by Terry Spear
“Even if I contact her by text or email? That’s usually the way we got in touch. If I turn into a cougar, you can text on my phone as me. You can send her the information. Whatever works. Just use me as your contact.”
Addie was really shocked that Carl was working with them on this. She still worried he had a hidden agenda. Though in his current situation, she supposed he finally realized he needed their help to get through this all right.
“I can’t believe I can hear so well, or smell scents I couldn’t before. Will I have better night vision?” Carl asked.
“Yes. When those men were wearing night vision goggles,” Dan said, “we didn’t need them.”
“Even when you’re human?” Carl asked, in awe.
“Yes. Just like you have an enhanced sense of smell and of hearing now while you’re human.”
“Okay, that makes sense. What if I get injured? I can’t go to a human hospital. I can’t believe I’m calling anything human-run as if I were an alien. I guess I really am.”
“As a cat, your DNA only shows cougar DNA. As a human, you only have human DNA. If you end up in a hospital, or in a zoo, no one could tell you were a shifter,” Addie said.
“A zoo? Oh, great.”
“Or a big cat refuge,” Addie warned.
“The problem comes if you shift in front of humans,” Dan said. “Now, we do have someone who has volunteered to take you in. And you’re fortunate for that.”
“Oh? You said no one likes me. Why would anyone agree then?”
“Mrs. Florence Fitzgerald. She owns the bakery shop and she’s willing, no reason really given,” Dan said.
“You’re kidding,” Addie said, not believing the retired CIA agent would take in a new cougar as disagreeable as Carl had been. Then again, he seemed to be trying to fit in, to help out.
“Okay, so what do I do? Live at her house? Serve up desserts?” Carl sounded like this had to be a joke.
“Bake.”
“Hell, I can’t cook. Even making microwave dinners can prove to be a mistake. Why do you think I have so many girlfriends?”
“You know, Carl, the more I hear you talk, the less likeable you are, and you were at the bottom of the barrel already,” Addie said.
“Hey, I have to eat, don’t I? I guess someone else will have to offer to take me in. I suppose the paper wouldn’t be so bad to work for,” Carl said, sounding like he was changing his tune about working for a small, local paper.
“Mrs. Fitz is it for now,” Dan said. “You’re lucky anyone offered. She’ll teach you to bake and you’ll stay in the kitchen. Hopefully, you won’t turn while you’re there, but if you do, she has an office off the kitchen and you can sit it out in there. Also, that way none of her human patrons will see you. I can imagine a whole lot of human patrons dashing out of there in the face of a cougar racing through the dining area. If you even pulled a stunt like that, one of us would come over and tranquilize you and stick you in a cage, for the safety of the patrons, even if the cougars knew you were safe to be around.”
Carl was quiet for some time. Then he suddenly asked. “Do you think the people who hired me will be coming after me too?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it,” Addie said. “If they hired you and their men are all dead, they might feel if you’re alive, you could compromise the situation. They wouldn’t want to risk a loose end like that. I’m certain they planned to eliminate you at Dan’s house after you video recorded the situation. Even though you hadn’t known the woman’s name, see how you were able to point out the woman from a photograph? If you think you’re safer on your own out there, think again.”
“I wasn’t thinking of leaving and hiding out somewhere else. This business with the shifting means I’m not going anywhere. I’m sorry about nosing into your business before,” Carl said to Dan. “About all of it. I was just hell-bent on a story, and yours looked like it had so much promise. Now I know it did, only it isn’t one I could ever tell.”
“You need to apologize to Chase and Shannon.”
“I will.”
“I’ve talked to Chet Kensington, one of Bridget’s friends, who is an agent like her, Travis, and Leyton. He has a safe house in Cheyenne. He’s on an assignment right now, but by the time we reach his place around noon tomorrow, he should be through with the job and join us. He’s eager to help us with the search,” Dan said.
“Are we driving through the night?” Addie asked, hoping they would. She kept worrying if something was in the storage facility, someone would learn about it and remove it, if they could find anything.
