Hidden Crimes (6 page)

“Let me tell you what I saw right away,” she
said. “I don’t want to forget details.”

~

Nate let her go through the story once while
her memory was fresh, then took her out to the car. His digital
memo pad was there, and he wanted an audio record. He kept his arm
around her all the way down the stairs, her weight leaning on him
more heavily than he suspected she realized. Once she was settled
in the passenger seat, he dug out the micro-recorder and had her
repeat what she’d seen.

She was steadier now, her telling more
organized, though it didn’t change appreciably.

As she described what had happened in the
room, Nate ignored how cold the back of his neck had gotten. No
matter what he’d felt when he found the shoe, her story was
sufficient to chill his blood. “You sure you didn’t see the
doctors’ faces? Maybe their hair or eye color?”

She shook her head, her lips pursing in
frustration. “I know I should have tried. I
thought
I was
paying attention. The truth is, as soon as I saw the little boy,
all my focus went to him.”

“That’s natural,” he soothed, rubbing her
pants’ now-black knee. The floor of the blanket factory had been
filthy. She must have transferred the dirt with her hands. A pang
ran through him for getting that stain on her. “You noticed more
than a lot of pros would have.”

“Two of them looked Caucasian,” she said.
“The doctor who talked and the taller of the listening pair. The
third was shorter and a couple shades browner than you are, but I
couldn’t say precisely where his genes hailed from.”

“Did you get the impression they were
shifters?”

“I’d be guessing if I said
yes
. Their
bodies were human, not elfin or fae—at least not pureblood. I’d
have noticed pointy ears or that sparkly skin unmixed faeries
have.”

“That narrows it down some.”

“Not enough.” Evina shoved her hands through
her hair, forgetting it was braided. She stopped when her fingers
snagged. “What gets me is how matter of fact the head doctor was.
He wasn’t—” Her face twisted. “He wasn’t getting off on what they
did. He was businesslike. ‘He needs to die without violence,’ was
what he said, and it didn’t seem like it was out of
compassion.”

“A ritual maybe?” Nate suggested, though this
seemed like a long shot.

“The way they were dressed?” Evina shook her
head. “If a bunch of humans get into that black mass stuff, they
tend to wear silly costumes.”

Nate rubbed his lower lip, looking out the
Goblinati’s windshield into the night, trying to will useful
thoughts to form. The nearest streetlight was broken, the next
seeming far away. The clock on his dash clicked to 2:30. “You
couldn’t be mistaken about their victim being a shapeshifter? One
year old seems young to try to change, even as a fight or flight
response.”

“Weretigers first change around the time
they’re weaned. My son Rafiq learned to run on four feet long
before he walked on two. Other shifter races turn early too. Foxes
for one—not that I’m assuming the child was a werefox just because
of his shirt.”

Nate brought his gaze back to hers, the dark
car and the situation cocooning them. “That was a good detail. We
can run your description of the boy’s clothes and age through the
Missing Persons database. See if we get a hit.”

Evina shivered. Nate remembered the tailored
leather jacket in the back seat. The weather didn’t call for it,
but sometimes he needed to look sharp on short notice.

“It’s warm out,” she said when he shook it
out for her.

“Put it on anyway,” he advised. “If you were
one of your crew, you’d be ordering yourself to be checked out for
shock.”

“Low blow.” Smiling wryly, she swung the coat
around her shoulders.

Nate liked the look of his garment cloaking
her. To smell his scent mingling with hers satisfied him on a deep
level. Knowing this wasn’t wise, he clicked off the recorder and
slid his key into the ignition.

“I’ll drive you back to your car,” he said,
privately deciding he’d follow her home as well. “I’ll call you
tomorrow, if that’s okay with you. My boss will probably want to
talk to you in person.”

She nodded with her head turned away, lost in
her own musings. She had a surprisingly cute profile, her nose
turned up a bit at the end—like a kitten’s, he thought. Sensing she
didn’t want to talk anymore, Nate let her sit in silence for the
return trip to the grocery store.

~

Evina’s head was full of things she wished
weren’t in it. She wanted to be home that instant, her arms wrapped
around her kids. She wanted to drive to the hospital to hold
Christophe’s poor bandaged hand. If she could have swaddled
everyone she loved in industrial strength bubble wrap, she’d have
done it then.

The Holy Foods parking lot was emptier than
when they’d left. Nate was able to pull up beside her car.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said.

He laughed on a sardonic burst of air. The
response made her look at him. The store lights angled through the
windshield onto his face. He was incredibly handsome, his looks
illogically improved by the line of worry between his brows.

“Evina,” he said, “you shouldn’t be thanking
me.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have done it, but she
laid her palm on his hollowed cheek. The touch made him freeze,
then thrummed like etheric fire through his energy. She couldn’t
recall a man’s aura reacting to her like this. His eyes went darker
and his breathing quickened, the sound turning her soft and molten
between the legs.

The hint of stubble beneath her hand didn’t
discourage the steamy surge. Smooth-talker though he was, Nate
Rivera was all man.

“Evina,” he repeated in a much different
tone.

He leaned to her across the seats, his
fingers brushing an escaped curl back behind her ear. She
shivered—and not from cold. She knew her eyes had widened, and that
her breasts rose and fell too quickly to pretend she wasn’t
aroused. She couldn’t have said why he had this effect on her. She
might be out of practice, but she was no shy miss when it came to
dancing this tango.

Nate slid his hand around to cradle the back
of her head. “You have no idea how much I want to do this.”

He pressed his lips over hers. Their surface
was warm and soft, molding to hers so gently it seemed silly to
object. She didn’t want to object. She nuzzled closer to him and
moaned, her hands finding natural spots to rest on his chest. He
was hard there, as if he didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.

