Prey (Copper Mesa Eagles Book 2) (6 page)

“I’m gonna slow you down,” she warned.

He grinned and shrugged.

“Go,” he said.

They took off, Katrina running at top speed and Zach jogging along beside her. The cop car was still on the rise across the parking lot, its lights still flashing, but the two cops were nowhere to be seen.

At last they reached the hedge. Katrina was breathing hard, one hand on her chest.

“This is not a good running outfit at all,” she muttered. “Wrong shoes, wrong
bra
.”

Zach peeked out, but the only thing moving were the lights on the cop car. The door they’d left through was still open.

We should have closed that
, he thought.
They’re going to know where we went
.

Katrina was tugging at his arm again, her flushed face below his.

“C’mon,” she said. “We’re not home free just yet.”

Staying close to the hedge, they darted through the copse of trees and up the hill. Despite himself, Zach started grinning, almost laughing.

 
I can’t believe we’re doing this
, he thought.
I feel like a teenager trying to avoid getting grounded.

It’s kind of great.

Then they ran over the crest of the little hill. All that was between them and the car was the chain-link fence, and Zach figured that at worst, they could climb that.

Parked right behind his ugly, old Escort was a second police car. Katrina slammed to a stop and Zach nearly knocked her over, taking her shoulder in one hand.

The cop peering into his car’s windows with a flashlight looked up, and in a second, the bright light was on them. Zach turned his head and shaded his eyes.

“Shit!” hissed Katrina.

“Hey!” shouted the cop.

Zach looked behind him, back at the copse of trees, the hedge, and the hotel.

We could run back
, he thought wildly.

“Were you two in the old Grant property?” the cop asked.

Neither of them answered. The door they’d left the hotel through slammed open, and the other two cops came out, flashlights blazing ahead of them.

“Shit,” Katrina muttered again.

The cop next to their car just sighed.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s get you out from behind that fence. This your car?”

Zach nodded.

* * *

The walk to the gate in the fence, then all the way back to Zach’s car, was dead quiet. The two cops who’d gone through the hotel gave them a quick pat down but didn’t handcuff either of them, just walked sternly behind Zach and Katrina as they trudged back down the road.

Zach was terrified. Not for himself, but for Katrina. He didn’t have much in the world, so it didn’t matter if he lost it — but
she
had a job and an apartment. If she got arrested and charged, she could probably be fired, or at the very least, she’d have a hard time getting a promotion.

I can’t believe I went along with this
, Zach thought.
This isn’t how you treat women. You buy them dinner and then do normal, safe things with them. You don’t go trespassing.

Fuck
.

“You the only two in there?” the third cop asked when they finally reached him. He seemed more amused than the other two cops.

Probably because he didn’t have to search for us in an old, creepy hotel
, Zach thought.

“Yes,” muttered Katrina.

“Didn’t hear anybody else in there,” one of the cops behind them said. They seemed subordinate to the cop who’d been by the car.

“You two got IDs?” Car cop asked.

Without speaking, Zach and Katrina took out their driver’s licenses and handed them over. The cop looked at them for a second, then shined the flashlight in their faces again.

“How about real IDs?” he asked.

“What?” Katrina said.

“These say you were born in 1988,” he said, very patiently.

Zach and Katrina just stared at him, not understanding where this was going.

“I was,” Zach said at last. He just needed to break the silence.

The officer frowned.

“Tell me your birthdates,” the cop said.

“February twelfth,” Katrina said.

“March third,” Zach said.

“Who’s your favorite Power Ranger?” the cop asked.

“Kimberley. The pink one,” Katrina said instantly.

Zach frowned. Television reception in Obsidian had been nonexistent, so he hadn’t developed much of an opinion on Power Rangers.

“Blue?” he finally said, hoping he was right.

This seemed to satisfy the cop, though Zach wasn’t really sure why. The cop examined the licenses very, very closely. He flipped them back and forth examining the patterns on them.

At last, he shrugged.

“Want to tell me what you’re doing here?” he asked.

