C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN
“L
ook at me.”
MacDermot lifted her head, one eye managing to open, the other swollen shut.
“What do you think?” she asked. “Think makeup will cover it?”
“Although I’ve always found lion males inherently stupid, I’m pretty sure that even Mace Llewellyn’s gonna notice this.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Crush tipped her head back a bit with one hand and carefully placed the ice pack on the swollen side of her face with the other.
“Ow,” she complained.
“You should have decked the bitch when you had the chance,” he reminded her.
“Gentry hates when I do that.”
Crush took her hand and placed it over the pack so she could hold it in place herself. Once he had her set, he sat down in the chair next to hers. “Why are we here?”
“Evil taxidermist.”
“And how do we know he’s evil?”
“Lots of reasons, but most important is the Smith sixth sense in play. Any time Dee-Ann Smith says, ‘Somethin’ ain’t right,’ something is usually not right.”
“This is my life now? Really? Listening to hillbilly She-wolves and their hillbilly gut reactions?”
“Her hillbilly gut reactions have saved my ass more than once. Suck it up.”
“And Martin’s sons?”
“Those idiots aren’t going anywhere without their mother. We’ll get them.”
Before Crush could argue that point, the front doors to the Group offices opened and the hillbilly with the sensitive gut walked in. And right behind her was Ulrich Van Holtz. It was strange enough that the Carnivore goalie, known as The Gentleman, was also the owner and captain of the same team. That was normally unheard of. But the fact that Van Holtz was also in charge of the Manhattan division of the Group pretty much blew Crush’s mind.
Then again, the Group’s offices had completely confused him in general. He’d kind of expected either a back alley or, at the very least, a cold, sterile federal or state type office. Instead, the Group’s office reminded Crush of those high-end advertising agencies with comfortable leather seats and fancy art on the brightly colored walls. Although, he could tell that was just the front of the building, the first place one saw. Watching staffers having to punch in codes to get into the next level reminded him this was nothing like an advertising agency.
“Sorry we’re late,” Van Holtz said when he walked into the reception area, but he stopped, eyes blinking wide as he gazed down at MacDermot.
“Desiree! What happened?”
“I’m okay. Really.” She pulled the ice pack down. “You don’t think this will freak Mace out too much, do you?”
Smith stepped past Van Holtz and studied the full-human’s face for a moment. “Well ... it was nice working with you.”
MacDermot cringed, then immediately regretted making that face and quickly returned the ice pack to her face.
“He’ll just have to understand,” MacDermot muttered. “He’ll have to get over it. I’m not giving up my job over one incident.”
“A good number of those words ... not in a cat’s vocabulary, darlin’.” Smith patted her shoulder. “I got something that can help with that swelling, though,” the She-wolf offered, but MacDermot immediately pushed herself into Crush’s side.
“You keep your wacky Southern voodoo away from me.”
“Tennessee Smiths don’t do voodoo, Desiree. We leave that to our Louisiana kin. Besides, it’ll help.”
“I don’t care what you tell me it does, forget it, Dee. No way.”
Smith looked them over and said, “Not sure you should be cuddling up to the bear that way, Desiree. Don’t think Malone will like it much.”
Crush looked around. “Wait ... what?”
“I’m not cuddling up to anybody. I’m just avoiding you and your witchcraft. And why the hell would Cella care who I cuddle up with?”
“Heard they’re together now. Ain’t that right, bear?”
“It’s not ... it’s just ... it’s kind of ...” God! He’d known this was just going to be wacky! He hated wacky!
The She-wolf leaned down to see his face. “What’s the matter, son? Cat got your tongue ... and other parts?” she finished on a whisper.
Crush glared at the female, wondering how disgusted he’d be with himself if he slapped around a She-wolf for no other reason than she was getting on his nerves. But then he sensed something flying at him. He raised his arms to protect himself, but a feline landed in his lap, big grin on her face.
“Hi!”
Crush scowled at Malone. “You. You’re making my life a misery!”
“What kind of reaction is that? How can you be my pretend boyfriend if you’re going to be a dick all the time?”
“So you
are
Cella’s boyfriend?” MacDermot asked.
“No. I am not.”
“Pretend boyfriend,” Malone corrected. “He’s my
pretend
boyfriend.”
“And what is that exactly?”
“It is what it sounds like.”
“ ‘It is what it sounds like?’ ” MacDermot repeated back at her. “You mean ridiculous?”
“You know, I don’t need the tone.”
As frustrated as Crush, MacDermot lowered the ice pack to her lap and snapped, “You need something all right. Therapy ... a real boyfriend. Something.”
Malone’s eyes grew wide at the sight of MacDermot’s face. “God, Dez! What happened to your face?”
“An angry and high on cocaine-infused honey sow decked me.”
Malone and the two wolves leaned in to get a closer look.
