Bear Meets Bride (Online Shifter Dating Agency Romance) (9 page)

14

Tom took the whole story about claw sounds at the window more seriously than he let on to Erin. He didn’t want to freak her out anymore and so had kept his words tactful, but he was pretty sure his girlfriend was the intended next victim.

Their conversation had drawn his attention back into close proximity. Hearing nothing for a week had turned his speculations desperate, and he had even entertained the notion of disappearing into the forest in bear form and tracking down, or calling out to challenge the fiend in some way (as if bears actually met up and had duels). No doubt some of his underlings at work had resisted making such a suggestion, though it was doomed to fail. The killer’s bloodlust might have extended beyond women and children, unlike most cowardly serial killers, but in bear form he was still attacking people considerably weaker than him. There was nothing to say that he would relish confrontation with another bear.

Once they were back home, Tom had been as good as his word, undertaking a step by step investigation of the gardens to the front, back and side of his house. He even knocked on his neighbor’s door and asked them if he could make some security checks for their own benefit. By then, the whole community knew about the potential for cops and their loved ones being targeted, so he didn’t think he was terrifying them needlessly in suggesting there might be a vicious eight-foot tall killer hanging around.

In the event, he’d found nothing and didn’t know whether to feel relieved or frustrated by this fact. Unfortunately the search was inconclusive, though. When he had finished his first attempt and gone back in the house, Erin had asked him, “What were you doing sniffing back there, like you’re Crocodile Dundee or something?”

There would be an amusing conversation ahead once he revealed that he was a bear shifter too. He’d initially assumed she already knew and thus never discussed it with her, seeing as she really should have figured that out from using a dating site that said it was to match women up with bear shifters, but from his conversation with her the other day, it seemed as if she had continually misread the site as Dare2Bare.com, not Dare2Bear.com. Because this conversation was still in the future—he was going to see how long it took for her to figure it out, just to tease her—he didn’t let on that he actually had the ability to smell out any bears in the vicinity.

Initially he had thought this proof that Erin’s dreams were just that: dreams. Then on reflection he had thought more about how clever this killer was and the extent he would go to. The sinister enigma would know he was stalking the house of a bear shifter and, if he prepared properly, there were ways of maximizing the human angle to mask a scent, like forcing a different diet, for example. Bears might dislike being away from their favorite food more than most other creatures, but he could believe that this one was prepared to go that far as it continued to toy with them. His garden did not smell of bear right now, but it certainly had a strange scent to it; one that he really couldn’t figure out.

The trail might have gone quiet, but Tom knew he had to do everything in his power to keep watch over Erin and not to let their vigilance slip up for just a moment. Another protective custody was even becoming an option, though his girlfriend would have to be dragged kicking and screaming away from that bakery of hers.

So Tom’s thinking at the time could be summed up as a very precarious one, but no further drastic measures were taken because, after that, nothing happened for two whole weeks. The community and indeed some of his colleagues grew impatient then cynical with the wait, even if he could not, until one day there was a very significant development. Pretty much the whole of his team was summoned to headquarters; Jake had an announcement to make and, as a result, their perspective was about to change.

After thanking everyone for their hard work over the last few weeks, Jake addressed the whole crew on the current situation.

“Now as you all know—and some of you have pointed out to me,” he began, “we haven’t heard sight or sound of our notorious bear shifter killer for three weeks now. Not since the second attempt on Nana’s life, except for some potential stalking activity around Tom’s place that may or may not have occurred, but even so that gives us two weeks with no known activity. If this bear’s still shitting in our woods then we can’t smell it anymore.”

There were some titters and murmurs at this.

“As a result of this, the more cautious among you might ask ‘So what? The bastard’s biding his time’,” Jake continued. With this, he gave Tom a sideways glance, and Tom knew this likely referred to him more than anyone else. “And in usual circumstances it would be professional to agree with you. However, in this instance we have another development.”

When saying this, Jake reached down to his desk and picked up some sheets of paper that clearly made up a report of some kind.

“As it happens, our good friends over at the FBI—who you all loved having here so much—have been putting some of their best bods in the country into trying to trace the identity of the killer. Although I haven’t called you here today to tell you that their efforts have been successful, they have, nevertheless, uncovered something that might prove to be important.”

