The Nymph's Curse: The Collection (46 page)

His knees were covered in angry rug burns and his back ached from their hours of lovemaking, but the smile on Dane’s face hadn’t wavered all morning — that was until he walked into the station. There was a manila envelope perfectly centered in the middle of his desk with the sergeant standing in front, like a cautious sentinel.

Of course Aura had refused to be left behind, so she was forced to wait outside in the main lobby while he picked up his assignment and the dreaded envelope.

The sergeant nodded when he saw Dane walk into the room. “I thought you were never going to get here. Jesus, what did you do? Stop at the gas station for a doughnut?”

Dane looked down at his watch. “It’s only six twenty, I’m ten minutes early. What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been waiting and so has Officer Grant.” He pointed over at the stewing Grant, who kept glancing over from his chair as if he was just waiting for the sergeant to call him over.

Was that why Sarge had been waiting? So he could kick him off the case and let the little jackass take over? If that was it, why hadn’t he just pulled him like he’d threatened at the lake? Or had he thought about what Dane had asked and reneged on his decision?

Well, he wasn’t going to have it. He might be taken off the case, but he wasn’t going to stop looking. The woman he loved depended on him. There would be no stopping them until he had Natalie in his possession.

“As far as I give a shit, Officer Grant can keep on waiting.” He jerked his thumb toward the slobbering kid.

The sergeant chuckled. “Easy now.” He grabbed the envelope off the desk and thrust it at Dane like it was filled with classified documents he’d stolen from the FBI. “You have to take a look at what we were able to dig up. Not only did we find out where the woman had been staying, but we also finally got an ID on the unidentified dead woman we found with Angela. Found out that she’s some woman named Katarina Homeros. Comes from Crete. She’s been involved in some risky business involving money laundering and bribery in the last year. Most recently she was picked up for animal cruelty. Nasty woman, that one.”

“Did they run a test for Clomiphene on the newest vic — Jenna?” Dane grabbed the envelope and stuffed it under his arm. The information could wait until he was in the privacy of his patrol car and out from under the nose of the waiting vulture.

“Early tests seemed to confirm that it was present, but you know how they work … everything is tentative.”

Tentative with the crime lab was good enough for him to assume that these women were all connected to the same murderer. They were close. They would find whoever was behind the crimes. He silently prayed to God that Natalie had nothing to do with the murders and was nothing more than a missing woman.

“Great.” He turned to walk away.

“And Dane?”

He looked back over his shoulder. “Yes, sir?”

“Remember, after today you only have one more day.” The sergeant put up his finger with the zest of a well-practiced proctologist prepping for an exam. “Get your shit together.”

The door slammed shut behind Dane as he made his way out to the lobby. Aura looked up at him — her cheeks were still flush from their lovemaking and his smile returned. He held up the files. “We have a solid lead. They located the hotel where the card was last used.”

“Really?” She stood up excitedly. “Let’s go.”

The icy air nipped at his skin as they got into the car. He ripped open the envelope like a kid opening a Christmas present. They finally had some kind of answers — something solid. Hopefully it would prove to be the answers they were looking for.

The stiff papers dropped into his lap and he looked down at the credit card company’s list of transactions for the last year on Natalie’s card. Everything seemed normal up until the last week. She’d gone from buying groceries, gas, and paying routine bills to going to bars, nightclubs, and pricey hotels.

The last charge had been to a Best Western in Kalispell, not far from the station and only a few miles from Somers. It sat right at the intersection of Highways 93 and 82 — almost the perfect place for someone who wanted to make a fast getaway. If they were lucky they could get there and find the man the bartender had seen Jenna with the night they had gone there. Maybe if they hurried they could get to him before he had time to realize he’d thrown away his cash source along with his victim’s body.

“The place isn’t too far from here. I think we can get there in about ten minutes. Maybe we can see if we can find Shawn’s truck.” He thumbed through the file. Everything else after the credit card history was pretty straightforward, a workup on the other woman they’d finally identified. Her criminal record was all relatively new crimes and there was a copy of her Visa and her Greek passport with her small picture, but there was nothing to indicate why the murderer would have picked her to be a victim.