Zach opened his mouth to say
I brought her, this is my fault
, but Katrina spoke up first.

“I wanted to show him the view,” she said. “It’s really pretty from the roof when there’s a full moon.”

“You can get a view of the lake from lots of legal places,” the cop pointed out.

“Not as good as this one,” she said.

He gave her a hard look, and Zach had the wild urge to punch the guy, then grab Katrina and
run
. Anything to protect her.

It was stupid, of course. There were three cops and they all had guns, so he forced that urge deep down inside himself, grinding his teeth.

“So you won’t mind if we search your car?”

Zach shook his head. He wasn’t crazy about the idea, but if it got them out of there, so be it.

“Go nuts,” he said.

They stood together on the side of the road while the cops went through Zach’s old car, pulling out the blankets and granola bars he kept in the trunk just in case he broke down somewhere bad.

“I’m sorry,” Katrina whispered.

“It’s okay,” Zach whispered back. “I had a really good time anyway.”

She looked up at him, blue eyes shining in the moonlight.

“Really?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “I just hope this turns out okay for you.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m worried about you.”

Zach felt warm and squishy in the middle.

“I’ll be fine too,” he said. “We should do this again.”

“This?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“You know what I mean,” he said.

Before he could go on, one of the cops who’d followed them through the hotel came over. He had two yellow pieces of paper in his hands, and gave one to each of them.

It was a ticket.

Zach’s heart soared, and Katrina looked at it quickly, then looked from Zach to the cop.

“A ticket?” she asked.

“We’re going easy this time,” he said. “We didn’t find any drugs, so we’re letting you off with a trespassing ticket and a warning. Next time you get charged.”

Zach kept his face as straight as he could, even though he almost wanted to kiss the man.
Almost.

“Thank you,” he said.

Katrina nodded.

“Next time, canoodle in your own home,” the cop said, still not finished talking. “It’s not like you’re teenagers or something.”

“We’re sorry,” Katrina said instantly.

“Really sorry,” Zach said, barely able to contain his glee.

The cop nodded once, then walked back to his own car.

Zach and Katrina barely made it into the Escort before bursting into amazed laughter.

Chapter Six

Katrina

When Katrina’s alarm went off the next morning, she groaned and pulled her fluffy white comforter over her head, only extending one hand from her bed to bat at the clock.

It was no use. She was already awake, her
lovely
dream cut short.

Zach had been in it, of course. They’d been on her couch, pretending to watch some movie on her television, and he’d
just
unbuttoned her dress.

Staring up at the comforter over her head, Katrina made a face.

I should have invited him up last night
, she thought.
He’s not the kind of guy who won’t call you back when you give it up on the first date.

Still, though. A lifetime of hearing
good girls don’t
from basically everyone she knew had taken its toll, and now she was alone in her bed, having pathetic sex dreams about a guy she’d just met. Katrina didn’t even think of herself as a particularly good girl — she sure wasn’t a virgin — but, no matter how badly she wanted Zach, she hadn’t been able to invite him up last night.

She blew air out of her lungs, puffing up her cheeks, then tossed the comforter aside, swinging her legs onto the floor. Her whole apartment was a kind of controlled chaos. She had a lot of things in piles, but she knew what was
in
each pile, and each pile had a specific home.

It wasn’t organized. Katrina would have never claimed
that
, but she more or less knew where everything was. Most of the time.

She pulled on her flannel bathrobe and padded to the kitchen in her slippers, turning on the kettle for tea. As she waited, she checked her phone.

The home screen was chock full of texts and emails, and she smiled when she saw who they were from.

The night before, she’d barely unlocked her front door when Zach had texted her:
Are you free Sunday night?

Yes
, she’d texted back.

Now he’d already texted her that morning:
Can’t wait until tomorrow night
.

Katrina grinned at her empty kitchen, a slow warmth flooding through her body.

Along with it came just a
hint
of guilt, but she tried to get that out of her head. Just because she’d met him on a weird mission from her boss didn’t mean she didn’t
like
him. Maybe this was a good thing: if they hadn’t been specifically seeking out Zachary Monson, Katrina would never have met him.

