Alpha Bear Detective: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance (5 page)

“Let me go start setting that up,” he continued, “and I’ll see about getting you your statement to sign and seeing where the senator is. Can I get you anything? Water, coffee?”

She smiled suddenly—he hadn’t seen her smile yet, he realized, although given the circumstances that wasn’t much of a surprise. It was warm and brilliant, and like an idiot, he just wanted to stay here and look at it forever.

“Water would be great, thank you,” she said, and it took Levi a second to remember that he’d asked her a question, and should probably be on his way to get the answer about now.

“Sure thing,” he said, and hustled out of the room.

In the hallway, he rubbed a hand over his face. What was
up
with him tonight? He was turning into Danny, wanting to mack on a victim just because she was beautiful and smelled nice…

…and was brave, and smart, and careful, and strong…

Snap out of it!
He went to get her water.

She smiled at him again when he brought it to her, and he said, “Enjoy,” before leaving again.

Enjoy?
he thought, once he was safely away.
You’re not a damn waiter
.

He had to shake it off, though, because it was time to go talk to the lieutenant.

*              *              *

“Think about it.” Lieutenant Moyer steepled his fingers on his desk. “She’s seen this guy yelling at protests, she was just staring at his picture a few days ago, she’s scared of him. When she sees a guy running away from the scene, maybe same color hair or something—bam, she knows it must be him.”

“She’s our only witness,” Levi argued. “We can’t just ignore her statement because it
might
not be true.”

“Some assholes who don’t like shifters? Come on.” The lieutenant shook his head. “I’ve read profiles of these guys. They’re not violent.”

“There has to be a first time.”

The lieutenant raised his eyebrows. “Hale, I understand that this line of investigation is attractive to you, due to your own situation, but it’s not going to come to anything.”

“My own—sir, if you think that I’m biased toward this possibility because I’m a shifter myself, I assure you that that is not the case.” Levi had to struggle to keep his voice down. “I only want to make sure that our single eyewitness lead is pursued.”

“Whatever your own position is, Detective, my opinion is the same,” said the lieutenant. “We’ll send someone out to do a routine interview, see if the suspect has an alibi, but I doubt it’ll come to anything. It’s a scared girl thinking she saw something she was already scared of.”

“Sir, if you think it’s a waste of time, then let me track this lead down. You know I won’t blow it up to be more than it is, or ignore any evidence against it. I’ll just be more comfortable exploring it fully.”

Levi wanted to keep going, to protest the characterization of Maria as someone who didn’t know what she was talking about, when one interview with her had made it clear that she did. He knew it wouldn’t do any good, though, so he kept his mouth shut.

The lieutenant looked at him for a long minute, then waved his hand. “Fine, go ahead. Don’t let me see you neglecting any of your other cases, and if I need you on a different aspect of this case, I’ll expect you to make that a priority.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We need to maintain the appearance of absolute efficiency on this one,” Moyer continued. “The press is going to be all over it—a state senator shot at on the very steps of the Capitol Building. They’re going to like the anti-shifter angle too, I bet.” He snorted. “Probably in the end it’ll come out to be just random gang violence. Rage against the man.”

“Yes, sir.” Levi kept his tone even. “What about a safehouse for the women until it calms down? That way we can assure the press that Springfield PD is keeping the senator safe in an undisclosed location until the shooter is brought to justice—”

“Et cetera et cetera, yes, that’s a good idea, Hale. Make it happen.”

“Yes, sir. Is there anything else, sir?”

“Not yet. You’ll know when there is.”

“Yes, sir.” Levi stood and escaped.

He ran into Danny outside, who asked him, “What’s up?”

“We’re taking the senator and her assistant to a safehouse before we go off-shift, and tomorrow we’re checking out these anti-shifter crazies.” Levi kept his tone absolutely neutral; he didn’t want to be heard bitching about the lieutenant right outside his office.

“Sounds good.” Danny looked over his shoulder and grinned. “The senator lady just got here, and the lieu’s about to interview her, asked me to sit in. You think a senator would be interested—”

“Nope.”

Danny clutched at his chest. “You wound me! But you’re right: she’s too old for me. Maybe I can meet some up-and-coming alderwoman or something. I never dated a politician before.”

“You never date anyone, Danny, you just meet them for drinks and head back to your place.” Levi only had one ear on the banter; he was thinking about Maria, waiting back in the interview room. He wondered if she was still maintaining that hard-won control, even when nobody was there.

“Isn’t that dating?” Danny asked innocently.

*              *              *

Maria sipped her water and tried not to think about what the next several days were going to be like.

It was hard, though. Since Detective Hale had left the room, the awareness of her situation had been crowding in on her mind. She already wanted to look over her shoulder—she’d caught herself wondering who was on the other side of the one-way mirror, and had had to forcibly calm her paranoia down.

She was in a police station, for God’s sake! No one was going to shoot at her here.

No one had really been shooting at her in the first place. They’d been shooting at Laura.

But after Laura had shifted and flown away, they’d kept it up. There at the end, they’d sincerely tried to kill
her
, Maria Hernandez.

She guessed helping shifters out made you as much of a target as being one did. Well, she’d rather be on
this
side of the fight, even if it meant being shot at. Laura was a good senator and a good person, and Maria was proud to be working for her.

The door opened again, and Maria jumped, stifling a high-pitched noise.

Yeah, these next few days were going to be
great
.

It was Detective Hale again, though. She immediately felt safer, somehow. His big presence was immensely reassuring.

