Shifting the Night Away (58 page)

“We have a business to run. That man won’t ruin our lives. We’ll set things up for the boys and dip out to find him.”

“Fine, but when I catch the trail, you stay in the car. Understood?”

“Deal.”

 
The drive over to the restaurant was quiet, but calm. The unease she anticipated didn’t stand a chance. She was too close to Baron and knew to her very core that they’d keep each other safe.

So when the stench of old blood hit her nostrils the hot second she stepped out the car, she didn’t initially panic.
 

“You stay here.”

Yeah right. She kicked open the swinging rear door of the restaurant, daring him to say something.

 
He picked her up, feet still kicking, and dumped her behind him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
 

“This isn’t him. This is someone else.”

“Johanna!”

“What happened to us making mutual decisions?”

“Do you want to die?”

“No.”

“Mutual decision.”

“Doesn’t work that way. You leave me here and I’ll follow. Simple as that. So, we might as well go in together.”

Baron paced by the door and poked his head inside. “At least stay behind me. And you can uncross your arms. You won. If you call walking into a dark building dripping with blood winning.”
 

“If there’s anyone, or
anything
here, they heard us during your dissertation.”

“Sorry. I’ll keep it brief. Blood. Lots of it. My restaurant. Our first fight can wait.”
 

“Second. Actually, third, because you lied twice.”

“Baby, you need to work on your timing.” Baron grabbed her wrist and forged into the faint aroma of decay that permeated the air. No, not quite decay, more like meat left thawing a little too long in the sink.

Baron didn’t flip the switch in the hall. Neither of them required it to see in the dim light and they needed every advantage. The narrow path forced her to walk a step behind. She shuddered, now thankful that whatever scene lay ahead, she wouldn’t see it first.

New smells and familiar ones suffused her nostrils. Two of them. She closed her eyes, blocking out everything until she honed in and gave one of those scents a name. So bent on concentrating, she didn’t realize Baron had stopped moving and she slammed head first into his back. He didn’t say anything, but her nose did. “It’s Belinda.”
 

“It is.”

Bile stung her throat. She tried to sidestep Baron. She needed to see Belinda with her own eyes, but huge arms locked her in place.
 

“There’s no point.”

“Let me see her.”

“She’s not...she fought him. Okay? She fought hard. Now go outside and call the police.”

She didn’t move, her feet cemented themselves to the floor and knees locked in place. “And that other scent belongs to the man from the sidewalk. I know it.”

Baron drew her head into his chest and tried turning her around for the second time in as many minutes. She dug in her heels, but it got her nowhere.

“I’m not moving from this spot and you’re not moving pass me. Don’t fight me on this one, Johanna. Please.”

“Why her?”

He didn’t answer, but a final gentle push motivated her back down the hall. Her sandaled foot hit Belinda’s cell. She picked it up with trembling hands. While they shuffled back to the door, her mind played out the scenarios. He’d call the cops and they would come to take Belinda away.

No…

They would take away a woman from a restaurant expected to open by the end of the week.

A restaurant owned by a man with one dead woman in his rearview mirror already.

A man who happened to be seeing the dead woman’s boss. A boss everyone knew she hated. Johanna skidded to a stop and whirled around.

“Baron, this is a set up. You call the cops and it’s all over for you. That’s what whoever did this is counting on. There’s only one nonhuman in our police department, at least that I know. There’s no way he can handle two cases involving me and not fall under suspicion. We have to solve this ourselves before turning her in.”

Baron’s eyebrow twitched. “I must have misheard. I almost thought you said that we’re hiding bodies now.”

“It’s just the one…”

“Oh, well hell then. No problem.” Baron leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “We can’t. The short answer is that normal people don’t hide bodies. So, no.”

“This person is good, Baron. They know all about you and me and this place. They have to know that you’re about to have a grand opening. They want to ruin you. They’ll throw you in jail if they can, but if not, they want to make sure no one eats here. It’ll financially destroy you.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this. And I’m not agreeing to anything, but where would you put the body?”

“You have a freezer.”

“I am not putting your dead boss next to the ribeyes!”

“This killer is expecting us here in a couple of hours. We’re only early because of Kate’s call. If we’re lucky, he’s not back yet. If he’s smart, he’s left town already to watch the damage play out on the news. If we’re going to move her, we have to do it now.”

“That’s a lot of ifs.” Baron paced and sighed. His dark sneakers shuffled against the floor and he kept looking down the dark hall. “One day. If in one day, we don’t find this guy—”

“Agreed.”

He swore and turned down the hall, but braced both arms out when she tried to follow. “I said, no. You don’t need to see what’s back there. I’ll put her in something and…shit…just get the van.”

The something ended being one of those rolling backing ovens set aside for resale. A few minute later, she backed up the borrowed van to the rear of the restaurant. With not another word spoken, they hoisted Belinda in and sped away.

Baron sat in the passenger’s seat, shaking his head and swearing. If his mind processed this as hers did, it worked at warp speed trying to think of a place to put a body. Belinda had to be kept safe, cool and protected. The time to feel bad about this would come later, but for now, they had to look out for themselves.

