Morgan: Robinson Destruction – Paranormal Tiger Shifter Romance Page 17

  Nodding to tell him that they understood, Thatcher put his badge around his neck as Cody explained about them. They’d be able to get into any of the three buildings with them, but no one else would. The staff in here were only people that were trusted by the agencies that were using the building.

  This building, like the other, was all up to date. The only difference was this one had a full pharmacy in the lower levels that had to be swiped into as well. The pharmacists, they were told, would be there full time for both places if it came to that.

  When they were ready to leave, after Thatcher checked on Justice, they sat in the parking lot and said nothing for several minutes. Thatcher explained to Dawson everything that was going on with the woman, but about the rest, he was just as stunned as his brother was. Finally, Dawson spoke.

  “I’m not sure if I should be thrilled or scared out of my mind with this.” Thatcher said he was feeling that too. “We’ll be paid well, I’m assuming.”

  “I didn’t ask.” Dawson said that he was grasping for straws right now. “I know what you mean there as well. It’s like we’ve been handed an endless supply of all day suckers, and I’m waiting for someone to tell me it was a joke.”

  Dawson nodded. Taking him home again, they neither said much and nothing at all about the new digs. He was sure that they’d both have questions tomorrow, but for now it was too overwhelming to nail any one of them down.

  ~*~

  Tru woke up and looked around the room she was in. Nothing was anything that she remembered, but she did know that she was in some sort of hospital. If she didn’t miss her bet, she was in some kind of hospital that was unknown to anyone but a very few. Tru didn’t even know what state or even what country she was in at the moment.

  The nurse that came to where she was looking wasn’t like any other nurse that she’d seen in a hospital. She was carrying a gun, cuffs, and a stethoscope. Strange and surreal, but necessary for who Tru worked for.

  “Agent, do you need anything for pain?” Shaking her head, Tru asked her if there was anything that she could tell her. “No, I’m afraid not. At least not about the situation. I can tell you that you’re under the care of Doctor Thatcher Robinson. He is, along with his brother, Doctor Dawson Robinson, taking care of you and your wound. You have something for pain should you want it, and you can have sips of water until they say differently.”

  All she wanted, she told her, was to rest. After the nurse said that she would call the doctor to tell them she was awake, Tru closed her eyes. Then she remembered that she should have asked her the date.

  When she woke again, not realizing that she’d fallen asleep, the man sitting in the chair across from her was someone that she knew. Agent Donaldson was looking through a file and had a kit, a death kit they all called them, sitting beside him.

  “Is that for me?” Startled, he looked at her, confused. Then he put his hand over the kit. “Are you here to end my life?”

  “Good heavens no. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a hero. A dead one to most of the agency, but a hero all the same.” She asked about her sister. “Shasta is not aware of anything having to do with you. Nor are your parents.”

  “Have you caught up with her husband yet?” He just smiled at her. “Sorry, force of habit to know it all at once. Am I all right?”

  “Yes. You had the best surgeon we know. You’re set up here because of him too.” So she was still in Ohio. “I’m here to update you on a few things that I can. Also to get a few questions answered that we’re not sure of. Delong, as you know, is dead. No one suspected a thing, and he was quietly buried a week ago. In the event you don’t know, you’ve been here for about ten days, give or take a few hours.”

  There wasn’t any reason for her to think about how long that had been and what she might have missed. She was still alive, and that was all that mattered at this point. There wasn’t any point in getting all worked up over something that she couldn’t change or do anything about.

  Patrick asked her the questions, all of which she had the answers to. Where was the phone that she’d used to call in? In the kit that she’d given agent Hall. Did anyone recognize her before or after? Tru told him how the shooter knew her and she him. He told her that he too was dead, but they were working on who might have given him the order to kill her.

  “What happens to me now? If I can ask.” He sighed, and she was sure that he was going to tell her that she was finished. “I’m not ready to be put out to pasture yet.”

  “I should hope not. No, but you will have to remain dead until we can figure out what agency or who personally wanted you dead. The person that shot you, he was there for one thing and one thing only. To take you out.” Tru asked him how he could be so sure. “No one but you and your handler, my new wife, knew what you were there for. So how he figured out you’d be there, we’re still working on. You’ll be working behind the scenes until we have it.”