He turned his head just so and slipped his
tongue inside.

He tasted good, better than anything she
could have invented in her most torrid fantasy. His tongue stroked
hers, his cheeks pulling inward to suck sleekly. When she let her
mouth answer the way she wanted, he moaned for her. His head turned
again, opening her more. He kissed her harder and more
aggressively. Evina’s nails dug into his shirt like claws. He
gasped and started breathing like he’d been running flat out in
wolf form.

That idea was so perversely exciting she had
to push him away.

“Sorry,” he said, retreating immediately. “I
shouldn’t have done that.”

“I wasn’t telling you not to,” she pointed
out, rather breathless herself.

Nate eased back into his seat. “You were
overwrought. I—” He smoothed his hair around his head, his ponytail
ragged now. “I never should have dragged you into this.”

If there was one thing Evina hated, it was
being treated like she was weaker because she was female.

“You didn’t drag me into anything,” she bit
out. “Even if I weren’t a mother, I’m alpha just like you. It’s my
nature to want to protect children.”

He stared at her in shock. Her sense of
insult climbing, she unlatched her door and got out. “Call me at
work today. My shift starts at eleven. We’ll arrange a time for me
to meet your boss. Since you Oogled me, I assume you know what
station I work for.”

He shut his mouth. “I do,” he said. “I’ll
call you after eleven.”

She slammed the door, satisfied he’d gotten
the message that her spine had starch. Her anger steadied her,
allowing her to start her crotchety old converted Camry on the
first try. As empty as the lot was, she couldn’t fail to notice his
Goblinati trailing out of it behind her.

When he still rode her bumper after two
lights, she knew he intended to make sure she got home safely.

“Idiot,” she muttered to her rear view
mirror. Even as she did, a strange warm ache blossomed in her
chest.

She couldn’t remember the last time a man had
tried to look out for her.

NATE drove to work by himself in his
Goblinati. Most days the squad rode together in the response van,
but this morning they weren’t enough in synch. Nate had fallen into
bed and slept after he got home, though he couldn’t remember it. To
him, it felt like he’d opened his eyes a minute after he shut
them.

This might have been for the best, because
who knew what he’d dreamed about? The square steel room and the
creepy doctors? Evina’s delicious kiss? The fact that she was under
the impression he was alpha?

Nate had told her he had a boss. He’d assumed
she understood. How awkward would it be to explain he wasn’t in
charge of anyone?

Conscious that he was running late, even by
the squad’s loose standards, he made a coffee stop on the way.

When you weren’t the alpha, a caffeine
offering never hurt.

The detective squad room was located in the
bowels of the precinct house. Nate left a mocha grande on the
grateful watch sergeant’s desk, then trotted down the stairs with
the rest of his purchases. More than the usual bodies were in the
half beat-up, half high-tech room. The extras were uniforms, being
organized by Rick for the continuing pursuit of Ivan Galina.

“I’ll take that off your hands,” Tony
volunteered, neatly grabbing his cardboard tray of Star’s Brew and
scones. When it came to food, he and his brother Rick were known
for their hollow legs.

“Where’s Adam?” Nate asked, bemused by the
hive of activity.

“Office,” Tony said around the scone he’d
already dug out and stuck in his mouth. He chewed and smiled
brilliantly. “He’s requesting a search warrant. Vasili gave up the
location where he and Ivan dumped their last accountant.”

“You and Rick got a burial site out of
him?”

“We squeezed him good,” Tony crowed.

Despite his surprise—and maybe a tinge of
envy—Nate gave the side of Tony’s shoulder a congratulatory punch.
“I need to talk to Adam. I’ll catch up with you on this later.”

Their lieutenant rarely used his small
office, not wanting to establish a separation between him and his
men. Battered file cabinets took up most of the space. Room
remained for a desk and Adam’s landline phone, which he was talking
on. Despite the hum of noise outside, Adam hadn’t shut the door. He
set the receiver back in its cradle as Nate came in.

“You got a minute, Lieu?” he asked.

“Just.” Adam leaned back in his chair and
stretched. “This Galina thing is popping.”

Nate shut the door behind him, then set his
digital memo pad on the desk. Adam wasn’t one to waste breath on
pointless questions. His brows went up, but he tipped his chair
back to level and pressed the play button.

Nate had listened to Evina’s account of her
astral survey one last time on the drive over. Now he pulled an
uncomfortable guest chair closer and watched Adam’s reaction. It
wasn’t what he was hoping for. Though his superior listened
attentively, he didn’t seem bowled over.

“You took a civilian to a crime scene?” Adam
asked when the recording finished.

“Evina isn’t any civilian. She’s the station
fire chief for Company Number 5.”

“
Evina
,” Adam repeated.

Nate felt heat rise into his cheeks. “She’s
an acquaintance. We met at the grocery store.”

“And presumably she’s as young and pretty as
she sounds on this tape.”

“It wasn’t like that. We aren’t dating. She’s
a tigress.” Nate could see from his boss’s amused expression that
he was making this worse. “The department psychics were tied up,
and I thought this was too important to sit on. You have to admit
her debriefing is impressive. The pros we use aren’t always this
detailed.”

“Or this imaginative.” Adam’s elbows were on
his desk, his broad hands folded together before his mouth.
“There’s a reason cats aren’t suited to police work. They chase
shadows when nothing’s there.”

“And dogs chase cars,” Nate spat back
angrily.

“Fortunately for us cops, chasing cars is a
useful skill.”

“You can’t be suggesting we ignore this.”

“We can’t be sure what this woman saw.”

“She saw something awful! She’s a mother. You
should have seen how shaken up she was. Plus, I didn’t tell her
about the shoe I found. How could she have known this involved a
child if she was ‘chasing shadows’ like you say?”