Page 35

Four Years Ago

“I don’t need a babysitter for a knock-and-talk, Dominic.” I shut my car door a little louder than necessary and crossed my arms.

Dominic Morelli got out of his truck, which he’d parked right behind me at the curb, and joined me next to my car. I took a step back. After nearly three months of working together off-and-on, he should know I didn’t like anyone getting within arm’s reach. Maybe he didn’t notice I always moved away, or maybe he didn’t care that I was very protective of my personal space. Either was possible. Both annoyed me immensely.

At six-foot-six and well over two hundred pounds, the former sheriff’s investigator was an imposing figure even without a uniform. He studied the house and yard in front of us, his dark eyes taking in every detail with a cop’s sharp gaze. Lights were on in several rooms, so the homeowner, Joe McIntosh, wasn’t asleep yet. Not surprising given he was a werewolf, and shifters tended to be night owls.

“You’re a long way from completing your apprentice hours, and you know that.” Dominic started toward the house. “What do you plan to ask him?”

I cursed under my breath and caught up when Dominic was halfway up the driveway. His long strides meant I had to scurry to get in front of him. This was my lead. I resented what I saw as his attempt to take over—and having to answer questions about why we were here. Yes, I was still in training, but Dominic asked me to explain every decision I made and every idea I had, and that got old fast.

Whenever I worked one-on-one with our boss, Mark Dunlap, who owned the agency, he only asked me to explain myself when he disagreed with me. I suspected Dominic did it to force me to talk to him. Mark didn’t mind my silence.

“Mainly, I want to know whether he’s seen or talked to Tommy since his disappearance,” I said when Dominic made an impatient sound. I preceded him up the sidewalk toward the front door despite the larger man’s attempt to maneuver in front of me. He was right on my heels—too close again. I nearly sprinted up the walk to put distance between us.

“And?” he prompted.

I gritted my teeth. “It’s a long shot. They weren’t much more than coworkers, according to Tommy’s fiancée. Given what we think we know about what’s happened to Tommy, though, McIntosh might have a lead for us to follow. Maybe they’ve crossed paths recently.”

He grunted. “That’s good. You’ve got good instincts for someone with no background in law enforcement. We’ll make a PI of you yet, Alice.”

My breath caught in my chest. My grandfather’s voice echoed in my head: “We’ll make a soldier of you yet, Ava.” His voice was mocking, triumphant even. He believed he and his blood mages would break me.

“No you won’t,” I had told him, and coughed up blood. He laughed and walked away, leaving me hanging on a rack while a blood mage sliced my skin.

I took a shaky breath and pushed the memory away. A year after my escape from my grandfather’s compound, the flashbacks were getting worse, not better. And the nightmares…those were worse too. Much worse.

“Alice?” His brow furrowed, Dominic reached out, as if he intended to touch my arm. “You okay?”

I moved away. “I’m fine.”

He let his hand drop to his side and softened his tone. “I don’t think you are fine. You want to tell me about it?”

“No.” My response was deliberately cold and short. I wanted him to understand I didn’t need anyone prying into my life or offering sympathy. I needed my training hours, and nothing more.

“Okay, then.” His expression hardened, and his voice turned businesslike again. “Whatever’s distracting you, box it up and put it away. Deal with your demons when you’re off the clock.”

If only it worked that way,I thought. Aloud, I said, “Fair enough.”

Even if I wanted to, what would I tell him? That I was plagued by flashbacks of years of torture by my grandfather? That I swore sometimes I could smell the old man’s cologne, as if Moses was right behind me, ready to drag me back to Baltimore in chains? Not an option. Those secrets could get me and everyone around me killed. Besides, I wasn’t the sharing type—never had been, never would be.

I reached for the doorbell. I paused, my head tilted. A familiar voice raised above normal speaking level drifted out to the porch from inside the house.

Dominic joined me at the door. I moved over so he didn’t brush against me. “What is it?” he asked quietly. “Your spidey senses telling you something?”

“They’re not spidey senses,” I snapped in an undertone, not for the first time. Magic was real, not some comic book superpower. “Listen.”

He bent his head toward the door and listened to the voice inside the house.

“Doesn’t that sound like him?” I asked.

Grimly, Dominic nodded. “It sure does.”

“Why would Tommy be here?” I wondered. “At a coworker’s house, of all places, and not at home with his family?”

“I don’t know.” Dominic’s frown deepened. “I don’t hear anyone else talking. Who is he talking to?”

I hesitated. Should I knock? Call Tommy’s fiancée and let her know we’d found him? Call his parents? Call my boss? I sure as hell needed to call someone. I reached for my phone.

