Shepherd's Moon (19 page)

“It had to be done that way,” he sighed. “I wasn’t sure if I could bring you in on this or if you would be biased.”

“I’m not a shifter or a vampire, and I don’t use VW. Why would I be biased?”

The leather of his chair groaned as he leaned forward to study me. “Because you have a set of skills that make you a little more opinionated on cases that involve shifters, and you have a team that makes you a little more dangerous than most when it comes to backing up your opinions.”

My anger evaporated at his words and the hint of a smile crossed my lips, one that I quickly hid as Richard’s eyes met my own. “Fair enough. But, you know I don’t give them orders, Richard. At worst, I… make suggestions.”

His dark eyes appraised me, making me feel like a rabbit being watched like a hawk. “Okay, fine,” I conceded, rolling my eyes. “It’s nothing I can’t keep in check.”

“I hope so. Because you’re involved in this whether you like it or not.” His voice was stern, but gentle. “Are we going to have a problem?”

I shook my head.

“I have information here that will be useful,” he said. “I’ll give it to you, but if I see any sign that you are losing control in a misguided attempt for revenge — for even one minute —you’re going to be held accountable. And not by me.”

Revenge? When did this turn into revenge and what would have given the impression that I would be out for vengeance?

He reached down and unlocked the desk drawer, retrieving a small flash drive from its depths. Setting it on the desk, his gaze shifted towards the glass divider that separated his office from the rest of the station. Billy and Brock sat in the hall, facing opposite the glass, their alert eyes warily observing us.

“You have to keep this information from them.”

“Fine,” I agreed, reaching for the drive.

Apparently I wasn’t convincing enough because he pulled the device closer to him and shook his head. “Listen to me…Once you start down this rabbit hole, you’ll have some hard decisions to make,” he warned. “If you choose to look at this file, you are accepting the case and you will finish what you start. You will do it in a fair and objective manner without emotion. I won’t be able to cover up for you.”

“I heard you the first time, Richard.” I slid the drive from under his fingers, and plugged it into my phone, hesitating for the briefest moment before typing in my encryption key. Waiting for the files to load, I removed the sunglasses and set them on the desk. Obviously this was important to him and it deserved my full attention.

“What’s on it?” I asked.

“Cassie’s been doing some preliminary research on Parallax. We believe there is a connection between Parallax and our mysterious Handler. But, there’s more…”

I scanned the report first, glancing at the headers of each neatly typed section. One thing I could say about Cassie is that she knows how to organize a report—even when it’s in a digital format.

Nothing new here, other than some shady dealings in the stock market and some frivolous lawsuits used to tie up their competition in court—all things I suspected occurred on a regular basis. Like any large corporation, Parallax had a number of payouts to government officials, including two inspectors at the EPA.

Not a very moral company, but certainly nothing I hadn’t seen before. Clicking out of the report, I scrolled through the photos of the key players as they appeared, my heart speeding up a few beats when a familiar face showed up in a surprisingly clear photo.

Diego Jiménez…

Tendrils of fear curled through me at the mere sight of him. He was the first man I had ever killed; yet, even in death, he had the power to make my palms sweat and my heart race. Now I knew why Richard was so concerned about my reaction.

“Jesus, Richard…” I looked up at him. “This is Diego.”

He nodded gravely. “Hence my prior concern…”

“Why is his picture in here?” This was the man responsible for kidnapping Modnik and keeping her in a state of constant terror for most of her life while using her as a breeder. His crimes read like a laundry list: Kidnapping, rape, assault, torture, murder, human trafficking. But anyone could alter a photo. I pulled up the metadata from the file, searching for the date and location of the photo.

“November 12,” I mumbled. “This was taken last week…in Washington?”

He nodded, watching me carefully. “We believe he may be the Handler we’re looking for.”

“No.” I shook my head in denial. “I killed him two years ago, Richard. I buried him in the jungle myself.”

“Well, he’s back from the dead.” He shrugged. “And he’s still trafficking animals, but he’s expanded his list of services to include the drug trade, among other things.”

