Along Came a Tiger (Tiger Shifters) (9 page)

So long as she didn’t kill Williams.

She stepped away. “You’re right. We can wait a few more days.”

At least she hoped they could wait. She hoped three nights from now, when she Ran, he’d still want to catch her.

By the time they returned to the house, she was hungry again. The fact that she was able to eat at all was both surprising and a relief. She knew it had everything to do with being with Daniel. She felt so damned comfortable and safe with him.

“Sit,” she ordered when they got back to the kitchen. “I’ll make you something this time. You’ve waited on me enough.”

He raised his brows, but did her bidding.

It took her longer to get a meal together than it would have Daniel, but she made the effort. When she set a bowl of tomato soup and a bacon sandwich in front of him, he smiled a relaxed, sexy smile. The one that always made her pulse race. She hadn’t seen that smile since the last Run.

They ate in silence and she was reluctant to disrupt the peace. If they spoke, they’d talk about tonight, they’d argue about Williams, they’d have to consider the future. Right now, she wanted to live in this quiet moment and just be. She could imagine a life full of these moments with him. She wanted that life as much as she wanted Williams dead.

And there was the problem. She couldn’t have both.

Once they cleaned up after the meal, he broke the silence.

“You should try to rest. We have plenty of time before we have to leave.”

She wasn’t particularly tired, but he was right. “What will you do?”

“There’s a TV. I’m sure there’s sports on somewhere.” He grinned when she rolled her eyes.

God, she loved him.

“You need to rest, too,” she reminded him. She had no idea how much sleep he’d gotten, but she’d bet it wasn’t nearly enough.

“I will.”

Reluctantly, she went to the bedroom and lay down, not thinking she’d really sleep.

When she woke to a dark room, she had to blink a few times to remember where she was. As she lay there staring at the filmy curtains covering the window, she listened for Daniel. The TV was on, and it sounded like sports of some kind, which made her grin.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all they had to do right now was argue over what to watch?

They had something more important to do tonight, though. She still wasn’t sure if this would satisfy her. In this quiet farmhouse, it was growing more difficult to hold on to her anger and pain. Somewhere during their walk, she’d let go of some of the blinding rage. Enough that the ache of loss dominated the need for justice. But her anger wasn’t gone completely. All she had to do was imagine Williams’ smug face and the rage returned.

She realized she was in danger of losing herself to her hate. She knew Su-jin wouldn’t want that any more than she’d want Sarah to sacrifice her chance at a life with Daniel.

Could she let go? Could she go on without killing the man who’d tortured and murdered her best friend?

Her stomach rolled with nausea.

She’d have her answers after tonight. What they found, what happened after…She would either feel satisfied they’d done enough and move on, or she wouldn’t.

The springs squeaked as she hefted herself out of bed. Time to confront her future. And her soul.

* * *

Sarah sat in Daniel’s truck with barely contained patience. He’d made her agree to stay put while he doubled back around the house to ensure Williams wasn’t here. The only thing keeping her seated was the fact that she wanted to repair some of the damage between her and Daniel.

He’d parked in the same spot he’d used the night before. It was on a relatively empty side road, far enough from the house the car wouldn’t be seen or heard, but near enough to make for an easy escape. The road paralleled the park, but was just outside it so they would go in on foot, limiting the attention they might attract from park security.

She realized she was nervously bouncing her leg when the truck actually started vibrating. She stopped, scowling. Another quick glance at the clock on the dashboard confirmed Daniel had only been gone fifteen minutes. Staring at the little blue numbers, she gave him five more minutes and then she was going after him.

Exactly one minute later, he tapped on her window, startling her. How had he managed to sneak up on her? She usually sensed where he was if he was close enough.

She threw the door open and stepped out. “So?”

“No one’s at the house.”

“He said he had a maid. You’re sure she’s not there?”

“No cars. The house is dark. No sound of human breathing or heartbeat. She probably doesn’t live in the house.”

“Great. Let’s go.” She started to strip, but he put a hand on her arm.

“Let’s go on two feet first. We can shift when we get closer to the body.”

She frowned.

“The park is mostly empty, since it’s closed now, but there are rental cabins inside and some people are camping. This area isn’t as isolated as a lot of our retreats. I don’t want to risk a random human spotting two tigers stalking through the wood where they don’t belong. We can make sure we’ve got privacy first and then shift.”

“Fine.”

She blinked as they moved into the woods, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. Her tiger vision allowed her to see perfectly well, even in the deep shadows under the trees on this moonless night.

Along with her heighten vision, she opened up her most powerful tool, her sense of smell, and allowed all the various night scents to filter through her. There weren’t any humans in the immediate area, but she could smell some had been nearby during the day. In the summer, the park was a busy place. Daniel was right, they shouldn’t take any risks. Once deep in the shadows, away from paths and roads, they’d be able to hide better as tigers.

They circled Williams’ house and entered the park proper before she finally picked up the vague putrid scent.

“Got it,” she murmured. “This way.”

Daniel allowed her to take the lead, following on near silent feet as they moved toward the stench. It got stronger the closer they got but was still muted by soil and moist leaves. Definitely buried.

“Pinpointing it will be easier in tiger form,” she said over her shoulder.

He stilled her with a hand on her arm, and when she turned, he was staring into the distance, his expression intent.

A moment later, he nodded. “We should be safe enough. I’m not picking up anyone moving this way.”

