Second Nature (35 page)

Her panicked gaze darted over the dark streets ahead. She needed help — money to get away and a place to hide and think. Maybe that was why Griffin had befriended her. Now she knew all the important people in Jorie's life and the places she frequented in town. Jorie couldn't call her mother or Jake Saxton without endangering them. That left her with no place to go.

She steered the car around a corner without slowing down much.

In the street ahead of her, one of the three police officers of Osgrove sat in his police cruiser, parked under a streetlamp, and drank from his water bottle.

The police! Yes! They can help.
Relieved, Jorie eased up on the accelerator.
I better leave out the part about the shifting into a big animal thing for now, though, or I'll find myself in the loony bin faster than I can say shape-shifter. I'll just tell him I've been attacked by a burglar in my house.
As she slowed her car further, she realized the officer was the same who had taken her statement after the knife-wielding mugger had attacked Griffin and her behind the diner.

Wait.
Her instincts screamed at her. She watched as the officer set down his water bottle and reached for his cell phone. He didn't look up and still hadn't seen her, used to being alone in the streets at this time of the night. Something about the way he moved...

The dim light of the streetlamp didn't allow her to make out details, but she had noticed it when he had taken her statement after the mugging. He moved with the same catlike grace as Griffin did.

Jorie pulled hard at the steering wheel. Her car fled down the next side street instead of driving up to the police cruiser.

All her life, she had tried to curb her instincts, to control her active imagination and channel it into her writing. But now her instincts were all she had to help her survive. A crazy dream about being chased by two predators had roused her from sleep and saved her from being killed by the very real predator in her bedroom.

The wail of the siren cut through the silence of the night.

Jorie's heartbeat tripled.

Was he chasing her?

Her gaze darted to the rearview mirror.

Instead of following her into the side street, the police cruiser raced down the main street with flashing lights.

Jorie exhaled sharply.

He got a call on his cell phone, not via the radio, and seconds later, he rushes off with lights and sirens?
Her instincts had been right.
Is he one of them too? God, if even the police is in on this, where will I be safe?

Another wave of fear made her stomach lurch. She had to find a place to hide now more than ever.
Where can I go where none of these... things would look for me?

*  *  *

"Saru Westmore? Where do you want my team to search?" the young Ashawe asked, addressing Griffin with a respect that she knew other saru would no longer pay her if word of what had happened got out.

"Our guy on the local police force is combing the streets, so I suggest you search the surrounding woods," Griffin answered.

As someone who had grown up in a pack, the coyote-shifter was used to taking orders and working in a team. He nodded and walked away without questioning her order.

Manipulating him was easy because he didn't know Jorie. Jorie wasn't stupid. By now, she had probably figured out what Griffin was and that she felt very much at home in the forest. The Ashawe's team wouldn't find her in the forest — and Griffin didn't want them to. She wanted to be the one to find Jorie. It was the only way to make sure that no one killed Jorie. Not that she knew what she would say or do when she found her.

Maybe freeze and let her escape again, like you did when you stood in her bedroom with the knife in your hand.
Anger, shame, guilt, and regret made it hard to think.
Maybe you should have just killed her right then and there. At least it would have been fast, without unnecessary suffering. Now you sentenced her to death with your stupidity, and she'll live her last hours in fear and confusion.
She rubbed her chest, then stopped, annoyed with herself. Her guilt couldn't be rubbed away so easily. She couldn't forget the look on Jorie's face when she had seen the knife and then Griffin's hand broaden into a paw.

From Jorie's reaction when she had watched her shift, it was clear to Griffin that Jorie hadn't believed in shape-shifters before. But while Jorie had clearly been shocked, she had neither fainted nor screamed hysterically when she came face-to-face with a big cat in her bedroom. It had taken her only a few seconds to recover and flee. She had even stopped to pick up her car keys and shoes on her way out.
Why didn't she run away in complete panic? Or just freeze because she can't believe her eyes?
Was it just Jorie's coolheaded nature, or was there more to it? Had a part of Jorie already believed that shape-shifters might exist even if she had no proof?

