Gray

The following morning, after an evening of pizza and adult activities, which included more than just watching TV, he was forced to depart with a promise that he would visit again very soon. Not that night, but soon.

The grin followed him into the embassy.

“Morning Hector!” he called across the lobby to one of the other guards, who was standing watch.

“About time you showed up. I am so ready to go home,” the other man grumbled.

Gray slapped him a high five as he passed. “Yeah, I’ll bet. Too bad you still have an hour to go.”

He ignored the false complaining that trailed after him. The truth was, they loved their jobs. For the most part things were easy, they had easy hours, and their boss was a good man who treated them well. The third guard, Martin, who had replaced Charles just the other week, was less sociable with them, and also a lot newer, but even he was more than bearable.

Hah. Bearable.

“Morning, boss,” he boomed, striding into Andrew’s office after giving the closed door a swift knock.

“Close it.”

Gray’s jovial mood fled as he shut the door and took a seat. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing new. But I just don’t want the others to hear or listen in. This is for your eyes only.”

He said nothing, but his alertness notched up a level. What could Andrew possibly have that wasn’t new, but was for his eyes only? He wasn’t aware of anything coming in.

“Sure,” he agreed. “What have you got?”

Andrew pushed a dark gray file folder across the table at him. It was fairly thin, but there were still several papers obviously lodged within. When a lift of his eyebrows got him nowhere Gray picked up the folder, keeping it closed.

“How much shit am I in if I look at this?”

Andrew smiled. “Looked at what?”

Translation: A lot.

Gray nodded in understanding and without further hesitation opened the folder. Andrew wouldn’t have given it to him if he didn’t think Gray wanted to see it, or should see it. So he trusted him that it would be okay.

There was a picture of a man inside. It was taken from the waist up. He was large, his shoulders probably larger than Gray’s, with the same familiar muscle that belonged to a bear shifter. The hair on his head had once been cleanly trimmed, but in this photo it was just at the point where it started to look a little ragged and in need of another cut, but not overly unruly. The beard was day or two old stubble at most.

The man wasn’t smiling, but that was probably due to the bruises covering his face. Gray wasn’t even sure he could smile. They were so thick and plentiful that it was tough to make out his facial features behind them. He could barely see out one eye—the other was swollen shut. Then there was the way he held his arm, indicating that it had recently been broken, or perhaps a dislocated shoulder, it was tough to tell what, but he was obviously harboring some injuries. A long pink weal ran from his collarbone down his chest, narrowly missing a nipple before it curved over his ribs and finished on his side just above his belt.

“This is the missing person,” Andrew said.

Gray looked the picture over again. “You mispronounced punching bag.”

Andrew didn’t say anything.

“What the hell happened to him?”

“They wouldn’t say. This is also apparently the only picture they took of him, which was from several months ago. They have nothing more recent.”

“So nothing that will help us identify him.” He tossed the picture back down, having memorized what he could out of it. “Sweet. What a bunch of pros these guys are.”

“Something tells me they weren’t exactly planning on releasing him,” Andrew mused. “They probably didn’t figure they would ever actually need his picture.”

“Still sloppy.” He considered the meager information in the folder. It wasn’t much, not even a name. “Can you get any more than this?”

“No.” Andrew shook his head emphatically. “It took me a week of pulling some strings to even get this much. I’m not sure what they’re being so secretive about.”

“I do.”

His boss looked at him, indicating he should continue.

“Responsibility. They don’t want to take it. They had this guy, doing who knows what to him, and he got away. Nobody wants to take responsibility for screwing up. If they lock down all the information about him and don’t share, he just looks like another rogue of sorts and we deal with him as normal. Then once he’s in custody, they can spirit him away out of the public eye or something.”

Andrew considered that for a moment. “You’re probably right,” he conceded.

“That’s one question down. One to go.”

“Where is he,” Andrew provided.

“Where is he?” Gray tossed the folder back down, having memorized the man’s features enough that he could reliably expect to recognize him if he saw him. “Any tips, boss?”

“Actually, maybe,” Andrew said, much to his surprise. “There’s been a run of reports over the past five to seven days of someone sneaking around the women’s units.”

Gray rolled his eyes. “Another lurker? When will these people give it a rest?”

There had been on average, a creep a week for the first month or two that the women had been housed in the newly constructed buildings on the south side of Cloud Lake. All but one of them had been human however, and relatively easy for the shifters to track down and apprehend before turning them over to local police. Word had spread rapidly that the women enjoyed the protection of Cadia, and the peepers had stopped relatively soon after.

“This one is different though. More skulking, less confrontation. People have only reported seeing someone moving in the dark between buildings and such. Nobody has had an actual run-in with them.”

Gray pondered that for a moment. “Could be our guy. What’s he doing there though, if he’s not trying to spy on them?”

Andrew could just shrug. He had just as little clue as Gray did.

“I guess I’ll go check it out tonight then, won’t I?” he said, not feeling overly unhappy about the situation.

“Something tells me you’ll survive,” Andrew teased, knowing full well why Gray wasn’t upset about spending time near the units.

Gray smiled and left the office, contemplating the best arrangement to both track the lurker down and spend as much time as possible with Kelly.

He couldn’t wait.