She checked behind her every few blocks to make sure they weren’t being followed. Most of the streetlights hadn’t turned on yet and the roads were near empty. Still, she kept looking.

“Maybe we go down by the water,” Baron said. “We can’t put her somewhere too accessible. Are there any abandoned factories? Old churches? C’mon, baby. This is your town. We need a place that’s drafty, cool and shielded from the elements.”

Someplace like the refrigerated van they were in right now.
 

She looked at him and then back out the window. He wouldn’t like it, but he didn’t have to. They were out of options. She turned around in the middle of the street and made a frenzied beeline to one of the busiest strip malls in town.
 

Baron scrambled into his seatbelt with one hand and braced the dashboard with the other. “Something come to mind?”

“Yeah. This.”

“This?”

She swirled her finger in the air. “This.”

“Don’t look so proud baby. It’s creepy as hell. You’re right, though. This thing has a standby mode. She’ll stay cool for a couple of days. Why are these words coming out of my mouth?”
 

She smiled at her genius, but guilt ran that off her face real fast. “We need to take care of this today. She deserves better.”

“We go back to the restaurant, scrub the place clean, change and then follow that scent. This guy’s dead by nighttime.”

Chapter Fourteen

He’d come to this town to blend in and start over. Now he had a Mate, her crazy sister and her dead boss in a glorified ice cream truck.

“Maybe we should call Kate,” Johanna said, still on her hands and knees wiping up blood.

“I can’t deal with her now.”

“But she has connections.”

“Dead body hiding connections?”

Johanna went to the sink for an un-red bucket of water. “Probably not.”

“Let’s hope.”

It took nonstop work, but they had the place scrubbed and cleaned by the first employee’s knock. It wouldn’t fool a wolf or a dragon, or even a human cop with a can of luminal, but no one else would notice a thing.

They left a skeleton crew of three behind to finish setup and slipped out under the guise of running last minute errands.

“You ready to go hunting, baby?”

“No. You?”

His first inclination was to make a joke, but there was nothing funny about this. His life hung in the balance and he didn’t have nearly as good a hand as he’d hoped. “No. But we’ll do what we need to.”

The trail wasn’t fresh, but consistent. Heat, plus exertions of murder, made following the killer easy. Pockets of his scent collected in the weirdest of places. Food stalls. Drug stores. Day care centers. He’d been near the clerk’s office and the parking lot too. The crime could have taken place in the former, but they weren’t so bold as to go inside and sniff around.
 

Johanna’s weird state of ‘technically still employed, but on medical leave after being shot’ put her in a precarious situation. If this whole thing went sideways, he didn’t want anyone linking Belinda’s first sign of disappearance with an unexpected reemergence of Johanna at the office.
 

Baron kept his head down and sprinted for Johanna’s car waiting two blocks away.

“He’s been outside, but their scents didn’t intermingle. Like two cars passing,” he said, sliding one hand near, but not touching, the other.

She tossed over Belinda’s phone. “The last app she had open was linked to her dating profile. She had something on the night of the murder.”

“With?”

She shrugged and pulled out into traffic. “Don’t know. I clicked on the account of the person she was talking to, but the profile’s been removed.”

“So we’re back to square one.”

“Not quite. The messages are still there. They had an evening picnic scheduled at Founder’s Park. It’s small, just a dozen or so eating areas. It totally makes sense. He needed a place where he could see everything around him. Let’s go,” she said, hitting the gas and squealing down the street.

The woman, skittish of him when they’d first met and nearly destroyed by fate’s hand, now moved with composed, thoughtful purpose. They’d reversed roles somewhere along the way. Now here she was, bringing a calming spirit on the craziest day of his life. “You’re amazing, Johanna.”

“Later.” She pointed out the window. “Here’s the playground.”

The small, congested park buzzed with midmorning workout groups and mothers jogging behind baby strollers. They pulled in, got out and he pointed her off to the right of the circle while he hit the left. He hated to separate and kept an eye on her the entire time, but they needed to cover a lot of ground.

His senses analyzed everything else. The sound of his shoes sliding on the still slick walking track, ladies laughing as they walked and the acrid smells of burnt commercial coffee.
 

Then the wind shifted.
 

He turned to signal Johanna, but she was already running, cutting across the center of the paved walking circle. Baron nodded toward a roped off trail, but tried once more to get her to safety. “If I ask you to wait in the car…”

“I go where you go.”

“Will you at least promise to stay behind me?”

“No.”

Damn her, but he chuckled and he knew that this was right where she was meant to be, standing by his side. “I will never forgive you if you get yourself hurt.” There was no rush in the kiss he planted on her lips. He enjoyed her as if they had all the time in the world. She pulled away. Maybe she knew he didn’t have the strength to.
 

“Stop acting like this’ll be the last time you get to do that.”

“When this is over, I’m going to give you a good life, Johanna.”

“That sounds kinda permanent.”

“It should sound very permanent. I’m not letting anyone take our future away. We are moments from beginning the rest of our lives. I go into this knowing that you’re my reward.” He took her hand and together they ducked into the brush.