He thrust the papers toward Aura and started the car. “Take a look at these and see if you can see anything else that we are going to need to know.”

The heater blew the papers around in her hand, but they were going nowhere from the look of her white knuckles. “You didn’t tell me they identified the other woman,” she said, breathlessly.

“Yes, she’s some woman out of Greece or something.”

“She’s not just
some woman
… ” She lifted the papers so he could look at them. “She’s
Katarina Homeros
.”

He shrugged. “That means nothing to me. Should it?”

“She’s a nymph. And not just any nymph. She used to be the leader of the Sisterhood of Epione.”

He had no idea what she was talking about. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t place the Sisterhood of Epione anywhere in his memory. “Okay. Do you think that has anything to do with her murder?”

“Don’t you know what this means?”

“Every single woman who has been found murdered has been a nymph.”

• • •

Aura tried to stay calm as she stared over at the bewildered Dane. Her stomach tensed until it felt like a giant knot of emotions. Whoever was behind all of these murders knew their secret — the fact that they could only die if their hair or skin was pulled or destroyed.

“Wait. Angela … Angela was a nymph?” Dane asked, trying to pull together the threads of evidence as he tried to understand the whole picture.

Aura nodded. “She was a horse-shifter like Natalie and I.”

His bewildered expression turned to one of amazement and shock. “I never knew.”

“Most nymphs never tell humans the truth. Most people wouldn’t understand.”

He nodded as if he could empathize with the rest of his kind. “Angela wasn’t ever very forthcoming.”

“I’m sorry, Dane.”

“Were Angela and all these women part of this Sisterhood?”

“Every nymph is connected to the Sisterhood. They are like the ruling party of all nymphs. Crete, where Katarina was from, is like our holy Mecca. It’s where our kind were first born and bred. It is all nymphs’ home, even if we weren’t born there.”

She dropped the papers back down and stared at Katarina’s picture. “And I guess you could say the Sisterhood is the nymph’s equivalent of the Vatican. Though in the last century, since industrialization, they haven’t played as strong of a role in our governing. Most nymphs are well aware of the implications of who, and what we are, and what is expected of us. Not that we are always perfect, but they assume that our local governments are capable of keeping us in check. When that doesn’t happen then they’ll intercede, but it has always been rare.”

She thought about Crete and the secrets that were now likely to be exposed. “I don’t know how the Sisterhood is going to handle this, but they don’t like to have dead nymphs lying around. This would be the first incident of its kind in a long time — if ever.”

She thought back to last year’s event with Beau Morris and Ariadne Papadakis in Crete. Ariadne had changed the fate of many nymphs. No longer were they under the thumb of Katarina Homeros — the lying, deceitful breaker of the magical staff of Epione.

Dane stared at her as he must have tried to comprehend everything she had told him. “So this Katarina was like the Pope until recently?”

“Exactly. Last year, she was not overthrown exactly, but she was removed from power by another nymph from Crete — Ariadne, I think. She didn’t like the way the group was being run, she wasn’t alone, but she ended up digging up some secrets from Katarina’s past that put the whole order of our way of life in question. Many of our kind were upset when the truth came out about how Epione’s healing staff had been broken.”

“Do you think there are some nymphs who are still holding a grudge?”

Aura thought for a moment. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of nymphs around the world, but she’d never met one that seemed hell-bent on killing Katarina or any other nymph — but that was as far as she knew. Nymphs were, in some aspects, no different than humans — anger, jealousy, and rage were just as alive and well in their community as they were in human civilization. It was hard to assume that there wouldn’t be someone somewhere that wanted to get back at Katarina for her lies — but it was hard to believe that Natalie was one of them. She wasn’t the type to hold a grudge. Especially a grudge against a woman that she knew only through the nymph world, but had never met in person.

“Maybe, but I don’t know what that would have to do with the other nymphs that have been killed. Did Angela have anything to do with the Sisterhood?”

