Bear This Heat (A BBW Shifter Romance) (Last of the Shapeshifters) (8 page)

Then again, in the eighty years he’d lived, he’d seen much, much worse than a glass ceiling.

Dylan thought about going into the taped-off house, but decided against it for now. He wanted a better idea of what had gone on, and so looked at the neighboring houses to the left and the right. All low bungalows with wide, slatted roofs, they were designed to keep the cool air in and the hot air out, and so were probably quite airtight. But if somebody had left a window open, a neighbor perhaps, they might have heard something.

He went first to the house on the left, and knocked on the door. There was no answer, and so he tried again, this time banging harder. The door’s hinges were old, and he could hear the screws rattling.

“Coming,” he heard, followed by a raspy cough. The door opened, and he saw a woman standing there, in her nightie, with a cup of coffee in her hand that smelled strongly of whiskey. “Well, aren’t you dashing!”

“I’m with the police,” Dylan said. “Actually, I just got off shift, but they’ve sent me down here to clarify your statement.”

“Again?” the woman asked, tapping her feet. The smell of stale cigarette smoke wafted out from behind her.

“I just wanted to clarify, you said that this morning you saw a…” Dylan let his voice trail off, hoping the woman would answer for him.

“Yes?” she asked.

“I mean, it’s just, the boys at the station were a little unclear,” Dylan continued, trying again. “You didn’t hear anything?”

“No, I keep my windows shut up tight and locked.” She sniffed. “That woman detective this morning felt the need to remind me to do so.”

“So you really saw-” Dylan had been about to say ‘nothing’ when she cut him off.

“Yes, I did. Nobody believes me, but it’s the truth. It was huge. Bigger than any dog I’ve seen ever before. Then again, I’ve never seen a Great Dane.”

A smile broke over Dylan’s face. “I understand. Thank you very much, ma’am.”

“Would you like to come in for some coffee?”

Dylan looked at her cup, and then shook his head. “No, that’s quite alright. We, uh, can’t-”

“That’s right,” she said, cutting him off. “Can’t take anything.”

“That’s right, ma’am. Thank you again, you’ve been very helpful.”

“Tell you the truth,” the woman added. “It looked a bit like a wolf. Crazy, right? In the desert. Believe that?” She shut the door, and Dylan heard the sounds of three latches locking. Excitement thrilled through him. His instincts had been right.

He turned his gaze onto the crime scene. Just what the hell had the wolf shapeshifter done?

Dylan stepped back from the door, and walked back to the pavement. He looked up and down again, and shoved his hands into his pockets, thinking. The possibility that she had seen a shadow and then embellished her tale loomed. But that seemed unlikely, even after her whiskey-laced coffee. She didn’t strike him as someone dishonest or prone to embellishment. Anyway, if she did see a wolf, or ‘big dog’, it would fit with all the clues he’d had to go on so far.

Making his way to the cordoned-off house, he didn’t know what he expected to find, but he did realize that a part of him was holding back, stalling, because he didn’t want to discover that the wolf, the shapeshifter, the only other one of his kind that he had managed to track – possibly the only other one in existence – had done something horribly, horribly wrong.

Sighing, he ducked under the tape, and tested the front door’s knob, hand wrapped in the bottom of his t-shirt. It was unlocked. He opened it and stepped inside.

*

Sasha drove quickly to Charlie Kinnear’s house, hoping that her hunch would prove fruitful. She pulled into the driveway of a house a block away. She knew who lived there, and they wouldn’t be home for a few hours yet. She reclined her backrest so that she could see past the passenger-side seat, and pulled a pair of binoculars from the glove compartment. It was standard issue for every unmarked police car.

Peering up at old man Charlie’s house, she could see the bright yellow tape flapping loosely in the light breeze that there was. But the breeze wasn’t enough to keep her from sweating. Seated inside the car in an unsheltered driveway, it was sweltering. But she’d have to brave it, ignore it, if she wanted to catch Dylan Macready.

