Blood Moon (7 page)

“I wouldn’t say
confronted
me…” Wait.
Why was I defending him? “Honestly, I don’t know why he was there.
Causing trouble… You know, Nick stuff.”

“What did he say?”

I allowed the memory of Nick finding me
outside of the house last night play through my mind on loop, and I
couldn’t believe the balls he had to just approach me as if nothing
was wrong between us. What was he thinking? And while I was sure
David didn’t enjoy finding me with my ex, I was certainly glad he
showed up when he did.

Dad stared at me, still waiting for a
response, so I exhaled a dry, humorless laugh. “Not a whole hell of
a lot. Like I said, I think he was just there to stir up
trouble.”

My dad’s eyes moved past me and out the
window that connected his office to the main one. I turned to see
what caught his attention and found David rifling through some case
files, occasionally glancing our way. “How did Samuels react?”

“Like a saint,” I answered, “even though he
should have been pissed when he found us both alone on the
patio.”

“And the two of you…?” His question trailed
off, and I assumed it was because, even though he knew, I still had
yet to vocally address my relationship status with David.

Having promised David that I’d no longer
skirt the issue, I smiled. “We’re fine. Together and happy.”

“Good to hear. Thank you for finally feeling
like you could tell your mother and me, by the way.”

My eyebrows lifted with concern that he’d
misread
why
I’d kept my relationship from him all this time.
“Dad, it’s not that I felt I couldn’t come to you or Mom,” I
started to tell him. “I just liked having control over this one
part of my life, and I was scared that things would start to sour
if I let anyone else in. I couldn’t lose more than I already
had…and I wouldn’t put you and Mom through that again, either.”

“Your mother and I are a tad more resilient
than you give us credit for, kiddo.” Laughing, I rolled my eyes,
and the smile on my dad’s face faded slightly as he nodded his head
toward the door. “All right, well, I suppose I shouldn’t keep you
from work.”

“Okay,” I responded, standing up and heading
for the door. “Thanks for the pep-talk, old man.”

“It’s what I’m here for.” I pulled the door
open when he stopped me again. “And, Brooke?” I turned to him, and
he was all business again. “Be sure you go to HR and inform them of
your relationship.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

When I returned to my desk, I found David
absorbed in one of the case files. He was so transfixed on what he
was reading that I had to clear my throat as I perched myself on
the edge of his desk to draw his attention.

“Hey.” He closed the file in his lap and
smiled warmly up at me. “How was your talk?”

“Good.” I dropped my voice and leaned in
close so no one else could hear me. “I didn’t know you told him
about Nick showing up.”

David shrugged, the tips of his ears turning
a light shade of pink. “I wanted him to know that someone was
trespassing.”

I smirked, disbelieving, and crossed my
arms. I knew jealousy when I saw it. “Mmm hmm,” I challenged.
“That’s all it was?”

It was never hard to coerce a confession out
of David. I prided myself on it. “Okay,
maybe
it was a
little more than that,” he said with a wink, tapping the side of my
thigh with the file.

We’d always had a good work rapport, but I
had to admit that it was nice being able to banter back and forth
like this without worrying that someone would start a
vicious—albeit true—rumor about our involvement. Even though we
weren’t hanging off of each other or showing massive amounts of
PDA, it was also a relief not having to tiptoe around the office.
All this time, I thought that everybody knowing would only serve to
complicate things for the two of us, but that was quickly proving
not to be the case, and it was such a relief.

David and I went about our day filing the
final paperwork for a few recently closed cases I’d assisted with
before my promotion. This was the best part of the job, because we
were able to help the families of victims find the closure they
needed to take the first steps toward healing—something I longed
for, but knew I would never obtain after all this time. It was
fine, though; I’d come to accept this, and helping others gave me
purpose and made the job worth it.

I remembered with perfect clarity how
difficult it was to wait for answers, and how absolutely horrible
it was to hear that no arrests had been made. These were just some
of the reasons that I made it my mission to try and bring closure
to each case. No family should ever have to live in fear that the
criminal who hurt or took a loved one from them was still free.

Unfortunately, not every case was so open
and shut, and it was these ones that forced me to lose sleep and
relive my past.

“You ready to go?” David asked, pulling me
out of my silent musings.

One look out the window behind David’s desk,
and I could see the sun had already started to set. It painted the
sky in warm hues of pink and orange, and it darkened with every
passing minute. My view of the sky was interrupted when David stood
and pushed his chair in, signaling the end of our shift.

When our eyes locked, I smiled and nodded.
“Yeah.” I replied, shutting my computer down and grabbing my
things. As we walked, David took my hand—the first physical sign of
our relationship to the public—and we made our way to the car.

The moon was already high in the sky, and it
was a little colder than the night before. It made me yearn to curl
up under a blanket with David and a glass of wine while we watched
television back at my place. Where that led to…well, it had yet to
be determined, but I was hoping we’d pick up where we left off this
morning.

We made our way through the lot, passing a
few of the others who were just starting their shifts and told them
to have a good night. When we reached the parking lot, David pulled
me into his arms, sandwiching my body between him and the hard
metal frame of my car, and I shivered for an entirely different
reason than the dipping temperature.

He kissed me softly, his soft blue eyes
locked on mine before speaking in a low voice that traveled through
my body with a gentle hum. “Even though we haven’t acted any
differently when in the presence of our coworkers, it was nice to
know we’re not actually hiding anymore.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” I agreed, resting my
hands on his hips and pulling him forward by the belt loops on his
jeans.

