Night Broken
Page 19
Get food first, he said. You need to eat, and I can see why you might have trouble eating here. Ill see you home in an hour or an hour and a half.
I love you, I said with feeling.
Of course you do, he agreed with a nonchalance that made me grin as he disconnected.
I let the car down and put jack stands under the rear axle. The hoist had a very slow leak that didnt matter when someone was there to raise it periodically, but overnight it would lower itself until the car was on the ground. I probably ought to get it fixed, but the garage was barely eking along in the black for once, and I was reluctant to dump it back in the red.
A blip on the monitor on the wall between the garage and the office attracted my attention as the outside security cameras switched from daylight-colored to nighttime black-and-white. The monitor sat on a shelf on top of a rectangular computer box big enough to look seriousthough it and the monitor were mostly there so that anyone breaking in would think that was the whole of the security system and, after trashing the system, would quit worrying about the cameras.
No, I didnt need a system that sophisticated to watch over my garage where I repaired cars with sticker prices usually a lot less than the security Adam had installed. But Adam worried, and it cost me less than nothing to let him update the system every few months.
I stripped out of my overalls in the bathroom for a second time that day. I paused by the mirror, sighed, and washed my face because, while the gloves worked fine for hands, they still transferred grease to my cheek and mouth.
I wished I could get rid of the smell of my job as easily as I scrubbed the black smudges off my face. Christy couldnt smell it, but the werewolves all could. Christy wore some kind of subtle perfume that smelled good to werewolf noses and mine, too. Apparently, Adam had found it for her while they were still married, and she still wore itor at least she was wearing it while she was here.
I left the bathroom and reached out to hit the lights when, in the security monitor, I saw a nearly new Chevy Malibu pull into the parking lot in front of the office. I wouldnt have been alarmedpeople can be optimistic about finding mechanics for cars that just have to be ready for a trip at 5:00 A.M. tomorrowexcept that there was a big dog in the backseat.
It wouldnt hurt to err on the side of safety. I reached for my phone.
Hello, said Christy cheerily. Adams phone.
Get Adam, I said, watching the lights on the Chevy turn off as he parked the car. There was a bumper sticker advertising a rental car chain on the back of it.
Im afraid
You should be, I told her in a low voice. Hungry and tired from the long hours Id put in, I was abruptly sick of her stupid games and ready to quit playing. Get Adam. Now.
Dont snap at me, Christy said, all cheer gone. You dont get to order me around, Mercy. You havent earned the right.
The man who opened the drivers door didnt look like someone to be afraid of; he was wearing expensive clothes and slick-soled shoes. But the dog he let out of the backseat more than made up for his owners civilized appearance.
The dog looked like the photos Id seen of the presa Canario, but in my parking lot it seemed bigger and nastier, a male with a broad face and broader chest. Lucia had said that people trimmed their ears to make them look fiercer, but no one needed to make this dog scarier.
The dog was just a dog, though. No matter how big and fierce a dog was, after running around with werewolves, no dog scared me. So there was no reason, really, for me to be afraid of them, a man and his dog. But I was.
The image of the dead bodies on the edge of the hayfield in Finley insisted on making itself present, and I tried to shove it off to the side. The worst of the fear, I thought, was because Id been raped here in my garage, and I no longer ever really felt safe here, security system or not.
Christys ex-boyfriend was no one to be underestimated, but he was human and I had a gun readily available. The chill of fear that slid down my spine was unimpressed by logic.
In my ear, Christy was nattering away about manners and me being jealous for no reason.
Christy, I interrupted her, and let menace color my voice because I refused to let her hear the fear, if you dont give Adam the phone right the hell now, so help me, I will put you out with the rest of the trash in the morning.
From the speaker on my cell phone I could hear some shocked exclamations. Apparently, there were some other werewolves in the room when Christy answered, and theyd overheard me threaten her. Id probably care about that later.
I wont stay where Im not wanted, she said tearfully. Not even in the home that was mine before She squeaked, and her voice cut out, replaced by Adams.
Mercy? His voice was very calm, that people are going to die calm only he could do. As soon as he started to speak, silence fell behind him because I wasnt the only one who knew that voice. I see him on the camera. You stay right there, dont make any noise, and hopefully he wont be sure you are in there. Im on my way. Sit tight, and dont let him in. Im going to hang up right now and call the police and Tad.
Adam was fifteen minutes outbut Tad was only five. What could happen in five minutes?