“You were hit in the face by a sow?” Malone asked. “Are you sure?”
“Of course, I’m sure. I know what came swinging at me and it was definitely her fist.”
“But by a sow? I mean honestly, sweetie, you’d be better off getting hit by a building.”
“And she was high?” Smith shook her head. “Damn, girl.”
“It’s really not that big a deal.”
“Well, what did the doctor say?” Malone asked, showing real concern for once for someone other than herself. It was a nice change.
“I didn’t go to the doctor.”
Malone punched Crush’s shoulder and ...
ow
. “You didn’t take her to the doctor?”
“I didn’t need to go to the doctor,” MacDermot cut in, getting defensive.
“You were unconscious and you didn’t go to the doctor?”
“I wasn’t unconscious. I didn’t even black out.”
Malone and the She-wolf blinked in surprise. “Wow,” they both said together.
“Okay,” MacDermot sighed. “Now you guys are just making fun of me.”
“No, we’re not. You were hit by a She-bear.”
“And you’re full-human.”
“So?”
“Look, look at this.” Malone pulled her cell phone out of her sweatpants pocket.
“Don’t show her that,” Smith nearly begged, her gaze moving up to the ceiling.
“Look what happened to this guy who had a run-in with a not-high, black bear sow ... which is way smaller than a grizzly, and the grizzly who did this to you
was
startled.”
MacDermot took one look at the picture, squealed, and quickly slapped the phone out of Malone’s hand. “
What the fuck are you showing me that for?
”
Crush was kind of wondering the same thing.
He also wondered if all that bear talk had conjured up its own set of problems when the perky fox admin said from the front desk, “Mr. Van Holtz? There are two grizzlies outside. They’re asking me to buzz them in.”
“They’re not ours?”
“No, sir.”
MacDermot walked around to the other side of the admin’s desk and looked at the fox’s computer screen. With her one open eye, MacDermot studied whoever was at the front door. “Nope. They’re not ours.”
Van Holtz nodded. “Let them in, Charlene.”
“Yes, sir.”
He pointed at Malone and Smith. “And you two, don’t start anything.”
“Even if they deserve it?”
“Dee-Ann ...”
The two grizzlies walked through the door, the taller one smiling at Van Holtz.
“Mr. Van Holtz?”
“Yes.”
“Hello. I’m ...” The grizzly caught sight of Crush, his words trailing off. Their gazes locked and clashed, and the grizzly’s lip curled. He recognized Crush and not merely as a fellow bear.
Cella didn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t for Crushek to suddenly stand up, place Cella on her feet, and then snarl at the grizzlies, “What? You got something to say?”
Suddenly all those proper bear manners went out the window and the grizzlies were moving toward the polar, and Crush was moving around Van Holtz, going head-to-head with these two assholes. But before any of that could happen, Smith stepped between them all, facing the grizzlies, one side of her mouth lifting into a slight and rather scary smile.
The grizzlies stopped, refusing to go any closer, not surprising considering Smith’s past history with BPC.
“Why don’t you gentlemen sit,” Charlene, the admin, said, running over and offering chairs near the door, her smile wide. “Mr. Van Holtz has a meeting scheduled right now, but he’ll be back as soon as he’s done. Okay?” Without waiting for an answer, she offered, “Would you gentlemen like something to drink? Coffee, tea, or some honey?”
Smith sucked her tongue against her teeth. “That Charlene,” she teasingly complained about the admin, “always ruinin’ my fun.”
C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN
T
hey all headed toward Van Holtz’s office, the BPC grizzlies left behind to seethe. As they came around the corner, Cella realized that Crush wasn’t with them. She stopped and retraced her steps, finding the bear standing outside the game room where many of the Group’s rescued hybrid teens hung out. He stood there, staring in and she stood next to him.
“You okay?” she asked when he didn’t say anything. “What was the deal with those bears?”
“That was nothing.” Crush pointed at the window and quickly changed the subject, which made her think whatever had happened between him and the grizzlies was not “nothing.”
“Why are there kids here?” he asked.
It was his tone that made her concerned, but she still didn’t know if that tone was due strictly to the BPC reps or not.
“Smith found them on the streets,” Cella explained. “She brought them in.”
“Why didn’t she turn them over to CPS?”
“Child Services had most of them and lost them. All these kids are runners. Dee-Ann”—she kind of hoped using the She-wolf’s first name would loosen him up a bit—“was just trying to help out by bringing them in.”
“Helping them or helping the Group? Are you people training them as agents?”
He sounded so accusatory, Cella felt her hackles go up.
“
I’m
not training them to do anything. At all. This is Dee’s deal, not mine. I’m not even in the Group.”
The bear faced her. “What do you mean you’re not in the Group?”
“I mean I’m not in the Group.”
“Then what the hell are you doing here?”
