Running Free (16 page)

“Woodland Creek PD. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

The door opens further and a man, much larger than me, breathing like he just ran a fucking marathon fills the space. “About what?”

His voice is gruff and a nasty scar runs down his forehead, splitting his eyebrow, and continues down his cheek to his jawbone. Beads of sweat are on his upper lip despite the cooler temperatures.

I can’t hardly think with the dog going nuts and apparently he feels the same because he jerks his head over his shoulder to look back into the house. “Shut the fuck up.” I’m shocked that the dog quiets at his words but my hackles are raised by his odd behavior.

“Do you know Jennifer Collins?”

He shakes his head. “Nope. Never heard of the name.”

I grit my teeth at his uncaring attitude. “Well, she was pregnant. And someone murdered her last night.”

“Sucks to be her.”

“Yeah,” I snap. “Sucks to be her. Can I ask you where you were between the hours of midnight and two in the morning?”

He scowls at me and wipes at his brow with the back of his hand. “What are you insinuating?”

“I’m not insinuating anything. I just need to know your whereabouts at that time.”

“Here.”

“Sir, I’m going to need to ask you to step outside for a minute.”

Panic momentarily flashes over his features before he grunts and pushes through the opening of the door. He towers over me but I don’t back away. This dude is a massive motherfucker and I feel like he’s every bit capable of murdering those kids with his hands. My eyes drop down to his fisted hands and I attempt to inspect them before he shoves them into his jean pockets. It’s hard to see a damn thing out here in the dark.

“What now?” he says with a growl.

The hairs on my arms prickle as a realization steals over me. He reminds me of a bear. An unusual thought but one that seems important — one that I plan on addressing more thoroughly when I get back to Frankie. Could this guy be a…

A bear?

Like the so-called animal that’s been killing teens.

It feels like a piece of the puzzle. It’s almost laughable but I’m not fucking laughing. I’m trying to solve a crime and I’m not ruling anything out.

Another face pops up in my head. Suzie with her mop of unruly curls and wide, innocent eyes. She reminded me of the pup from the shelter and acted like she knew me when we met at the bar. Suzie’s name is oddly similar to Curly Sue. This, too, feels like a piece of the puzzle.

A dog?

Luca crosses my mind next. The thick, alpha motherfucker with eyes a familiar grey. A leader of his own pack of motorcycle riders but resembled that of the animal pack I encountered at that first dead body. Another piece of the puzzle.

A wolf?

My mind finally flits to Frankie. My hádanka. How does she fit in this equation? I know I’m right. I can feel this with every part of my being. Of course I can’t go blabbing my insane hypothesis about how half the people I know might be an animal to TJ or Fitz. No, this I’ll have to sort out on my own.

And with Frankie’s help too.

“What’s your name, sir?” I question the giant man.

He scoffs as if I’ve offended him. “Some fucking cop you are.”

Shit, another puzzle piece… one I’m not grasping.

My police radio in the Tahoe goes nuts about the time my cell starts ringing. I give him a look that promises we’ll finish this later as I jog to the truck and answer my phone.

“Gun!”

Frankie is hysterical on the other line.

“T-t-they hurt him! S-s-she’s gone!”

I sling myself into the truck and tear out of the gravel drive, hauling ass toward the bar. “Who, Frankie? Who?”

Her sobs are a jumbled mess. She needs to calm the fuck down so I can understand her. I hit the lights on my Tahoe so everyone will stay the hell out of my way. As she chokes out unintelligible words, I pick up codes on the police radio.

217.
Assault with attempt to murder.

207.
Kidnapping.

Shit!

“Frankie, calm down and make some goddamned sense!”

She chokes out my worst fear. “Suzie… she’s gone. And Otis is barely alive.”

“Stay there, I’ll pick you up,” I tell her as I swerve around a slowed car.

“Gun, a b-b-bear hurt him. But… but… ”

I turn on the street which leads to the bar and see her ugly truck sitting out front. “I know. I’m here. Get in.”

