What felt like weeks later, their small group reached the edge of town. The whole pack didn’t travel with them. Pallas wanted to keep things small so they could travel fast, which meant faster than a human sheriff could run.
She was forced to piggyback on Pallas as he ran at inhuman speed through knee-high snow. The wolves ranged ahead, tracking any search parties and keeping them from being found. If the police force could harness such skills, fugitives would be so much easier to apprehend. No wonder the FBI had reached out to Pallas for help with the serial killer case. Shifters were amazing.
Pallas set her on her feet, his gaze brilliant even in the snowy dark. “Do you think your vehicle is still at the crime scene?”
“They should have towed it back to the station by now.” She recognized this newer neighborhood. Upper-middle-class. Mostly owned by professionals that had moved away from the city to raise their kids in a safer environment.
Harold’s house was here. Coincidence? She thought not. She didn’t like having either vampire or shifter in the area. If things went south when she confronted Harold, she couldn’t trust Pallas to stay calm. They needed to do this her way. By the book.
“You and the wolves should scout the area for Homeland activity while I talk to Harold.” She straightened her jacket. Nothing she could do to hide the gunshot hole in the front. Thankfully most of the blood stain was inside. They couldn’t afford going back to her place for a change of clothes. Homeland must be watching her cabin still.
Pallas crossed his arms. “You’re not going to a murderer’s house alone.”
“I’ll call back up.” She tapped her phone in her pocket.
“It’s dead.”
Dammit. After the whole television remote thing, she hadn’t thought he was tech savvy. The trick would have worked on ex-husband number two, and he had been born in the twentieth century. Then again, she hadn’t married him for his brains.
“Look, I can’t show up on Harold’s doorstep with a pack of werewolves and a scary looking vampire. The lawyers will scream coercion.” She rested her hand on his tense forearm. “You need to trust me to do my job. I can take care of myself.” She made sure her empty holster was out of view. Even without a gun, she felt confident. “I can take down a middle-aged banker. Well, ex-banker.”
Harold had lost his job after setting Pallas’ home on fire. Legally, the idiots had gotten away with murder and should have been tossed into jail. Pallas was right when he said human laws weren’t fair toward supernatural folk.
Susanna, the waitress at the diner, had filled her in on all the details including how Harold’s wife left him and returned to live with her brother, Bob.
How could she have missed this connection? Harold had a long list of reasons for hating Pallas. The other two hunters involved in that crime with Bob and Harold had left town, moving clear across the state.
“What are you thinking?” Pallas’s eyes narrowed.
“Can’t read my mind?”
“I’m not sure I want to.” He raised her fingertips to his lips and kissed them. “Be careful.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” She patted his rock hard behind as she strode out of the forest onto the well-lit street. It felt great to be back in civilization, icy asphalt under her boots and mailboxes lining the road.
If memory served her right, Harold lived at the end of this block in a big blue house. He’d thrown a barbecue last summer that had disturbed the neighbors and she’d been called in to quiet things. She’d even had a beer with Harold afterwards. Sometimes she loosened her bun so the locals would relax around her. Like Susanna at the diner, there was lots of information to be had by just being friendly with the right people.
Harold’s house was dark except for a light in his garage window.
She knocked on the door and waited.
Footsteps hurried inside the building and Harold answered. He cleaned his hands with a brown stained oilcloth. “Sheriff Lee?” His eyebrows rose all the way to his receding hairline. “That really you?”
“Last I checked. What sort of greeting is that?”
What was she doing here? It was difficult to imagine Harold killing Bob. The guy was a pussycat where Bob had been an overbearing jerk. Sure, Harold had helped set the fire to the manor but he claimed he’d been bullied into it by the others.
“Sorry,” he gave her a chagrined smile. “Come on in. I’ll make us a fresh pot of coffee.” He stepped aside.
“That sounds like a slice of heaven.” She noted the empty living room and dining room.
“I’m in the process of selling the place. Started moving stuff out.” He must have seen her surprise.
“Oh, are you staying local?” She hadn’t heard about the move.
“I’m going back to New York City.” He poured two cups, his back turned to her as she sat at the kitchen island. “Sugar?” he asked.
“Two.” She hadn’t eaten since last night and would have taken the whole bowl.
He offered her the cup. “Sorry, no creamer. Fridge is pretty empty.”
She drank half the cup in one long swig. That should clear the cobwebs.
“Rumor in town is the vampire killed you and stole you into the woods.”
She choked on her second sip. “What?” She bet she knew who started that story. First name Agent, second Thomas.
“Half the town is in the woods helping Homeland search for your body. The other half is at church praying for your soul.”
She set her empty cup down. Touched that the town would rally together for her. Except for one thing. “You didn’t want to help?”
“Nah, you wrecked my life.” He gestured to his empty house. “My wife will get most of this and I can’t find a decent bank to hire me. I have to go work in an accounting firm.”
Her throat locked, her spine went rigid, and her tongue felt thick. She blinked her vision clear. “It’s hot.” She unzipped her jacket and recalled she wasn’t wearing a shirt. With numb fingers, she clutched it closed.
Harold’s eyes popped wider. “You are hot.”
