Running Free (Woodland Creek)(36)

“I’m not insinuating anything. I just need to know your whereabouts at that time.”

“Here.”

“Sir, I’m going to need to ask you to step outside for a minute.”

Panic momentarily flashes over his features before he grunts and pushes through the opening of the door. He towers over me but I don’t back away. This dude is a massive motherf*cker and I feel like he’s every bit capable of murdering those kids with his hands. My eyes drop down to his fisted hands and I attempt to inspect them before he shoves them into his jean pockets. It’s hard to see a damn thing out here in the dark.

“What now?” he says with a growl.

The hairs on my arms prickle as a realization steals over me. He reminds me of a bear. An unusual thought but one that seems important — one that I plan on addressing more thoroughly when I get back to Frankie. Could this guy be a…

A bear?

Like the so-called animal that’s been killing teens.

It feels like a piece of the puzzle. It’s almost laughable but I’m not f*cking laughing. I’m trying to solve a crime and I’m not ruling anything out.

Another face pops up in my head. Suzie with her mop of unruly curls and wide, innocent eyes. She reminded me of the pup from the shelter and acted like she knew me when we met at the bar. Suzie’s name is oddly similar to Curly Sue. This, too, feels like a piece of the puzzle.

A dog?

Luca crosses my mind next. The thick, alpha motherf*cker with eyes a familiar grey. A leader of his own pack of motorcycle riders but resembled that of the animal pack I encountered at that first dead body. Another piece of the puzzle.

A wolf?

My mind finally flits to Frankie. My hádanka. How does she fit in this equation? I know I’m right. I can feel this with every part of my being. Of course I can’t go blabbing my insane hypothesis about how half the people I know might be an animal to TJ or Fitz. No, this I’ll have to sort out on my own.

And with Frankie’s help too.

“What’s your name, sir?” I question the giant man.

He scoffs as if I’ve offended him. “Some f*cking cop you are.”

Shit, another puzzle piece… one I’m not grasping.

My police radio in the Tahoe goes nuts about the time my cell starts ringing. I give him a look that promises we’ll finish this later as I jog to the truck and answer my phone.

“Gun!”

Frankie is hysterical on the other line.

“T-t-they hurt him! S-s-she’s gone!”

I sling myself into the truck and tear out of the gravel drive, hauling ass toward the bar. “Who, Frankie? Who?”

Her sobs are a jumbled mess. She needs to calm the f*ck down so I can understand her. I hit the lights on my Tahoe so everyone will stay the hell out of my way. As she chokes out unintelligible words, I pick up codes on the police radio.

217. Assault with attempt to murder.

207. Kidnapping.

Shit!

“Frankie, calm down and make some goddamned sense!”

She chokes out my worst fear. “Suzie… she’s gone. And Otis is barely alive.”

“Stay there, I’ll pick you up,” I tell her as I swerve around a slowed car.

“Gun, a b-b-bear hurt him. But… but… ”

I turn on the street which leads to the bar and see her ugly truck sitting out front. “I know. I’m here. Get in.”





Frankie

“What happened?” he asks when I climb in.

I’m still reeling at seeing Otis’s bloody chest, his dulled eyes. Before he passed out from blood loss, he told me it was a Bear shifter. I was pretty sure I’d known that was the being responsible for the deaths but I still couldn’t understand how it tied to me. Otis didn’t know the man.

“Talk to me, Frankie. The truth.”

I sigh, swiping the tears from my eyes, and turn in my seat to look at him. His handsome face is contorted into a pained, worried one. The truth is inevitable. He’ll hate me once he finds out what I am but I can’t afford to think about myself. He’s the smartest cop in this town and if anyone can get Suzie back in one piece, it’d be him.

“There’s a lot you don’t know in this town, Gun. Hear me out. Don’t judge. Just do your cop thing and help me figure this shit out.”

His nod is a clipped one but I trust that he’ll hold back on his feelings at least until we see this through.

With a huff, I continue. “Otis is a shifter.”

He widens his eyes and goes to speak but I wave him off. I need to get this all out before I chicken out.

“He turns into an owl.”

Something flickers in his eyes. He believes me. It spurs me on.

“Anyway, the bear came for Suzie. Otis tried to fight him off but the old man was no match for the massive beast. Right before the bear delivered the kill shot, Otis shifted and managed to fly to the bar. He was too injured to rescue Suzie but knew if he could get to me, I could get you to find him before he hurts her.”

He puts the car in reverse and peels out of the parking lot in the opposite direction of my house where the rest of the police department is processing the scene. I don’t ask him where he’s going, just keep blabbing the ridiculousness that is my life.

“Otis said the bear is a shifter. Other shifters know these things — just trust me. So my suspicions are correct, this Bear shifter is killing these teens to get to me for some reason,” I say with a ragged sigh, knowing this all sounds insane. “Luca and the guys—”