There were some more murmurs of interest amongst the gathered police in the room.

“Now don’t ask me how, but those clever folks claim—using all their microscopic technology and such—to have identified not only the saliva of the killer but also his blood…maybe from a cut on the bear’s gums, or its claws. Who knows? Consequently, however, they have his DNA. They don’t know who he is—he’s not in the CODIS or VICAP database—but they know something about him.”

“Yeah, that he’s a fucking psycho,” one of the younger cops shouted up.

“I see a bright future for you ahead, Stevie,” Jake replied, “but you’re not too far from the truth, in fact. The team have ascertained that the killer’s bloodstream is having difficulty retaining oxygen; they can’t give a name for what might be up with him, but the signs are consistent with someone showing unruly or psychotic behavior. His desire to kill is being accelerated by a tendency for aggressive behavior, which suggests that something medical, or an injury, happened to kick-start the killing spree…and would also explain why his activity accelerated like it did.”

“He’s still in control, though,” Tom felt the need to add. “I mean, we’re still dealing with a sentient being here, otherwise he’d just be attacking people randomly in the street.”

“Oh, he’s sentient all right,” Jake agreed, “we’re not letting him off the hook here. There’s more to consider though.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, with not having heard anything for two weeks, his condition has to be taken into account. The FBI lab team suggests there is a high likelihood that the disease this guy has is deadly, if untreated for too long. So here we have the most important development of the findings, in that it might just be our crazed bear shifter has crawled off into the forest one day, lain down and shuffled off his mortal coil—and that’s why we haven’t heard from him.”

The assembled team took this in with a big thoughtful sigh, not knowing whether to hope for the news to be true or to dismiss its seductive guiles.

“I know, I know,” Jake agreed. “Letting our guards down with the jaws of death still lingering on some street corner somewhere is hardly wise, but we have to start considering it as a possibility.”

“But surely we’d have a body either way—I mean bear or human,” the young officer added.

“Not necessarily,” Tom put in. “No one’s ever found a dead bear in the wild.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Tom shrugged. He didn’t know why that was, but apparently it was true; Bigfoot enthusiasts were always using it to further the possibility that the cryptozoological oddity might actually be out there somewhere.

Alluding to one of nature’s many curious mysteries there and then felt largely pointless, though it served to express his own reticence towards embracing the speculation that Jake, thanks to the FBI, had brought them. Had rotting bear carcasses succeeded in drawing the attention of scavengers from all directions, then there would have been something for them to go out and find, confirming the theory. Instead, the killer had become just like one of the missing persons that had often been reported to him, in response to which anyone with a vested interest was helpless in knowing whether to consider said individual live or dead.

The question of whether to relegate the key focus of their operations over the last few weeks was a subject which divided the room. Many of them were cautious, Tom not the least, while some spoke of other crimes and demands that deserved more manpower. In a way though, they had no choice. The FBI had already left, continuing to lend their expertise remotely but only being due to return if another killing spree erupted and made more public disharmony a likelihood. They were also losing some of the backup resources they had gained from neighboring jurisdictions and what remained would soon ebb away a bit at a time. It felt surreal to have all the anxiety without a conclusion, but very soon life would at least have appeared to return to normal.

After a further half an hour, during which the meeting tailed off into an extensive range of side issues that officers were keen to get off their chest, though Tom still thought were lesser priorities, Jake made sure the two of them had a quiet word together before they went about their day’s business. Although footpaths would be reopened and the public would be told they could go about life as normal, while remaining safe, on one point they had all been agreed, that the security of those individuals who were known to have become a target was not to relax. Jake wasn’t bringing his family back yet, and neither would Nana Morgan return, much to everyone’s disappointment (including Jake who was scheduled to have a very difficult conversation with her as a result) and Erin’s wellbeing would remain a priority as well.

“I know you’re concerned about your gal, but we’ll keep officers free to keep an eye on her when you’re not there,” Jake told him.

“I’m relieved,” Tom replied, “I think we really have to have some firmer confirmation that this has come to an end.”

“I agree—and maybe with people out walking their dogs again there will be, though don’t quote me on that. I’d have preferred to carry on as we were,” he confessed. “I’ve had a few words, though, and made sure that Erin can get extra support if she wants to start working late hours again.”