“Can’t I just come to see you?” When his expression grew impossibly darker, she quickly said, “I’m kidding. I swear I’m kidding. I’m just here to represent KZS as per Van Holtz’s request. So don’t worry, I’m not stalking you if that’s—”
“Wait,” he cut in. “You’re KZS?”
“Yeah. I didn’t tell you that? I could have sworn I told you that.”
“No. You never told me that.”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “Oops.”
“Oops? That’s all you can say?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing.” He walked around her and headed off down the hall.
Cella followed Crush, catching up to him as he stood in the hallway trying to figure out the way to Van Holtz’s office.
“Okay, what’s the problem, Crushek?”
“You’re in KZS.”
“Yes. I just said that.”
“So you’re basically a well-trained assassin who can handle herself in any situation.”
“There’s no basically about it.” When his eyes narrowed, she explained, “Look, you’re either one of four things at KZS: management, administrative, clean-up, contractor. I’m a contractor.” A good one, too, known for her long-distance taps.
But Cella could tell by the look on the bear’s face that he was absolutely horrified about what she did, about who she was, and she felt really insulted by that!
“Oh, whatever.” She brushed past him and headed to Van Holtz’s office, the bear right behind her. She opened the door and stepped in, dropping into a seat on the far side of the room—away from all judgmental bears.
“Everything all right?” Van Holtz asked, his gaze moving back and forth between Cella and the bear.
When the pair did nothing more than nod, he went ahead and got started.
Crush was impressed with how things were run between the three organizations. They worked together, concentrated on each other’s strengths rather than what they couldn’t do, and helped to keep each group honest.
So Crush wasn’t really surprised that BPC wasn’t a part of this meeting. Peg Baissier, with her title of “Chief Technical Advisor” had been running BPC since 1762 ... at least that’s how it felt to Crush. And she was a sow who liked her control. She definitely didn’t believe in sharing it. And to share anything with any other species besides bear she considered treachery. She didn’t announce that last part to the tri-state bear populace she and her people were supposed to be protecting because lots of bears worked for lots of different people. But Crush knew for a fact that’s what she believed.
He also knew she was an evil bitch, which was why he stayed away from her.
Yet Crush wasn’t really thinking about Peg Baissier as he listened to, and approved of, what was being said around him. Instead, he found his gaze straying constantly over to Malone. She pretended to ignore him, but he knew he’d pissed her off. But he couldn’t help it. He’d thought she was just some dingbat hockey player, not part of KZS. If she was KZS that meant she was trained in nearly every form of hand-to-hand combat, most weapons, and foreign languages and cultures. She would be well traveled and highly intelligent. And Crush knew this because KZS was the one organization that Baissier kept her distance from. She’d take them on if necessary, but it was never her favorite plan.
And yet, this woman, this
feline
, who said she was a KZS “contractor”—read “killer”—also said she needed Crush to be her “pretend boyfriend” because she couldn’t seem to control her own elderly aunts that she might have to beat up?
Huh? What?
“Detective Crushek?”
Crush looked up, realizing that everyone was staring at him. “Yes?”
Van Holtz handed him a picture. “Do you know him?”
He took the picture, glanced at it, nodded. “Yep. I know him. You know him, too, MacDermot.”
“I do?” MacDermot took the picture, glanced at it, and handed it back to Van Holtz. “Oh, yeah. Wow. He looks kind of different. Real cleaned up.” She nodded. “Yeah. We know him.”
The room fell silent until Malone barked, “And?”
“And what?”
Malone began to say something else, but the She-wolf placed her hand against her shoulder and Van Holtz asked, “And who is he?”
“Oh. Frankie Whitlan. Frankie the Rat. Frankie the Snitch. Frankie the Talker.”
“Big Dick Frankie,” Crush tossed in.
“Oh, my God,” Malone said to Smith. “Now there are two of them.”
Van Holtz raised his hand to calm the two females and said to Crush, “Detective, perhaps you can tell us something about this man. I assume he was some kind of informant.”
“He was a scumbag.”
“And a lot of cops used him. Some got their gold shields because of Frankie.”
“So,” Malone asked, “he’s a scumbag because he ratted on his criminal friends?”
“No. He’s a scumbag because he played both sides of the fence.”
“Crushek’s right. There were rumors that he only ratted out the guys in his way. Don’t let his nicknames fool you. Frankie Whitlan was a murdering motherfucker. He ran a massive drug ring and I think gun running—”
“But he started in gambling. Was a leg breaker for bookies in the Bronx.”
“Then ten years ago ... gone.”
“We figured either he’d been hit and dumped or—”
“Federal protection. The timing was interesting because we were trying to take him down for the murder of a stock market analyst and his entire family, including three kids. The rumor was he’d done it himself, which was rare because he usually had someone else do his killing for him.”
