The Shifter's Conspiracy (Paranormal BBW Werewolf Romance Novella) (2 page)

“Whatever, I’ll scan the papers. Thanks for nothing.”

“Aww come on, you can tell me, Tess. I got your back. What’s the lead? Maybe I can help you out.”

His voice was full of fake sincerity. I knew he’d conned his way into getting put on the case in the first place; I wasn’t going to give him a lead to cement his position on the team. I grabbed the pile of papers off my desk and walked to the scanner down the hall. But first I logged out of my computer; I couldn’t jeopardize my work by letting Eric steal a glance when I walked away and he was just the type of self-serving loser who would stoop to that level.

Back at the scanner, I worked my way through the several-inch thick packet of papers; more unimportant legal forms and affidavits. But instead of daydreaming my mind was working furiously. If I could focus in on at least a few different bars and clubs that these girls had all been to, then maybe I would have a reason to go out and ask the owners and staff some questions.

By the time I was finished with the file, it was almost 8:00 PM, time to clock out so the night shift could come on. I wanted to stay later, but since I was junior staff I actually shared my desk with someone who worked the opposite shift, so I had to be out by eight o’clock sharp. I grabbed my personal things off of my desk and headed back to my apartment. Fortunately, the research I wanted to do could be done at home on my laptop.

I took the elevator downstairs and walked through the lobby of the police station. Outside the sky was dark as a heavy rain fell on a late October night. I thought about hailing a cab, but they were all occupied with the rain pouring down like it was. Having left my umbrella up at my desk, I sprinted the two blocks to the subway station.

I passed my MetroCard through the scanner and walked through the turnstile. Five minutes until the next 4 train. There was a local 6 train coming in three minutes, but that one would be much too slow. Impulsively, I pulled out my cell phone to check my texts, email, etc., but of course there was no service in the station. I tapped my feet as I waited around.

Then all the sudden I was aware of someone watching me, made aware as if by a sixth sense. Calmly and casually, I raised my eyes up and scanned the area. A man stood about twenty feet away from me, leaning against the tiles of the wall behind us. He was pretending to read the paper, but I could feel his eyes on me, hidden though they were behind his sunglasses. Why was he wearing sunglasses at night?

I kept an eye on him, being careful, however, not to look directly at him, not to let him know that I was on to him. Fortunately, it was still early in the night, and there were plenty of people in the subway station. I even saw a few Metro cops about fifty yards away by the turnstiles. I felt safe in a populated area, but nonetheless decided that I should get on the next train.

The local 6 train came by and I got on, taking note that the man had followed me, getting in at the far end of the subway car at the opposite door. I put my headphones in, pretending to be oblivious, but I didn’t turn any music on. I watched and listened, pretending to be playing around on my phone. At the next stop, I hopped out of the train, quickly getting lost in the crowd so he couldn’t follow me. Was he following me? I didn’t know for sure; maybe I was just being paranoid.

The rain had let up almost completely by the time I emerged onto the street. I was greeted by the pleasant cool air of fall. Even if it took a little while longer, it wouldn’t be so bad walking home. I liked this weather; it made me want to curl up with a glass of wine and a good book. But I knew I didn’t have time for that tonight. I stopped at a coffee shop on the way home and got a grande latte; I had a long night ahead and would need the caffeine.

At 5:00 AM I woke up on the couch to the TV blaring an infomercial. A partially eaten piece of pizza sat on a plate on my coffee table. It took a few seconds before I got my bearings, realizing that I’d fallen asleep on the couch in the middle of my research. Despite all my good ideas earlier in the day, my initial look into the social media profiles I’d found hadn’t yielded anything too promising.

I only had a few more hours to sleep before work tomorrow and decided it was best to brush my teeth and try to some solid hours of rest before I had to go into the station. After all, those files weren’t going to scan themselves, I thought to myself sarcastically.

A few hours later, I scanned my clearance card and the doors opened into the police station. I took the elevator up to the eighth floor and sat down at my computer, turning on the monitors and letting it boot up while I went to grab a cup of coffee. I was a dedicated detective, and usually one of the first people in the office each morning. Hopefully, this would give me an hour or so before someone came by to pass off some mundane assignment on me; this would be my chance to follow up on some of the research I’d started yesterday.

