Madden: McCray Bruin Bear Shifter Romance Read online

  The girl and the boy out on a date? Yeah, the cops here are telling us that this little bitty thing of a girl beat this guy to shit, then lived to tell about it. I guess it was touch and go for her for a while, but she’s going to pull through. She told him she was one of their nieces’ age. Yes. I can’t imagine what would be going through my head if anything were to happen to one of my nieces. I guess the cop that works here part-time is her aunt. I’ve never met her, have you?

  No. Her brother is acting judge until Barker gets back from vacation. He’d not known that part. Okay, I’m here. I have her things that I told her that I’d bring, and I’m going to make a big deal about how this is going to work out for her. Also, I’ve got a list of things I’m to ask her about. But not in an I’m-needing-more-information sort of way. Whatever the hell that means.

  He was still laughing about her when he stared at the door again. Or where the door should have been. Looking around, he shifted himself to his big bear and slammed his body against the wall. Pierce felt it budge, and some of the drywall crumble, but it was still blocked. The voice behind him told him he should have been paying more attention than he had been.

  “I tried that before. Not as a bear, but that is a good thing to use. I only got as far as using a reciprocating saw. As you can see there, I got it in before the whole place shut down because I blew the single fuse that covers here. Not a good thing to happen in a place full of criminals, I’d think.” Turning slowly, he regarded the woman standing there. “Gabby Thomas. I’m assuming you’re with the pretty lady in the office screaming at the mayor and the captain.”

  He nodded. While Pierce knew he could shift and dress at the same time, he wanted to get this doorway open. She asked if she could help him. When he nodded again, she came at him with her hand out. Pierce noticed that not only was it not trembling, but she didn’t seem to care overly much that he outweighed her by about three hundred pounds.

  Biting gently into her hand so they could talk, she asked him if he’d hit the wall again. After the third try, not only did they have the wall knocked down, but it showed him that there were several such doorways along this hall. They were on the fourth door when he heard from Demi.

  I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep it up. You’re scaring the hell out of the men I’m in here with. They think I’ve opened up the gates of hell and am bringing the devil himself down on them. I love it. Pierce told her what they were doing and who he was working with. As his bear. Good job. And so you know, Gabby needs to take this place over. The moron that works here thinks a good day at the office is not showing up at all. I’m about to go to prison for killing the lot of them.

  There are several rooms here, cluttered with boxes of things I’ve not had a chance to look into. Gabby is. But she is sort of just taking glances and mumbling a great deal to herself about penmanship or something. They look to me like old evidence. But then, I’m not the type that would know anything about that. Also, these rooms look a great deal like classrooms, all the way to the chalkboards on a couple of walls. She asked him if she could find him easy enough. I don’t know why not. I mean, if I’m thinking this is laid out right, I’m right behind the captain’s office. Or thereabouts. If there is so much overcrowding, why aren’t they using these rooms for something other than collecting dust?

  I don’t know, but I plan to find out. She said she’d be there in about half an hour and for him to find a place to shift. You might want to tell Gabby to take off too. Someone has a real hard-on for finding her. She’s in trouble about something that occurred last night. Apparently, she was at the scene where her niece was hurt, and the boss is giving her shit about it. By the way, you found the rooms like they are now. I don’t want us getting into any shit about breaking down walls.

  Pierce told Demi about the accident and how her niece was hurt. After shifting and dressing, he told Gabby what was going on. She took off before he got a chance to thank her for her help. He had no idea where the thought came from, but he’d bet anything she knew more about these rooms than anyone did. And he’d bet she was able to get in and out of them without anyone noticing too.

  Standing at one of the windows when Demi arrived, he was immediately asked what the fuck he was doing there. If not for Demi, he was sure he would have been arrested. He was also glad that not only had Gabby left, but he’d had the forethought to wipe up her shoe prints.

  ~*~

  Gabby held onto her brother’s hand as the surgeon told them what he’d done to ensure there wasn’t any permanent damage done to Hailey. Mostly it was to her face, but her entire body had been beaten badly, he told them.

  “She’s in recovery now, which I have to say surprised me somewhat. But I also know Hailey was in good shape and that her being young played a big role in her coming out of the coma so well.” Harry nodded. Gabby knew why she was out of the coma but hadn’t told Harry. She wasn’t sure if she ever would. “I know you’ve heard this list before, but I want you to know the extent of her injuries. The only reason I can think she’s lived through this is the reasons I said—being young and in good health. Harry, she’s going to need a lot of physical therapy as time goes by. Not just to walk, but to use her right hand.”

  “You said it had been broken.” Doctor Montrose said that it had been crushed. It appeared to him that it had been crushed by the glove box over and over before she’d been able to free herself from it. “She’s been taught by the best on how to take care of herself. If not for Gabby here, she’d be dead, I’m thinking.”