“Yeah. We’ll take turns driving in shifts. Except for Carl. He could turn into a cougar and we can’t have that. And not you either, unless you feel up to it.”
“I’ll take a shift,” Addie said. “I feel fine now. Did you tell him we’re bringing a brand-new cougar?”
“Yeah. Since he’s never met Carl, I filled him in on who he is and what’s happened. Which is why he’s eager to help. Though it’s usually not their job and he had to ask Chuck, his boss, if it was okay to work with us on this.”
“Chuck okayed it?” Addie asked. She hadn’t met the man either and she was glad they’d have a local cougar agent who could aid them.
“Yeah. He’s a good guy.”
The road was quiet the whole time, no issues. She almost felt as though this was wasted manpower, but she knew better. Even if nothing happened, it was better to have more manpower than not enough. Not only did they have to protect each other, if they should get into a firefight, they had to protect Carl. He wasn’t allowed to have a gun, not after shooting Ricky, though he hadn’t known the cougar was a boy. Still, he wasn’t one of them. He’d have to prove he could be there for them, as they were for each other. He had to prove to them he could be trusted, and he was one of the good guys.
“Is Mrs. Fitz single?” Carl suddenly asked.
“Yes,” Addie said, smiling. And about twenty-five years older than Carl. At least Flo knew how to use a gun too, so if Carl did anything threatening, she knew how to handle him. As much as Addie would like to believe he was completely committed to them, she couldn’t. Not yet.
“Do you mind if I sleep back here?” Carl asked.
“Go ahead,” Addie said. “We’ll all be taking turns.”
They’d driven about five hours, when they stopped again for gas and this time grabbed some burgers. Carl suddenly said, “I’ve got to return to the car. In a hurry.”
Addie headed out with him. “Are you going to shift?”
“Yeah, and I’m fighting just stripping out here in the parking lot.” He finally managed to get into the car. They had parked it next to a grassy area. Everyone parked on top of the building like it would kill them to walk, so the parking spaces out there were empty.
He was suddenly shifting and lying down on the very last seat.
Addie opened the windows. “Don’t get up and don’t look out the windows. Everyone’s bringing their food, and yours, to the car. We’ll be on our way again. Just stay down.”
He made a grumbly, growly noise, and remained hidden.
“How’s he doing?” Dan asked, as he climbed into the passenger seat, and Addie took over the driving.
“Growly. Can you blame him? We can completely control our shifting. It makes all the difference in the world. He’s a slave to it when he’s probably used to nothing or nobody dictating to him. Total life changer.”
Bridget said, “Here’s your dinner, Carl. I got one of those Styrofoam containers so you can use it as a dish. Though I guess Hal brought you a food dish too for when you turned all cat on us.” She poured water in a water dish and set it on the floor for him. “You should be all set. Sorry you weren’t able to eat your meal before you had to shift.”
Carl gobbled up his burger, drank some of his water, and settled down on the seat.
They drove for hours before they heard Carl moving about in the backseat, dressing.
“How are you feeling, Carl?�
�� Addie had been sleeping in the center seat, Bridget driving, and Dan keeping an eye on things as a passenger in the front seat.
“Well rested. Having weird dreams of fighting with another cougar.”
“Just don’t get into a real one. You haven’t had all the lifetime experiences with being one and learning to playfight.” Addie unbuckled her seatbelt, leaned forward, and kissed Dan’s cheek. “Want to lie down for a while? I’ll take over guard watch.”
“We’ll pull in and get gas up ahead.” Bridget called to Hal and told him the plans. Then they pulled into the next travel center, a couple of cars gassing up, a couple of more parked next to the travel center.
Everyone took bathroom breaks, gassed up the car, and Addie switched with Dan so he could get some rest. She was looking forward to sleeping in a bed with him tonight, hoping they didn’t have squeaky beds at Chet’s place.
Then they returned to the cars. It was six in the morning, and they still had six hours to drive. No sign of anyone following them so far. Addie and everyone else was grateful for that.
