Sealed with a Hiss: Book Four Supernatural Enforcers Agency (2 page)

Although Gerry’s physical interest in his wife had waned, he had not strayed.  Edith, as evidenced, could not say the same.

Edith snorted in disgust as he glared at her.  “The reason we married each other was money.  My father would have cut me off if I didn’t marry a sensible python shifter, and your family would have lost everything if not for my father’s money.”

“So what?”

“So, he made a deal with me.  If I stay married to you for a minimum of five years, he’ll give me half of my trust fund.”

Gerry’s upper lip curled.  “Only half?”

Her eyes darted around the room.  “I’d get all of it if I gave him a grandchild.”

He barked out a laugh.  “Well, it wasn’t for lack of trying on Lowen’s part.  The ceiling fan almost fell down.”

“It would have to be your child, and even I’m not interested in money enough to bring a child into this,” she flicked her finger between them, “mess of a marriage.”

His snake grumbled.  The idea of this creature bearing his young was not pleasant.  He cleared his throat. 
Time to change the subject
.  “Five years?  Seems an arbitrary amount of time.”

“Maybe he figured it was long enough for me to either give in and get a divorce or actually stick with the marriage.”

Gerry shook his head.  “Clearly he doesn’t know you very well.”

“Or maybe he thought that you wouldn’t want to stay married to a woman who… who…”

“Fucks around?” he supplied, acidly.

“I said I was sorry.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Regardless, if you stay married to me I can make you a very wealthy man.”

His snake sneered – clearly she didn’t know him at all.  “I’m not interested.”

“But what about your family?  As I understand it, my father gave them a zero interest loan to save your little hotel.  If you divorce me, he might just call up that loan immediately, and when your family can’t pay, he’ll take the hotel and fire all the loyal staff out of spite.  Doesn’t the hotel support your entire den?”

Gerry narrowed his eyes.  “He can’t do that.”

“Daddy’s a genius at finding loopholes,” she said, bitterly.  “Just look at my trust fund – it was supposed to be mine, a gift to me from my mother on my twenty-first birthday.  But thanks to him, I’m now thirty-two, and he’s still holding the purse strings.”

Gerry shifted uneasily as his snake slithered in his head.  Grant Collier was definitely a slimy bastard – and not just because he was a python shifter.  He was a successful and ruthless businessman who currently, despite strong opposition, managed to hold onto a seat on the Council of Supernaturals. 
And he didn’t get that seat by campaigning and kissing babies.

Edith sat next to him on the couch and offered him a tentative smile.  “Look, I’m not a monster… well, in comparison to my father I’m not a monster, and I won’t try to force you to do this, but think about it.  All we have to do is make it to the five-year mark, and when I get my money, I will happily gift you enough to pay off my father’s loan.  Then you can divorce me to your heart’s content.  I won’t contend the divorce in the least.”

He viewed her with a softening hostility.  “Do you really expect me to live here with you while you parade your dullard boyfriends up and down in front of me?”  No fucking way hissed his snake.

“We would have to live together,” she admitted.  “But we could make a deal, neither of us would bring home our respective partners.”

“Our respective partners?”

“Well, I don’t expect you to live like a monk – because I certainly won’t be living like a nun.  You’re free to have sex with whoever you chose or, you know, pay for.”

His beast rumbled at that –
as if he would have to pay!

“But,” she held up a finger, “and this is important.  You couldn’t openly date anyone.  Do whatever you want to them in private, but it has to stay private.”

“I don’t like it.”  Over the last couple of months he had spotted the signs, he knew what Edith was up to.  He knew that their dying marriage had breathed its last.  He had resigned himself to the fact that it was time to put it out of its misery.  The idea of pretending to stay married was not enticing.

Edith let out a soft breath and slumped against the couch.  “You married me to save your family, and all their employees, and if you still want to do that, you’re going to have to stay married to me for a little while longer.  If you don’t believe me, take the contract your father signed with my daddy to a lawyer.  Trust me, there’ll be some kind of loophole.  My daddy wouldn’t have signed it otherwise.”