Griffin had a lot of questions, but to get the answers, she needed to find Jorie first.

Where would Jorie go?
She knew all of her usual hangouts — the diner, the café, the doctor's office. Jorie wouldn't go there, and she wouldn't call her mother. She was used to dealing with her problems on her own and wouldn't want to put her mother in any danger.

That left Jorie with nowhere to go. She had no other friends in town. In her panic, she had run out of the house in pajamas and without her wallet. Without money, she wouldn't make it very far.

Griffin's powerful muscles carried her from one end of her room to the other, then back. Two other saru in the improvised operations center anxiously watched her pacing. Griffin ignored them.
If she's clever — and I know she is — she'll go somewhere with a lot of people, where no one can kill her without having dozens of witnesses. She's probably starting to suspect that there's more than one shape-shifter around, and she can't identify us, but in large groups, chances are that there are enough humans for her to be safe.

When she reached for her pocket watch, she found it wasn't there. She had probably lost it when she had shifted without undressing first. A glance out the window showed her that it was still dark outside.
Now where can I find large gatherings of people in Michigan in the middle of the night? Somewhere Jorie would feel safe.

A sudden idea flashed through her. Griffin grabbed the keys of her rental car.

"Saru Westmore? Where are you going?" Another local saru, one of Leigh's many cousins, ran after her.

"Just checking out a few things," Griffin answered.

"Do you want me to come with you?" the Kasari asked, eager for the hunt.

Griffin didn't want her — or any other saru — anywhere near where she was going. "No. There's something else I need you to do. Go to Jorie Price's house and find my pocket watch. I think I lost it in the bedroom. And put out some food for the cats while you're at it." Without waiting for a reply, she got into her car and sped off.

*  *  *

There she is.

Ava Fowler was right where Jorie had expected her to be at this hour. "Hello, Ava," Jorie said, stopping her just before she could leave the poker room and disappear into the anonymous masses playing the slot machines.

The tall woman turned around. She looked down at Jorie, surprise evident on the normally expressionless face. "Hello, Jorie," she said, still not smiling. "Never thought I'd see you here again — or at all."

Jorie hadn't thought so either. Since she had started to make her living writing, she'd played in casinos just once or twice, and she had steered clear of the casino where Ava usually played. Jorie said nothing. She didn't want to start making excuses or risk a fight. Not now, when she was here to ask a favor.

"Are you here to play? What happened to being chained to your laptop?" Ava asked with heavy sarcasm. "Finally found the key that opens the chains, or are you in-between books?"

They had spent half of their three-month relationship fighting about the amount of time Jorie spent writing instead of being with Ava. Jorie had neither the time nor the energy to start the old discussion again. "Something like that," she answered.

Ava's gaze slid up and down Jorie's body with habitual familiarity. "You lost some weight," she said after a lazy perusal.

Almost to the ounce, Jorie still weighed the same she had when they'd last seen each other. The pants she had bought in the casino's shop with the money she kept in her car's ashtray didn't fit very well, though. Again, she said nothing. If Ava wanted to believe that the end of their short relationship had caused her to lose weight, she would let her believe it. She pulled Ava into a quieter corner, out of the busy poker room. "I need your help," she finally said.

Only Jorie, who had often sat across from Ava at a poker table, could see the surprise in the blue eyes. She had never asked Ava for help before. "Are you in trouble?" Ava asked, again studying Jorie intently.

Trouble didn't even begin to describe her situation. She was in the worst danger of her life. Jorie hesitated. "No," she said after a few moments. She couldn't drag Ava into this mess.
Who knows what Griffin and the rest of her kind will do to her if they find her with me. And besides, she wouldn't believe me anyway.
Ava had never been interested in Jorie's fictional worlds and creatures, saying that they exceeded her suspension of disbelief. Jorie could hardly believe it herself, so how could she expect someone like Ava to belief her story about being chased by a shape-shifter?