  “I see.” She didn’t like to be behind anyone or anything, but would cooperate because she loved what she did that much. He told her who she’d be working with. “No, you must have that wrong. Agent Hall is the best there is, and from what I’ve been told no more needs a helper than I do.”

  “Well, she will on this. And with your other skills, I think that she’ll use you a great deal after this.” He laughed a little before continuing. “She’s married too, I should tell you. Her name is now Rogen Robinson.”

  That took a second or two to sink in. When she got it, Tru just stared at him. Rogen was married to one of her doctors? While she might not know the woman personally, she had heard enough stories about her to know that she was as hard as nails, and ate them for every meal. And if you pissed her off, you’d be as dead as...well, you’d just never be heard from or found again kind of dead.

  Tru never thought that the woman would find someone to love, much less put up with her, but she had a kid too? Tru laid back on the bed and thought about that. She must really love the guy, and him a saint if this were a fact.

  “Seems like getting married is an epidemic around here. I sure as fuck hope that I don’t ever get it.” Patrick laughed again. “Christ, do you have any idea what sort of person would find me loveable? No one, that’s who. I don’t even like myself most days. I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life with someone. Much less having kids.”

  After he left her, giving her a clean phone and a gun to keep, she was helped from her bed and sat in a chair. It was painful as fuck, but at least with moving around a little, she didn’t feel as druggy.

  There were a great many things that she had to think about. Patrick had left her some newspapers to look over. They were from her hometown, so she was able to keep up with her sister without actually speaking to her. She was having as hard a time as Tru thought she would. And milking it just as badly.

  The file that he’d been looking over was about Rogen and her family. He wanted her to be familiar with the family that she was going to be working with for a while, as well as know as much about them as possible, so if necessary, she could pass as a visiting cousin to Rogen. There were pictures of the family as well, and a bit on each of them. They were tigers.

  It mattered little to her what people were. Gay, straight. Shifter or human. It didn’t matter. If you fucked up, she would end your life without a second thought. But the Robinsons didn’t seem to have any skeletons in their closet. Or they’d had their files so washed over by Rogen that they appeared that way.

  Even as good as Rogen was, Tru wouldn’t trust her right off. She didn’t trust many people, and with good reason. To her everyone had a price. Even her sister did. When she’d married the man that would fill her needs as a perfect wife, she’d not taken into consideration what sort of man she was actually marrying. No matter how many people told her she’d be better off marrying anyone but him, she did so anyway. And now was paying the cost of it.

  A
ccording to some paperwork she had, Shasta was broke. Not only had she had her accounts locked, but her household was going to be taken from her. The house, the cars, the fancy school, all gone because it had been paid for by her husband being a dumbass.

  Tru thought about where she lived and laughed. Shasta was forever bitching how she’d never been to her home. Not to her, of course, but to her friends and Mom. It was a one bedroom imaginary home for her.

  There was a mattress that laid on the floor. No food in the cabinets or the fridge, which Tru didn’t even think had been plugged in for over a year. She kept nothing there because she was rarely there. No dishes, no pots and pans. She ate out if she had to be there, and her clothing was brought in by her and taken out the same way. Tru didn’t even have a toothbrush that she left there.

  It was a place, that was it. Not her home—she didn’t have one. While she could drive a car, there wasn’t one there either. She did own a Jeep, which was used more for getting her ass from point one to point two than anything else. By now she realized everything in her place would have been sanitized, given away, or burned, and no one would ever know that she had lived there.

  Not that it mattered. There was nothing that pulled at her heartstrings, not even a book that she enjoyed reading. Tru was nothing, as she’d been called before, but a fart in the wind.

  The armed nurse came in with a cell phone a few minutes after she made her way to the bathroom. Tru hurt, but the alternative was a great deal worse. Being dead gave you no pain, and she was going to enjoy her pain because she was still breathing.

  “There is a call for you, Agent. It’s Agent Hall.” So the staff had no idea that Rogen was married. Good to know. “She asked that you close the door after I leave.”

  It was difficult to get up a second time, but when the door was closed, she realized why she’d been asked to close it and not the nurse. The thing had three locks on it, and the door itself was solid steel. Tru locked them all.

  “Agent Justice.”

  Tru heard a baby gurgling before Rogen spoke. Her laughter, for some reason, brought a smile to her own face.