7
I didnt carry at workwith Tad there, there was no reason, and a gun just got in the way while I was squirming around in engine compartments and under cars. My carry gun, the 9mm, was locked in the safe with my purse. I wasnt going into the office to open the safe because the office had big picture windows, and someone who had burned down a building that housed dozens of innocent people wouldnt hesitate to break a few windows.
Paranoia meant I had a second gun tucked in a special lockbox attached to the underside of the counter nearest the office. My fingers pressed the code, and a half second later I had the cool and heavy Model 629 Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum in my hand. I wasnt Dirty Harry, but Id shot my foster fathers Model 29 since I was big enough to handle it. My foster fathers .44 was in the gun safe at home, but the only difference between it and the 629 was that the 629 was stainless steel. Both of them were too heavy for me to shoot for more than a few rounds, but I could hit a pretty tight pattern on a target at fifty feet with the gun as long as it was in the first twelve shots.
The gun was Adams, and hed suggested I get another Sig Sauer 9mm like my preferred gun instead because it was lighter and, being an automatic, the 9mm was faster to reload. Id told him it was a waste of money when he already had this one.
I had made the assumption that this guy was Christys stalker and not some poor lost traveler who stopped to use the phone or something. We hadntmanaged to get any kind of photo of him, but how many guys travel in rental cars with a wicked-looking dog?
I looked at the monitor again and tried to evaluate him in the black-and-white screen. He appeared to be tallish, and his hair was light-colored. Without anything that eliminated him from the description Christy had given, I decided I was okay with making the assumption that he was the bad guy. If not, I could apologize to him later.
Why had he come here instead of going after Christy?
Maybe he had, and all the people we had guarding her had made him rethink his plan.
Maybe he thought he could take me to use as leverage to get to Christy. Or, if he was really crazyand burning down a building was acting crazy in my bookhe might be planning on killing me to get back at Adam for keeping Christy from him.
Maybe he just wanted to ask me if Id seen Christy. My understanding of psycho stalkers was not infallible. It was also very possible that I was overreacting.
My chest hurt, and I felt the stupid light-headedness that told me I was flirting with a full-blown panic attack. Panic attacks were stupid and counterproductive, rendering me helpless to protect myself until they were over. Happily, I didnt have them as often as I used to, but now was not the time.
I reminded myself firmly that I had prepared for another attempted assault. I had a bolt-hole for the coyote to hide in. At the back of the garage, on the top of the floor-to-ceiling shelves, there was an old wooden boxa fake box. The front and most of one side were all that was left. Those I had wood-glued and screwed to the shelf so it wouldnt fall off if I bumped it. A narrow opening at the back of the side not against the wall meant I could squeeze into the box, but I wasnt trapped because the box had no lid. All the way up near the roof of my fourteen-foot-high garage meant it didnt need a top to keep me hidden, and I had about a foot between the top of the box and the ceiling.
So why wasnt I doing the smart thing and hiding up there as a coyote? He might know who I was and where I worked, but it was extremely unlikely that he knew what I was.
I watched the monitors as he tried the door, then looked around the parking lot. The camera angle wasnt wide enough for me to see what he was looking at, but I was pretty sure it was my van. He couldnt know I was still there unless hed been watching the shop, but the van might make him suspicious.
That was assuming he knew what I drove, which might be giving him too much credit. Though he had apparently followed Christy from Eugeneand I knew that Adam wouldnt have advertised the trip over here if he could help it. Hed figured out she was staying with us and found my garage. It wasnt too much to assume he knew what I drove.
He walked away from the door and back to his car, the big dog pacing at his side without a leashjust as Lucias dog had done. I had time to hide.
The security camera had its eye focused on me, recording my every move. If I hid from this human, the whole pack would know what I had done. Christy was human, fragile, and no longer the Alphas wife. That she had gotten into trouble she couldnt get out of by herself was to be expected.
In a wolf pack, the dominant members protectthey dont need protection. I was not just the Alphas wife, I was his mate and a pack member. That all meant that what I did mattered, and I was expected to make a better showing than Adams fragile ex-wife, whod driven this man off with nothing more than a frying pan. So I stood watching the monitors, waiting for him to break in, instead of hiding in safety. But the knowledge I chose to face him, that I had other options, seemed to have pushed the panic attack away.
I watched as Christys stalker walked back over and began working on the front door of my garage. Darkness hadnt yet fallen, though the sun was low in the sky.
Five minutes until help arrived.
Five minutes if Tad was at home when Adam called him. If not, Adam would be here in fifteen.
What did it say about Christys stalker that he risked breaking into my garage with a crowbar when it was still light out? Was he stupid? Or did he think he had enough money, enough power, to escape the consequences of his actions?
