Under the Gun (24 page)

The file area for werewolves was near the very back of the room and blanketed by two
inches of dust. I set my flashlight on a nearby box, doing my best to angle the light
in a useful direction. While there were entire walls dedicated to the documents and
records for vampires and a growing catalog for newly turned zombies, the werewolf
corner seemed woefully miniscule—nothing but two metal filing cabinets and a lopsided
stack of books that looked garage-sale ready. I wrinkled my nose and very delicately
yanked on the metal drawer pull of the first cabinet. Four feet of mashed-together
manila folders sprung out and I finger walked through, looking for the most recent
and the vilest.

I frowned as I pushed through the year-by-year dividers, my sadness growing as the
number of files shrunk. By the two thousands, I was down to a mere handful, and for
the past year, there were only two files. I pulled them out and scanned the name tags—S
AMPSON,
P
ETE
and HARRIS, SERGIO—and put them aside, poking into some of the previous files.

I pulled one open at random, my fingers and eyes going over the glossy black-and-white
photograph that was stapled to the side. It was of a handsome-looking man dressed
in early fifties garb. He was clean cut with an easy smile and ears that stuck out
over the top of his white sweater. The goofy smile and big ears made his age impossible
to pinpoint, but I supposed he was young, my age at the oldest. I yanked at the picture
stapled behind this one and sucked in a sharp breath at the beady eyes of the wolf
that peered back at me. Because of my job and my familiarity with the way Agency files
were kept, I knew that the wolf in the photo was the man in the previous photo, even
though there was nothing left of the goofy-looking guy. The ears that were big and
off centered in the first picture were sharply angled and alert in the second. The
easy smile and soft eyes of the boy were lost in the jagged canine teeth, the menacing
gaze of the beast. I flipped through a few more pages of the file, noting that this
client had signed his Agency agreement faithfully on the same day each year—which
meant that he was willing to abide by our rules and allow himself to be safely contained
at night, would not hunt human flesh, and would not be a threat to any person or demon
he ran across. And then I saw his death certificate.

Wolf,
someone had written in under
Manifestation at death
. And, under that,
Slain.
There was a newspaper article clipped to the back of the death certificate. It was
yellowed and written in grainy Chinese. I didn’t need to translate to know that the
article credited the Du family with this wolf ’s death.

I had read my way through the first half of the files in the drawer when I heard it.
My entire body went on high alert and I cocked my head, holding my breath, listening.
A rustle. The flutter of papers. The deep murmur of voices being kept low. I slipped
my flashlight into my pocket and the records room dipped into immediate and overwhelming
darkness—all except for a yellow sliver of light that poured through the two-inch
crack of the open door. Someone had turned on the hallway lights.

I crab crawled toward the light, keeping one hand on my flashlight, the other pressed
against my chest, doing my best to muffle the sound of my clanging heart. I heard
footsteps then, and I stopped in mid-step, my whole body stooped, aching, protesting
the awkward stance.

“. . . could become quite a problem,” I heard.

“Not something I’m entirely worried about,” someone responded.

Dixon. I wet my lips.
But who is he talking to?

I took a hesitant step, certain that my every motion would ring out like china crashing.
Footsteps. Conversation moving closer. Then, silence.

I held my breath and clamped my eyes shut. Sweat beaded at the back of my neck and
I knew the scent beckoned like a lighthouse strobe. There were a thousand scents in
a deserted office—daily clients, cleaning solution, Post-It notes, toner . . . the
metallic scent of human blood, heavy with adrenaline, pulsing through veins.

Dixon knew I was there.

The tiny sliver of yellow light grew as he pushed open the door to the records room.
I slipped behind a file cabinet and crouched low, pressing my palms to my cheeks,
trying my best to absorb the heat that I knew was wafting from me in waves. I did
my best to slow my heartbeat, to make my breathing shallow, barely discernible. I
knew from living with Nina that the attempt could be futile, so when Dixon stepped
into the room I prepared myself to face him, every inch of my skin tightening, the
excuses and explanations spasming through my head. I watched from my crouched spot
as his dark eyes swept over the file cabinets and boxes in the room while one pale
hand rested on the light switch.

I licked my lips, then bit down hard on the bottom one as Dixon’s light flashed toward
my imperfect hiding spot. I glanced at the stack of files I had shoved aside with
my foot. They were low and scattered, decently hidden by the darkness and boxes.

Dixon didn’t turn on the light.

He didn’t come after me.

He simply stepped out of the room, clicking the door shut behind him.

