Chapter Seven
Restless Nights and Romantic Rendezvous
Elliot
This is a disaster. I shouldn't have agreed to this date.
I look at myself in the mirror again and chuck the white shirt away.
I yank on the fucking pale blue knit sweater.
It looks better. Works well with my black pants that make my ass look fantastic.
If there’s any chance the guy is onto me, I’ll need all the arsenal to keep him sweet until I can escape.
Is that putting too much pressure on my ass? Nope, because it is that good.
At best, I’ll get a nice meal and an average fuck out of it. I don’t care what Sam thinks of werewolves and sex. I won’t lie, though, he got me all curious. Still, a guy that attractive, funny, and charming doesn’t need to compensate for anything in the bedroom.
At worst, I’ll have to convince him I’m an innocent vet who loves animals. I won’t even have to pretend. Animals are awesome. Team animal all day! I’ll need to work harder to make him believe I know nothing about werewolves, murders, or heart attacks.
I look at myself again. This will have to do.
A glance at the time makes me instantly regret the last three wardrobe changes.
I'm already five minutes late. Swinging by the coffee place will hike it up to ten since I’d designed my entire schedule around the three-minute window when the drive-by is clear.
Took almost a year, but it had to be done.
I need my caffeine fix because I actually want my patients to live.
Their owners are the ones in danger, at least some of them. Because the next time someone asks me to make their dogs vegan, I’ll have to get Ashley to hold me back. And that’s with an optimal amount of caffeine running through my system.
I get an extra shot of espresso today because I barely slept last night. The nightmare was back with a vengeance, and once I was up, I couldn’t stop thinking about why Nicholas wanted to do this. I spent the entire night going through the comprehensive research Sam had done on him.
I was already aware of many things. Like Matt being his adoptive brother, and that they grew up in the suburbs.
But there was a lot I didn’t know. Like he was one of the youngest police officers in the department to rise up the ranks and become a detective.
He has been awarded a Medal of Valor and two Life Saving Medals, which, for his age, is apparently very impressive.
The guy is practically a legend in the force.
Sam’s research typically tends to be technical.
Strictly the need-to-know details to execute the missions.
But he clearly wasn’t messing around with this one.
I had a list of all of Nicholas’s partners in the LAPD.
He was apparently still close to his training officer from his rookie days.
There was also a ton of information about some of the noteworthy cases he’s solved and the criminals he's put away.
If Sam’s intention with all this research was to make me excited for the date, he was off by a few miles.
It just made me realize I was playing with fire.
All of this just goes to prove the guy is great at his job.
He doesn’t mess around, and he’s as straight-laced as they come. Practically Captain America.
Did it also make me want to look forward to the date a little? It did, but only because I wanted to see if he had figured anything out. And it’ll be fun to have a front-row seat to how his mind works. He was one of the greats after all.
If I feel like he knows too much, I’ll have to pack my shit up and restart somewhere far, far away. That was unavoidable, whether I do this or not. At least this way, I’ll have some warning. And Sam’s right. Might as well get some fun out of it while I can.
The underrated benefit? I might get some quality cuddles from Mickey.
When I park near my clinic, I’m almost feeling human again. Can’t guarantee I won’t be killing anyone today, but there’s still some coffee left in the cup. Ask me after fifteen minutes.
I drag my feet to the clinic, sipping the bitter concoction. Ashley is sitting behind the front desk, her dark eyes focused on the computer. “You have five consultations before lunch, then a surgery late afternoon,” she says without looking up from the laptop.
“Perfect,” I manage, trying to keep my tone mild.
Ashley looks up, startled. Okay, so not mild enough. When her gaze lands on my face, she rolls her eyes heavenward, the way only a surly goth teenager can. Only she’s in her early twenties and isn’t really all that mean. “I’ll keep the coffee coming,” she assures.
That makes my lips pull into a smile. Despite the horrible fashion sense and the perpetual scowl, Ashley is the best assistant/nurse/receptionist.
I nod and trudge to my office, closing the door behind me for some last moments of quiet before the chaos begins.