His chest felt tight as his snake coiled.  He felt trapped, cornered, suffocating in a bad marriage.  He couldn’t let his family down or all the families they employed.  Did he really have a choice?

She echoed his thoughts.  “C’mon, Gerry, what choice do you have?”

What choice indeed?

Chapter Two

December

Fisher Stone blew on his hands.  They were shaking.  A part of him knew this was wrong.  He knew he should forgive.  A tiny, tiny part of him knew that her death wasn’t intentional.  But that part of him was overwhelmed with grief. 
Because no matter what, his wife was still dead
.  Forgiveness wouldn’t bring her back.  And someone had to pay for that.

A dark SUV pulled up and a door was flung open.

“Get in, Mr. Stone,” called a sultry voice.

He climbed in trying his best to smile, although it came out as a grimace.  His whole body was shaking now.  He wanted to do this – he really did.  But that didn’t mean he wasn’t nervous.

The woman smiled ingratiatingly.  She had big, blonde hair, bright red lips and, despite the darkness of the night, she was wearing sunglasses.  In her tight, black, shoulder-padded business suit, she looked like she’d just stepped off the set of a tacky soap opera.  But the falseness of her appearance in some way mollified him.  It was almost as if this whole thing was just a TV show and he was merely watching the horrible thing he was about to do.

“We spoke on the phone.  You can call me Madam.  How are you feeling, Mr. Stone?” she asked with real concern.

The grimace returned.  He decided not to bother lying.  “Nervous.”

She smiled lightly.  “I’d be surprised if you said anything else.  You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, if…”

“I want to,” he said, firmly.

Madam’s smile deepened.  “Good.  Behavior like this should not go unpunished.”  She patted his hand.  “You are doing a wonderful and brave thing.  Now, to business.”  She pulled a contract out of her briefcase.  “The preparations are all ready.  We have the operating room all set up and waiting for you.  I have people standing by for when you are finished – they will handle the disposal of the body.  You didn’t tell anyone about this arrangement did you?”

Her voice didn’t change, but her smile seemed to harden.

“No,” he mumbled.

“Good.  Are you sure this is all you want?  We have resources…”

“No this is it, this is what she deserves,” he growled, anger momentarily taking over.

Madam nodded, knowingly.  “Of course.  Now about the payment, have you managed to procure it?”

“I have it.”

“I hope it wasn’t an issue.  I try my best to keep costs down, but discretion and the best magic in the country are pricey.”

Fisher scratched the back of his hand impatiently.  “I’d have paid whatever it took.”

“Sign here.”  She passed him the document.  With a slightly shaking hand, he put his name to the contract.  “One last thing, take this and be careful with it.”

He took a rock out of her hand and frowned.  “A paperweight?”

“No, that is in case of emergency.  It’s technically a bomb.”

“A what?!”  Fisher fumbled and only just managed not to drop it.

“Like I say, it’s for use in an emergency.  If you hear the cops coming, throw it on the ground and run.  It should give you a diversion for getting away and will destroy any evidence you might have left behind.  It’s magical and a little easier to transport than a real bomb.  It also has a controlled explosion – it will only cause damage to the room it’s in.  But, be careful with it, only use it if you have to, and if you don’t use it, I’ll need it back from you at the end of the night.  We wouldn’t want this getting into the wrong hands, would we?”

Fisher arched an eyebrow considering what the right hands were.

The car came to a stop, and Madam beamed.  “Well, here we are.  Take as long as you need.  Remember this is your night.  On wrongs swift vengeance waits.  You’re done waiting, enjoy your vengeance.”

“I will,” he said, with determination.

*

Gerry stared at the dead body as Gunner paced up and down in the morgue.

“I’m surprised you wanted me to come down here,” said Gerry slowly.  “And a human victim?”  No offense to the victim but they dealt with supernatural cases.  The woman on the slab definitely wasn’t supernatural in any way.  “Why was LLPD so quick to pass her to us?”