I stayed hidden in the records room until my thighs screamed and I was certain that
Dixon and whomever he was with had left the building. Then I jammed the files into
my shoulder bag, clicked on my flashlight, and tried to straighten up. My legs and
nerves betrayed me and my new, heavier shoulder bag threw me off. I felt myself falling,
vaulting backward. I saw the boxes and the file cabinets going up as I went down,
and before I could think better of it, my arms shot out, my hands grabbing for anything
that would halt my fall.

I heard my flashlight crash to the ground as my fingers wrapped around the metal bars
of a shelving unit and I tried to shift my weight
à la
Angelina Jolie in one of her kick-ass roles—the darkness and my surge of adrenaline
must have covered up the fact that most of the things I do are
à la
Paula Deen—as in requiring butter—and are slightly less shiftable in the weight area.
My failed kick-ass move just sped up my fall, and I slapped down hard on the industrial-grade
carpet, pulling the entire bookshelf on top of me. Books and papers sailed off the
shelves and flopped on me, around me, everywhere; I let out inelegant “oafs!” each
time a hardcover nabbed me in the chest.

I was nearly covered by a mountain of books when a sheaf of papers fluttered down
like graceful, gossamer winged doves, landing in a heap about my face. One of the
loose pages blanketed my eyes and nose and though I couldn’t make out the words at
that distance, I was able to see the writing.

I felt my eyes grow.

I recognized the writing—the curl on the tails of the Y’s, the curlicued question
mark.

I knew it because it was mine.

“What the—?” I struggled to sit up, rolling my flashlight toward me and gathering
up the papers. My mouth dropped open with each new sheet. All of them were mine, all
of them oddly inane. A high school report card. A letter to my grandmother from sleepaway
camp. A series of photocopied Post-It notes, personal bills, an e-mail I had written
to Nina.

I pushed the bookshelf back up and shoved the books back into it, finding a stack
of stapled papers mashed between
So You Think Your Partner’s a Vampire
and an embarrassingly over-read copy of
Twilight.
I thumbed through the papers and recognized those as well. Not mine.

My father’s.

I shoved everything into my shoulder bag, did a quick once-over to make sure the room
looked the same, and took off like a shot. The angst that I��d felt when I’d first
come down the elevator was back, only this time it was squarely focused not on getting
found out by Dixon, but on wondering what it was that Dixon was trying to find out
about me. The pages were beyond any personnel file, and the stack that belonged to
my father were photocopies from a book that Alex had stolen from the uber-evil Ophelia
and I had only seen once: my father’s journal.

My cell phone chirped as I waited for the elevator, the jaunty tune so oddly terrifying
that I clamped my legs shut and willed myself not to pee.

“Sampson?”

“Hey, Sophie, are you okay? Nina told me about Feng and Xian.”

“I’m okay,” I said slowly. “Where were you though? I thought you were hiding out.”

Sampson paused for a beat. “I was following up on some leads. I thought it would be
safe.”

“And did you find anything out?”

“I found out that Alex and the rest of the police force are certain that a werewolf
is responsible for these killings.”

“So is Dixon,” I mumbled.

Sampson let out a measured sigh.

“Do they know about Nicco?”

I wasn’t sure if it was the lingering adrenaline, a book-induced head wound, or something
more intuitive, but I thought I sensed a bit of defeat—or admittance—in Sampson’s
voice.

“No. Sampson, we need to find Nicco. We need to find him and stop him and let everyone
know that he’s responsible. Not you.”

There was a slow pause and Sampson breathed in. Then out. “I can’t do that. I can’t
give him up.”

Because he doesn’t exist?
The thought flew through my head before I had the chance to grab it, to savor it.
No,
I thought.
I saw the other wolf. . . .
But it had been dark, and I didn’t know where Sampson was that night, and moreover,
I wasn’t completely certain of what Sampson looked like in wolf form.

“Sophie?” Sampson asked.

The conversation felt wrong. The slight, nagging accusation was bitter and bothersome.
Sampson,
I reminded myself,
Sampson wouldn’t do this.

But the evidence was overwhelming.

“Find him,” I said before clicking off the phone.

I had made my decision the moment the heavy steel doors slid open on the cheerily
lit police station vestibule.

I was chicken.

I
could
ask Sampson straight out. I couldn’t let him know that I suspected him, that my reservation
and mistrust was growing. But I could confront him with the most damning evidence.

And I knew exactly where to find it.

I hitched up my file-filled shoulder bag and cut through the main police station,
walking with purpose. I nodded to a few meandering file clerks and complimented the
dispatcher on her Farrah hair while I blasted out my I-totally-belong-here vibe.

And then I slipped down the hall toward Alex’s office.