The rest of the day goes by in a flurry of adorable dogs, a mean cat who loves me, a shy iguana, and a minor surgery on a good boy who’ll make a full recovery within a few weeks.
Ashley scares all the walk-ins with the power of her glare because she knows I’m not in the mood today and is extremely sincere with her coffee duties, just a second shy of mainlining it right into my veins.
Work proves to be a great distraction while it lasts.
But then it’s quiet again, and I’m not enjoying it today as much as I generally do.
Typically, by this time, I’m ready to wind down, a satisfied hum of helping someone who deserves it coursing through me.
I look forward to those few minutes of true peace.
I’m not feeling any of it today, though.
It’s like the wall inside my brain that was holding all the anxiety at bay while I worked collapsed as soon as I didn’t need to put my entire focus on treating animals.
I didn’t know how good I was at compartmentalization.
I was aware I was doing it, c’mon, I’m a serial killer without being a sociopath, even though sometimes I wish I were.
But I wasn’t aware I could keep so many things completely hidden away.
At any given time, some part of my mind is always worried and grappling with the wrongness of what I do day after day.
Still, I’ve trained myself to push those thoughts somewhere far behind until I’m lying in my bed in my dark room.
Today, it was like my brain pulled out a titanium shield to keep the thoughts away and melted it as soon as it got the ‘okay’. Well, needless to say, I’m not prepared.
I stalk to my office, ignoring Ashley, and slam the door behind me.
I sit down at my desk and unlock the hidden trapdoor to take out my ‘serious shit’ laptop.
I need more work. I still have two hours before Nicholas is scheduled to show up.
I can’t spend that time worrying about a date like I’m sixteen.
I would have balked at the idea even when I was sixteen.
Besides, I don’t do dates and relationships, not serious ones anyway. The last guy I kind of had a fuck buddy relationship with cheated on me because I wasn’t giving him enough attention. His words. Obviously.
The breakup was awkward because until then, I didn’t know we were in a relationship to begin with.
When I told Sam about the conversation, he laughed for twenty minutes straight.
I had 911 dialed by the time he stopped wheezing.
When I told Oliver, he was ready to fight the guy for me.
It was adorable. Then again, I’d only given him the version that wouldn’t offend his delicate sensibilities.
But the fact remains that I don’t want relationships because I like to live my life by certain rules.
The first one being—don’t think about someone who isn’t right in front of you.
Or on the other end of a call, I can make an exception for calls.
Texts don’t count. They’re unnecessary and juvenile.
My efficiently trained brain does not like to open compartments unless it’s necessary.
That’s why the whole thing with Nicholas is bothering me so much.
I’m sitting here thinking about our ‘date’.
I’m planning the behaviors I need to observe.
I’m learning everything there’s to know about him.
It’s downright frustrating. I’ve never given this much attention to anyone who’s not my next target.
This annoying glitch in my perfectly trained brain, combined with the nightmares about Raymond Booth, is scrambling my brain. It can’t be a coincidence that the nightmares came back a few days after Nicholas walked into my clinic in all his werewolf glory, Mickey in tow.
Now, I want to go through with the whole date thing just to prove to myself that Raymond didn’t have any control over my life anymore.
That I don’t see him in all the werewolves I target.
I don’t judge them and what they’ve done through the same lens.
I don’t imagine killing him every time I watch the life drain out of their eyes.
I blow out a frustrated breath and look at the file I’ve been staring at for half an hour.
Drew Blue. Age 35. Office Manager by day and drug dealer by night. Murdering innocent people, a side hobby.
Sam is investigating him for a suspicious death that authorities dismissed as an animal attack a few days ago. The body was found deep inside the forest. The markings of mountain lion feeding cemented the fact for them. There was no need for further probing.
Weird, because the crime scene pictures clearly show wolf claw marks. It’s clearly a murder.
We are quick and efficient with our investigations because we start by finding the closest werewolf and checking their alibis. We do all this with the power of phone hacking and some legwork on my end when needed.