I closed my eyes and stretched my neck and rolled my shoulders to loosen them.
The front door gave with a tremendous crackbut my ears are more sensitive than most. I leaned on the front of the Passat and left the gun resting on the hood, though I kept my hold on it. Lifting the gun up too soon would cause my arms to tire, and Id lose accuracy. I didnt worry that he would be too fast because I was as quick as any of the werewolvesand they were a lot faster than any human.
It was probably only seconds between the time he broke down the door and when he came into the garage bay, but it seemed like hours. I spent the time reminding myself that I wasnt drugged up on some fae-magic concoction that prevented me from disobeying orders. That Tad was coming, that Adam was on his way.
That if I shot him, then Christy would have to leave.
Ive killed people before. If Id felt like I had a choice, I wouldnt have killed them. No choice meant I had no regrets for those kills. Maybe I should have felt worse about that; maybe it was being a walker or maybe being a predator. I didnt think it would bother me to kill this man who had killed four innocent peoplefive if you counted the man whod dated Christy a couple of times. Even so, I wasnt going shoot him unless he made me do it, I told myself sternly.
Not even if it meant getting Christy out of my home.
I concentrated on keeping my expression cool, and when he stepped into the light, I said, Mr. Flores, I presume?
He stopped, and the big dog stopped, too, his shoulder precisely at his masters leg. The dogs gaze was alert, intelligent, and primal. Ancient.
I blinked, and the dog was just a dog. My first impression was probably a product of the stress of the moment, an accident of shadows.
Flores smiled and raised both hands to his shoulder height, palms out, dropping the crowbar as he did so. I flinched a little at the noise of the crowbar hitting the floor.
I see that you were expecting me, Mrs. Hauptman. He glanced at the monitors, and his smile widened. I am not here to hurt you or yours, but your husband has something that belongs to me, and I want it back.
Looking at his face under the light, and I knew why Christy had climbed right into bed with him. If Adam was movie-star handsomethis man was porn-star material. Eyes so dark blue they could only come from contacts, skin either tanned or naturally Mediterranean dark, and even, well-defined features with sensual overtones. Bright gold hair whitened in streaks by the sun or a skilled hairdresser swept back from his face in an expensive cut. But the most noticeable thing about him, the thing that Christy had never described, was the air of sexuality that he brought with him. No one would look at this man and not think male, sex, and dangerous.
I love you, I said with feeling.
Of course you do, he agreed with a nonchalance that made me grin as he disconnected.
I let the car down and put jack stands under the rear axle. The hoist had a very slow leak that didnt matter when someone was there to raise it periodically, but overnight it would lower itself until the car was on the ground. I probably ought to get it fixed, but the garage was barely eking along in the black for once, and I was reluctant to dump it back in the red.
A blip on the monitor on the wall between the garage and the office attracted my attention as the outside security cameras switched from daylight-colored to nighttime black-and-white. The monitor sat on a shelf on top of a rectangular computer box big enough to look seriousthough it and the monitor were mostly there so that anyone breaking in would think that was the whole of the security system and, after trashing the system, would quit worrying about the cameras.
No, I didnt need a system that sophisticated to watch over my garage where I repaired cars with sticker prices usually a lot less than the security Adam had installed. But Adam worried, and it cost me less than nothing to let him update the system every few months.
I stripped out of my overalls in the bathroom for a second time that day. I paused by the mirror, sighed, and washed my face because, while the gloves worked fine for hands, they still transferred grease to my cheek and mouth.
I wished I could get rid of the smell of my job as easily as I scrubbed the black smudges off my face. Christy couldnt smell it, but the werewolves all could. Christy wore some kind of subtle perfume that smelled good to werewolf noses and mine, too. Apparently, Adam had found it for her while they were still married, and she still wore itor at least she was wearing it while she was here.
I left the bathroom and reached out to hit the lights when, in the security monitor, I saw a nearly new Chevy Malibu pull into the parking lot in front of the office. I wouldnt have been alarmedpeople can be optimistic about finding mechanics for cars that just have to be ready for a trip at 5:00 A.M. tomorrowexcept that there was a big dog in the backseat.
It wouldnt hurt to err on the side of safety. I reached for my phone.
Hello, said Christy cheerily. Adams phone.
Get Adam, I said, watching the lights on the Chevy turn off as he parked the car. There was a bumper sticker advertising a rental car chain on the back of it.
Im afraid
You should be, I told her in a low voice. Hungry and tired from the long hours Id put in, I was abruptly sick of her stupid games and ready to quit playing. Get Adam. Now.
