Chapter 13 #2
A smile too tight and thin to be an expression of good humor bloomed on Zach’s face. “What if I like harassing you, sweetheart? You get all cute when you’re mad.”
What the hell? “You’re insane.”
“Nope.” His fingers made a small beckoning motion, urging; she remained stubbornly still. “How did you vanish the other night, by the way? We thought the upir had taken you. Were about to tear down the whole town looking for you.”
What the hell for? She lifted her chin, scowled at him. Sometimes, defiance was the only option left. If he wanted an answer he was going to have to beat it out of her.
And if there was anything Sophie Wilson knew, it was how to take a punch. Or keep a secret.
His hand stayed, hanging out midair like it had nothing better to do. “Come on.” He didn’t look impatient or upset, just thoughtful, tense. “We really should get out of here, I smell bloodsuckers all over this building. I’d really prefer it if you came willingly.”
“Go. To. Hell.” She settled herself farther back in the chair, which squeaked again, and braced for an explosion.
Someone knocked sharply on her front door. Three hard, quick raps.
Sophie swallowed hard. What the fuck now?
“Huh.” Zach spun in a tight half circle. “Male. Expecting a gentleman caller, sweets?”
Her heart gave a sickening thump, began pounding hard enough to spike blood pressure into the stratosphere.
God. It’s Marc. He’s found me. “Nobody knows where I live.” Except you, apparently. And now him. He’s going to hit the roof if he sees a man in here. It was the final straw; she was going to have a stroke right in someone else’s worn-out garbage recliner.
But Zach was striding toward the door as Sophie, frozen, held on to the chair-arms with tense, aching fingers.
He didn’t pause, simply swept her purse aside with one boot, tucking it out of sight over the kitchen threshold.
Then he flipped the dead bolts as if he lived here and finished up by yanking the door open. “Hello?”
Sophie squeezed her eyes shut so hard phantom fireworks burst in the dark.
Her breathing shuddered along in quick, shallow gasps, her entire body locked in a cube of ice.
She could actually feel a wet freeze sliding against her skin, and a thin trace of sweat slid down the shallow channel of her spine.
The darkness behind her eyelids turned grey for a moment, as if a diaphanous scarf had wrapped itself over her head. A strange sense of comfort settled over her, warring with the lunacy she was trapped in, this nightmare that didn’t want to end.
“Is Miss Wilson home?” It was a half-familiar voice. Not Marc’s. Her breath whooshed out, gasped back in, and held itself again.
“May I ask who you are?” Zach asked, amiably enough. Absolute insanity, and Sophie didn’t have a clue how it had started—or what she could do to escape.
She wondered if she was crazy. It would certainly explain a lot.
“Detective Andreeson, JPD. I spoke to Miss Wilson this afternoon, about her friend Lucy Cavanaugh.”
“She’s really broken up, sir.” How was it possible for a werewolf who kidnapped her and dragged her hundreds of miles away, not to mention broke into her house, to sound so calm?
“I know. But I had a couple questions. You see, witnesses describe someone matching Miss Wilson’s description entering the Paintbox with Miss Cavanaugh. You wouldn’t happen to—”
“That would be what, Friday night?” Zach still sounded calm, and he paused thoughtfully. The detective must have nodded, because the kdnapping werewolf continued. “It couldn’t have been Sophie, she was with me. We were at home.”
“Here, in this apartment?” The detective sounded mildly surprised. “Miss Wilson didn’t mention you this afternoon, Mr….?”
“Gabe. Gabe Sellers.”
A faint, hopeless sound escaped Sophie’s throat. My God, is he even lying about his name? There was the sound of cloth moving as men shifted their weight, sizing each other up, and her eyes flew open.
Zach filled the doorway, towering over the pudgy little detective. She couldn’t even see the man out in the hall. And that weird grayness didn’t go away. It looked just like the cloudy haze on the conference table earlier that day, swirling hypnotically.
She wondered if she was going into shock.
“Mr. Sellers.” A floorboard creaked sharply under the detective’s feet. “She didn’t mention you. Can I come in?”
“Well, her ex-husband’s kind of looking for reasons to make her life miserable.
I guess she doesn’t want me to be one of them.
” Zach propped an elbow on the doorjamb, lazily blocking any faint hint of welcome or ingress.
“And Sophie’s crying her eyes out about Lucy. I don’t think now’s a good time.”
“So, you’re involved with Mrs. Harris?”
“It’s Ms. Wilson.” Zach’s tone turned chill as the piercing, slashing sleet outside. “And I’m not sure it’s any of your business, sir. Sophie was with me all weekend. Does that answer your question?”
“Where did you two spend the weekend, Mr. Sowers?” The detective’s tone matched Zach’s now, and Sophie let out another small hopeless, hitching sound.
Her nose was full. Two scorch-hot drops of water trickled down her cheeks.
Say something, you idiot. Yell. Scream. You wanted to call the police, there’s one standing right there in the door! Do something!
But if she did something, the inevitable questions would start—questions she didn’t have good answers for.
Or even believable, rational answers. Where exactly were you Friday night?
If you were with Lucy, why didn’t you report anything?
Why did you lie? You say this guy kidnapped you? Why? Who is this guy, anyway?
Zach remained leaning against the doorjamb, still blocking any view of the hall.
The grayness resolved into streaks of fluttering transparency, easing around him.
“It’s Sellers; I thought you guys were good with names.
As for where we spent the weekend, that’s private.
If you know what I mean. Now, if you don’t have any other prying personal questions, I’ve got a crying girlfriend I need to feed and calm down. Have a nice night, Anderson.”