  “By all accounts, she should be.” Both of them knew that. Even before Gaea had gotten to her that night, Hailey had coded again. It was only magic that had kept her from staying dead. “You should thank your sister daily for what she did. You’re right. This would be a different scenario altogether without that. As I was saying. She had a crack in her skull that concerns me a great deal, but her memory and skills at recalling things are still intact. I would say her head was banged against the closed window on her side at least ten to fifteen times before it was stopped. Her jaw is broken as well but has been wired closed to heal. I think the fact that she was able to speak that night shows again how resilient the young are. The left ankle is broken but set in a cast. Eight ribs are broken, another three are cracked. Her right lung is healing, as well as the damage that was done to her liver. I’m thinking that with her broken hip, she was jerked against the lap belt with enough force to have sliced into her leg and displace the bone enough that it cracked under the pressure. She’ll walk, but it might be a long time before she can do so without a limp.”

  He went on to tell them of the cuts and the number of stitches that had to be used to put her back together. Her eyes were still swollen shut, but he said that was a good thing. It had protected her eyes from whatever damage might well have been done to them. She was going to live. That was all she was going to let herself think about now. And the last words Gaea had said to her as she left that night. They would never die.

  When her brother poked her, she looked around. They were alone again, in the room they’d been using as a place to rest and to gather themselves together. He asked her where she’d gone.

  “I don’t know that I could tell you what I might have been thinking about.” He told her he’d been feeling the same way for the last couple of days. “Did you get the locks changed on the house? And an attorney for you?”

  “I did before coming in here yesterday on both things. Rose had taken her daughters to the zoo. She couldn’t be bothered to come here to see my daughter, but she could go to the fucking zoo? Doesn’t she know it’s like twenty-five degrees outside?” She cocked her brow at him. “All right, I’m better now. Anyway, I changed the locks, hired that pack like you said, and have an off-duty hanging around the house until further notice. Do you really think she hired Chip to kill my daughter, Gabby? That is just so…I don’t have words for it.”

  “I’m not the investigating officer, but she and Chip have been having an affair for the last year and a half. They called each other a total of fifty times right up until he picked Hailey up. Then nothing from him afterwards. She made four to his cell phone that we’ve been able to trace back to her phone.” Harry asked her if she knew why Hailey was with the man. “You know her friend Jolie? Well, she had called Hailey to tell her she was on her way to get her. Asked her if she’d wait outside her house for her, as they were running late for the meeting with the other girls on the project they’d been assigned. There wasn’t a date between Chippy and Hailey, but Hailey going to the library before it closed to get a start on the project that was due in a month. Sounds like her, doesn’t it? Getting started on it the same day.”

  “Yes, she would have treated it like they were behind right up until they were finished with it. No last-minute things for my girl.” Harry asked her why she’d gotten in the car with him if she knew. “I mean, I know for a fact she didn’t like him. She thought him a pest when he came around the house to do chores. I’m guessing now he wasn’t getting paid with cash.”

  “Don’t go there, Harry. You know, as well as I do, that’ll only make you insane. Well, in your case, insaner. But no, she didn’t like him.” Gabby knew he wasn’t going to like this next part at all. “Rose helped him get her into the car. The neighbor across the street had called the police and told them they thought someone was being kidnapped. When they arrived at your home about twenty minutes later, Rose assured them it was a little joke, that Hailey was on a date with a nice young man. He picked her up at about six-thirty, an hour before the library closed up.”

  “Why did it take until three in the morning before anyone knew anything?” She knew the answer to that as well. Gabby had
been going to the office off and on for the last several days. Mostly to just hear something different than medical terms, the police ones weren’t all that much different—but the smell was an improvement over the hospital—the information she was giving her brother from the reports copied for her every day. “I mean, that’s a good eight hours. What the hell did he do in all that time?”

  “She killed him sometime between ten and midnight. It’s difficult to get a good reading, as the ground he was on was frozen. But that’s about what Massey has estimated.” Harry said it was still a few hours. “I’m going to tell you something that you cannot repeat, Harry. If you do, then it’s all over. Got it?”

  He nodded. “Is it Rose? Did she have more to do with this than just helping him get her into the car? She was drugged, wasn’t she?” She slapped her palm to his forehead and told him to stop finding shit. “I can’t help it. I just don’t see that Hailey would have willingly gotten into the car with him.”

  “I already told you she was helped into the car, didn’t I? Now listen. Hailey was being drugged. Over a long period of time too. Not only is Rose complicit in her being hurt, but it looks like she’d been feeding her arsenic for the last year. Little bits at a time, but that had nothing to do with the four hours.” He let the tears fall as she sat there with him. The room was the only place she trusted to talk to him in. She went over it daily with the little extra that Gaea had given her some years back. “You know I have friends in weird places, right?” He nodded, then looked around. “Gaea told me she’d tried her best to intervene on Hailey’s part by getting Chippy lost on the way to the cornfield he took her to. Once they were there, Rose was waiting on him. I have no way of proving this, so I’m just letting you know so you watch your back. All right?”

  “Does she know what happened while they were there?” Gabby nodded. “Do I want to know? Am I going to lose my shit once I find out?”

  “You will. Suffice it to say that the two of them together are two of the sickest fucks I’ve ever heard of.” He sat there for several seconds, then jumped up. Barely making it to the trash can, he threw up three times before he simply slid to the floor, looking up at her. “You have a little puke on your lip there, Harry.”