Dont snap at me, Christy said, all cheer gone. You dont get to order me around, Mercy. You havent earned the right.
The man who opened the drivers door didnt look like someone to be afraid of; he was wearing expensive clothes and slick-soled shoes. But the dog he let out of the backseat more than made up for his owners civilized appearance.
The dog looked like the photos Id seen of the presa Canario, but in my parking lot it seemed bigger and nastier, a male with a broad face and broader chest. Lucia had said that people trimmed their ears to make them look fiercer, but no one needed to make this dog scarier.
The dog was just a dog, though. No matter how big and fierce a dog was, after running around with werewolves, no dog scared me. So there was no reason, really, for me to be afraid of them, a man and his dog. But I was.
The image of the dead bodies on the edge of the hayfield in Finley insisted on making itself present, and I tried to shove it off to the side. The worst of the fear, I thought, was because Id been raped here in my garage, and I no longer ever really felt safe here, security system or not.
Christys ex-boyfriend was no one to be underestimated, but he was human and I had a gun readily available. The chill of fear that slid down my spine was unimpressed by logic.
In my ear, Christy was nattering away about manners and me being jealous for no reason.
Christy, I interrupted her, and let menace color my voice because I refused to let her hear the fear, if you dont give Adam the phone right the hell now, so help me, I will put you out with the rest of the trash in the morning.
From the speaker on my cell phone I could hear some shocked exclamations. Apparently, there were some other werewolves in the room when Christy answered, and theyd overheard me threaten her. Id probably care about that later.
I wont stay where Im not wanted, she said tearfully. Not even in the home that was mine before She squeaked, and her voice cut out, replaced by Adams.
Mercy? His voice was very calm, that people are going to die calm only he could do. As soon as he started to speak, silence fell behind him because I wasnt the only one who knew that voice. I see him on the camera. You stay right there, dont make any noise, and hopefully he wont be sure you are in there. Im on my way. Sit tight, and dont let him in. Im going to hang up right now and call the police and Tad.
Adam was fifteen minutes outbut Tad was only five. What could happen in five minutes?
7
I didnt carry at workwith Tad there, there was no reason, and a gun just got in the way while I was squirming around in engine compartments and under cars. My carry gun, the 9mm, was locked in the safe with my purse. I wasnt going into the office to open the safe because the office had big picture windows, and someone who had burned down a building that housed dozens of innocent people wouldnt hesitate to break a few windows.
Paranoia meant I had a second gun tucked in a special lockbox attached to the underside of the counter nearest the office. My fingers pressed the code, and a half second later I had the cool and heavy Model 629 Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum in my hand. I wasnt Dirty Harry, but Id shot my foster fathers Model 29 since I was big enough to handle it. My foster fathers .44 was in the gun safe at home, but the only difference between it and the 629 was that the 629 was stainless steel. Both of them were too heavy for me to shoot for more than a few rounds, but I could hit a pretty tight pattern on a target at fifty feet with the gun as long as it was in the first twelve shots.
The gun was Adams, and hed suggested I get another Sig Sauer 9mm like my preferred gun instead because it was lighter and, being an automatic, the 9mm was faster to reload. Id told him it was a waste of money when he already had this one.
I had made the assumption that this guy was Christys stalker and not some poor lost traveler who stopped to use the phone or something. We hadntmanaged to get any kind of photo of him, but how many guys travel in rental cars with a wicked-looking dog?
I looked at the monitor again and tried to evaluate him in the black-and-white screen. He appeared to be tallish, and his hair was light-colored. Without anything that eliminated him from the description Christy had given, I decided I was okay with making the assumption that he was the bad guy. If not, I could apologize to him later.
Why had he come here instead of going after Christy?
Maybe he had, and all the people we had guarding her had made him rethink his plan.
Maybe he thought he could take me to use as leverage to get to Christy. Or, if he was really crazyand burning down a building was acting crazy in my bookhe might be planning on killing me to get back at Adam for keeping Christy from him.
Maybe he just wanted to ask me if Id seen Christy. My understanding of psycho stalkers was not infallible. It was also very possible that I was overreacting.
My chest hurt, and I felt the stupid light-headedness that told me I was flirting with a full-blown panic attack. Panic attacks were stupid and counterproductive, rendering me helpless to protect myself until they were over. Happily, I didnt have them as often as I used to, but now was not the time.