She stepped into a small break in the trees and stripped, folding her clothes neatly and tucking them into a high crevice in the branches where no one would see them, even if they were looking. Daniel stepped deeper into the woods opposite the direction she’d gone for his shift. Though she wasn’t shy about being nude, around Daniel she was much more aware of her body and his nakedness than she would be with other tigers. Especially right now, with her estrous so close. Not having to see him strip allowed her a measure of self-control she might not have otherwise been able to maintain.

As she let the change take her, she reveled in the feel of muscles stretching and tendons pulling, bones creaking and snapping. She was born to shift, a part of her very being, so while the change did cause a very slight ache, it was a good feeling, like cracking her knuckles or stretching out tight muscles. The result was a kind of release of tension, tension she didn’t recognize feeling until she started the process of letting her tiger out.

She wasn’t particularly fast at shifting, so by the time she was done, Daniel was waiting for her, his stunning white and black-striped coat practically glowing in the dark. How he managed to do his job when his tiger form was so distinctive, she’d never known. All that white wasn’t much of a camouflage away from the snow.

When she joined him, he made a soft chuffing sound, his whiskers twitching as he stood, before moving off toward the stench. As she followed, she realized the combination of white fur and black stripes actually did create a camouflage in the shifting darkness under the trees. She occasionally lost sight of him, but sensed he was there.

During the Run, he’d always seemed to stand out from his surroundings. Even in tiger form, he was like a beacon to her desires. She’d been able to see him clearly and spot him at a distance.

Except, she realized, in those moments right before he caught her. He always managed to surprise her, taking her before she could pinpoint his exact location. Those moments were thrilling, edged with just a hint of fear to add spice to her lust. She adored Daniel chasing her, catching her. But she was starting to realize he hadn’t shown her the full complement of his Tracker skills.

When she lost sight of him again, she trotted through the sparse undergrowth to catch up. She found him crouched over a spot of disturbed dirt. The scent of dead flesh was an assault on her nostrils. She knew they’d found the body.

From the look of the ground, churned dirt covered by a layer of dried beech and oak leaves, no new growth covering the spot, she guessed that whatever
…whoever…had been buried here hadn’t been buried for long. Daniel gently pawed the earth, digging a little furrow, then set his nose closer to the ground. A moment later, he rose and sneezed three times in quick succession, then he batted at his nose with one giant paw.

Now that he was leaning back, the scent carried strongly to her, too. More than just dead flesh. The stench of something chemical with hints of…a scent like cherry cough medicine was the only comparison she could think of, and a few layers of something she didn’t have human words for. It wasn’t like anything she’d ever come across before.

She stared at the spot, knowing there was a body there, debating what they should do next. They couldn’t dig up the spot or they’d compromise whatever evidence might actually be there for the human police. A fact confirmed when Daniel very gently filled in the furrow he’d made and patted the dirt down, brushing a few leaves back over it.

Pacing around the burial spot, she forced herself to absorb every element of the scent, memorizing and analyzing, looking for some detail they could give the authorities that would tie this body to Williams. But with the layers of dirt and the decay, she couldn’t filter out anything useful. The chemical was surely the same thing used on Su-jin, but the humans no longer had a sample to make a comparison.

Frustrated, she plunked down on her haunches and stared at Daniel, her tail twitching irritably. He stared back, his blue eyes dark in the low light. This body wasn’t enough to get Williams arrested. It was on public lands in a state park. Anyone could have put this body here. Having it discovered near
one
of Williams’ homes would hardly be cause to link the body to him.

But maybe it was enough to spark their suspicions after he was questioned in another murder so recently and that body had disappeared. Maybe this one would be enough to keep the humans investigating in the right direction.

She was about to give up and turn back toward the truck when Daniel suddenly shot to his feet, his head high, his ears forward, his entire body tense. A moment later, she heard it too—a car on the driveway up to Williams’ house.

They exchanged a look, and then on silent feet, padded back toward the house.

What if Williams had another woman with him? Sarah hadn’t considered it until just that moment. What if he had another potential victim? Would Sarah be able to just leave without doing something—even for a human woman?

She held her breath as they reached a dark copse of trees bordering the open area in front of the house.

A car pulled up to the front door, the tires crunching over gravel. Williams’ Jaguar.

With only one person inside.

Sarah let out a quiet but audible sigh. Daniel glanced at her, then nudged her shoulder very gently with his. He must have thought of the same possibility.

What would they have done if Williams had brought another victim here? They couldn’t just let another woman be tortured and killed. But stopping it would force them to reveal they were here. That would compromise the information they would give the police about the body. Williams could just point a finger in their direction, creating reasonable alternative suspects.

They couldn’t afford that kind of attention, or the questions.

She watched Williams climb out of his car and scan his surroundings before going to the car’s trunk. Without conscious thought, she crouched lower, not to attack, but to ensure he didn’t see her. Daniel went so still she wouldn’t have known he was there except that she felt him beside her.

Williams turned from the trunk holding a shovel. Sarah’s stomach clenched. She sniffed toward his car, as the horror that he might be here to bury another body made her stomach roll. All she smelled, though, was car wax, leather cleaner, and Williams himself. The shovel even smelled clean, like grass and fresh dirt.

Another wave of relief washed through her. She’d been so set on revenge, and angry at being prevented from getting revenge, the probability Williams might go out and find someone else after she “got away” hadn’t occurred to her. What if he already had someone drugged and helpless somewhere? Daniel hadn’t scented or heard anyone in the house. Could he have been mistaken?