Dan woke after about four hours and asked if Addie wanted him to take over the driving, but she said no. She could make it and they’d already made another gas stop an hour ago when they’d switched drivers. They should make it to the storage facility without having to stop again.
Bridget said to Carl, “Quit thinking about how you’re going to get yourself out of this mess. You’re stuck with us.”
Addie smiled. She loved how Bridget could read minds.
“Yeah, well if you were suddenly thrown into a situation like this, you’d be thinking the same thing.”
Addie figured he assumed Bridget had guessed how he was feeling, but she knew Bridget had to have read his mind and was warning him he had to change how he viewed the situation or get himself into further trouble.
“I’m not going rogue,” Carl grumbled.
“Not a morning person?” Bridget asked, cheerfully.
She seemed to be and so was Addie. She liked her and was glad to have found so many cougar friends here.
“Not a cat person.”
Everyone laughed.
“Okay, I don’t get something. Well, a lot of somethings, but how can Hal and Tracey Haverton own a horse ranch when they’re cougars?” Carl asked.
“They bred and raised them,” Dan said. “If a human raises an animal, feeds him, and takes care of him, the animal learns to trust him. He smells both the cougar and human side of Hal and Tracey and the others. Well, and us. The problem would be if the horse wasn’t afraid of a wild cougar. Cougars are territorial. They smell enough male cougar shifters to know to stay out of the areas where we live.”
“Do you have sex as cougars?” Carl asked.
“Lots more fun as humans,” Addie said.
“Though having kits can be easier for a mother than as a human,” Bridget said.
“A woman can bear cougar kits?” Carl asked, sounding shocked.
“No. She shifts into a cougar first! Jeesh. Okay, so it’s really, really rare, if doable at all that a cougar shifter gets a human pregnant. I’ve never heard of it happening with a cougar,” Bridget said, “but I’ve heard of a wolf shifter that happened to.”
“Wait, wolf?”
“Caracal cat, coyote, jaguar. We’ve heard rumors of polar bear shifters in Alaska, but that might not be true. We’ve only ever met a caracal cat shifter, but the family we had seen said they’d run across a wolf shifter pack. They call themselves lupus garous. And one mated a part coyote, part wolf.”
“Anything’s possible then.”
“Yeah, just be careful of having sex with a human and not being protected. The offspring doesn’t have all our abilities, but some. You’d have to turn the mother, possibly. And if you turn one person, it could prove disastrous. They might have a whole family that would then need to be turned.”
“And it snowballs. Gotcha. Good thing I don’t have any family.”
“Or friends,” Bridget said.
“I have friends. Not close friends. Associates. What if I have a girlfriend? Cat girlfriend?”
“Then you need to take precautions not to have kids.”
“Or else, you’d take care of me, right?”
“Right,” Dan said.
“What about divorce?”
“Marriage, divorce, it all can happen. We hope that if you find someone, it’s for life,” Addie said.
“But you don’t think it’s likely.” Carl sounded a little blue that no cougar female would want to have anything to do with him.
“Just remember, Carl, you’re prickly. You’ve lived off other’s woes. You did everything for gain at others’ expenses. You created all kinds of trouble for us in the past, and more recently. And you’re a brand-new shifter. That means trouble in and of itself. It also means you’ll have to work extra hard to change your way of thinking if you want to make any inroads with the she-cats,” Dan said. “You’ll have to prove you’ve become a new man.”
“I can’t cause trouble for you any longer. Not without outing myself.”
“Correct, but your attitude has to change. Maybe the right she-cat will come along and voila, you have a total change of heart. It can happen. I had no intention of finding a male cat to mate. I just rescued Travis and that was it. We were so perfect for each other, I was just glad he was one of the good guys,” Bridget said.
“I’ll have to meet a cat from out of town,” Carl grumbled.