I reminded myself firmly that I had prepared for another attempted assault. I had a bolt-hole for the coyote to hide in. At the back of the garage, on the top of the floor-to-ceiling shelves, there was an old wooden boxa fake box. The front and most of one side were all that was left. Those I had wood-glued and screwed to the shelf so it wouldnt fall off if I bumped it. A narrow opening at the back of the side not against the wall meant I could squeeze into the box, but I wasnt trapped because the box had no lid. All the way up near the roof of my fourteen-foot-high garage meant it didnt need a top to keep me hidden, and I had about a foot between the top of the box and the ceiling.
So why wasnt I doing the smart thing and hiding up there as a coyote? He might know who I was and where I worked, but it was extremely unlikely that he knew what I was.
I watched the monitors as he tried the door, then looked around the parking lot. The camera angle wasnt wide enough for me to see what he was looking at, but I was pretty sure it was my van. He couldnt know I was still there unless hed been watching the shop, but the van might make him suspicious.
That was assuming he knew what I drove, which might be giving him too much credit. Though he had apparently followed Christy from Eugeneand I knew that Adam wouldnt have advertised the trip over here if he could help it. Hed figured out she was staying with us and found my garage. It wasnt too much to assume he knew what I drove.
He walked away from the door and back to his car, the big dog pacing at his side without a leashjust as Lucias dog had done. I had time to hide.
The security camera had its eye focused on me, recording my every move. If I hid from this human, the whole pack would know what I had done. Christy was human, fragile, and no longer the Alphas wife. That she had gotten into trouble she couldnt get out of by herself was to be expected.
In a wolf pack, the dominant members protectthey dont need protection. I was not just the Alphas wife, I was his mate and a pack member. That all meant that what I did mattered, and I was expected to make a better showing than Adams fragile ex-wife, whod driven this man off with nothing more than a frying pan. So I stood watching the monitors, waiting for him to break in, instead of hiding in safety. But the knowledge I chose to face him, that I had other options, seemed to have pushed the panic attack away.
I watched as Christys stalker walked back over and began working on the front door of my garage. Darkness hadnt yet fallen, though the sun was low in the sky.
Five minutes until help arrived.
Five minutes if Tad was at home when Adam called him. If not, Adam would be here in fifteen.
What did it say about Christys stalker that he risked breaking into my garage with a crowbar when it was still light out? Was he stupid? Or did he think he had enough money, enough power, to escape the consequences of his actions?
I closed my eyes and stretched my neck and rolled my shoulders to loosen them.
The front door gave with a tremendous crackbut my ears are more sensitive than most. I leaned on the front of the Passat and left the gun resting on the hood, though I kept my hold on it. Lifting the gun up too soon would cause my arms to tire, and Id lose accuracy. I didnt worry that he would be too fast because I was as quick as any of the werewolvesand they were a lot faster than any human.
It was probably only seconds between the time he broke down the door and when he came into the garage bay, but it seemed like hours. I spent the time reminding myself that I wasnt drugged up on some fae-magic concoction that prevented me from disobeying orders. That Tad was coming, that Adam was on his way.
That if I shot him, then Christy would have to leave.
Ive killed people before. If Id felt like I had a choice, I wouldnt have killed them. No choice meant I had no regrets for those kills. Maybe I should have felt worse about that; maybe it was being a walker or maybe being a predator. I didnt think it would bother me to kill this man who had killed four innocent peoplefive if you counted the man whod dated Christy a couple of times. Even so, I wasnt going shoot him unless he made me do it, I told myself sternly.
Not even if it meant getting Christy out of my home.
I concentrated on keeping my expression cool, and when he stepped into the light, I said, Mr. Flores, I presume?
He stopped, and the big dog stopped, too, his shoulder precisely at his masters leg. The dogs gaze was alert, intelligent, and primal. Ancient.
I blinked, and the dog was just a dog. My first impression was probably a product of the stress of the moment, an accident of shadows.
Flores smiled and raised both hands to his shoulder height, palms out, dropping the crowbar as he did so. I flinched a little at the noise of the crowbar hitting the floor.
I see that you were expecting me, Mrs. Hauptman. He glanced at the monitors, and his smile widened. I am not here to hurt you or yours, but your husband has something that belongs to me, and I want it back.
Looking at his face under the light, and I knew why Christy had climbed right into bed with him. If Adam was movie-star handsomethis man was porn-star material. Eyes so dark blue they could only come from contacts, skin either tanned or naturally Mediterranean dark, and even, well-defined features with sensual overtones. Bright gold hair whitened in streaks by the sun or a skilled hairdresser swept back from his face in an expensive cut. But the most noticeable thing about him, the thing that Christy had never described, was the air of sexuality that he brought with him. No one would look at this man and not think male, sex, and dangerous.
