy she had been arguing with? I filed the scent for later.
The sheriff dropped a brown bag on the countertop with the delicacy of a water buffalo with a fluorescent bulb. I could only assume the bag was full of my property that she’d taken off me when she found me at the scene this morning. “I’m not done with you,” the sheriff sneered.
I leaned an elbow on the counter and fluttered my eyelashes. “You say the sweetest things, Sheriff.”
She shoved the bag at me. “Don’t leave town,” she ordered.
“Not ’til after the fire is gone?” I responded in my best country thick Loretta Lynn accent.
I heard the ranger stifle a laugh behind me. I gave the sheriff a wink, straightening as I snatched my bag-o-belongings and spun slowly on my boot heel toward the woman behind me. “Ranger,” I acknowledged, offering her own personal appreciative wink before I strolled out of the sheriff’s department.
I paused on the steps outside to let the heat and sun warm my skin. Norm and I become restless when we spend too much time contained inside walls. I never had that little problem until he and I became roomies in my body. Sometime within the last seven years, my simple appreciation for the outdoors had grown into a need.
I dug in the brown bag for my phone and keys, quickly turning on my phone with its newly cracked screen. Thank you very little, Sheriff. I noticed four missed calls before the ping da ping tones of text messages began to fire like hail bouncing off a tin roof. I read through Danny’s texts.
6:30 A.M. Where r u?
6:37 A.M. Did u freakin leave?
6:38 A.M. U better not have left me.
6:38 A.M. Again!
7:15 A.M. Why arent u answering ur phone?
7:45 A.M. Im calln Grandfather.
7:46 A.M. Grandfather said u need 2 get back here & pick me up.
8:30 A.M. FINE! I’m sorry I ate your stupid Oreos!
I had to
smile at the last one. As much crap as I like to put Danny through and as much as I said otherwise, he was my best friend. I had grown to love and depend on him like a brother. Sure, he was annoying, frustrating, and … Okay, maybe that was more me than him, but he did tend to be a tad overprotective and all responsible-like. Plus, he did admit to eating more than his fair share of the Oreos so he deserved all the crap I flipped him. Mostly.
I texted him back. “N Union City. Demon ground 0. Kinda got arrested. Buy urself a car & whatevr equipment Bigfoot hunters use.” I hit the send button. Then added, “& a phone & Oreos make em Dblestuff. U kno where 2 find me.” And for fun I ended it with a kissy face emoji.
I shoved the phone in my pocket, pausing another second to listen to the voices I could still hear through the closed doors of the sheriff’s department.
“I don’t trust her,” Sheriff Linn was saying.
“There’s definitely something that she’s not telling us,” Ranger Parker replied. “Will you please check into the drug connections for me? You’ll have a better line on that. I don’t know, the one thing I don’t get … well, there are several things, but if it was drug related, then why didn’t she take the drugs?”
“Because I ran up on her before she could load them in her truck and get away,” the sheriff answered.
“Maybe. But then where did she put the body? Better yet, why did she even mess with the body? Why not kill him, take the drugs, and be long gone? Plus, I saw the truck on the way in; whoever killed the victim would have had blood all over them.” She paused. “Yeah, no. I don’t buy that she killed a guy, took time to hide the body, cleaned up, and then went back to get the drugs.”
“Then she has a partner,” Sheriff Linn supplied.
“That’s a possibility. She did admit she has a partner. A guy named Danny Whitefang.”
“And bam. I’d got Danny pegged as my murderous sidekick.” I swiped my hands together. “I think my work here is done.” Not wanting to waste time taking all ten steps down to the sidewalk, I simply leapt. 10.0 landing if I do say so myself.
