Freakn' Cougar (3 page)

“Trust me. I’m kicking myself,” she muttered.

She might already regret her actions, but he didn’t. On the contrary, Stu found himself the most excited he ever recalled. Even more so than when he’d spent thirty-six hours outside Best Buy waiting for the release of the newest Black Ops game.

Forget a gaming mission. He was about to
live
a mission. Be the hero. And, if lucky, get the girl.

“Stu! Don’t make me drag you in by your long hair,” Naomi screeched.

He sighed.
Yeah, I’ll be a hero and get my cougar only if I can get away from my family.

It took another hour of explaining, more pie, a few cookies, and promises to keep them in the loop before Stu’s family let her leave with him. He, on the other hand, didn’t say much. He just sat back and watched Patricia. It should have creeped her out. Instead, Patricia found herself all too aware of him, and she didn’t like it one bit. Only once before had she felt that level of awareness, that electric shock of recognition. That hadn’t turned out well for her in the end. So this time, despite the urging of her cougar, she ignored it.

Not an easy task. Once she got Stu alone, she’d hoped to regain her equilibrium, but failed. Heck, she had to fight the urge to roll down all the windows and stick her head out the open space to suck in fresh air. It wasn’t that the guy in the backseat of her cruiser stank. On the contrary, Stu smelled good.
Really
good. Tempting. He also smelled like trouble.
Because if my nose is not mistaken and my cougar can be believed, then he’s my freakn’ mate.

Which was impossible.
I have a mate.
Make that had one. She’d buried him years ago after a motorcycle accident. She’d loved and lost and mourned Ryker. She’d gotten on with life, more or less, like any shifter did who lost the other half of their soul. She’d resigned herself to a future of dating and being the spinster at functions because everyone knew shifters only got one mate.

One.

No second chances.

So what did her racing heart, boiling blood, nose twitching, nipple tingling sensations for a guy young enough for her to have babysat while he was still in diapers mean? Okay, maybe not that much younger than her, probably only about ten years, but still.
He is not my mate.

Explain that, though, to her pacing cat, who prowled her mind insisting otherwise.

Tell that to the teasing scent of him that enveloped her and taunted her senses.

Point that out to her body, which roused with erotic interest, insidiously whispering to her that she should pull over and run her fingers through his hair, rub her lips along his, and ride him to a screaming climax the likes she’d not experienced since Ryker.

She gritted her teeth and kept her focus on the road and the task at hand. Get him to RCMP headquarters to book him. Then go home for a long, icy-cold shower.

“Run the plan by me again,” Stu asked from the backseat, the partition between them not enough to block his disturbing presence. “Maybe, this time, I can grasp all the finer details without my family adding its two cents and threats of violence every other sentence.”

“Speaking of which, what’s up with your brother Chris and his shower references? He does realize that kind of thing doesn’t usually happen, right?”

“Blame television,” Stu replied with a grin she caught in her rear-view mirror.

“It almost sounds like he wants you to get hurt.”

“Hurt? No. Embarrassed? Most definitely.”

“Your family is … different.”

His laughter washed over her in a warm wave. “How diplomatic. You can say it like it is, you know. They’re freakn’ nuts. Violent nuts. But I love ’em anyway.”

Having no clear recollection of her parents, Patricia couldn’t quite understand how one could survive in such a dysfunctional group and emerge sane, but having met most of the Graysons as a result of her relationship with Jiao, Chris’ mate, she wouldn’t deny the family was tight knit. And crazy. Most definitely crazy.

She returned their conversation to the task she’d originally set out to complete before getting side-tracked. “As I mentioned before, we’ve linked a series of shifter deaths in prisons.”

“No humans, eh?”

“It’s possible a few might have gotten killed. However, for simplicity, we’ve stuck to investigating only the shifter ones.”

“I take it they weren’t doing time for the same types of crime.”

“Nope. Their reasons for being there ranged from tax fraud to drugs to major theft. Nothing to link them. The ages of the victims range from early twenties to late thirties.”

“No old fogeys? Or are there not any old men in jail?”

“There are some, but we’ve ruled out the deaths of those as actual natural causes.”