“But if he’s in federal protection, why is he back?” Smith asked. “Seems kind of stupid.”
“Hard to leave the life. Lot of those mob guys find their way back to their old neighborhoods just because they miss their favorite pizza place.”
“Yeah, but why is he hanging out with the taxidermist Smith found?” Malone asked. “He was missing his favorite taxidermist?”
Van Holtz nodded. “She has a point.”
“Let me see what I can find out,” Crush offered. “Some guys I know.”
“Some guys you know ... what?” Malone pushed.
“Some guys I know. Don’t harass me.”
“
Harass
—”
“All right then,” Van Holtz cut in. “I think that’s enough for tonight. I’m sure Desiree would like to go home and take some much needed migraine meds.”
“I appreciate that.” MacDermot stood. “Because the worst part? I feel like I have to blow my nose. I can’t express to you how that’s the last thing I ever want to do.”
“Come on, darlin’.” Smith put her arm around MacDermot. “Let me get you home.”
They all filed out into the hallway, Malone silently following Smith and MacDermot.
“I guess this is a little strange for you, isn’t it, Detective?” Van Holtz asked as they walked back to the front office.
“Just new. I don’t like change.”
“I understand that. It was strange for Dez in the beginning, too.”
He watched as MacDermot stopped in front of that big glass window Crush had looked through earlier, the one with all the kids behind it, and waved. After a few moments, a hybrid girl came out the door. She was a bear hybrid, probably mixed with canine. Nearly six-four, she had a very young face, but way more scars on her arms and neck than anyone that age should have.
Eyes wide, she gazed down at poor MacDermot’s face. “What happened?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” MacDermot teased. “Apparently, I’m tough like that.” Laughing, the pair hugged, then the girl hugged Smith and finally Malone.
“How’s it been going?” MacDermot asked the girl.
“Eh.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Finally, Crush knew he had to find out more about what was going on here. It was driving him nuts. “Who are these kids?” he asked Van Holtz, his voice low.
Crush thought there might be some backpedaling or bullshit. There wasn’t.
“Hybrids,” Van Holtz immediately replied. “They didn’t have homes and it’s hard for them to mainstream into full-human society, so we take them in. That’s Hannah,” he said, glancing at the bear hybrid. “She’s been with us for a bit now.” He leaned in, lowered his voice even more. “Dee-Ann and Blayne rescued her from a dogfighting ring.”
Horrified the girl had been used that way, Crush still had to ask, “Did you recruit her?”
Van Holtz shook his head. “After what she and some of these other kids have been through? No. Although, they have the option to join us when they’re twenty-one. But not before then. We’re just giving them a place to crash, an education, and some options. Everyone deserves options.”
“But shouldn’t you be helping them mainstream?”
“Well—”
A good-sized shaggy-haired dog ran out into the hallway, spun in circles for several seconds, and shot off.
“That was Abby.”
“Does she always run around as—”
“Yes. She also begs for food, scratches at the door to be let in or out, and snaps at flies, which is always entertaining. But we’re working on her.”
“Hey,” Smith reminded them. “We left them BPC bears sittin’ up front. Not sure we want little Abby around them.”
Hannah sighed. Deeply. “I better go get her.”
“If Abby gets on your nerves, Hannah, why do you watch out for her?” Van Holtz asked with a small smile.
“One word,” she replied. “Blayne.”
“Can’t handle the sobbing?”
“Can you?”
The girl had a point. Crush knew he couldn’t handle it.
Hannah started off, but Abby suddenly returned. Sliding into the middle of the hallway, she barked and barked, then ran back the way she’d come.
Knowing a panicked bark when he heard one, Crush didn’t think twice before going after the girl and everyone else. But the naked, blood-covered male lion in the middle of the reception area did take him by surprise, though.
Cella stopped when she saw the naked, blood-covered male stretched out on the floor. Her gaze went to Charlene. “What the hell?
“He’s been shot,” Charlene told them. “A couple of times.”
“Charlene,” Van Holtz ordered, “call Dr. Hayes. He’s probably on the medical floor.”
Crouching on one side of the lion’s body, with Smith on the other, Cella reached over and pushed his still-growing mane out of his face. “Oh, shit.”
“You know him?” Smith asked.
“Mikey Callahan. His ma’s gonna lose her mind.”
Gold eyes opened and looked into Cella’s face. “Cella.”
“Baby boy, what happened?”
“Bad day.”
“He’s with KZS?” Smith asked.
“No. I’ll explain later.”
“He’s been hunted,” one of the grizzlies said.
Cella glanced up. She’d forgotten all about the BPC grizzlies. “How do you know that?”
He crouched beside her, pointed at Mikey’s bicep. “Here you can see he was given a drug to keep him lion. Look at his neck. He was chained while human, then forced to shift.”