Taking a large sip from her water bottle, she wiped strands of straight almond hair from her eyes, and parted the hair that was sticking to her forehead. She wiped her upper lip, felt it slick with beads of perspiration, and then wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, thinking for a moment that if her sweat rolled down into her eyes, she was going to smudge her mascara and eyeliner.

Nearly half an hour passed and there was still no sign of Dylan. She tried to calculate how long it would take him, with long strides, to get here from where they had last spoke. Not more than thirty minutes, she should think, unless he took a break somewhere.

Or unless he wasn’t coming.

She decided that she would wait for an hour, and if he still didn’t turn up, she’d cruise around in blue five and look for him. Perhaps the superintendent was right. Maybe she should have just brought him in and sat on him for twenty-four hours to see what happened. Maybe the doctor would turn up with something.

But she couldn’t help keep doubts from creeping into her mind, infiltrating her senses. What if she had been too eager to guess as to what Dylan Macready would do? What if the bait she’d laid wasn’t nearly so tempting as she’d thought it was? But she couldn’t shake the feeling that he would. She was not entirely convinced of Dylan’s guilt, but she knew he was connected to the whole thing. That was for certain. And the old adage about returning to the scene of the crime? That was truer than most people knew.

Either way, he couldn’t have gone far. She knew if she needed to get him again she could just call it out on the radio and a uniform would pick him up. It felt odd to her that she was giving orders now. Just two days ago, she had been in a khaki-green uniform herself, with black boots and in a squad car that said in big red lettering ‘POLICE’ on the side.

Now she was ducked down in an unmarked car that was like an oven, with a pair of binoculars, looking at the house where a possible murder was committed. She wasn’t sure if she had really moved up in the world. At least she was getting paid more. Being on the job and in uniform was lower-middle hell.

But, when nearly forty minutes had passed, and Dylan still hadn’t turned up, she started wondering if she should pack it in. Sasha had always been the impulsive type. She trusted her instincts and believed in herself. She didn’t get to where she was today by playing it safe and not taking risks.

She reached for her radio, pressed down on the transmit button and took a breath to speak, and then she saw him, Dylan Macready, walking down the other end of Lester Street. She let go of the transmit button, heard the radio give off its static buzz, and then she trained her binoculars on the man.

He was walking slowly, staring at each house as he walked by, neck turned to the side so that a thick vein was visible, as well as the tendons that disappeared into his muscular shoulders. He obviously lived in the gym, and she pulled the binoculars down his body, for a moment forgetting that he was a potential murder suspect. He had a rockin’ bod. There was really no other way to put it.

Gathering herself, she looked again at his face, saw that hard handsomeness, the polar opposite to the kind of pretty boys she had used to like when she was younger. She couldn’t deny it to herself. If she wasn’t investigating him, she would definitely be interested.

And he had seemed interested in her, too, from the way he had looked at her, seemed to devour up her lines and curves, had smiled at her, first with curiosity, then with something akin to interest. She knew that she wasn’t particularly good at reading faces, and reading eyes, but he had definitely given off some vibes.

Sasha chided herself or letting her mind wander. Through the binoculars, she could see that Dylan had spotted the yellow tape now, and he was making a beeline straight for Charlie Kinnear’s house. He looked genuinely surprised, as though he hadn’t expected such a large crime scene, or any crime scene at all.

“Gotcha,” she whispered to herself as he started to duck under the yellow tape. But then he didn’t. He stopped, and instead looked at either house flanking old man Charlie’s.

“What are you doing?” Sasha murmured to herself. Dylan began to approach the house on the left, Sally Clark’s, the drunk’s.

She saw him knock on the door, and it seemed like a good a time as any to get a little closer. Easing herself out of the car, and shutting the door as quietly as she could, she actually felt cooler outside in the sun, which was something to think about. Sasha crouched down low and crept toward the crime scene, keeping herself as hidden as possible behind fences and other parked cars. She knew she must look a little ridiculous, but this was police work. Looking cool wasn’t always part of the package.

Crouched low behind a car parked on the street, she peeked around the edge of the boot, and saw Dylan walking toward old man Charlie’s house. He dipped beneath the yellow tape, wrapped his hand in his t-shirt, and went inside the unlocked house.

