Under Her Skin (14 page)

“Empty,” he said shortly.

“What?” I popped to my feet. “That’s impossible. Someone went in there, I know it. The door was open, and then it closed right as I came in.”

The investigator held up his hands. “I believe you. There’s a window in there. It’s been opened.”

I headed toward the bathroom to see for myself, but Scott put out an arm to stop me. “We don’t want to contaminate the scene any more than absolutely necessary.”

I nodded, but also gritted my teeth. I wanted to see if I could scent anything that he might have missed. But I couldn’t very well say that aloud.

A tinny voice floated up to me, and I realized that the 911 operator had been speaking for several seconds, trying to get a response while the phone dangled uselessly in my hands.

“Here,” I said, handing it to Scott. “I called 911. You talk to them. I’m going to see what I can do for the girls.”

Finally convinced that it was safe to truly care for the victims in the room, I moved back to the bed.

“Don’t move them,” Scott warned.

I flashed a look at him. “I know how to deal with trauma victims. It’s in my job description. I’m just going to talk to them until the ambulance gets here.”

“Sorry. Habit.” He smiled at me, then began pacing around the room, carefully examining every detail as he spoke to the operator, giving her his information and requesting ambulances and squad cars.

“Get them to send Moreland, too,” I requested. Scott waved over his shoulder at me as he peered into the bathroom again.

When he came back into the main part of the room, he handed the phone to me again, and his fingers brushed against mine. For the first time ever, physical contact with Scott sent a shiver down my back—not unlike the response I’d had to Kade the night before.

We both froze, staring at one another.

What was that?

In the distance, I heard sirens wailing, drawing my attention away from Scott just long enough for him to pull away and the spell of the moment to be broken.

* * *

Moreland arrived with the ambulances. The EMTs took over working with the girls, placing IVs in their arms and running fluid into them in hopes of flushing the drugs through their systems more quickly, and at that point I was able to begin moving back toward the bathroom. Eventually, I was able to slide around the door when no one else was looking. I was careful not to touch anything, but I focused on carefully shifting only the inside of my mouth—and only enough so I could better tell exactly what had gone through the window.

Once I had my Jacobson’s gland in place, I flickered my tongue out and pulled in the air around me.

Much better than trying to do this with my human mouth.

This way, I could parse every molecule, take it apart to learn what it held.

Humans. Lots of humans, their flavors piled on top of one another, meaty and hot.

The humid remainder of a soapy shower—recent, maybe even after the girls were taken.

Scott. More of him than I would have expected, given the short amount of time he was in here.

I shook my head.

None of that was what I needed.

Leaning over the edge of the tub, I flicked my tongue out toward the window, noting with my human eyes the rusted and broken bars that had once protected it.

There.

From the edge of the windowsill, I caught a whiff of the scent I sought. Serpentine. Female. And not like anything I’d ever come across before—not outside of my own home, anyway.

Lamia.

With that confirmation, I started to turn away, but at the last moment, a slight flutter caught my eye.

I leaned closer, peering down at it.

Snakeskin? 

As if the lamia had been shedding as she worked her way out of the bathroom?

That was odd.

Shedding was the one snake-like thing I had never done, and Dad had speculated that something about my human blood made it impossible.

Moving quickly, I plucked the tiny scrap of skin off the rusted metal where it had caught and slipped it into my pocket. I didn’t know what it could tell me, but I knew that I didn’t want anyone else to have it.

I was still focusing on shifting my mouth back to its human form when Moreland came in behind me, his tall, bulky form making the bathroom feel even smaller.

“Find anything interesting in here?” he asked.

When I turned and met his gaze, he was staring at me through suspicious green eyes.

“Nope. Didn’t touch anything, either.” I gestured toward the window. “But I don’t know how anyone could have gotten out of there.”

Moreland leaned forward to peer at the broken bars. “Have to be someone pretty small,” he agreed. “Maybe they pushed the bars back into place?” He shook his head. “No telling. Adrenaline will let people do some wild shit. Probably freaked out when they heard you come in.”

I made a noncommittal noise.

“Anyway,” the detective continued. “Your doctor friend is here. He says you called him?”

My cheeks flared scarlet. “I couldn’t reach anyone else. I thought someone should know where I went.” 

“You didn’t think calling me and Scott Carson would be enough?”

“I didn’t call Scott.” I paused. “I thought you did.”

“Detective Moreland,” one of the EMTs called from across the room. “We’re leaving, taking the girls over to Kindred.”

I followed Moreland out into the room, where Kade was in full-on doctor-mode, conferring with one of the other EMTs.

“Hey,” he said when he caught sight of me. “You okay?”