He said, “We’ve got a safehouse set up for you and the senator, but it looks like she’s going to be tied up a bit longer with questioning. It also looks like some other members of her staff have arrived—”

Maria smiled. “Lenny. He’s her PR manager. He never sleeps.” Lenny was the only person who had likely already been awake when Laura texted the news around.

“Right. So—the point is, there’s nothing stopping me from driving you to the safehouse right now. All you have to do is sign this, and you’re free to go.” He held up what was presumably a copy of her statement.

“Oh,” Maria said, startled. For some reason, she hadn’t expected to be allowed to leave. The police station had started to seem like some kind of eternal limbo, like she would just be existing there indefinitely from now on. “Can I see Laura now?”

Detective Hale shook his head. “No, she’s in an interview, so we can’t interrupt her. You could wait until she’s done, but I don't know how much longer that’ll be.”

If Lenny was with her…“I can text her,” Maria decided, “and tell her what’s happening. I don’t think she’ll need me again tonight, and she’ll be coming to the same safehouse after she’s done, right?”

“Right.”

“So—hand me that thing so I can get out of here!”

Smiling, he did, and she signed with a flourish and stood up.

Or tried to—once she was on her feet, her vision was taken up by black spots.
Been sitting too long—oh—

“—all right? Maria?”

“What?” she asked fuzzily, and then suddenly became aware that there were arms around her.

Big, warm, solid arms, holding her up with no effort at all.

It took
her
a lot of effort not to just relax back into Detective Hale’s embrace—he smelled
amazing
, warm and masculine—but she pulled herself together and stood up. “I am so sorry.”

How embarrassing—falling over like a fainting Victorian heroine!

“Don’t be sorry.” His voice rumbled against her chest—he hadn’t let her go, and she realized that he was avoiding touching her hurt arm.

“You’ve been shot at, you haven’t had any sleep, and you lost a good amount of blood earlier tonight,” he continued. “I’m surprised you can stand up at all.”

That
made her straighten all the way and step back a little bit. She hesitated for a second, but the dizziness didn’t make a comeback. She held up her hands. “Surprise.”

He laughed. He didn’t sound offended at all, just pleased. “I guess maybe I shouldn’t be. Are you okay now? We can take you to the hospital for a checkup—”

“No, I’m fine.” Maria shuddered at the thought of another bright room and more questions. “See?” She turned in a circle. “All fine.”

“Okay.” He took her at her word, which was nice. “Let’s get you over to the safehouse, then, and you can get some sleep.”

“Sleep.” Maria laughed. “I don’t know if that’s happening anytime soon. But I’ll give it a shot. Lead on.”

He picked up her purse for her, absently, as though he wasn’t even thinking about what he was doing, and headed for the door.

Maria thought about protesting—she was an independent woman who could carry her own goddamn purse. But her arm was throbbing and she didn’t feel so great overall, and the purse was heavy.

She followed him out the door—and found that at least she wasn’t too far gone to admire the view.

*              *              *

Levi drove them out to the safehouse, a little bungalow a short drive out of town. Maria was quiet on the way over, looking out the window. He respected that, and didn’t try to make any conversation.

As much as he wanted to. Although considering that the first question he could think of asking her was,
So how did you get to be so fantastically brave and determined, anyway?
that probably wasn’t the best idea even if she had been in the mood to talk.

It was only a fifteen-minute drive, so they pulled into the driveway about 5:30. The sky was starting to lighten, and Maria stared at the horizon for a second before she got out of the car.

Levi took the opportunity to get out himself and circle around, so as to be ready in case she got dizzy again.

But she was fine—she opened the door and stepped out just as he came up, thwarting his plans to open the door for her, and seemed perfectly all right.

She was even holding her purse, so he couldn’t take it for her again.

“Here.” His own voice sounded awkward in his ears against the predawn silence. “I’ll show you around the house.”

“Sounds good,” Maria said distantly.

He wondered if she was finally going into shock. At the very least, she seemed a little out of it. He’d be sure to stay until he knew she’d gotten in bed, just in case. He didn’t want her to faint and hit her head.

*              *              *

Maria was more exhausted than she’d ever been, but at the same time, she was so wired she didn’t think she’d be sleeping until Christmas. She could feel her pulse over her whole body, centered around the throbbing ache in her temples. Her eyes felt hot and gritty, but she couldn’t even imagine lying down and closing them with the tension still thrumming in her chest.

Detective Hale let her into the house, and she followed him inside and looked cautiously around. It was small and simply furnished, but clean and neat, and it seemed like it would be a fine place to stay for a few days.

“The bedrooms are through here.” Detective Hale led her down a short hall and showed her two rooms.

Maria picked the smaller room, leaving Laura the master, so that she could have her own bathroom. The smaller room also had a desk in the corner, so she could work here if she had to.

If she had to—“Will we be able to go back to the Capitol building?” she asked suddenly. “At least by Monday? We can’t just abandon Laura’s work.”

“We’ll have to see how the case develops.” Detective Hale sounded cautious. “I’m sure we can figure something out.”

That didn’t sound super-promising, but Maria let it go for now. “I’d appreciate it if I could at least get my laptop from my office,” she said instead. “Or if someone could bring it here.” There was only so much she could do with her cell phone.

“We can make that happen,” the detective assured her. “For now, though, I’m sure you want to get some sleep.”

Maria looked around the empty room, and back over her shoulder at the empty house. “I don’t think I can just yet.” She forced a laugh. “I’m definitely going to be extra-paranoid for the next few days. I might just wait until Laura gets home before I try to sleep.”