He hummed, his nose brushing mine as he
pushed his pelvis against me. “Not hiding our relationship was
extremely liberating. Perhaps we should have done this months ago
and saved ourselves the stress.” The heat of his body affected my
ability to speak, and he chuckled, brushing his stubbled jaw
against my smooth skin. It scratched and tickled at the same time,
which sent a tingle through my body that made my toes curl. “Now,
why don’t you let me take you home so we can pick up where we left
off before breakfast? No distractions.”

David opened the passenger side door just as
I was just about to answer with a resounding “Yes!” when, behind
me, static blared over the police scanner before the dispatch
officer’s voice filled the air. “All available units to Chaparral
Park for a reported one-eight-seven.”

Turning abruptly, I looked at David before
he ran around to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel. After
turning the car on, he flipped the siren, alerted dispatch that we
were on our way, and the red and blue lights flashed in my rear
window as we peeled out of the parking lot and raced up N Hayden
Road for Chaparral.

When we arrived, there were several other
cars already there. We saw O’Malley off near the edge of the park
with two young women whose eyes were wide and terrified as they
looked at him with their arms wrapped tightly around themselves. It
wasn’t hard to see they were in shock, and it was probably pretty
safe to assume that they were the ones who reported the
homicide.

David’s hand on the small of my back
refocused me as he guided me to where the medical examiner and
several of our colleagues hovered over a body that lay
approximately fifteen feet off the cement path. As we approached, I
noticed the victim was a woman in her mid-to-late twenties. Her
skin was pale, and her body seemed twisted disproportionately,
almost as if she’d been dumped here by her attacker in a hurry.

“What do we have here?” David asked the
medical examiner.

“Twenty-three-year-old female named Samantha
Turner, according to her license. Nothing seems to be missing from
her purse—cash, credit cards—it’s all here,” Detective Keaton
announced, handing the woman’s wallet to David. “CSU is walking the
grid, but so far they’ve found nothing worth reporting.”

“Cause of death?” I asked, crouching down
next to the body, being careful not to interfere with Dr. Hobbes,
the medical examiner.

Her black hair was pulled back into a tight
ponytail as she continued to take notes, and when she looked up at
me from behind her thick-rimmed glasses, she shrugged her
shoulders. Her hazel eyes met mine, and her unease was palpable,
affecting me as well. “I won’t know for sure until I examine her
further, but she’s been dead at least an hour based on her liver
temp.”

I examined this poor woman from a distance,
noticing her designer clothes—from her cashmere sweater, right down
to her expensive jeans and the leather shoes that had mostly
slipped off except for where the straps held them around her
ankles. Upon closer observation, I noticed something that really
popped out to me: a spot on her neck mostly covered by her long
brown hair.

Curious—for a reason that niggled at me in
the back of my mind, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint—I turned to
David and held out my hand. “David, can I have a pen?”

Without question, he reached into his jacket
and retrieved a pen to give to me. I took it, keeping the cap on,
and slipped it under her hair to lift it. Unfortunately, before I
could get a good look at it, I heard something to the right of us
rustling in the sparse brush there. Something about this entire
situation felt a little…off, and I stood up, my eyes focused on the
trees across the park.

“What is it?” David asked, gently placing
his hand on my arm.

I narrowed my eyes, trying to decipher if
the movement I saw was from the wind or a possible suspect. The
foliage was thin, but it was dark outside now, making it hard to
see.

“I’m not sure…” I said hesitantly, taking a
careful step forward. “I thought I heard something.”

Through my periphery, I noticed David train
his eyes on the trees ahead, but nothing happened. No sound. No
movement. Nothing.

“I’m going to check it out,” I informed him.
“If someone’s out there, we have to stop them.”

David nodded in agreement, drawing his gun
and switching the safety off as I did the same, and we started
toward the disturbance together slowly. Once there, he silently
suggested we split up and walk around the perimeter to see if we
can find anything. He mouthed the words
“be careful,”
which
I reciprocated just as quietly before we began to circle.

I hadn’t made it halfway around before I
heard another rustle of leaves, and my body tensed, my index finger
slipping onto the trigger and preparing to fire. “Come out with
your hands up!” I ordered firmly, taking aim. I waited a minute for
a response of some kind, but there was nothing at first. “I said,
come out with your hands up!”

The leaves rustled again, the sound getting
closer, but instead of heavy footfalls, I heard the ground being
disturbed beneath the sound of a low, threatening growl that
chilled me to the bone. I took a step back, horrified that what I’d
stumbled on wasn’t our human perpetrator, but some kind of wild
animal out looking for its next meal. My concern was confirmed the
minute the animal’s glowing yellow eyes locked on me, and I
swallowed the lump of fear that formed in my throat.

“Hey, doggie,” I said soothingly once it
came completely into view, removing my finger from the trigger and
backing away slowly. The tiny hairs all over my body prickled, and
my muscles tensed as I broke out in a cold sweat. “Good dog. Look,
I didn’t mean to scare you.”

The large dog stalked toward me slowly,
looking around us and then back at me, and once the silver light of
the moon shone down on its thick brown coat, I could see that it
wasn’t
just
a dog, but a wolf that had me in its sights. I
tried to pass this off as an impossibility because wolves were
extremely rare in Arizona as a whole, let alone Scottsdale. There
were maybe fifty endangered Mexican gray wolves in the state, and
they never
ever
came this close to civilization.