“Stop.” She got to her feet and her knees went watery.
“There’s blood on your jacket, Sheriff.” He nudged her hands apart.
“Someone shot me.” She stared at her healed abdomen and heard Ian’s voice in her head. He’s the one who shot me. “Did you shoot a shifter in the woods last fall?”
“Right in the gut, but he attacked us first.”
“And he let you live.” She cleared her dry throat.
“His mistake.” Harold gripped her upper arm. “Are you a closet shifter?”
“No.” She shook her head but it made the room spin. “What was in my coffee?”
“Don’t you worry your pretty head about that. How did you heal if you’re not one of those filthy animals?”
“Pallas…” She tugged loose of Harold’s hold, but he followed her stumbling retreat and grabbed her jacket with both hands.
He dragged her across the kitchen toward the garage entrance from inside the house. “Everyone thinks he killed you. I think it would be nice if they found your body like they did Bob’s. They can have a nice funeral. Maybe it will get televised then the nation could cry out for that asshole’s head.”
Oh my God, she was going to be his next victim and if he succeeded, there would be mobs hunting vampires across the country. She twisted in Harold’s arms and tried to flip him over her shoulder, but her legs folded under his weight. She had lost a lot of blood yesterday and the drugs he had slipped into her coffee didn’t help her balance.
“The townspeople already know I’m fine. They’ll find you out.” She yelped as he grabbed her by the bun.
“You’re lying. You didn’t even know they were looking for you.” He pulled her over the threshold into the garage. “They already think you’re dead. Let’s not disappoint them.”
Using her legs, she hooked them to the door frame, halting their progress. The garage was well lit and Harold had converted it into Frankenstein’s laboratory. Complete with metal stretcher, rubber tubes and big glass jars of…red paint?
She shook her head, trying to clear her foggy thoughts. Not paint. Why would she think paint? Because the reality of it was so serial killer crazy.
“Is that Bob’s blood?” Her voice rose an octave. She’d known coming here that there was some chance Harold was guilty, but the level of his crazy surpassed her expectations.
With a strength she didn’t imagine he had, Harold forced her to release her hold on the door frame and dragged her the rest of the way to the metal table, complete with leather straps. “Of course that’s his blood. What did you think I did with it after I drained him?”
“I hadn’t given it much thought.” She allowed him to prop her against the edge of the table. He gave her something solid to grip on in the sea of vertigo rolling her world. Fury sparked in her heart. “You think you can do the same to me?” This loser was blaming his problems on everyone else except the true source. Himself. It was his bigotry that had driven him to this low point. Nothing else.
He pushed aside the rubber tubes that she now saw were connected to a hand pump at one end, a long needle at the other. “The world wants that bloodsucker to be guilty.” He planned on bleeding her dry and blaming Pallas. The two fake puncture marks on Bob’s neck were from the needles Harold used to pump his blood out even after he was dead.
“None of this will solve your problems. It won’t bring your wife back or give you a better job.” She was scrambling for time. The longer he took to strap her to the table, the better chance that she had for her head to clear and escape.
“Don’t patronize me, Sheriff. I know that, but I’m going to drag that vampire even lower.” He pulled her to her feet so they were face to face. “If you stop fighting, I promise not to make it hurt.”
She cranked her dizzy head back and smashed it into his nose.
He cried out, clasping his hands over his face. Blood trickled between his fingers. “Bitch!”
Pain shot through her brain, clearing the fog long enough for her to jerk her knee up to connect with his ball sac.
His grunt echoed in the garage and gave her a soul deep satisfaction. Years of training gave her the muscle memory to fight even when the world wanted to stand her on her head. He bent in half, clutching his groin.
Grasping the side of the table for balance, she used the other knee on his already bashed-in face. She scanned for a weapon. Anything, since she’d lost her gun yesterday. She tripped and fell forward onto her hands and knees. Crawling, she escaped Harold’s grasp. Her fingers brushed against a cold metallic thing. She swung the crowbar around and it connected with Harold’s knee.
He swore and fell back. “You’re going to pay for that.”
“You need to try harder.” She got up on wobbly legs, crowbar ready. “I bet your head will make a nice popping sound when I smash it.” She was all talk and hot air though. Her vision narrowed. She didn’t want to be a victim. She spent her whole life fighting that stereotype.
She had been eight when she lost her mother to a couple of thugs. Her dad had never told her the details of her suffering. He didn’t have to, the haunted look in his eyes when her name came up with was enough. She’d vowed never to be so helpless. Yet, here she was.
Harold snarled. “Just wait and see, I’ll get even. It might not be today but you will always have to watch over your shoulder.” Then he ran out the garage.
She heard the front door slam shut. Her farce had scared him off. Go her. The crowbar slipped from her numb fingers as she shuffled back into the house, gripping the walls like Spiderman.
She couldn’t pass out. What if Harold returned? The kitchen came into her tunnel vision. It was like trying to navigate by using a periscope while on roller blades. Fuck me, what had Harold slipped in her drink?
The phone was mounted on the wall. She dialed nine-one-one and waited for the answer. Her vision went black. “Officer down.”
She wasn’t sure if she’d just thought those words or had really managed to say them.