“So explain to me again why the council thinks these deaths are murders. You said something about them being classed as accidents or suicides. Why the change of heart?”

“Because, on the surface, that’s how they appeared. But a few of the ones deemed suicide caused a stink with the families. They insisted their loved one would never take their own life. We began to take a closer look and found some disturbing patterns. For one, many of them had details fudged over in the reports.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“First-hand accounts of people who populated the cells around the victims and autopsy reports. Some of the families had drug panels done. They came up positive for a tranquilizing agent usually mixed with something else.”

Stu didn’t ask stupid questions such as how could inmates get drugs in prison. No matter how many protocols they put into place, the black-market thrived in the penitentiaries. Despite screening, drugs got into prisons. Loved ones brought them, prisoners found ways to have them smuggled in, guards could be bribed or were corrupt to start with. Where money was involved, illegal trade existed.

“Were they known drug users?” he queried.

She shook her head. “In most of the cases, it was a definite no. And, in all the cases, the drug that was found in their blood work was nowhere to be found in their cell.”

“It could have been stolen or moved.”

“Possibly. But the drug in question isn’t exactly high on the list of wanted substances.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t some munchy-inducing Mary Jane but something a little more obscure then?”

“Try Rohypnol.”

His reflection in the mirror showed his brows rising. “The date rape drug?”

“The one and only, which is the first oddity. As you can imagine, Rohypnol is not high on the list of smuggled contraband. Ecstasy, marijuana, and cocaine, yes, but a drug to drop someone into a comatose like state? Not so much.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Someone slips the guys a mickey in order to take advantage of them? How does that work?” Stu couldn’t hide the questioning note. “I mean guys need to
feel
to be able to perform or at least get a boner. Were they given Viagra too?”

“No.”

That left only one thing a sexual predator could do to a male. His butt clenched tight. “Did they at least use lube?”

“No. Despite the drug used, this isn’t a crime about sex. Which is what makes it so odd. I mean there are much better drugs out there to use to incapacitate a shifter. Like ketamine. Why use Rohypnol?”

“So after the guy is taken down, what happens next?”

“This is where it differs a little. We’ve come across three scenarios that seem to repeat with no specific pattern. In one, the shifter seems to commit suicide.”

“How can you
seem
to?”

“Because how many shifters do you know that would use a blade to cut their own wrists to bleed out?” Not to mention, most shifters didn’t usually kill themselves. Most who opted to end their lives did so in a violent fashion by going wild, literally, and finding the biggest predator around and engaging in a battle to the death. Their death. Of course, a prison would restrict them somewhat, but given the badasses populating them, easy enough to accomplish.

“The guys slit their wrists with, let me guess, a blade that can’t be found?”

“You got it.”

“Why use a blade when we have teeth?”

“Another sticky point.”

“Didn’t the people investigating wonder why they couldn’t find the weapon?”

“Weapons never stick around in prison. Everyone always assumes someone else scooped it.”

“What’s the second scenario?”

“Garrotte.”

“As in choke themselves to death with what? A sock?”

She hesitated saying it aloud because even to her, who’d read the reports, it sounded ridiculous. But Stu was waiting. “Underpants.”

To his credit, he didn’t outright laugh, but he sound incredulous when he said, “Seriously?”

She bobbed her head.

“Unfreakn’ believable.” He couldn’t help his sarcasm from showing through when he added, “Let me guess, those are usually missing too?”

“No. But they don’t belong to the prisoner either.”

“Geez, this is getting weird.”

“No, this is weird. The third accidental deaths are drowning.”

“How does someone drown in a cell?” He no sooner asked than he uttered, “Oh.
Ooooh.
” He blew out a breath. “The ultimate swirly. What a rotten way to go.”

“No kidding. But, again, not totally unheard of if someone is desperate enough to die. Thing is, none of these shifters showed signs of depression, no warning signs at all.”

“Not to mention the drug in their system would have rendered them virtually comatose. So the question is, how did they manage to do it?” Stu sat back in the seat, and his face took on a pensive expression as he mulled the information.