“It’s Andreeson, Mr. Sellers. I’d like to speak to Miss Wilson, please.”
“I don’t think she’s in any condition to talk to someone who can’t even get her name straight.” Zach half turned his head, tucking his chin slightly. “Sophie?” he called, as if she was in the bathroom. “Some cop’s here. You want to talk to him?”
Oh, Jesus. Dear God. She forced her her arms work, pushed herself out of the chair. Its cushion gave a protesting groan. The grey things wouldn’t go away no matter how many times she blinked.
She teetered, on old-woman legs, to the hall. Andreeson was making notations on his steno pad again. Zach’s body language didn’t change. Her knees almost gave out as she tried to figure out a way past him. If she could reach the hall she could run away from both men, and everything else, as well.
Just keep running. Only she didn’t have anywhere to go. The last time she’d bolted, she’d had a plan—a desperate one, but a plan nonetheless, and a friend to help carry it out.
Oh, Lucy. Her eyes brimmed, blurred.
Zach put out a hand as soon as she was within reaching distance, slid it over her shoulders, and pulled her into his side just precisely as a protective boyfriend might.
“This the guy who told you about Lucy?” He tucked his chin again to look down at her, and Sophie didn’t flinch only through sheer willpower.
He was very warm, a flood of heat closing around her. And that musk smell, which was beginning to be curiously comforting. The grey things pressed closer, floating as if the air was water.
She didn’t trust her voice; she nodded. A horrible idea bolted through her head—she’d seen what Zach could do, the way his shape changed into something lean and wickedly clawed, covered in dark pelt.
What if the tubby little brown-eyed detective, still in the rumpled, mildewy tan mackintosh, his tie a little askew, made Zach angry?
Her knees nearly gave out. Which pitched her directly into Zach’s side, and his arm tightened. Her heart crawled into her throat; fresh hot tears slid down her cheeks. What had she or Lucy done to deserve this? They’d only wanted to go out and have some fun, for God’s sake.
“I’m sorry to disturb you.” Andreeson did look sorry, his muddy eyes sad as they had been earlier. “You were with your fella here all weekend?”
Well, technically that’s true. And he’s a werewolf. And pigs will fly. She managed another nod, and Zach’s arm tightened again. Maybe he even meant it to be comforting, but the pressure felt like a warning.
Still, that musk smell was so very soothing. Something about it made her feel a little steadier. How was that for completely, totally insane?
“She usually comes to my place,” Zach supplied. “But this weekend she wasn’t feeling well, so I brought her takeout, tried to keep her in bed.”
And Christ on a crutch, but his voice dropped, and he made the last bit sound… well, positively indecent. Her legs all but failed completely, and now Zach was holding her up without any apparent effort. As if she needed a reminder of how freakishly, inhumanly strong he was.
“Where would your place be, Mr. Sellers?” The detective’s eyes turned suspiciously sharp behind their muddiness, and Sophie began to feel faint.
Her head was full of rushing noise, and she had the urge to simply sink into the floor.
If a huge cavern had opened up then and there, she would have dropped in with only a small, grateful murmur.
“About four blocks away. Why?” He actually sounded innocent. It was hard to imagine him growling like a huge, very angry dog. Or holding her up against the wall, or pinning her to a bed.
But then, Sophie knew all about men who could sound innocent when questioned, didn’t she.
“Just curious.” The detective examined her for a long moment, and his face softened, lines deepening at the corners of his eyes, bracketing his bitter-drawn mouth. “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am. You look worn out. Hope your fella here takes good care of you.”
“I intend to.” Zach loomed over both of them, suddenly seeming taller, and Sophie blinked.
The lights in the hall were doing funny things now, shadows weaving between them like gauze scarves.
Which could have been the water in her eyes.
Or the panic attack still reverberating in her nerves.
Or— “Anything else we can help you with, Detective?”
“Not at the moment.” Andreeson was still watching Sophie’s face.
Her cheek throbbed. Did she look like a beaten woman? She’d had plenty of practice. I must look guilty. Oh, Lucy, I’m so sorry. It should have been me.
A long, heart-stopping moment later, the detective tipped Zach a curious little salute, nodded in her direction. “Good night, then.”
“Good night,” she managed, faintly. Zach pulled her away, sweeping the door shut as Andreeson turned away.
He locked both dead bolts, put the chain on, and took another two steps back, still dragging her along as if she weighed nothing.
Paused, his head cocked again, as the detective’s footsteps retreated down the hall.
“They’ll probably let him pass,” he murmured, and made a quick movement, letting go of her shoulders as he bent to pick up her purse.
Sophie teetered, half-fell against the wall, and let out a long breath she hadn’t been aware of holding.
“Not worth their time to kill a cop. But we’ve got to get out of here.
” His gaze swept down her body, a curiously impersonal glance, and Sophie braced her shoulder against the wall even harder.
“Good work, by the way. The dewy-eyed innocent thing looks real nice on you.”
“I thought you were…” Going to kill him. Going to kill me. Going to do something awful.
He thrust the black purse into her hands. “I figured he was fishing for your alibi, sweets. He suspects something, he just doesn’t know what. So long as you stick with that story—that you were with me and we were here—he can’t do anything. Not like it matters. We have to get out.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” Instead of ringing and declarative, the words came out thin and tired. Her head swam. “I think I’m going to pass out.”
“Pass out later.” He grabbed her arm and reached for the door again. “Right now we need to move.”
The ceiling fixture in her hall dimmed, and the bulb in the living room began to make a strange fizzling sound.