I stared at the photo in disbelief. The thought that Diego somehow survived, had lived on to hurt others, and to maybe even track me or my pack members down one day — it was too much for me to wrap my brain around.”

“There’s no way this guy is alive, Richard.” My voice sounded as shaky as I felt. “I’m telling you — I shot him. Twice in the head. Twice in the heart.”

No one and nothing can survive that. The high-caliber shots had nearly severed his head, and not even a vampire would be able to regenerate after a hit like that.

Seeing I wasn’t about to let it go, Richard’s voice was gentler and he motioned to the picture. “Think about when you knew him, Alex. Could this person be a relative? A twin, maybe?”

“No.” I took a closer look at the man’s eyes in the photo then closed the screen and set my phone on the desk, pushing it away as if it were a traitorous object. “Maybe… I don’t know. This sure looks like Diego Jiménez. Cassie must have made a mistake.”

“Cassie doesn’t make mistakes,” he replied automatically.

And as much as I disliked her, I had to agree. Cassie is the most precise, detail-oriented person I’ve ever known. I rubbed my arms nervously, a sudden chill running across my skin.

“You’ll just have to verify when you’re at Parallax,” Richard said.

That got my attention.

“Whoa, horse… Who said I was going to Parallax?”

He held up a hand against my protest, but his voice was still gentle. “I warned you about this, Alex. Going to Parallax is the only way we can verify with certainty…”

I shook my head. “No way, Richard. I’m not going to be forced into another deal with anyone.”

“You agreed to the deal when you opened that file, Alex.”

He shuffled through the mound of files that littered his otherwise bare desk. Nervous habits were not Richard’s thing and the behavior struck me as being odd. “This is a job that I can’t pass on to someone else. It’s the type of mission you’ve been training for since you were a child. We need this information, but we won’t be sending you in alone.”

“We…”
I was quickly moving from fearful to angry. “Since I walked into your office thirty minutes ago,
we’ve
moved from ‘finding a Handler’ to hunting down the most feared man I’ve ever known while infiltrating one of the most secretive private organizations in the world. So, who is the ‘we’ in this deal?”

He stared at the desk, a guilty look on his face.

“Spit it out, Richard.”

His heavy sigh was laced with burden and frustration.

“Tristan and his group want in on this. And before you get upset, let me just say that these are not people you say ‘no’ to.”

“You’re unbelievable,” I said, shaking my head. “If you think I’m going anywhere with that psychopath — let alone Parallax—you can forget it.”

“You don’t know enough to make that call, Alex.” He remained calm, despite my protests. “Besides, you don’t know the kind of connections his group has.”

I considered his words. “Then enlighten me. What do you know about Tristan and his group that could possibly be construed as an advantage?”

“For starters, his team is special ops, ex-military. They’ve all been handpicked by a man who’s been around since Alexander the Great, and they are each very good at what they do. While Tristan is not my favorite choice as your partner, he has figured out a way to survive for over two thousand years. Don’t you think that’s someone you want on your side?”

I watched him as I tried to digest his words and more importantly, the meaning behind those words. Richard was my mentor, employer, Joseph’s best friend, and really, the only connection I had left to the human world. I have never seen fear in the man before today, yet now it permeated the office in spades. Me and my fear of Diego, Richard and his fear for me. It was obvious that he didn’t want me anywhere near this case, but he hadn’t been given much of a choice.

Which made me wonder even more what kind of power this Tristan wielded…

“Alex,” Richard’s voice was cautioning, picking up on my line of reasoning. “Tristan is far more influential than you think. He’s got his hand in everything from government sanctioned funding to black ops control. He has connections that I could only dream of having.”

Actually, that
was
impressive. I always thought Richard was the best-connected guy I knew, particularly with his extensive background in the military. But then again, he hadn’t been around for as long as Tristan.

“What’s his motivation, though? Everyone has a price—but Tristan doesn’t strike me as the type of guy that’s motivated by money.”

“Who knows…” It wasn’t a question. “Power. Prestige. Personally I think the guy just enjoys wreaking havoc in the lives of humans.”