Gunner shrugged.  “You know how the LLPD are.  They thought it was weird, so they decided it had to be supernatural.”

Yes, that was the way the LLPD worked these days.  Gerry remembered that fifteen years ago, the SEA had to fight to get cases away from the cops.  These days they tried to pass along everything that might be a little odd.

“Wanted to know if you’d ever seen anything like this before,” said Gunner nodding at the coroner.

The doctor pulled back the sheet and Gerry’s expression only flickered slightly as his snake hissed.

Gunner peered over his shoulder, growled and then turned away.  “Bad, right?”

“Very… unusual, so methodical.”  Gerry looked at the coroner.  “Are any of her organs still there?”

The coroner gave him a chilly smile.  “The brain’s still intact.  The killer seems to have focused on the chest.  There was an indication that she was still alive when she was cut open.”  Gerry and Gunner looked at him with matching fury in their eyes.  “Although she wouldn’t have been alive for long after the killer started cutting.  But I have to inform you that I didn’t find any trace of anesthetic.”

His snake growled unhappily.  “I’ve seen plenty of ritual killings but nothing like this.”  No, mostly that was about taking one particular organ for some ridiculously archaic ritual.  This seemed more systematic and crueler.  “Maybe they wanted to sell the organs.”

Gunner coughed and nodded to the next slab.  There definitely wasn’t a body on there, but something was covered up.

“Those the organs?”

“Yep,” said the coroner, “all hers, none missing.”

“They were found just lying next to the body,” interjected Gunner.  “I was kind of hoping that this would be some kind of ritual, and I could send Cutter out to knock a few demon worshiping heads together.”

Gerry considered looking at the organs.  He’d seen a lot in his time; he wasn’t squeamish.  But he decided against it.  He wasn’t sure he would gain any insight by seeing them.  Nor would they gain anything by letting Cutter, an angry wolf shifter off the leash.

“Hold the wolf at bay for now.  I’m not even sure this was supernatural.  The victim?”

“Everyone reckons she was a good person.”

“Hmmm.”  Yes, the number of victims who achieved sainthood after death was staggering.  But then they did investigate in the supernatural community.  Witnesses knew they had to be superstitious and wary of what they said about dead people. 
There was a chance the victims were coming back, one way or another.

“She was a surgeon at Los Lobos General.”

Gerry looked up in interest.  Perhaps this was a straightforward case.  The victim was a surgeon, and she’d had all her organs removed.  Surely this was some macabre payback perhaps for a surgery gone wrong.  “Did she have a problem with a patient?”

“No, at least, they won’t tell me if she did.  I talked with the hospital administrator, and she seemed pretty cut up by the death.  She was really forthcoming about everything.  I didn’t sense that she was holding anything major back.  She said our victim was a good surgeon and a nice person.  In fact, everyone we’ve talked to said that about her.  Apparently, she rarely lost a patient, and she never got into arguments with anyone.”

“Any malpractice suits?”

Gunner hesitated.  “Not that we know of.  Or at least, not that the hospital will admit.”

“Records?”

“We’re still waiting for tech support.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, we asked Director Sayles to assign us someone and he… well, he said they were a bit busy, and they would get to us when they could.  But I have got Avery contacting other SEA branches to find out if they have any similar cases like this.”

Gerry closed his eyes and soothed his irritated beast.  “The job the tech support agent should be doing.  I see.” 
Great, fucking great
.  Barry was doing his best to fuck Gerry over.  He didn’t even consider that by denying them support he was potentially letting killers get away with murder.  “Do the best you can and keep me updated.”

He stalked out of the morgue.  He wasn’t sure what bothered him more - Barry dicking around or the dead body.  He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something about the death that was familiar to him, and although it didn’t appear supernatural, there was something off.

His phone chirruped, and he fished it out of his pocket, stifling his python’s hiss as he saw it was from his wife.  Apparently his idiot brother-in-law had been arrested again for punching a guy out.  Great, when it wasn’t drugs, it was violence with this moron.

The day just got better and better.