  “Hey, this is Rogen. I guess you know that the two of us will be working together.” She said that was what she’d been told. “Get the rod out of your ass, Agent. This will be good for us both if you work and play well with me.”

  “I don’t work or play well with others, ma’am.” Rogen laughed again. Tru heard a man’s voice, then the baby noises getting further away. “I have been given a file on all your family. I’ve been studying it.”

  “I have one on you too, Tru. I’m betting that you know all about my family verbatim. But that won’t do you a fucking nickel’s worth of good if you’re asked, and we both know that.” She did. A file could have all kinds of information in it, but nothing about the people that she was to see. “I have a couple of tapes that I’d like for you to listen to. I’ve never used an interpreter before because the thing was already translated when I got it. But for some reason I think that this, what I have, is nothing about what I’ve been given.”

  “Is it verbal or written?” Rogen asked her if it mattered. “Not really. I can read and translate voice too. What language is it in?”

  “Farsi. Can you understand that?” She said that she could and asked her to play it. “All right. But just to give you a heads up, as soon as you’re able to piss by yourself, they’re sending you to my home.”

  “I just pissed all by myself not an hour ago.” The way that Rogen said it made her realize that not only couldn’t Rogen read Farsi, she couldn’t understand it either. So this wasn’t a test of her skills as she thought it might be. Tru translated it word for word for Rogen. “Is that what you have there?”

  “Not even close. They told me it was a recipe for some kind of cake or some shit like that.” Tru asked her if she had the original or a copy. “I have a copy. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve been reading correspondence from this region before. I can tell where it’s from by the dialect. If you had the original, I’m thinking that you’d have a bit more than just what is on the paperwork you have. Can you get it?” She asked her to hold on.

  When she had it, Tru told her to get herself a heating pad and put it on high. When it was warm enough, she then told her to put the original on the heating pad and wait. She could hear her yelling about sneaky shit, and had to laugh. Rogen was easy to please, it seemed.

  “Where the hell did you learn that shit?” Tru told her that she’d been doing this for a while now. “About as long as I have, I guess. You’re going to be very helpful, Tru. I hope I can convince you to put down some roots here and stick around.”

  “I doubt it, ma’am. I’m not much into roots. I’ve seen what it does to people, and I’m not going to get myself shackled to anything unless it has a big cock, he’s good in bed, and has enough education that I can have a conversation with him if I’m not fucking him—oh, and a cook. I want a cook that will give me shit when I want it, and home cooking when I want that too.” Rogen said those weren’t all that high of standards. “No. But there is one more thing that will never happen for me. I fucking will not, for as long as I have the power, marry anyone. I’m not going to be responsible for another living soul when I can barely care for myself.”

  “At one time, I thought that same thing. I got it all. Even a baby on the way.” Tru congratulated her. “Also, if you call me ma’am one more time, you’re not going to have to worry about your list. I’m going to kick your ass so badly that you’ll wish for death simply because there is nothing left for you.”

  “There are many days that I already think there is nothing left for me.” Tru had no idea why she shared that with Rogen. But taking it back was impossible now, and she wasn’t going to apologize for stating the truth. What was done was done.

  “Tru, Thatcher is on his way to pick you up. He’s bringing you here. There are a few things that you and I are going to work on as soon as you’re up to it.” She asked about her family. “As far as we’re concerned right now, we are your family. But I understand that you have to extend your being gone from the others. You told them a couple of weeks, correct?”

  “I did. I was leaving to get away from the news that was going down.” Rogen asked her how much she had to do with that shit. Tru didn’t answer. She was all of it, but if her boss wanted Rogen to know, she’d know. But Tru didn’t work and tell. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Before You Go…

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  Kathi Barton, winner of the Pinnacle Book Achievement award as well as a best-selling author on Amazon and All Romance books, lives in Nashport, Ohio with her husband Paul. When not creating new worlds and romance, Kathi and her husband enjoy camping and going to auctions. She can also be seen at county fairs with her husband who is an artist and potter.

  Her muse, a cross between Jimmy Stewart and Hugh Jackman, brings her stories to life for her readers in a way that has them coming back time and again for more. Her favorite genre is paranormal romance with a great deal of spice. You can visit Kathi online and drop her an email if you’d like. She loves hearing from her fans. aaronskiss@gmail.com.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

   

  Kathi S. Barton, Morgan: Robinson Destruction – Paranormal Tiger Shifter Romance