Shifters with Secrets (An MMF Bisexual Threesome)(2)

“You gotta get out of here,” he said, reaching for her injured hand. “I’m calling the police.”

He cradled her hand in his much larger one, not at all bothered by the sight of her blood.

Sofia felt tears begin to prick at her eyes: now, she’d have to spend days and days helping to clean up this mess, and that was supposed to be valuable research time.

Then, a terrible thought struck her, and she raised her head, looking toward the shelf where she kept the books she’d checked out for research.

It was empty.

“Oh, no,” she said, standing and then picking her way carefully across the room to her shelf, moving past the broken microfilm readers.

“No, no,” she said, staring down at the small wooden bookshelf.

“What?” asked Thomas, unfolding his own tall, thick form.

“It’s all gone,” she said. She scanned the floor desperately, looking for any of the books or periodicals she’d been keeping on that shelf, but she couldn’t see a single one of them.

Behind her, he walked carefully across the floor, and then she felt his hand on her shoulder.

“They’re just somewhere in the mess,” he said. She could tell that he was trying to sound soothing, but his voice had a tightness to it.

Sofia looked up at him, his face at least a foot above her own. She hadn’t known Thomas for very long — just a couple weeks — but it was long enough to tell when he was more worried than he was letting on.

“All my research is gone,” she whispered.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Thomas said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “There’s broken glass everywhere. You already cut yourself.”

Sofia swallowed hard and forced back tears. They were just books, and she was being silly: the most important stuff was on her laptop, which was safe and secure in her bag. At least no one had been hurt during the break-in, and Thomas was probably right, her research was there somewhere.

“Okay,” she said, and let him lead her out.





***





An hour later, Sofia stood by the door to the California History Room, sipping the mug of chamomile tea that Thomas had given her. As soon as they’d called the police, he’d taken her to his office and, over her protestations, gotten out his very small first aid kit, bandaging up her cut finger.

It hadn’t needed more than a bandaid, and not even a big one at that, but somehow, his insistence that he take care of it made Sofia feel better, the way he’d carefully cleaned it, making sure there was no glass in it, and then put medical tape around the band aid itself, just to make extra sure that she wouldn’t reopen the cut.

As she stood there, sipping tea, she watched him answer the police officer’s totally routine questions. He was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome: at least six foot three if not taller, with a powerful body that suggested a life spent working outdoors more than it did a gym.

Right now he was wearing a plaid flannel shirt that he’d tucked into his brown slacks and rolled up to his elbows, showing off his tattoos.

He had two full sleeves, both depicting stylized forest scenes: on his right arm, a mountain lion stalked around his forearm, and on the left, an enormous grizzly bear. Above them, moving above the elbows, opened a canopy of trees, full of birds and squirrels and everything that lived above the forest floor.

Sofia hadn’t been brave enough to ask to see the rest of the tattoos yet. Then Thomas would have to remove his shirt, and while she wouldn’t have minded, she couldn’t just ask.

“Has anyone been interested in his room recently?” asked the office, a shorter, portly man who had to tilt his head back to look at Thomas.

Thomas just shook his head.

“Not that I can think of,” he said, his colorful arms crossed in front of him. “I mean, people ask about this door sometimes, or want to know what’s in the California History Room, but I tell them that it’s mostly newspaper and microfiche, and they’re not interested anymore.”

“And you’re a librarian?” asked the officer.

“I’m the computer guy,” said Thomas. “I keep all the technology running in here.”


“That must be a task,” the other officer said. She was taller and thinner, though not nearly as tall as Thomas, of course.

Thomas shrugged. “It’s not so bad,” he said.

“You didn’t use this room to store anything?” the officer asked. “No technology, or something valuable like that?”

Thomas just shook his head. “The server room is next door,” he said. “Untouched.”

The two police officers looked at each other, clearly both baffled.

“It’s a head scratcher,” the man said. “My best guess is that some bum or junkie thought there’d be something valuable in here, and when there wasn’t, they took a couple of books to sell and then tore the place apart.”

Sofia looked through the doorway one more time. She felt a little sick over the loss of those books. Some she’d read already, but someone she’d only set aside to go through later. Now her dissertation was behind by another month, at least.

“Thanks for coming,” she said.

“We’ll check out all the other names on this sign-in list,” the woman cop said. “But they’re months old. I wouldn’t expect too much if I were you.”