“You’d be better off sticking around here,” Dan said. “There are more of us to help you out. Though we don’t advertise who we are, I haven’t heard of another town run specifically by cougars. You’ll be safe here. Happy? If you want to be.”
“Why were you running around with a gun on Dan’s property?” Addie suddenly asked.
“Hell, I recorded cougars killing people. I worried they’d still be hanging around the property. They’re territorial, you know. Did you think I’d just shoot pictures of them if any of them attacked?”
“See where that got you?” Addie asked, and smiled.
15
When they finally arrived at the safe house, Chet met them outside. “All the she-cats are taken, I suppose,” Chet said, eyeing Addie, since he knew Bridget had mated Travis, and Leyton had hooked up with Kate.
“Addie and I are mated,” Dan confirmed before she could say so.
Typical alpha male cougar, but she loved him for it. She noticed Carl appeared to be taking mental notes of what to say and do to learn if a she-cat was available. He’d learn. He was smart.
“And this must be the reporter,” Chet said in a disagreeable way.
“Yeah, I’m the reporter, Carl Nelson, and I swear if you all will let me, I’m trying to make amends.” Carl offered his hand to shake Chet’s.
“Chet Kensington.” Chet shook his hand. “And I take down rogue cougars.”
“I’ve heard. I won’t turn rogue on you.” Carl spoke with conviction, but they never knew what would cause a newly turned cat to suddenly turn rogue. Past history? Unable to deal with their cougar half? They weren’t sure.
“Good. I’d have to be the one to take care of it.” Chet turned to Addie. “Where’s this land and the storage building?”
“Here.” Addie pulled out a map she’d drawn to show him where it was located. “There’s no real identifying marks for the property and it’s on a dirt road. Just land as far as the eye can see. There’s a river running through it and it has trees, but all of the land out there is undeveloped.”
“Weren’t you ever worried that someone might break into the building when no one was there to take care of it?” Chet asked, motioning for them to come inside the house. “I made hamburgers on the grill for everyone.”
“It’s out in the country, way off the beaten path. So, no. It’s built like Fort Knox. On the outside, it looks like an old metal building. Inside, the walls are made of reinforced concrete block, a roof built of the same material. A metal roof covers it to
disguise the fact it’s so reinforced. Dad must have really worried someone might find it and access what was inside. I always knew it was secure, but I just believed he was afraid someone would break in and steal his weapons cache and then use it to commit crimes.”
They all fixed up their hamburger buns the way they liked them, Addie adding a little mustard and mayonnaise, pickles, lettuce, and grilled mushrooms to hers. She watched as Dan loaded his with mushrooms and cheddar cheese. That looked good too. Once everyone was done, they sat out on the back patio to eat.
“Now you think there might be more than the weapons inside?” Chet asked.
“Maybe. Why else build it like that? Hidden from prying eyes, the location so secret, no one would ever know about it, under a different name? Anyway, Dad was extremely law-abiding. He never jay-walked even, always went the speed limit, even when I missed the school bus and I was running late for school. He always went in the ‘Enter’ door, and always exited through the door labeled ‘Exit.’ He never wanted to give anyone access to his weapons and aid a criminal in committing felony crimes.”
“I don’t blame him,” Dan said. “I’d be concerned with leaving weapons unattended like that.”
“They’re in a secure vault in the hidden basement,” Addie said.
“Wouldn’t people have learned what he did?” Dan asked.
“All cougars helped him build it and only parts of it. No one person ever saw the finished product or what went inside. Except for Dad and me.”
“All right. Well, if everyone’s ready, let’s go.” Dan sounded eager to find what they’d come for and return home.
They’d taken bottled water with them for the trek they’d have to make to the building, wearing hiking boots and backpacks.
She thought Dan didn’t like being out here with her without the protection of the entire town of cougars. Not for himself, but for her and the others. She wished they could resolve this so he and she could go anywhere they liked without worrying they’d get into another firefight.
It took them half an hour to reach the land, traveling fifteen miles on dirt roads, and finally coming to a fence where they had to park the vehicles.