The door swung open, revealing a young man in jeans and a T-shirt, splattered with blood. In his right hand, he held what appeared to be a bomb detonator. His thumb hovered over the button. His eyes glowed bright amber.

“Come on in,” Tommy Detman said.

Well, shit.

* * *

Tommy took us to the living room and pointed. “Stand there against the wall with your hands up. If either of you move one inch, I’ll blow us all to hell.”

Grim and silent, we obeyed.

Beside me, Dominic stood perfectly still, his hands raised. My phone was in my back pocket, but it might as well have been a mile away. My gun I’d left in my glove compartment, because this was just going to be a knock-and-talk.

Tommy had caught us completely flat-footed. If we lived through this, our boss would have both our asses.

Facing us with his back against the opposite wall, Tommy stood over a semi-conscious man who had blood in his hair. Tommy was barely recognizable from the photos and videos his fiancée Hannah had shown us. His blond hair was buzzed close to his scalp, he hadn’t shaved in days, and he was lean and wiry. Hot golden shifter magic sizzled on my skin. That confirmed what we’d suspected had happened to him, but I couldn’t feel anything close to good about being right.

The man on the floor, who I guessed was Joe McIntosh, the homeowner, groaned and spasmed weakly. Tommy had probably hit him hard enough to fracture his skull. It took a lot to knock a werewolf out. Judging by the pool of blood, Tommy had wanted to make sure Joe went down and stayed down. Normally a shifter would heal a fractured skull, given time, even without shifting, but Tommy had planned ahead. A silver knife stuck out of Joe’s upper right arm. The blade prevented him from shifting and allowed the head injury and poisonous silver to kill him slowly.

The head injury and silver weren’t the most immediate threats to Joe’s life, however. That distinction belonged to the pipe bomb secured around his neck with a thick steel cable.

As we took in the grim sight, Tommy showed us the detonator again, his thumb hovering over the button. “I said, get your hands up.”

Dominic and I raised our hands higher. I wasn’t sure what the longtime PI beside me was thinking, but I was running through possible ways to get that detonator away from Tommy before he had a chance to push the button. Unfortunately, I was coming up with nothing. Judging by Dominic’s expression, he’d come to the same conclusion.

“Dead-man sensor.” Tommy raised the detonator and snarled. He’d probably guessed what we were thinking. “If it hits the floor, the bomb goes off.”

In other words, if one of us shot him, we’d be dead a half-second later. There went any chance of using my air magic to knock the detonator from his hand, or my earth magic to split the floor under him.

Dominic moved slightly in front of me. Not that his body would keep me alive if that bomb went off, not at this range. And why he would even consider shielding me, I had no idea. We’d only worked together three months. I barely knew him—which was to say, I knew him exactly as well as I wanted to know anyone.

Then again, cop instincts had probably kicked in, telling him to protect the civilian. That got my hackles up. I was perfectly capable of protecting myself.

Protecting myself, but not Dominic. My gut churned.

“Tommy, talk to me.” Dominic held his hands out from his body to show our captor he had no intention of going for his phone—or the gun tucked into the back of his jeans. He was a fast draw, but not faster than a werewolf with his thumb a quarter inch from a detonator.

Dominic was in cop mode now. I knew the drill: get them talking, keep them talking. Use their name. Establish a rapport. Try to talk them down. Try to save Joe McIntosh, himself, and me, his greenhorn apprentice PI. He figured it was up to him to save us all—after all, what use could I be?

I wondered if he wished now he’d just let me do this knock-and-talk on my own. I knew I would have, if I were in his shoes.

“How the hell do you know my name?” Tommy demanded, his lip curled slightly to show his teeth. A growl edged his voice. “And how the hell did you find me?”

His wolf was so near his skin that I expected him to shift at any moment from the force of his rage. Tommy had only been a werewolf for about three months. Most newly turned shifters could go furry at the drop of a hat—especially ones who didn’t have an alpha or pack to help stabilize them after the Change or teach them control.

As far as we knew, Tommy hadn’t had anyone to help him, so involuntary shifting was a very real possibility. Shifting would be bad, because his hands would clench with the first spasm. He’d hit that button and kaboom. Or he’d drop the detonator, and same result.

Dominic had figured that out too. My partner moved another inch in front of me and injected more calm into his voice. “Hannah misses you, Tommy. Your fiancée is worried about you. She asked us to find you and bring you home.”

Tommy jerked. “Did you tell her?” It was almost a roar. I flinched—not at the volume of his voice, but because his hands moved and I thought he might hit the button on accident.

“No, we haven’t,” Dominic said reassuringly. If I hadn’t known the truth, I wouldn’t have known he was lying. I was a good liar—practice makes perfect, after all—but Dominic was good too. The ability to lie well and think fast were essential skills for a PI.