“Yeah. But I’d like to see you take care of the girls.” I tried to convey that I had something important to tell him with nothing more than my eyes. I’m not sure I managed it, but he seemed to know what I was trying to tell him, anyway.

“Follow us over to the hospital, then?”

“I’d like to ask Lindi a few questions first,” Moreland interjected.

“I’ll meet you over there when I’m done,” I suggested.

Kade nodded, already half-distracted by his job, and waved once before following the four stretchers out of the motel room and down the stairs. Scott, who had been talking to one of the uniformed officers, followed with a short wave toward Moreland and me.

Moreland’s questions didn’t take long—he walked me through the events of the evening, starting with Emma’s phone message. I told him everything with the exception of seeing the tail-end of the lamia sliding into the bathroom and finding the scrap of skin caught on the window.

“Why didn’t you call 911 from the beginning?” he asked. “Or the station? They could have sent a car over.”

“I didn’t want to overreact.” I held up both hands to ward off any complaint. “I know, I know. I should have done more. I really do know better.”

“This isn’t your standard molestation case,” he reminded me. “Someone is killing these kids. I don’t want any more victims—and I sure as hell don’t want you to end up in my case files.”

“I’m sorry, Daniel.” I placed one hand lightly on his forearm. “I promise it won’t happen again.”

He narrowed those green eyes at me and searched my own gaze, then nodded. “Okay. Go ahead and get over to the hospital. See what you can find out. I’ll be over as soon as the Crime Scene Unit guys are done here. Don’t wait on me, though. It could take a while. We can catch up tomorrow if we need to.”

I hadn’t realized how unsteady I was until I began to walk down the stairs—the entire evening’s events had made me more anxious than I realized. But I had worked hard to earn the trust and respect of the men on Moreland’s team. I wasn’t about to let them see me get shaky. So I held it together until I got to my car, started it, and drove down the street.

Then I pulled over and shook for a solid ten minutes.

It was a shocky reaction—I knew that from my experience working with other people who had survived a traumatic event.

I was also starving, almost as hungry as I’d been the night before, when all I had done tonight was shift my mouth.

Whatever the cause, I decided it was more important to get food than to get to the hospital quickly. After I’d gone through a drive-through and scarfed down four hamburgers, I felt like I might survive.

By the time I walked into the hospital, I was feeling almost like myself again.

Almost cheerful, given the circumstances.

After all, I had helped save four young shapeshifters from a horrific death.

I was stunned when Kade, coming around a corner and seeing me walking alone down a momentarily empty hall, he grabbed me by the arm and slung me into the nearest empty room.

Slamming the door behind us, he shoved me against the nearest wall, his forearm pressed against my chest to hold me into place. The vanilla milkshake I had been sipping on my way to the nurses’ station flew out of my hand and landed on the floor, spraying out across the tile.

I let out an inarticulate cry. Kade responded by pushing against me even harder.

“What the hell did you think you were doing tonight?” he demanded.

I shoved back against his arm, but Kade kept me pinned to the wall.

I might not be able to make him get off me, but I could sure as hell respond verbally. “What do you mean, what was I doing?”

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have gotten into?” He leaned into my face, the anger rolling off him like steam, heating up the entire room. “Bad enough you could have gotten yourself killed. But you could have exposed us all—the entire shifter community.” By this point, he was virtually spitting the words out into my face.

Again, I tried to push against his arm. The fiery emotion surrounding us made my back pop and roll. I forced the shift back down, and saw Kade gritting his teeth to do the same.

“Isn’t that why you had some guy watching me all the time?” I demanded as soon as I had control of myself. “Where’s the Council’s precious Shield? Why didn’t he show up to help? If it’s so important to keep the shapeshifter community safe, why was I there all alone?” If we had been entirely alone, the last words would have come out in a shout. As it was, we were both hissing, spitting our accusations into one another’s faces.

Kade slumped, all of the anger suddenly draining out of him. He blew out a breath, lifted his arm away from me, held his hands up in a sign of surrender, and took a step back.

“I don’t know,” he said. “And it’s got me worried.”

I was still too angry—too shocked and hurt by Kade’s actions and accusations—to drop my defenses.

“Then I think you should figure it out.” I stepped away from the wall, brushed my hands over the spot Kade had pressed against to smooth my shirt down, and moved toward the door. “Are the girls I saved able to communicate yet?” I emphasized the words
I saved
.

“They’re beginning to.” Kade watched me warily, but he didn’t take another step toward me. “I expect them to be fully recovered tomorrow, at least physically.”

“I’ll be by tomorrow to interview them.” I put one hand on the door handle, then paused and spoke over my shoulder. “And Kade? If you ever shove me into another room—or touch me in any way without my permission—you’ll be sorry.”