Frankie

“What happened?” he asks when I climb in.

I’m still reeling at seeing Otis’s bloody chest, his dulled eyes. Before he passed out from blood loss, he told me it was a Bear shifter. I was pretty sure I’d known that was the being responsible for the deaths but I still couldn’t understand how it tied to me. Otis didn’t know the man.

“Talk to me, Frankie. The truth.”

I sigh, swiping the tears from my eyes, and turn in my seat to look at him. His handsome face is contorted into a pained, worried one. The truth is inevitable. He’ll hate me once he finds out what I am but I can’t afford to think about myself. He’s the smartest cop in this town and if anyone can get Suzie back in one piece, it’d be him.

“There’s a lot you don’t know in this town, Gun. Hear me out. Don’t judge. Just do your cop thing and help me figure this shit out.”

His nod is a clipped one but I trust that he’ll hold back on his feelings at least until we see this through.

With a huff, I continue. “Otis is a shifter.”

He widens his eyes and goes to speak but I wave him off. I need to get this all out before I chicken out.

“He turns into an owl.”

Something flickers in his eyes. He believes me. It spurs me on.

“Anyway, the bear came for Suzie. Otis tried to fight him off but the old man was no match for the massive beast. Right before the bear delivered the kill shot, Otis shifted and managed to fly to the bar. He was too injured to rescue Suzie but knew if he could get to me, I could get you to find him before he hurts her.”

He puts the car in reverse and peels out of the parking lot in the opposite direction of my house where the rest of the police department is processing the scene. I don’t ask him where he’s going, just keep blabbing the ridiculousness that is my life.

“Otis said the bear is a shifter. Other shifters know these things — just trust me. So my suspicions are correct, this Bear shifter is killing these teens to get to me for some reason,” I say with a ragged sigh, knowing this all sounds insane. “Luca and the guys—”

“Wolves.”

I gape at him in wonder. “Well, Luca. Winston is a Tiger shifter. A couple are bear-shifters. Several are Wolf shifters including Luca. He’s their pack leader.” My pack leader — but I leave that part off.

“And?” he urges me to continue.

“Suzie is a—”

“Toy poodle.”

Shit. He knows. He somehow knew all along. “Yes. How do you know all of this?”

He flashes me smile that comforts my soul. “I love puzzles, hádanka. I always figure them out.”

My heart flutters but I don’t have time to acknowledge a future with him knowing my deepest, darkest secrets. Instead, I focus on our problem at hand.

“Where are we going?” I ask once he pulls down a gravel road.

“I think I found our suspect. He was weirding me the fuck out before you called. I thought he reminded me of a bear. It made me think of Luca and Suzie — shit started to click into place. I even heard a dog yapping inside. Can you tell me if he’s a bear? From a distance?”

“I think so but you promised me I could kill him!”

He shakes his head at me. “If he’s a bear, then you shoot the fuck out of him. But if he’s in the same form I left him, I need to apprehend him. I’m calling for backup too. Now crawl into the back seat and load both of those shotguns.”

I don’t argue and clamber into the back while he radios in his location — that he doesn’t have time to wait for backup. My fingers shake as I load the two guns and just click the second weapon into place when he parks the Tahoe.

“Stay here. I can’t protect you and survey the scene. If you hear shots, get my back if backup hasn’t arrived. Otherwise, stay the hell in here where you’re safe.”

I hand him his bigger gun and a handful of slugs before I scramble into the front seat. “Gun, no. Let me help!”

He jerks his head to me and slides his hand into my hair. His lips briefly kiss mine before he breaks away. “Frankie, baby, I need you. When this all blows over, I don’t care what kind of animal you are… you’re still mine and I love you.”

I’m so stunned by his words that all I can do is gape after him as he exits the truck and creeps along the wood’s edge toward the single cabin.

Stay in the car, Frankie.

Listen to your boyfriend.