“Very intuitive of you,” Tom replied, knowing that Erin had cut an increasingly frustrated figure over the last week, and Jake had not been oblivious to this whenever he had visited the bakery a couple of times.

“Yeah, she was giving me Bambi eyes the other day, so it’s your sanity I have in mind,” he joked. “If the psycho is still out there with personal vendettas, however, this will just frustrate him more. So keep on your toes—he might slip up.”

Tom thanked the sheriff and was relieved to find they were still in agreement about the potential threat, while at the same time seeking to repress the wish that the FBI were really as clever as they liked to make out and that the hell was indeed all over with.

Later on he was able to break the news to Erin that she would be able to return to whatever hours she pleased in the bakery, something he tried to relate with caution in mind in case it all blew up in their faces but ended up being received as the best news in the world. A new relationship and some downtime from her work had done nothing other than reaffirm her commitment to that cherished business.

For his part, Tom was pleased for her but torn. Deep down he hadn’t accepted that the bear shifter serial killer had just crawled off and died somewhere and he remained poised for more chaos, probably when it was least expected.

There was an additional problem, however.

There was still the fact that Erin did not know he was a bear shifter himself. His girlfriend had a sharp mind but, he had learned, one that had a tendency to be insular in nature. The name of the dating website they’d met on—‘Dare2Bear—was a pun for sure, but was definitely spelled to acknowledge the animal rather than the nudity. Now that they had arrived at another stage of the investigation, a calmer and more reflective one, he supposed it was now time to break it to her that she had made an oversight and that there was another side to him….one that had claws and teeth and succeeded in explaining his monstrous appetite.

15

Delighted to be back up to full speed at the bakery, Erin was aware that Tom had something to tell her, but she had been a bit too distracted to think about it. She felt like her old self again and had stopped having stupid dreams, as well as rediscovering a sexual appetite to rival Tom’s food hunger.

Too many damn years had passed without love, but without lust too, and she didn’t trouble her mind into thinking it should be ashamed of that. Something was about to happen, though, which she was aware of in the back of her mind. Earlier in the day, Tom had hinted that he wanted to talk to her when it came to shutting the bakery down, seeing as it was Friday and a full week would’ve passed since they’d scaled down their operations and begun to imagine they were safe. Her assumptions were that either Tom wanted to talk about their living situation, in that they had moved in together too quickly, or that he was further ahead and wanted to discuss a next step. She hoped it wasn’t the first option—having just gotten back on her feet, she was happy with the status quo and didn’t know why Tom couldn’t be equally happy in letting life settle for just a little longer. Circumstance had moved them in together quicker than expected, yes, but hearing that he wanted her to move out again would hurt.

An hour before closing time, Tom turned up at the bakery, first exchanging a few words with the officer who was keeping a watch on the place from his car, then coming inside and embracing her. He didn’t give off the impression that he wanted her to move out, but typically he was hungry and confessed that he couldn’t start the weekend without one of her fine burgers.

“I’m starving,” he announced, rubbing his belly.

“I really don’t know where you put it all,” she said with a smile. “I’ll make you a burger….give me a couple of minutes.”

Erin put another burger on to sizzle and Tom took a seat so as not to get in the way of another bunch of truck drivers who had arrived.

Erin was pleased to see him, though sporting a growing apprehension regarding the conversation he wanted to have at closing time. Was her inner satisfaction about to be shattered?

As she turned over Tom’s burger, Erin was aware that her lover’s cell phone had buzzed but did not pay any attention to what was being said as she continued to focus on the evening’s final orders. It was only on turning to see him looking over at her that she knew their peace had indeed been shattered, only from a foe they had come to hope extinguished. He didn’t even need to say anything for her to know that another dead body had been found.

“My god, do you know who it is, Tom?”

“No,” he replied. “No one we know, I think, but I’ve got to go. The officer outside will escort you home.”

Erin nodded but found nothing else to say as she watched Tom exit the bakery, exchange a few hurried words with the officer parked up, then speed away.

So the killer had not crawled away and died after all—unless this was someone else’s unrelated crime. Their conversation would have to wait then, though she felt guilty at being relieved, as well as having a sick feeling in her stomach. This was fear for sure, but it was not so much for herself as for Tom, who had to speed off and seek out the danger once more.