We’d broken the news to Hannah yesterday. She was heartbroken—not because Tommy was a werewolf now, and that was why he’d gone missing, but because he hadn’t come home to her.

“What kind of person does he think I am?” she’d demanded of us, once the shock and crying had worn off and she could talk. “Does he think I’ll hate him now?”

“No, but I think he hates himself,” I’d told her. She starting bawling again.

Dominic stepped on my foot. Hard. “Be kind,” he ordered me as Hannah sobbed. I was silent after that.

I wasn’t good at being kind. Being kind was a luxury I’d never had while a prisoner of my grandfather’s crime syndicate, or even in the year since I’d escaped with nothing but the half-burned clothes on my back and a singed photograph of my parents. And kindness from others was a trick, always. I’d learned that early, the hard way.

My new boss, Mark, was incredibly kind to me. Every day I expected to find out what the catch was—what he wanted in return for his kindness. So far all he’d expected were daily reports on his desk by five o’clock and no drinking on the job, but I remained wary.

I studied Tommy as he loomed over Joe McIntosh, brandishing a detonator and glaring at us with bright amber eyes, and figured kindness wasn’t going to get us out of here alive.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

Dominic twitched. He didn’t turn to glare at me, but his shoulders went rigid.

I ignored him and locked gazes with Tommy. “You plan on blowing yourself up and breaking the hearts of your fiancée and family? And then adding insult to injury by not even leaving them anything to bury?”

“I’m a monster.” He snarled and kicked Joe hard in the ribs. The semi-conscious man groaned. “He made me a monster. He deserves to die.”

“We aren’t talking about Joe or what he did or what he deserves. We’re talking about your family.” I stepped around Dominic. His expression was thunderous. If he could have growled at me, he would have. “The truth is, we told Hannah what happened to you.”

Dominic sucked in a breath.

His face twisted in rage and thumb a millimeter from the button, Tommy opened his mouth.

“You know what she told us?” I asked before he could shout or howl. “She said you must not think much of her if you think she’d reject you.”

He flinched, so Hannah still meant something to him.

“She wants you to come home so she can take care of you,” I added.

He bared his teeth at me. “I don’t believe you.”

I shrugged. “I don’t lie to make people feel better.”

“Damn it, Alice, shut up,” Dominic muttered.

“Yes, shut up,” Tommy snapped. His left hand flexed, and he kicked Joe again. The injured man must have lost consciousness, because he didn’t react.

Shutting up was also something I wasn’t good at. I had just as much to lose as Dominic if Tommy hit that button. I hadn’t risked my life a dozen times in a dozen different ways escaping from my grandfather to get blown up by Tommy Detman. Plus I’d just splurged on a bottle of good Scotch, which waited for me at home, along with four new records I’d found at a flea market to play on my new turntable.

“Your parents don’t know,” I told him. “Hannah said she’d go with you to tell them. Your mother calls her twice a day to see if she’s heard from you. Your father has raised twenty grand for a reward for information about your whereabouts. I think you know damn well they won’t care if you turn into a wolf on the full moon. You’re their only child. They’d love you if you came back with three heads and two extra arms. Fur isn’t going to bother them much. They just want you home.”

Dominic’s anger was almost as palpable as Tommy’s. He’d probably love nothing more than to slap duct tape over my mouth and throw me in the trunk of my car, but Tommy was listening.

“He bit me,” Tommy said, kicking Joe again. “I didn’t deserve it.”

“No, you didn’t,” I told him. “What he did was illegal and immoral. He’ll go to prison for life. And since he’s a shifter, a life sentence is a long time.”

“It’s not enough!” He snarled. “It’s not enough! He should die. He killed me.”

The negotiator’s handbook probably stated on page one that when negotiating with a hostage-taker, the best bet was to agree and not argue, but Tommy was wrong, and he needed to understand why.

“No, he didn’t,” I said. “He Changed you. It wasn’t what you wanted and your life will never be the same, but he didn’t kill you.”

“I’d rather be dead than live with this curse.” He pointed to his amber eyes. “Look at me. I’m a monster.”

“Being a werewolf doesn’t make you monster. Blowing people up does.”

We stared at each other.

“My name is Alice,” I said. “I’m a mage. A lot of people think mages are monsters, but monster is what you do, not who you are. And being a werewolf is not a curse, no more than it’s a curse being a mage.”

“Of course it’s a curse. I turn into a wolf! I kill things!”

“People?”

“No!”

“Then you’re fine. Wolves kill animals and eat them. Perfectly natural.”

“I’m un-natural.”

I shook my head. “Nope again. Lycanthropes date back into prehistory, judging by petroglyphs and legend. Your lineage goes back a long, long way.”