Which actually would have been my first guess. It was a phenomenon I had seen often since earning the title of Shepherd. Those with long lives tend to favor chaos over order, simply because having the ability to live forever became so taxing and mundane.

I shrugged. “It’s a non-issue anyway. I’m not going to put my pack at risk, so there’s no reason for me to worry about what drives the guy.”

“No,” Richard said sharply. “You’ll work with him. Find out what this group is up to.”

I stared at him. “It’s too much of a threat, Richard. There’s nothing so important that I need to risk my pack.”

“I need you to be a part of this, Alex.”

“What is wrong with you, Richard?”

What the hell?
Why would Richard push me into this when only a day ago, he was warning me to stay away from the guy? He had never ordered me to do anything in my life — nothing that I was obviously opposed to, anyway. And he had never asked me to put my pack at risk.

“You’re still under blood debt,” he continued. “If you want to retain your position on the Council, you will cooperate with Tristan.”

His words felt like a slap and I slumped back into the chair with a shocked breath, stunned into silence. His statement represented a last ditch effort to make me comply — one that he had never tried in the past. As if I needed a reminder of my conditional employment. Every goddamned day of my life was a reminder. I could see from his face that he immediately regretted the word choice.

The blood debt.

Five years of my life working with the local police for a crime that I hadn’t committed. Yet, taking the responsibility for any illegal activity my pack engages in is just part of the job description for a Shepherd. But, blood debt or not — it doesn’t mean I have to put up with being ordered around by a Nephilim.

Something else was going on here. Richard just wouldn’t be this way under normal circumstances. I’d known him way too long for him to gamble with my life. For now, I needed to trust in him.

I took a deep breath and, composing myself, met his eyes. “The contract doesn’t provide for attacks on my property.”

“He attacked you?”

I glared at him in frustration and anger. “Why did you think he was at my house?”

Richard shrugged. “I can’t predict what he wants anymore than I can figure out what you want. But, I’m guessing if you’re still standing here, he wasn’t trying to kill you.”

How comforting, I thought.

“What did he do?”

“
He
didn’t do anything. The coward brought a cat along to do the dirty work.”

Richard raked his hand through his gray hair, a blue anchor tattoo on his forearm showing for only a brief moment under the sleeve of his starched, white dress shirt. “Then it wasn’t an attack. It was a test.”

I threw my hands in the air. “What kind of test requires me to fight a cat?”

“Large cougar?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Very large,” I nodded.

“That’s Leo.” He stood, walking around the front of his desk to take a closer look at me. “I don’t see any major damage, so I’m guessing the cat is the worse for wear?”

“For the record, I’m not that easy to kill.”

Rolling his eyes, he let go of my arms and smiled. “If you don’t think I know that by now, you really are crazy.”

I relaxed against the back of the chair and crossed my leg. “Have you been trying?”

“No,” he smiled. “Not yet, anyway.”

I took a deep breath, calming down, as Richard regained his former efficient self, circling back around the desk to take his seat. “I’m sorry, Alex. You’re an unknown. You’re the first female Shepherd for over 2,000 years. That’s going to bring some creatures around who want to test you.”

I pushed against my eyes trying to stab the pain of my headache away. “We’ve known each other a lot of years, Richard. This is obviously important to you and I trust that you’ll be honest with me. So, what do you propose I do about this new problem with Tristan and his cat?”

He smiled. “Have you tried clicker training?”

“Not funny,” I groaned.

“Keep your pack close,” he said. “Tristan is…unpredictable, at best. No one seems to be able to tell me what he’s really up to, and that makes me wonder what he’s capable of.” He leaned back in the chair, the leather squeaking. “I was forced to bring him into my department. In the event you don’t understand the significance of that statement, it means he’s working with someone a lot higher up. It’s no coincidence he’s here.” It was knowledge that didn’t set well with him and I could see the frustration in his dark eyes.

That did mean something to me, whether Richard believed it or not. But I felt as if he were holding back. There was something he didn’t want me to know, which was strange. Richard didn’t make a habit of keeping secrets — not from me, anyway. I paused before asking my next question.