How much longer would he have to spend hunting down this peril?

The interruption put a real downer on the evening. All that uncertainty was set to kick off again and, until the world was back to normal, how could she really concentrate on making something out of her time with Tom? Sharing her life with a man whose task was to fight crime had never been an issue, but did this case really have to be such a saga?

When her last customers of the evening left, the emptiness she felt inside seemed amplified by solitude. Erin felt a sudden yearning for the days before this case took Cold Lake by the throat, which she sought to reject for the contradiction that returning to them would have meant losing Tom. He hadn’t been in her life at the time and it was tough not to feel that some strange evil forces were not at work in the universe, reaching out to distort what had appeared to be a successful attempt to find love and companionship.

Erin still had packing away to see to, but she delayed wrapping the day up in order to take a coffee and some donuts to the officer waiting outside. Maybe he would know a bit more about what was going on; not knowing was becoming an irritating state of mind to accept. The small gesture was the least she could do to thank him for several late nights over the last week that she hadn’t even considered holding back from taking advantage of. Everyone deserved to go about their own life in the way they chose; watching over her might have been dull work, but there was nothing to say the officer in question would not be doing something even more laborious elsewhere. Not that Jones—that was the officer’s name—had ever appeared bothered by his charge when they had spoken.

Unusually, Jones’s car window was closed, and the dying light made it too difficult to make him out. Erin knocked on the window to no response. Supposing he must have been on the radio or listening to something with headphones, she decided to open the car door on seeing that it was not fully closed.

What she saw resulted in the coffee she held falling to the ground and, if she did not have thick cowboy boots on, would have ended up scalding her feet.

“Oh! No!”

Jones’s shirt was stained thick with blood and he wasn’t moving. Erin didn’t really need to crouch down and behold all the grisly details in order to judge what had happened, but there was something unnatural about just presuming another human being was dead that made her do so anyway. She had never seen a dead body before and found no suitable reaction for seeing Jones with his throat slit to do the discovery justice.

She had overlooked how dark police work could really be if dealing with developments like this came with the territory, though more important than the revelation of a dead body was the penny that dropped on her own wellbeing. Given the events of the last few weeks, it didn’t take a skilled detective to suppose that, although different, this was the work of the same killer.

Jones hadn’t been mauled because he was insignificant to the perpetrator….he was an obstacle to deal with in order to reach her.

Holding back the urge to vomit was aided by the sudden realization that her life was in mortal danger, coinciding with becoming aware that a shadow had fallen over where she stood. The evening light meant that her eyes only registered the most subtle of changes, but she had to be grateful for the long shadows it cast nevertheless. Distance gave her time to run, even though her first response was to spin around and desperately throw the bag of donuts she still held in the man’s direction. Erin caught sight of him then, approaching with a swift and determined step but without breaking into a run, and then she turned and fled back towards the bakery’s entrance.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god…” she whispered to herself as she moved, as fast as she could.

Without knowing how fast he was, it was hard to judge whether he would have caught her if he ran as well—thankfully he was not in a shape to take advantage of bear speed either—although being inside gave her an alternative perspective. Erin had ran immediately behind the counter and to her kitchen entrance, knowing she would not have enough time to lock the outer door, but on turning she saw that the menace had paused unhurriedly to look around and check for anyone else approaching.

My god,
the thought suddenly occurred to her,
he doesn’t care that I’ve made it inside at all. He wants me in here…

Extreme measures were called for, and a sudden plan for shutting herself in the kitchen came to mind, though she would have to convince her muscles that they were up for handling the task. Suppressing a wish to have biceps like Tom, Erin told her mind she was stronger than she realized, slamming the kitchen door shut then using all the force her limbs could muster to topple the nearby refrigerator. Though it landed awkwardly and almost fell back onto her ankles, bringing it down proved easier than imagined—bending down and pushing it along the floor to close the gap between its fall and the door less so, but she achieved this also. The door opened inwards and she hoped, with a refrigerator on the other side, could only be breached with great endeavor, especially with her own weight also pressed against it when the moment came.