  “Fuck you.” She nodded and waited for him to speak again. “They had sex right there where they wanted my daughter to die, didn’t they?” She nodded again. “More?”

  “Yes. Are you sure you want to hear it?” He said he didn’t but thought that he should. “They put her on the hood of the car while they fucked each other over her. Not only that but there was semen on Hailey that didn’t come from Chippy.”

  “Christ.” He was sick twice more when he told her no more. But she knew that in a couple of minutes, he’d be asking her for the details. “Who was it?”

  “His uncle.” Nodding, he stayed where he was. She knew this was hard on him. It had made her sick as well. All these people conspiring against a teenager for no other reason than she was pretty. “There is a new group of people coming into the station house. They’re all bears. I’ve met one of them. Pierce McCray. I think you might have met some of them today in the courtroom. I’m thinking as soon as they get in the house, things are going to start coming to light. Like the back rooms.”

  “Do you still think they’re using those rooms for sex?” She said she didn’t know, but that was high on her list. “Why would they do that? In a police station, of all places.”

  “Why would anyone look there? I mean, think about it, Harry. What better place to make movies than to do it right there in the station house? The room Pierce and I were able to get into was window dressing. Nothing in there. Dust out the ass, and all the windows were opened for anyone to look into. I’ll get to the other rooms now that I have help. Having a bear help means there aren’t any fuses to blow that alert them that I’m snooping around again.” He asked her if she was being careful. “Yes. More than I ever have been in my life. But I have to tell you that you need to be more careful than me. They’ll get to you or Hailey to get to me. Don’t let that happen. I’m begging you.”

  “I’ll be on the lookout for them.” She nodded. “You think I should start carrying a gun again? I know I told you it went against everything I believed in. But this isn’t anything that I signed up for.”

  “Yes. And like I’ve told you before, Harry, shoot to kill, not maim. Hurt people are dangerous people, and they can come back. Kill them if it means you live.” He told her he loved her. “I love you too. Please, you have to believe me when I tell you, this is going to be dangerous for everyone until we get this taken care of.”

  “I believe you.” He finally stood up with her help. “You’re stronger, aren’t you? I haven’t wanted to ask you this, but is Hailey—?”

  “Yes. I asked for help with her.” He nodded and hugged her. Gabby hadn’t realized how much she needed him until then. “I’ve taken some leave time, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be in the loop. Stay with me. You can stay in my apartment rather than being cornered at the house. All right?”

  “Yes. I like that. It’s closer to the hospital too.”

  There was so much she could tell her brother. So much he needed to know. But for now, they were being watched over. Then tomorrow, she was going to meet with Gaea and figure out what she could do now that she’d not been able to do before.

  ~*~

  Madden didn’t care for the police chief. Nor did he care for most of the people in the station house. They were lazy and pissed off that cameras that should have been put in place months or even years ago were being installed. He was Pierce’s backup man, but he was also keeping an eye on the shit going on around them.

  I’ve been thinking about a couple of things I’d like to run by you. He smiled when his mom spoke to him. This is purely something I’ve been thinking of, but I’m not sure I can figure it out on my own. You’ve always been my most supportive child.

  I see. Who else did you ask before I became the most supportive? I’m thinking Lucian. She told him to behave. What is it, Mom? I’m here for you.

  The jail that is being put in. Is it going to be larger than the one there? I’m looking over these blueprints, and I can’t make heads nor tails out of it. It seems to me the place is about half again as big as I think they’re using. He told her what Pierce had figured out. That makes sense. I found some entries from the books I got from Meadow and the others. That jail wasn’t built to be a jail at all but a home for the homeless. I don’t know where things changed around yet, but after a few months of building the home, someone got the idea to use it as a jail. To me, that seems like something you’d have to figure out from the beginning. You know, for security purposes.

  I don’t know. But did you happen to figure out when this place was built? She told him what she’d found. The late forties? That seems dangerous. I mean, we’re talking decades of no upgrades or any kind of security for the place.

  Well, not only was the place built back then but there is a building someplace that holds more evidence than what you found in that storage locker the other day. Mom asked him to wait, and she’d get him the address. It says here that it’s on Maple Avenue. The building number is blurred. It’s four numbers, and the first one is a nine. I’d say it’s not much in the way of a large building. The places along the area, I’m thinking, are just run-down houses that need a good kick in the bottom to get cleaned up.

  Does it tell you what the building was built for? I mean, there couldn’t have been enough evidence when it was first built to warrant the need for an entirely new building. She told Madden what the entry said. So they were going to use this place as a hideaway for women that were hurt in some way. All right. Very forward thinking for the times, but was it ever used for that?

  Not that I can see right now. She said she loved this kind of sleuthing. I’m going to see what else I can find. There is something afoot here, and I need to solve it. Oh, before I forget to tell you, I’ve filed my bid to get to be mayor, and your dad is gathering up people to help me campaign. I think I can make a good dent in some of the things that are going on without even leaving the house.