Plus, Pete had sworn again and again that he just wanted to get the guy into the MutiGen offices. Katrina had a sneaking suspicion that they were going to try to get his DNA somehow —
 
a hair shed onto a chair, saliva left on a water glass — and she wasn’t a big fan of that, but it wasn’t like it would
hurt
Zach.

Besides, once they had it, she could do her best to get rid of it. She couldn’t talk her boss out of something he wouldn’t even admit he was going to do.

This whole eagle thing was stupid, anyway, and Katrina couldn’t
believe
that a company full of
scientists
were so convinced it was true. It was totally insane. Humans couldn’t even regrow their own limbs, like starfish.
 

The idea of a person turning into an eagle even defied basic physics. No matter how big golden eagles were — and they were big, Katrina had done her homework — they weren’t as big as
people
, and the conservation of mass was the most basic principle in the world.

There was simply no way to turn something into
less
something, and that was only one reason that Zach obviously couldn’t turn into an eagle.

The kettle whistled, and Katrina yawned, then turned and poured herself a cup of Earl Grey tea, slipping her phone into her pocket. While it steeped she put a few other dishes into the dishwasher, then added honey and milk, and finally went to go read emails on her phone in her living room.

She hated that she compulsively checked her work email, even on Saturday. But she also knew that it was the only way to get ahead: always be available, particularly while you’re still a junior engineer. People higher up got to ignore their email for the whole weekend, but not her.

“Fuck,” she said out loud, when she saw the subject line of the first email:
NEED YOU IN THE OFFICE TODAY PLEASE RESPOND ASAP.
It was sent by her boss, Pete, of course.

The body of the email only said, “Best, Pete.” Katrina had to close her eyes for a moment, irritated that he hadn’t even bothered telling her
what
it was about.

Feeling slightly rebellious, Katrina finished her tea slowly, flicking through her Facebook feed, before responding to Pete, saying she’d be there shortly. She rolled her eyes as she hit send, and then made a face at her apartment.

I guess I have to put on office clothes
, she thought.
Damnit.
 

What the hell does he want that can’t wait until Monday?
she wondered.

Then she got up, put her mug into the dishwasher, and grabbed a skirt and shirt from her closet.

* * *

The MutiGen offices always felt weird on the weekend, though Katrina wasn’t a stranger to being there on Saturday or Sunday. She tried to avoid going, but every so often she’d have a project that she just wanted to
finish
instead of waiting for Monday.

It wasn’t like she was dating someone who’d take up her weekend time.

Not yet, anyway. Katrina was ready for
that
to change, she thought, remembering her dream about Zach.

She blushed slightly as she held her ID badge to the scanner at the front door and walked in. The lights were on in the small lobby, though of course Stephanie the receptionist wasn’t there and her desk was dark. Katrina scanned her ID at another door, and another, and in a few moments she was putting her jacket and purse down in her office, then going down the hall to see what the hell Pete wanted, anyway.

“Come in!” he shouted to her knock.

Pete was sitting at his desk, facing the door, typing frantically. He didn’t look up as Katrina entered, his eyes glued to his computer screen. He was wearing the standard outfit for men in their office — khaki pants and a polo shirt — but he looked rumpled, like he’d been wearing the outfit for a long time already, even though it was barely noon.
 

The top buttons were unbuttoned, and Pete himself looked sweaty and pale, his hair sticking to his scalp in a few places. His mouth as he typed was a thin, grim line, totally humorless.

“Pete?” Katrina asked. Without a pause in his typing, he cocked his head to one side, indicating one of the chairs in front of his desk.

Katrina sat. She folded her hands in her lap, watching Pete.

Naturally, she started to worry.

Something’s gone wrong with a project
, she thought.
All of our products mysteriously lost power at the same time. The pacemaker I worked on last year has some kind of fatal flaw, and hundreds of people just had a heart attack at the same time.