I didn’t know exactly what I thought I would do to the were-mongoose if he did attack me, but the sound of the vague threat pleased me as I stalked out of the room and let the door slam.

I was still contemplating the possibilities when I rounded the corner toward the front entrance and almost bumped into Scott.

“Hey,” the investigator said, running a hand through his dark hair. “You talked to the vics yet?”

“No.” I tried to avoid thinking about my exchange with Kade. I needed to concentrate on what I said to Scott—it would be too easy to give too much away if I didn’t pay attention. “Whatever the kidnapper gave them is only now starting to wear off.”

The hand in his hair moved down to wipe across his eyes. “So that can wait until tomorrow,” he said. “Good.” He spun on his heel and fell into step with me back toward the entrance.

“Yeah. I should go back to the office and write up a report, but I don’t think I’m up to it.” A tiny laugh escaped me. “Actually, that might be an understatement.”

Scott’s mouth twisted in a wry grin. “It’s been a hell of a night.” He paused as if considering, then took a breath and plunged ahead. “You want to call it a night as far as work is concerned? Maybe go grab a beer or something?”

I hesitated. So far our outings had been limited to lunch and that one aborted date. But it wasn’t like we hadn’t spent time together.

I didn’t know what about the request bothered me. After a moment, though, I decided to chalk it up to shattered nerves—the result of a harrowing evening, followed by an unprovoked mongoose attack.

“God, yes, I do,” I said. After all, it was still comparatively early, even after everything that had happened.

“We can take my truck. It’s just over here. I’ll bring you back to your car later.” He gestured out into the parking lot and I followed him to his truck, next to a lamp post under a pool of yellow light. “I need to stop by my house first. Is that okay?”

“Sure. Okay.” I ignored the tiny warning bells going off in my head.

Shut up,
I told the inner voice.
You’re just anxious. It’s been a weird night.

He clicked the key fob and opened the door for me, and I crawled up into the cab, just as I had done on many other occasions.

But for just an instant, as he slammed the door shut, I caught a strange look on his face: oddly intent. Victorious, even.

And definitely not like Scott.

* * *

The décor in Scott’s house was somewhere between
masculine
and
bare
—lots of brown leather furniture, a large-screen television, a simple wood table in the dining area. Scott disappeared around the dividing wall that led into the kitchen.

I should have said no to the invitation. I knew it as soon as “Okay” came out of my mouth.

There was a reason I’d always kept Scott at arm’s length. Something about him just didn’t work for me.

Maybe because he isn’t honor-bound to try to kill you if you get too snaky?

I shushed my snarky internal voice, even as I wondered if maybe it was right—maybe my attraction to Kade was based as much on the danger he represented as anything more stable.

As a trained counselor, I should know better. But if my training and experience had taught me anything, it was that we don’t always do what we know is best.

Still, that glimpse of Scott’s expression put me enough on edge that when he walked up behind me in his living room and handed me a beer by reaching around me, I almost jumped.

“Interesting pictures.” I stepped away from him, moving along the nearest wall to examine the wildlife photos, all hung at museum-approved eye level.

Most of them were of live animals: cheetahs running across a savannah, monkeys perched in trees, a bright green lizard clinging upside down to a tree, its bright eyes staring at something past the camera.

But several of them were hunting-trophy photos of Scott kneeling over dead animals, rifle in hand, a broad grin splitting his face.

The gleam in his eyes in those photos was disturbingly reminiscent of the expression I had surprised on his face earlier.

I took a sip of the beer to cover my shiver of reaction to the expression. “I didn’t know you were a hunter.”

Scott moved up beside me to stare at the nearest picture of himself holding the head of a buck up by the antlers. “Reminds me of where I come from.”

His smile crooked up only one side of his mouth, and his shrug seemed more rueful than dismissive.

“You come from hunters?” I realized in that moment that in all the conversations we’d had over lunches in the past year, Scott had never once mentioned family.

“You might be surprised.”

“That doesn’t seem all that odd. We are in Texas, after all.” I tried to inject a teasing tone into my voice, but it came out flat.

Scott’s response didn’t carry any particular inflection. “Yeah.” Tilting his head back, he drained the remainder of his beer in one long swallow.

I didn’t follow his example, exactly, but I did take another long drink as I continued to peruse the pictures.

Scott leaned against one arm of his brown leather sofa and watched me, his face as expressionless as his voice had been moments ago. The longer he stared, the more uncomfortable I got. I tried to hide my discomfort in another drink.

When I got to the corner of the room and turned to look at the next group of pictures on the adjoining wall, the room spun around me. Reaching out to steady myself against the wall, I realized that my hand was numb. I could barely feel the textured paint under my fingertips.

What the hell was this?

“There it is,” Scott said, more emotion coming through his voice than I had heard all night.