From the look on Dane’s face she knew instantly that she had made a mistake.

“Look, I hadn’t even really known what a nymph was until you told me what you were. Angela never told me anything about her other life. She didn’t love me, remember?”

Her heart wrenched in her chest. She hadn’t meant to rub salt into his wounds. “I’m sorry, Dane. But if it helps you, she must have cared about you enough to try and not love you — she didn’t want to see you get hurt. She didn’t want you to get killed because of the curse.”

“Are you really trying to tell me that she didn’t love me because she cared about me? That doesn’t make any goddamned sense.” He slammed his opened hand against the steering wheel and then turned to her. “Look at you and me … You were willing to look past the curse because you care about me. You couldn’t help but to love me. Right?”

The knot tightened in her stomach. She had been foolish to let her emotions cloud her judgment, but there was no going back now. She loved him and there was nothing either of them could do to change the way she felt.

“Angela must have been stronger than I am.” Aura stared down at her fingers. “I love you, but that doesn’t mean that I should have let myself feel this way. She was able to put herself in an emotional bubble — just what I should have done.”

Dane reached over and made her put down the papers. “You don’t regret falling in love with me, do you?” He took her hands and, pressing them together, pulled them to his lips. He kissed the edges of her fingers. “I don’t regret falling in love with you. It’s the only good decision I’ve ever made when it has come to my life.”

“That is
if
you don’t die.” She gently pulled her fingers from his. “Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to let Officer Grant take over the investigation. You and I can … ”

“Go rogue?” Dane looked up at the station. “Is that what you want? To let someone else try and find Natalie?”

She knew what she was asking him. The man cared more for his work than anything else in his life. When she’d met him, there was no chance that he would have given up his professional edge for her or anyone else. Step by step, moment by moment, he’d been changing for her, going against his sergeant and putting himself on the line to find Natalie.

She could only repay him by protecting him. “If it means keeping you safe.” As the words tumbled from her lips she knew there was no keeping him safe.

Even if she kept him in a bubble there was nothing that would stop Zeus from inflicting the curse’s fate. It wasn’t a matter of if the god would punish her for falling in love; it was only a matter of when. They may have a few days or they may have a few years, but regardless, it wouldn’t be enough time and it would be hard to justify her actions if something was to happen to Dane.

They sat in silence. Dane looked over at her and opened his mouth. He stared at her, his lips trembling as he struggled to speak.

“Let’s just go,” she offered, in a weak attempt to make up for everything she had done to him. “Let’s find Shawn. Maybe he can point us toward Natalie.”

He reached over and ran his thumb over her cheek. “I love you. It doesn’t matter to me if I die today, tomorrow, or in fifty years. I got the chance to love you and it’s been the most amazing thing I’ve experienced in my life.”

Aura reached up and took his hand. “I love you too. And I’m sorry — ”

Before she could finish her sentence he rushed across the car and stole her lips. There was no gentleness, only the harsh passion of love and the reality of their plight. They were two sinking ships, but they would go down together.

Dane pulled back from her lips and gave her a look that had even more passion than their kiss. “If you want … If it’s really what you want, I will go in there and tell Grant to take over the case.”

The love in her heart grew, pushing the boundary of her heart’s ability to fill with love. “Thank you. I know how much your job and this case means to you … ” She paused. Should she tell him to quit the case? They could go out on their own, unencumbered by the weight of the badge that was pinned to his chest.

Aura stared at the badge. Lifting her hand, she trailed her fingertips over the cold metal. Even if Dane wasn’t wearing the emblem it didn’t change the man he was on the inside. They would follow the same path whether or not he was wearing it. He would never do something that he knew was wrong.

Except loving her …

“Let’s find Shawn together. I’ll protect you. Nothing will happen to you as long as I’m here.” She trailed her fingers from his badge to his jacket’s zipper and pulled it up. “I promise.”

He smirked as he pulled down the zipper just enough to show his uniform’s collar. “They probably won’t even be there. It will be a long shot to find them.”