The door was closed, but unlocked. I slipped in, shutting it behind me, and clicked
on the lights, stifling a very
un
-I-totally-belong-here scream when the buzzing overhead lights illuminated the white
board where eight-by-ten photos of both crime scenes were pinned up. Each time I saw
the destruction, the spattered blood, the torturous fear that these women must have
felt, my stomach dropped lower and I found it hard to breathe. I did my best to avoid
the photos and went to work picking through Alex’s things until I found what I needed:
the evidence collection kit for the Pacific Heights murder.

I tossed aside Ziploc bags of blood-spattered clothing, a soaked swatch of carpet
and sofa pillow, and finally landed on the videotapes. There were six of them, identical,
unlabeled.

“What are you doing in here?”

I stood with a start. I had already shoved two of the tapes in my bag and I clutched
the others to my chest, my heart hammering against the flimsy black plastic. I licked
my lips and pressed my lips into the warmest, kindliest smile in my repertoire.

“Officer Romero! What are you doing here?”

Romero didn’t smile back at me. He simply crossed his arms in front of his chest and
quirked a questioning eyebrow.

“Me? Oh, I was, um . . .” I glanced down at the tapes in my arms. “. . . picking up
something for Alex.”

Romero took a step in. “Alex asked you to come down here and gather state’s evidence?”

I pumped my head. “Yeah, he meant to do it himself but”—I twirled an index finger
a half-inch from my head—“doy! He forgot when he left today.”

Romero shifted his weight, the edge of his lips turning up a quarter-inch. “Why would
Alex need the tapes from the crime scene?”

“From the crime scene? Oh!” I barked a completely overzealous laugh. “Now I get it.
You said ‘state’s evidence.’ Yeah, these aren’t that.” I hugged the videotapes. “They’re
personal.”

“Personal?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What kind of personal videotapes does Alex keep in his office?” Romero took a step
into the office, moving closer to me, his hand reaching for the tapes.

I spun, gripping the tapes harder. “They’re sex tapes.”

Both of Romero’s eyebrows shot up, were lost in his dark hair. “You and Alex made
. . .” He paused, counted. “. . . four sex tapes?”

Heat shot through me, and I was certain I had gone from my normal day-glow pale to
lobster red in three short seconds. “Yes.”

“Alex?” Romero’s eyes raked over me. “And you?”

I was humiliated, but oddly indignant. “I could make a sex tape. I’m saucy.”

Romero paused for a beat, and I nearly thought I was home free. Then he pulled his
cuffs from his belt, held out his hand, and said, “Sophie, I need you to bring me
the tapes.”

I shook my head. “No.” My voice had more power than I’d intended and I was surprised.
I licked my lips. “Can’t you just trust me on this? Or, give me twenty-four hours.
That’s it. I’ll have them back to you in twenty-four hours. Please?”

“You know I can’t do that. Look, I’ll compromise. If you drop the tapes and leave
right now, nothing has to happen.” He shrugged. “I won’t even tell Alex.”

“How is that a compromise?”

He shook the cuffs. “Otherwise I’m going to have to cuff you. I’m going to have to
file a report.” Romero took a step toward me and I sidestepped, letting Alex’s big
oak desk block me.

“I’m not a criminal, Romero. You know that.”

Romero looked at me reluctantly. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, please.”

“I’m not. I told you: twenty-four hours. No one has to know.”

Romero’s eyes went toward the white-corked ceiling as if the answer were pinned up
there. “Fine.”

I felt the relief crash over me in a tight wave. Deep down I had always been certain
Romero was on my side, but he was a good cop and a new cop—deciding to help a newish
friend couldn’t have been easy for him.

“Thank you.”

I dumped the remaining tapes in my shoulder bag and it yanked down on my shoulder.
I really had no intention of bringing the videotapes back and that little fact nagged
at me as I stepped toward the boyish-faced Romero. “I really appreciate this.”

He just nodded.

I reached up to turn the lights out, hearing the cuffs snap on me in the darkness.

“What the—?” I thrust my arm out into the buzzing fluorescent lights of the hallway
and jiggled my wrist, hearing the clink, clink, clink of the steel cuff against itself.
“I thought we had an understanding.”

Romero said nothing, just gave the cuffs a gentle pull until we were back in Alex’s
office. He flicked on the lights and unceremoniously clicked the loose cuff to Alex’s
chair.

“I get it,” I said between gritted teeth. “I’ve seen this before. You’re a bad cop.”

Romero had my shoulder bag now and was pulling out the videotapes one by one. “A good
cop captures criminals. That’s what I was doing.”

“I am not a criminal! I’m a—a good girl!”

“You told me you were saucy enough to make a sex tape. And you stole state’s evidence.”