“I’ve got you now,” Sasha said to herself. But first, she’d pay Sally Clark a visit.

*

Dylan crept through the house, taking great care to touch nothing. Everything looked in order and undisturbed, and he was starting to wonder what the actual crime was. That wondering ceased when he entered the bedroom, and saw a pillow stained in blood. Shifting to the side of the bed, it was quite clear that whoever was hurt or died here was in bed at the time it happened. The pillow was still depressed, like a head had just been lying there, and that was no doubt due to the dried, clotted blood sticking the feathers together.

A spray of muddy red shot up the wall above the bed, and Dylan took in the grim sight with teeth clenched. This was horrible. Judging from the amount of blood, it was unlikely that anybody could have survived what happened.

What
had
happened? Who had lived here? He began to look around the room, searching for a photo frame that would hold some clue as to who all the blood belonged to, but he saw none. The man or woman who lived in this house was evidently not a fan of photographs.

Dylan stalked through all the rooms of the low-ceilinged bungalow, having to duck through doorways. There wasn’t much around, and the person who had lived here seemed to have no sentimental collections, bits and bobs that accumulated over time. The furniture was equally spare, with only a few dusty, cushioned seats, a single coffee table, a single dining table, and a single pot hanging above the stove.

Whoever lived here, and had possibly died here, led a frugal existence.

With his suspicions aroused, Dylan began to remove his clothing. First he pulled off his t-shirt, his muscular body beneath it taut and ever-ready for action. This was all too much to be coincidence. A wolf sighting, and then a gruesome murder scene? Even if it wasn’t murder, even if the poor sap hadn’t died, it was still gruesome enough, so seemingly out-of-place, that Dylan was already circling the probable answer in his mind, unwilling, yet, to make a definitive judgment.

Because that would mean his travels had all been for naught.

He unbuckled his jeans, and pulled them down his thick thighs. It was disappointing, to say the least. That the shapeshifter he’d been following, the only other one of his kind that he had ever caught the trail of, was responsible for this. Why had the wolf done this? What had this person been to the wolf?

Dylan quieted his mind, told himself that it wasn’t certain this was the wolf’s doing, yet. But that was just him not wanting to believe it. He knew that. His instincts told him this was the wolf. Instincts told him that the shapeshifter he had been chasing all this time might not be the companion he sought. This would be no friend.

And he was fairly certain, that should he ever find and meet the wolf, that it would offer him no answers.

Dylan removed his briefs then, and folded them up and put them on top of his jeans and t-shirt on the floor beside him. Standing completely naked, he was a huge and hulking figure, lean and long, in the middle of the barebones living room of the poor person who had bled all over their bed.

He crouched down, resting his elbows on the floor and putting his head in between them. Hair sprouted from his back, and his body jerked and jolted as it began to change, began to shift. Meat and muscle appeared from nowhere, and the slight stab of discomfort he felt was over in seconds.

In the middle of the living room was a bear now, a great big beast, with beady eyes and a heart-shaped nose. The bear huffed the air, pointed its nose upward, and sniffed.

Yes, Dylan thought. He could smell something. He followed the scent into the bedroom, and amidst the bitter smell of dried blood he was able to glean the odor of a canine. The wolf
had
been here. He was surer than ever of it.

The great beast padded back outside, and Dylan was careful not to leave scratches on the creaking wooden floor. His claws could cleave a thick branch in two, never mind aging wooden floorboards that needed a new waxing.

He shifted again, clumps of flesh and fur disappearing inward into his body. He felt that intense and potent pain again, blinked it away, and was back on his knees, head between his elbows, naked and sweating.

The shift was always a little difficult for Dylan. He didn’t know why, but there was always some pain, always some discomfort. It also required a lot of effort, like flexing a poorly trained muscle. He began to get dressed, the implications of his olfactory discovery oppressive and heavy.

He had definitely smelled canine, and it wasn’t the kind that a house pet leaves. There was something odd in the scent, something that his bear’s sense of smell hadn’t been able to process. But, even so, it was more than he had before. He sniffed the air again now, and wry smile visited his features when he couldn’t smell anything.