I started scrolling through the check-ins on Yelp and Facebook for each girl, plotting out a timeline starting three weeks out from their individual disappearances. This gave me a fairly elaborate idea of what exactly they’d been up to during that time. If there were any commonalities, shared patterns of behavior, I stood a pretty good chance of finding them.

I’d finished a timeline for the first girl about an hour later. Hopefully, they wouldn’t all take this long, but that of course would depend on how frequently they used social media. Some of these girls seemed to tweet every five minutes, and that might make this a painstakingly slow process. But even if it went slowly, the more tweets, the more status updates, the more information I’d have at my fingertips. Even if I couldn’t find any patterns, perhaps our data analysts could. I would at the very least get credit for compiling all of the information, right?

For the time being, however, I’d get to consider this possibility while I ran files through the scanner. Eric had just come by and dropped the morning’s work on my desk, complete with his malicious, creepy sneer.

“Still too busy to do your job?” he asked, reaching in and playfully squeezing my shoulder. Or at least he thought it was playful.

“Don’t touch me,” I said coldly.

He wasn’t my friend and there was no point in pretending he was. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous that he’d been put on the abductions case, period. He had no experience in the area and he was a bad, lazy detective. I knew he was just the yes-man of one of the senior officers and someone had pulled the strings for him.

“Oh, touchy, touchy,” he said, that stupid grin still plastered to his face.

“Listen, I know it’s my job to scan these, but I don’t have to like it. Please stop rubbing it in my face.”

“Well, chubs, maybe if you changed your attitude you wouldn’t have to do the grunt work. Have fun scanning, secretary.”

I decided I wouldn’t dignify his insult with a response. So, I got up and walked quickly past him with the file. I thought about giving him an elbow, but he probably would have thought I was flirting. What a fucking asshole. How could he be so callous? He knew he was on the case for all the wrong reasons, but he still felt the need to brag about it. And the comment about my weight? What the hell?

Small tears welled up in my eyes, but I forced them back. I’d never been anything but nice to him since I’d started working here. Initially, he had been nice to me, too. Things had changed, however, when I’d rejected his advances at a bar this past summer. Originally, we’d sort of been friends. We were the youngest people at this precinct and occasionally we’d go out to have a drink and talk about the department. Since a lot of the other officers were older, our age was at least one thing we had in common. But one time he was a bit drunk and tried to kiss me; I pulled my head out of the way and he ended up storming out of the bar pissed off and cursing loudly.

The next day I had tried to explain to him that it was unprofessional, that it could get us into trouble at work. Really, I just wasn’t interested in him like that. I knew he wasn’t truly interested, either; he just thought I was a quick and easy lay and he simply wanted some that night. But I’m not like that, I’ve never been that type of girl. And I wasn’t about to ruin my integrity just because he was pressuring me.

He’d been an asshole ever since. Did he think it was charming, or clever or something? I didn’t know for sure. Needless to say, we never went out for drinks anymore.

I didn’t want to let his insults get to me, but I found a few small tears streaking down my face over at the scanner. Brushing them away, I tried to concentrate on my work. Concentrate? It was just scanning stupid files. One didn’t need concentration for that. The fact was that even though I didn’t care about Eric, his insults still stung me deeply. I was self-conscious about my weight, and for him to point it out like that was about the meanest, most hurtful thing he could do. Did he not get that? Or was he deliberately trying to break my confidence?

Then a light bulb went off in my head. I left the files at the scanner and headed back to my desk. Turning the monitors back on, I logged in and started scrolling back through the files I’d started on each girl. I’d included pictures of each of them in the files. One picture was a headshot, mainly for identification purposes, but each file also had a few photos pulled from Facebook, photos I thought gave a sort of general impression of each girl’s demeanor, what she actually looked like when she was out in public.

I went through file after file, more and more confident with each one I opened. By the time I reached the last one, I had one-hundred percent confirmation. I was being cautious, so I decided to grab someone else just to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. But who?

I decided to grab my boss’s secretary, one of the only other women in the office and someone who certainly wasn’t competing with me for a spot on the abductions case. I could trust her to give me an honest response. I walked quickly to her desk which sat just outside Lieutenant Jackson’s office down the hall.

“Shelly,” I said sweetly, trying to be persuasive. “Could you come take a quick look at something for me?”