Stay in the car…

Oh, who the hell am I kidding? I’m not staying in the fucking car. Quietly, I slip out of the truck and don’t let the door slam shut. I run in the opposite direction Gun went in to cover more ground.

We’re coming.

The thought is loud and clear in my head. I can feel the words sliding through my veins like liquid. My pack is on their way. Relief rushes through me to know Luca and the boys will be here soon. Howls and growls in the distance reiterate their journey to us.

Yap-yap-yap-yap-yap!

I can hear the yapping of a small dog within the cabin — the one Gun mentioned earlier. It’s a sound I’m extremely familiar with. Suzie! Gun was right. Whoever lives here killed my friends — tried to kill Otis — and has kidnapped my daughter.

Well she’s not technically my daughter… but according to the forged State of Indiana paperwork she is and I’ll die before I let this Bear shifter maniac lay a goddamned claw on her.

I crawl over to an open side window, where light pours out onto the grass and I peek in. Inside, a gigantic man paces the small space. Suzie is safe and alive, trapped in a small crate.

“
If he’s a bear, then you shoot the fuck out of him. But if he’s in the same form I left him, I need to apprehend him.”

Shit. Why couldn’t the fucker be in his shifter form so I could level his ass? I turn away from the window to think. If I go in guns blazing, that could mean trouble for me. Maybe they’d lock me up for murder. I’d never see Otis or Suzie or Gun again. The thought is crippling. I’ve just decided I’ll climb in and shift to my Doberman form when something grabs me by the hair and hauls me up the side of the house.

I clutch onto the huge wrist and shriek as I wriggle to free myself. But I’m tiny and no match to this behemoth of a man. He easily drags me into the cabin and into his steely clutches.

“Let go of me,” I cry out.

His huge arms encircle my waist and he hugs me to him. I’m still trying to escape when he speaks.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The voice coupled with the familiar stench of body odor stuns me and I freeze. I know this person. This motherfucker who’s been killing innocent kids.

“Jase?”

He twists me in his arms. Mine are still pinned but I lift my chin to face my attacker. Glowing green eyes pierce mine with their evil glare. “Miss me, Frances?”

Anger flares in my chest. How could the boy who got abused by fucking Joe Harrison grow up to become a murderer? What a sonofabitch!

“Jase, so help me,” I snarl. “Why in the hell would you do this to me?”

His eyebrows furl into and furious scowl. “
You
left us, Frances. Fucking left us! Do you know what he did to her after you left? Do you?”

My heart sinks and guilt rips through me. Minnie. I tried hard not to worry about her or think about what became of her or Jase. It wasn’t my problem. I couldn’t burden myself with them when I could barely take care of my own self.

But that was selfish. Even at twelve, I should have found a way to bring her with me. Images of the violence I endured at several different pounds, flash by in a wicked breeze of memories. Minnie would have been worse off with me. I know this deep in my heart.

“Let me go!” I spit in his face but it only enrages him.

He releases me long enough to change his position. His big hand grips my throat and I thrash at him.

“You’re not going anywhere,
bitch
,” he snaps, eyeballing my collar necklace. “How fucking fitting. Do you want to know what happened to our sweet Minnie?”

No.

No.

No.

“Stop,” I beg, my breath nothing more than a hiss. “Please.”

But he doesn’t stop. “He hurt Minnie. Really fucking badly. I’d just turned sixteen and was working at my afterschool job. My body was changing. I was growing, my voice was deep, and I had hair to the point that it was fucking embarrassing. Little did I know that when I came home and found that man doing—doing… ” he trails off, not wanting to finish the awful memory. “I went fucking insane, Frances. Insane. Next thing I knew, I had claws. Claws, goddammit!”

Puberty. Jase was a late bloomer, unlike me, and shifted much later for the first time. I never knew he was like me.

“Let me go… ”

He shakes his head. “I killed him. Fucking tore him to a million bloody pieces. And then I ate parts of him. It made me feel better. I felt alive and powerful for once in my goddamn life.”