Keeping her wits about her, Erin then ignored the concern that she might have pulled a muscle and ran to the back door, which she knew had remained unlocked since the deliveries from earlier in the day. Predictably, the attempt of the killer to enter the kitchen soon came, coinciding with her return to the fallen refrigerator as an added insurance against his entering. The toppled appliance looked to be up to its new bespoke task, however, much to her relief, and she dared to take a couple of breaths before thinking about her next step. Her heart was beating faster than she knew it could, but she thought that staying active would keep panic at bay and so reached to her pocket and the cell phone that was her only chance of calling for help.

Clumsy fingers struggled to complete the simplest of requirements, in looking to redial the number she had called over the last few months, but at last the kind dialing tone became apparent and Tom was beautifully quick in answering.

“Erin, can I…”

“Tom, he’s here!” Erin shouted down the receiver.

“He’s… what?”

“Jones is….he’s… he’s dead, and I’m locked in the kitchen. Tom, I need your help.”

“Erin, I’m coming,” came his response.

The connection didn’t cut out, and Erin found herself calling his name a couple of more times, though she was unsure as to why. Maybe he had thrown the phone onto the passenger seat of his car and was no longer listening but speeding to her aid. That was what she wanted, but how long would it take? The man who had come to kill her had been clever enough to approach a police officer in his car and slit his throat; it might not be farfetched to think he was clever enough to find his way into the kitchen.

This thought caused her to consider that the sounds at the kitchen door had gone quiet, and it occurred to her that the murderous bastard was moving round to the back of the building and what felt like a much less secure proximity. The back door might have been locked, but having just the one pane of wood between her and this psycho was not a comforting feeling. What if he had a gun? The lock could be overcome with a simple pull of the trigger. She had no choice but to place hope in the fact that the killer had previously relied on the power of his bear form to murder—except in the case of poor Jones.

Taking a large kitchen knife in hand, though hoping that a scenario in which she had to fight blade to blade (or blade to paw) did not materialize, Erin approached the back door tentatively, hoping not to hear a gunshot. If he got through, she would have to move the refrigerator again and, even if quick enough to escape the back room, what then? A chase on foot down the highway?

Her barricading really did need to buy her some time, or else she was done for.

Braced for some attempt at battering the door down, Erin didn’t know whether to be relieved or disturbed when what came instead was the killer’s voice.

“I know you’re in there, little Erin,” came the introduction, surprisingly well-spoken and, though she was struggling to think, Erin realized that she knew that voice.

“Trust me, you don’t want to see me in my bear form. Why don’t you open up and try to convince me to calm down; it’s your boyfriend I want to upset, really, and there are different ways of achieving that.”

Her boyfriend was on his way and it suddenly occurred to her that keeping him talking was the way to go, but she couldn’t get anything out until she placed that voice.

Then the recollection came.

The eccentric man who had made a speech to her customers about the merits of treating oneself to lemon meringue pie. It was him! The revelation was a slap in the face, causing her to acknowledge that she hadn’t paid proper attention to the description she knew the police had since Nana was attacked. The blond hair might have been a dead giveaway, especially as—she also remembered—Nana had been at the bakery that day too. Of course, he had probably followed her from there, leaving his dessert unfinished in order to do so.

Why the hell had she been so stupidly insistent on judging the case as having nothing to do with her? That was a link, or even a speculation, she might have previously made and perhaps given the cops a name to hunt down.

“Mr. Neiman…it’s you?” she called out, hoping he wasn’t already shifting to a form that could not respond.

“Ah, so you recall our meeting. I must say I was slightly peeved to learn of your lack of credentials.”

“My lack of credentials? What do you mean?”

“Yes, when I was here last I noticed you do not have any formal baking qualifications. Some of the simple folk round here might not be smart enough to realize that but, for a learned man…well, I feel a bit defrauded.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Erin snapped. This man was truly bat-shit insane, but she needed to keep him talking. “Everyone loved the pie. Why do you need a formal qualification?”

“Indeed, the taste was good,” Neiman responded, “but an unsophisticated approach always leads to short cuts, which was what caused me to wonder what rogue ingredients you were using?”

“You bastard,” Erin shouted back, furious at the suggestion and forgetting her danger with the reputation of her bakery at stake. “I don’t use rogue ingredients. I have natural talent, and I’ve damn well poured my heart and soul into this place.”