"I need money," she said. It wasn't easy to ask Ava for a favor, but running for her life left no room for pride.

"Now?" Ava asked.

Jorie nodded. "I know it's short notice, but yes, I need it here and now."

"You are in trouble," Ava said, frowning.

She still cares,
Jorie realized with a strange mixture of surprise, pleasure, and guilt. Ava hadn't been a bad girlfriend, and Jorie felt like a failure for not being able to make it work between them. "No. Not really. It's a long story and too complicated to explain," Jorie said. How could she explain it to Ava when she didn't even understand it herself?

"You don't want to explain," Ava said bitterly. "You never wanted to share anything about yourself and your life with me." A firm gesture stopped Jorie's protest. "I still owe you five hundred bucks," Ava said without asking why she needed the money. "I know you said it was a present and you didn't want it back, but if you need it now, you can have the money. Let me cash out my chips."

For a fleeting moment, Jorie was tempted to tell her to just give her the chips. She needed a lot of money to get away from whoever might be hunting her by now. The casino would be her only chance to multiply her money in just a few hours without leaving a paper trail.

But was she calm and focused enough to win enough money to trade in her car, fill up on gas and some supplies, and get as far away as possible? While she sat here and played poker, was Griffin calling in her people and setting up traps at every corner?

She couldn't take the risk.

Ava carried her chips to the cage and returned with a bundle of money. Apparently, it had been a great night at the poker table for her. She counted off five hundred-dollar bills and handed them to Jorie.

"Thank you," Jorie said. Her glance wandered from the money to Ava and back. She didn't know what to say to her. "You always liked my car, right?"

Ava's dark brows arched. "Sure. It's cute."

"Do you want to buy it?" Griffin knew her car, so she needed to get rid of it.

"What's going on?" Ava asked instead of answering. Her bitterness at seeing Jorie again was replaced by a concerned expression.

Jorie shrugged as casually as she could. "Call it starting a new life," she said and mentally added,
Call it trying to keep my life.

The blue-eyed gaze drilled into her for a few more seconds; then Ava pulled her bundle of money back out of her pocket. With a cursory glance, Jorie guessed it to be another five hundred dollars. "That's all I have on me," Ava said.

The car was worth more, but with a glance at the ticking clock, Jorie took the money and handed Ava her car keys. "Thank you," she said again. "I parked in the back, behind the casino."

"Where are you going from here?" Ava asked.

"I'm not sure yet," Jorie said. She just knew that she wouldn't stop anytime soon. If Griffin was anything like the shape-shifters in her novel, she could track by scent. Most likely, she would be safest in the crowd and anonymity of a big city. "Maybe I'll take a trip to Vegas." Maybe the shape-shifting creatures lived only in Michigan. She couldn't be sure of that, of course, but Las Vegas seemed as safe a place as any. She had a feeling that Griffin and her kind didn't like the noise and the crowds in casinos.

A second later, she wanted to slap herself for her careless answer. They'd planned a trip to Las Vegas when they had still been together.

Pain added a hint of gray to Ava's eyes, but she hid it behind a cocky grin. "Vegas, huh? Want a kiss for good luck?" she asked.

"Can't hurt." Jorie turned her head to offer her cheek.

The soft touch of Ava's finger on her chin stopped her. Ava kissed her on the lips, then took a step back. She gave Jorie a nod and a sad smile. "Good-bye," she said and strode away.

Ava had made sure that this time, the last action and the last word were hers. This time, she had walked away from Jorie.

Guilt rooted Jorie to the spot. She had hurt Ava by ending their relationship, so giving her this last triumph was the least she could do. For a moment, Jorie stood watching Ava vanish into the crowd around the craps table; then she straightened and left the casino.

*  *  *

Griffin wanted to turn back around as soon as she walked in. The fluorescent lights and the constant flashing of colors hurt her eyes. The noise was even worse.

The incessant ding-ding-ding of slot machines and the rattling of coins into metal bins made her want to cover her ears.