She continued to talk. “The prison officials took the easy route of declaring them suicides, but once we began to notice a pattern emerging, especially the shifter link, and once the evidence of Rohypnol was discovered, the shifter council put together a task force.”

“According to what you said before, I’m not the only one going undercover. There are others.”

“The pattern seems to be the perp infiltrates the prison, kills off all the shifters serving time, then moves on to the next prison. Since each prison has, so far, only been hit once, they’ve assigned six officers in provinces across Canada to go undercover in the federal pens that have so far remained untouched.”

“Who’s organizing this investigation? The shifters council or the RCMP? Because I thought you said the humans didn’t suspect a thing.”

“They don’t. But the council pulled a few strings, and I’m going undercover for the RCMP under the guise of looking for drugs. It’s also how we’re getting you in there.”

“So we’re going on a fake mission, undercover, to uncover a real crime.”

“Um, exactly. I think.”

He grinned. “Cool. So what’s your secret identity? My hot girlfriend who visits me? We can exchange secrets in the conjugal trailer. Or will you be the warden who calls me in for personal one-on-one punishment?”

“Dream on, wolfboy. My role will be that of prison guard. Bitchy prison guard,” she added with a smirk.

“That doesn’t sound too safe. Federal pens are where the worst of the worst go.”

Just like a man to doubt her skills and training. “I can take care of myself. I have a baton, and I know how to use it.”

“I’m sure you do.”

The innuendo wasn’t lost on her, and for a moment, their eyes met in the mirror, and a bolt of pure lust hit her, right between the legs. Her body temperature rose, moisture pooled, her womb clenched—

She tore her gaze away and focused on the road. “We’ve got someone reworking the prison guard schedule. I’ll be transferring in under an alias a day or so after your arrival.”

“You mean you’re throwing me to the lions alone.”

“Not entirely. I did mention you’d have a roommate.”

“Another cop?”

“Oh no. This guy’s a criminal. Badass through and through, or so I’ve heard.”

“How reassuring.”

“Actually, I should have phrased that as, he was a badass. He’s reformed now supposedly. Saw the light and all that. Currently he works helping juveniles to get out of gangs and off the streets.”

“Sounds like a saint. He a hacker too?”

“No. Think of him as muscle. Part of his job, other than making friends with the more unsavory elements, is to keep your lily-white ass safe from those who might be tempted to see what it looks like when you do bend over to grab that bar of soap.”

“Oh, no, please don’t tell me he’s going to be my—”

She laughed. “Ricky, short for Ricardo, is your new cell-mate boyfriend.”

“I am never going to live this down,” Stu muttered.

They talked the remaining few minutes of the ride, just more of the basics on what she knew and what they wanted him to do. Basically, dig around and see what he could find without getting caught.

In no time at all, she had him booked and jailed. As another officer led him away, she couldn’t help but watch and thus caught the panicked look tossed over his shoulder. Despite his bravado in the backseat of her cruiser, he obviously had his doubts.

She almost called the whole thing off then and there. How could she let him walk into danger? He was a civilian. An innocent. She should be protecting him from criminals, not thrusting him among them. She bit her tongue and turned away.

Since when did she give a damn? Stu was no different than any other person conscripted to help on a tough case. Then why could she not stop thinking of him alone in his cell?
You know why,
her cat seemed to say, circling in her mind, agitated in a way she’d not seen in years.

While Stu got introduced to his new home, she tried to wrap her mind around the fact that her body and cougar seemed convinced he was her mate.

No way.

Sure, she found him cute, and even if he was younger than her, attractive and eminently doable, but no way would she open herself up to the kind of pain she’d gone through when Ryker died. Losing her mate, the love of her life, had hurt. It hurt so freakn’ bad. She’d thought she’d die of the loneliness and heartache. She’d vowed to never let another man, anyone really for that matter, get that close to her again. Why bother caring? In the end, it would only lead to pain. It was why she kept herself aloof from everyone. Never let anyone get too close. The only exception was Jiao and her brother. Their plight and horrifying story touched her. She couldn’t help but come to their rescue and keep them out of harm’s way, recognizing kindred spirits who’d borne too much trauma in their young lives already. Everyone else though? They only ever scratched the surface.