“No,” I said, yanking the chair along with me. “I
attempted
to steal state’s evidence. If I didn’t actually leave the building with it, it can’t
be called stealing and thus, not a crime.” I wrangled against the chair. “Now get
this off me.”

Romero shot me an exasperated look before dropping the tapes and coming around the
desk. He put a hand on each of my shoulders and guided me down into a sitting position
in the chair.

“I’m going to do you a favor. I’m not going to file a police report and I’m not going
to put you in a holding cell.”

I crossed my legs and used my free arm to rest my chin in my hand. “No big. I’ve been
in a holding cell before.”

“What happened to you being a good girl?”

I demonstrated my range of motion.

“I’ll keep you in here while I call Alex and he can escort you out. That way no one
has to know.” Romero smiled, a dumb kindness in his eyes. Had I not been handcuffed
to refurbished office furniture, I might have thought his smile was warm and his eyes,
intelligent.

Not now.

“Wait.” My head snapped up. “Did you say you were going to call Alex?”

“Yeah, he’ll come down and get you, won’t he?”

I opened my mouth and then shut it again, suddenly mute. I shrugged my shoulders.
Romero turned to leave, but turned back to me in the doorway. He pointed a single
finger at me. “Now don’t you go anywhere,” he said with a smile.

I rolled my eyes. “You really think this chair won’t fit through that door? You’re
an idiot,” I huffed under my breath.

I waited for Romero to disappear completely before I grabbed my shoulder bag—tapes
repacked inside—and began my seated scoot toward the doorway. I lined myself up and
crept closer, attempting to clear the entire door frame like some sort of bizarre
Operation game.

It hadn’t occurred to me what I would do once I got out of the office. Not a lot of
things raised eyebrows in this city—I’d once carried a six-foot-tall piñata on the
bus and no one had batted an eye—but a woman handcuffed to a metal office chair and
scoot walking down the block just might.

Whatever.

I squared myself up and launched myself through the door with a massive amount of
F-you glee. Or at least I would have, had an arm of the chair not caught the door
frame. Instead my chair stopped and I slid right off the leather seat, sailing until
the slack went out of the cuff and I was slammed to the ground, my arm at an odd angle
above my head.

“Epic fail,” I muttered.

I pressed myself back into the chair and tried to ignore the new throb in my shoulder.
On a determined sigh, I repositioned myself and slid toward the door frame once again,
this time gently. I did my best to keep an eye on the arms of the chair, as they narrowly
rubbed against the door frame. I could feel the edges of my lips turning up. I could
feel that F-you smile.

I was sure that somewhere in our house, Vlad had stashed some kind of medieval weaponry
that would free me forever.

But I didn’t count on being stuck. The arms of my chair squeaked against the door
frame.

I gripped them and wriggled, trying to loosen it up. I pressed my feet to the floor
and clenched every muscle in my body as my sneakers tried to gain traction while I
pushed. I was searching through my shoulder bag, looking for lotion to slather myself
and my chair with when I heard Alex clear his throat.

His T-shirt was disheveled, his jeans wrinkled, and his dark curls had the unequivocal
look of bedhead. He didn’t look happy to see me.

“I’m stuck,” I said, looking up with my best puppy-dog eyes in an attempt to win him
over.

Alex blinked at me. Then, without saying a word, he lifted one foot and used it to
spread my legs. Images of hot prison sex or Fifty Shades of handcuff sex flashed in
my mind. My heart began to pound and the throbbing of my shoulder had moved to the
pit of my stomach, threatening to drop lower.

“Alex.” My voice came out a sultry whisper as I stared at his foot nestled a half-inch
from my crotch.

Again, Alex didn’t answer. He simply flexed his foot and gave me a solid shove back
into his office. The back of my chair gently thumped against his back wall and I stared
while Alex shut his door, then angled himself on the edge of his desk.

“You have exactly two minutes to tell me what the hell you were thinking and one to
tell me why I should take the cuffs off.” There was no humor in his voice, no trace
of the easy half smile that usually graced his lips. His eyes were a dark, slate grey.
The accusation in them pinned me to my seat, regardless of the cuffs.

“I wasn’t going to steal them.” The words were out of my mouth before I had a chance
to review them, to edit them. I was lying and we both knew it.

Alex let out an exhausted sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you want to
tell me what the hell is going on with you lately?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re hot, you’re cold, you’re on edge and”—Alex licked his bottom lip—“you’re a
liar.”

“A liar?” I was truly—and inappropriately—stunned. “What the hell are you talking
about?”

It was rare that I had seen the kind of anger that flashed across Alex’s face. His
lips were pressed together, his teeth gritted. He crossed his office and yanked open
a top drawer, throwing a sheaf of papers on the desk.