Several emotions flashed in his amber eyes: anger, grief, even a bit of frustration. He said nothing for a long time.

Reassurance and comfort weren’t my thing, but I understood talking someone back from the edge. Goodness knows I’d had to give myself a similar talk enough times.

“Did you know werewolves make really good therapy animals for traumatized kids?” I asked him. “You have to be trained, evaluated, and certified, but that’s a gig they wouldn’t give to monsters.”

Tommy finally spoke. “Get out,” he said.

I blinked. “What?”

He jerked his chin toward the front door. “I said, get out. Both of you. Keep your hands up until you’re outside with the door closed, or I’ll blow this place.”

Dominic took a step toward the hallway. I didn’t move. “I’m not leaving you here alone, Tommy. We told Hannah we’d find you and bring you home.”

“Stop talking about her!” he shouted. “If you say her name one more time, I will hit the button.”

“Alice,” Dominic muttered. “Let’s go.”

“No.” I stayed focused on Tommy. “You’re no monster. Besides, killing Joe isn’t the punishment he deserves. He deserves to live a good long time knowing what he did to you. Blowing his head off with a bomb is too quick. Let him rot in the Colorado Springs federal ultra-max supe prison for fifty years.” My voice turned harsh. “Don’t be merciful.”

Dominic twitched.

Tommy’s lip curled. “What the hell do you know about just punishments, mage? You think you know so much.” He took a step toward us. “You don’t know shit about what it’s like to have your life ripped away like this. It took damn near three months to find the monster who did this to me. I’ve spent three months living for this moment right here, when I finally make him pay. Wake up, asshole!” He kicked Joe hard enough to shatter his ribs. The prone man groaned. “I want you to be awake when you die.”

“Alice,” I said.

Tommy snarled. “What?”

“My name’s Alice, not ‘mage,’” I said. “People used to call me that because they didn’t think I deserved to have a name.” I cut myself off before I said any more.

Mage. Stupid girl. Stubborn, ungrateful child.Moses had called me all those things, and worse. But I’d revealed too much by saying I’d once been called just mage, instead of my name. Alice Worth hadn’t been abused and dehumanized. Her life had been privileged and nearly perfect, at least until recently. No one would have called her mage. I didn’t need to give Dominic any reason to wonder when I’d been called that, or by whom.

When Tommy didn’t reply, I continued, “Your name is Tommy. Beloved only son of George and Kathy Detman. Hannah’s fiancé. You have a family. Let us turn this man over to the feds, and you go home to your family.”

His grip relaxed minutely on the detonator. The hot, prickling sensation on my skin faded.

“Go home,” I repeated, my voice heavy with unfamiliar emotion. I thought of my own parents, long gone, and swallowed hard. “Go home, because you can.”

He lowered his hand.

I’d finally gotten through to him. He was thinking about his parents now, and maybe about Hannah and their life together too. He knew he had people he could go to, who loved him and wouldn’t care that he was a shifter now. He believed me.

My shoulders sagged in relief. I’d saved him, and Joe and Dominic and myself too. Even if Mark wrote me up or fired me for disobeying Dominic, or Dominic refused to ever work with me again, it would be worth it. It was too late to save Tommy from Joe McIntosh’s bite, but I could at least save him from his own despair.

Shifter magic prickled again on my arms, even more painfully than before. “They’ll put me in jail for this,” Tommy said. Something flashed in his eyes, something dark and cold. “I’m not going to prison.”

“You won’t,” I said quickly—maybe a little too quickly. “It’s Joe who’ll go to prison, not you.”

“I don’t believe you.” His voice was toneless. “I beat a man nearly to death, and threatened to kill him with a bomb. They’ll put me in that prison too.”

“No, they—”

He raised the detonator. “You’ve got two seconds to get out.”

Dominic grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door. “Alice, let’s go!”

I twisted out of his grip. “No, Tommy, don’t—”

Several things happened almost simultaneously.

Tommy snarled. Joe McIntosh moaned.

I raised my hands and formed an air magic shield, making it as wide as I dared. I’d been spooling magic since we walked in the door. An air magic shield was my best and only defense against an explosion. It wouldn’t be large enough or strong enough to protect both Dominic and me, but I couldn’t just save myself and let him die.

“Kelly,” Dominic whispered. His wife’s name. He reached for his gun, but it was already too late.

Tommy’s thumb moved.

A wall of fire and shrapnel hit my shield like a sledgehammer. Pain erupted all over my body. The force of the explosion sent me flying.

I couldn’t save him.I didn’t know if I meant Tommy, Dominic, or Joe, or all three. Grief, bitter and heavy like a stone, lodged in my gut.

A moment later, I hit something solid, and all was darkness.

* * *