“Detective?”
“Mrs. Smith.” Elizabeth smiled. “I have a couple more questions for you.”
“Sure.” She stepped back, allowing Elizabeth to enter her house.
The house was quiet. The smell of coffee clung in the air as she stopped in the living room. Elizabeth pulled out her phone and pulled up the sound bite of the woman’s phone call. “Do you recognize this voice?”
She hit play.
The color in Jennifer’s cheeks drained, and her eyes bulged as she listened to the frightened woman. “Yes,” she whispered. “That’s Maria.”
Elizabeth nodded. That’s who she’d thought the caller might be, but she’d still needed validation.
“Thanks.” Elizabeth didn’t hesitate to pull out the picture of Jennifer when she’d been sixteen. “And this is you?”
Jennifer pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes, unable to mask her surprise. “Where did you get that?”
“Your mother.” Elizabeth sighed. “What happened to your fox?”
Jennifer’s shoulders deflated, and she dropped her gaze. “No one was supposed to know.” She looked up, her eyes begging Elizabeth to understand. “He hates shifters. He never would have married me if he’d known.”
“Jennifer, what did you do?”
Jennifer sat down on the couch and rested her head in her palms. “I never asked to be a shifter.” She looked up as a tear slipped from her eyes. “I only ever wanted to be normal.”
Elizabeth shoved the picture back in her pocket.
“What did you do?” Elizabeth asked again with a bit more authority, knowing that Jennifer’s answer was important.
Jennifer cleared her throat. “When I found out I was an animal, I ran away from my parents. It was their fault I’d never be normal.” She rose from her spot on the couch. “I lived on the streets for years, just barely surviving while I searched for a cure, anything that would make the fox go away.”
Jennifer lifted her chin. “I met a man.” She shook her head. “He said he could help me. He said that he’d already helped others just like me.”
“And you believed him?”
“Detective, I was on the verge of suicide, ready to end my own life. You don’t know what it’s like to get picked on for being the runt of the group. When you add in that I’m a fox, that knowledge just made things worse. So, yes…I believed him.”
“And he killed the fox?”
Another wet tear slipped down over her cheek. “Yes.” Her words came out a whisper.
“How?”
She didn’t answer.
“Jennifer, I need to know how he did it.”
“He gave me an injection.”
“What did it do?” Elizabeth softened her voice.
“I didn’t think it worked at first. I was lying on a bed with an IV hooked in my arm. He pushed the liquid in, and it wasn’t until about fifteen minutes later when I felt the effect. I screamed in agony. My insides were on fire; I felt like I was dying, and then I blacked out. That was all I remembered.” Jennifer visibly swallowed. “He killed the fox inside of me that day, and I’ve silently mourned every day since.”
Fresh tears slid down her cheeks before she cupped her face. Her shoulders trembled with her silent sobs.
“Jennifer.” Elizabeth laid her palm on her arm. “I need to know the man’s name. Who did this to you?”
She swiped at her tears and grabbed a tissue to blow her nose. “I never knew his name. He never told me. Everyone on the street just called him Raw.”
