Chapter Twenty-Three
Amie couldn’t imagine ever giving this up again. To be wrapped in Frank’s arms, under warm blankets, snuggled up to his powerful body was heaven. She couldn’t think about it coming to end. That was too hard to accept.
Frank kissed her shoulder. “I hear Mom downstairs. I think she’s going for a run. I’m going to join her. You stay in bed; it’s still really early.”
She slid her hand down his chest. “Are you sure you don’t want to do something else while she’s gone?”
“Hmm. When you put it that way . . .” Frank scooted back under the blanket. Then Amie realized she was being selfish. No mate of hers was going to neglect his mother. She smacked his ass.
“Go with your mother. I’ll be here when you get back. There’s something I need to talk to you about. Later, with more time.” Frank kissed her forehead and hurried toward the door. “And don’t grill your mother on her date. She has a right to her privacy, regardless of what you may think.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said as he exited the room and went down the stairs. Not long after that the kitchen door opened and closed. She sighed and rolled onto his pillow, taking a deep breath of him. For the first time in a long time, she was happy.
* * *
Her eyes snapped opened. She must’ve fallen asleep and something woke her. Were Frank and his mom back? There wasn’t a clock in his bedroom, but by the sun’s brightness, she knew a bit of time had passed.
Then she heard the sixth step on the stairs squeak. Someone was on the second floor. She waited for the door to open and Frank to walk in, but when that didn’t happen after a few seconds, she got up and put a robe around her.
She opened the door to peek out and saw a man she didn’t recognize. When his eyes turned to slits and long canine teeth descended, she screamed and slammed the door closed. Running through the joining bathroom, she made her way into her room and locked her door.
Next, her hands slid under the mattress, searching for Joey’s gun she’d stashed when she unpacked upon first arriving. Weapon in hand, she waited to see the man’s next move—whether that be continuing to beat on Frank’s bedroom door or coming to hers. Either way, she didn’t have much time.
Her only escape would be the window overlooking the backyard. She pulled the window frame up and bent over the ledge. Nothing but siding between her and the ground. Yeah, not happening. How did she call for help? Her phone wasn’t in here. She spun around and yelled out the window for Frank. Mom said they had super-hearing. Let’s hope it was really super.
The banging on Frank’s door stopped and then her bedroom door nearly popped its hinges. She dove for the closet, fear not caring if it was the first place the man would look. It was the only place to go. The bedroom door busted open. She tried to hold her breath to keep quiet, but her lungs and pounding heart demanded oxygen.
“I smell you, Ms. Amerella Capone. Don’t think for one second that you have everyone in this town fooled.” His voice drew closer to the closet. “Now, you come out of there real nice-like and we’ll take a trip to Vegas to visit your family. I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you. Glad enough to hand over some money as a nice reward.” He was at the closet. Her time was up. Frank must not have heard her or was too far away to get home in time.
Amie lifted the gun in front of her, arms straight out. She’d die before she went back to her uncle. The closet door swung open and the man’s face twisted into an ugly snarl, teeth dripping saliva, a growl escaping his throat. His clawed hand reached for her throat.
She squeezed the trigger several times, knocking the man away and onto his back, landing in front of the window. Amie scurried out of the closet, gun still in front of her. The next thing she knew, another snarling creature with golden fur, teeth, and claws flew through the window. She fell backward, screaming and shooting again.
The animal lurched to the side, crashed onto the wood floor, then skidded through the door and down the stairs. That was when she realized that must’ve been Frank in his cougar form. Shit!
“Frank!” She skipped down the stairs to where his human body lay at the bottom, facedown, not moving. “Frank! Oh my god. Please say I didn’t kill you.”
He groaned when she laid a hand on his back. “I haven’t fallen down those stairs since I was a toddler. They hurt more than I remember.”
Frank’s mom, slipping on a robe, came around the corner. “Amie, we heard gunshots. What happened?”
Amie scanned Frank for his bullet wound, too concerned over him to think about what Mom had asked. “Frank, did I miss shooting you? You’re not injured.”
“Oh,” Mom said, “another shifter trait. Unless you hit a shifter in the head or heart, it’s difficult to kill one. When injured, we just need to shift to repair any structural or physical damage. Then good as new.”
The man upstairs had to be a shifter. Did she hit him in the heart or head? She had no clue. To say her mind had been preoccupied with staying alive at the time would be an understatement.
Amie walked back up the stairs and into her bedroom, Frank pushing ahead of her. Mom leaned over the intruder. There was a hole right in the middle of his forehead. “I’ve seen him before,” Mom said. “I think he’s a wolf. He probably saw the same news article I did and made a lucky guess.”
“Yes,” Amie said. “When he shifted his hand, it looked like a furry paw. “
“Let’s take it downstairs and I’ll put it on the back porch until the police arrive,” Frank said.
“Ewww,” both ladies said together.
“Would you rather me leave it here?”
“No,” Mom said. “Back porch would be perfect.”
* * *
Amie sat at the kitchen table sipping tea after the breakfast Mom made for them. Perfect thing for right now. She could drink to stall the investigator’s answers, to make sure all she recalled was correct and not made up from fear or seeing things.
Frank paced the porch with his phone stuck to his ear—had been for the last thirty minutes. The police chief came down the stairs. “Thank you, Mrs. Dubois and Ms. Capone, for your patience. We’ve got everything we need forensic-wise. No charges will be filed.”
“Thank you, Chief, for coming out this morning.”
“Never a problem, Mrs. Dubois. Good to see you again.” He stepped toward the back door, then stopped and turned back. “Also, I’d like to thank both of you for everything you’ve shown my wife. She’s happier than she’s been in a long time and socializing more. That’s good for us and the town.” He gave a nod and walked out the door.
Frank hung up the phone and spoke to the chief for a few minutes before coming inside. “Well, I talked with others in DC. They ran prints on our guy and he’s just a local who has a long record of arrests and prosecutions.”
“A long what?” Mom asked.
“Rap sheet,” Frank explained. “Just like they say on TV. R-A-P sheet.”
“Anything else on him?” Amie asked. “Maybe Mafia related?”
He shook his head. “They didn’t find any connections.”
“So are we safe to stay?”
“Probably,” Frank said.
That wasn’t good enough for Amie. She couldn’t let her uncle come to this town and hurt her friends while trying to find her. No, that wouldn’t be acceptable. Several hours had passed since the break-in this morning. She glanced at the clock. Surprisingly, it was almost time for lunch. Since Mom cooked breakfast, the least she could do was take them out to lunch before she and Frank left.
“How about we change and I buy lunch?” she said. “We can figure out a plan and go from there.” They agreed.
In her room, Amie decided to take Joey’s gun with her. She wasn’t taking anything for granted anymore. When she reached inside the luggage pocket where she had stashed the weapon, her fingers grazed an envelope. She pulled it out and looked at it. She’d penned Frank’s name on the front. Inside was a letter telling him about their son and how to find him in Mojave with his adopted grandparents. When she wrote it the other day, she wasn’t sure if or when she should give it to him. But if something happened to her, someone needed to know about him and keep him safe from her uncle. She couldn’t let the boy fall into his hands.
She put the letter and envelope back into the pocket and pulled out the gun. Downstairs, the small group gathered to head out, when an explosion rocked the house.