I tried to ask, “What’s going on?” but I only got as far as “Whuuu” before my legs gave out under me and I crumpled to the floor, my fingers trailing along the wall, doing nothing to stop my fall.

Shift
, my mind urged, but my body remained unresponsive.

For the first time ever, I remained human when I wanted to be snake. My thoughts turned sluggish.

The drink. He must have put something in the drink.

But why?

His face appeared in my field of vision, looming over me, then retreating, as my eyes refused to track his motion.

Then he was lifting me, moving me to another room, where he unceremoniously dropped me on the bed. Through the muddled, cottony haze muffling my thoughts, I heard him muttering.

“I can’t believe I missed it. Fucking lamia in my
job
and I didn’t even see it. How the hell did you hide it?”

He knew what I was? How?

“I have to take you in. I can’t just let you go on, living your life.” His voice grew louder, more strident. “Stepping in to save those little shapeshifter bitches. How could you? You know what they are. Abominations. You fucking whore. You … you
traitor
.” The last word came out on a screech, and he reared back. I saw his fist coming toward my face, but could do nothing to avoid it. The crunch when it hit my cheek was audible, and if I could have cringed, I would have—but I barely felt the blow land, as if the pain were coming to me from several miles away.

Traitor?

Oh, God. Scott was involved in the shapeshifter murders, somehow.

I struggled to maintain consciousness, to work through all the implications of what he had said.

Either the punch or whatever he had put in the drink finally overcame my ability to keep my eyes open, though. Darkness edged across my vision. The last thing I saw was Scott, leaning over me, arms outstretched as if to pick me up again.

No
, I screamed, but no sound came out.

* * *

I came to in the dark, lying down on my side, the cold smell of damp limestone clinging to the back of my throat.

Where the hell was I? With one hand, I pushed against the rock beneath me and sat up slowly. Blinking hard, I peered into the darkness surrounding me.

Nothing. I might as well have my eyes closed. But the space around me felt big, somehow.

The blow to my face—or maybe the drugs, or maybe the combination of the two—left me feeling groggy and disoriented.

Why had he conked me over the head and dragged me into a cave? What the hell was Scott into?

Other than being a crazy murderer.

Though on second thought, he might not need any more reason than that.

I had dismissed Moreland’s comment about not calling Scott. I shouldn’t have.

And why, oh why hadn’t I told Kade where I was headed?

Because he hadn’t been in the most receptive mood ever.

And because I hadn’t been certain that
he
wasn’t likely to hit me over the head and drag me off somewhere—though in Kade’s case, he probably would have claimed it was for my own good.

For that matter, it might have been the better option, given my current situation.

Which was what, exactly?

I flicked my tongue out and tasted the air. Water. A lot of stone. Cold air moving in a steady breeze from my left. The faint flavor of smoke carried on that wind.

Cautiously, I stretched my hands above me as far as they would go, then out to the sides, in front, and behind me. The idea of stumbling around in the dark didn’t appeal to me, and probably wouldn’t be all that productive, anyway—not unless I had some way to track where I was going, and where I had been. Unlikely in this stygian blackness.

At some point, Scott had taken off my shoes, leaving only stockings. Between that and my thin work blouse, the cool air of the cave was beginning to get to me. Chill bumps raced up and down my arms and I ran my hands up and down, trying to generate warmth.

I didn’t know if I could reasonably shift in here, or if the chill would immobilize me.

And if Scott knew what I was? That might very well be why he’d brought me here.

A pebble lodged under me gave me an idea, though. I scrabbled around on the floor and gathered it and several others. One by one, I tossed them out as hard as I could in what I was pretty sure were different directions. Two of them hit the floor and kept rolling, eventually clattering to a stop on their own. The others hit obstacles and bounced back toward me.

I considered shifting, exploring the cavern in my animal form, but the chill in the air suggested that might be a bad idea. I wanted to be able to move quickly, and the cold was making me feel sluggish in my human form. My serpent shape was likely to go into hibernation mode.

But I could still use those animal senses to some degree. And that cold draft had to be coming from somewhere. Wind didn’t just create itself in a cave. That air led to an exit of some kind.

I closed my eyes and let myself follow the air, flicking my tongue out every few seconds. Initially, I held my hands out in front of me to avoid bumping into any cavern walls. After a few moments, though, I dropped my arms to my sides and paused long enough to concentrate on the partial shift Kade had been trying to teach me. I concentrated on my mouth, on feeling my tongue split, the Jacobson’s organ grow where my soft palate had been. Apparently the sheer terror I’d been tamping down since I woke had a beneficial effect on my partial-shift ability—though I also felt my fangs descending and my jaw change shape before I stopped the transformation. I suspected that if I could see, I would discover that my vision had altered, along with my eyes.