“Are you sure she’s missing? I mean…” Clare grasped at straws. “When did you last hear from her?”
“Yesterday. She went out to buy lunch, I phoned her, and she was cut off mid-conversation.”
“Maybe her phone ran out of charge or…”
“I called and called. Finally I phoned her work, which I never do. They said she hadn’t returned from her lunch break. That’s just not our Natalie. She’s so conscientious.”
Ice travelled down Clare’s spine. Saul said the latest missing human had just gone out to buy lunch. What if… Oh gods. What if it was Natalie?
“You’re the only person I could turn to,” Jo said, her eyes full of tears. “You know Motham, you know how to investigate crimes. Please, Clare, help us find Natalie. She’s all we’ve got.”
Clare gnawed at her lower lip, trying to make sense of it all.
She and Natalie had been close at school, two misfits who’d found each other in a sea of mean girls. They’d stuck togetherthrough those miserable years of bullying, been each other’s cheerleaders.
But when Clare took the job in Motham, Natalie had been almost hysterical. She’d told Clare she couldn’t stand by and watch her only friend get mauled by those beasts. Clare tried to explain it wasn’t like that, but Natalie had refused to believe her.
Clare had tried to make contact, repeatedly. But finally, she’d given up.
She’d thought Natalie had ended their friendship out of fear. Or prejudice.
But envy? Natalie wasenviousof her? Natalie wanted to work in Motham City? They may not have spoken for a few years, but Clare had really loved Natalie—she was like the sister she’d never had. It was terrible to think her friend had been too scared to take risks and grasp hold of life with both hands. And then, when finally she had… she’d disappeared into thin air.
This changed everything. Shehadto get involved in the case now.
Reaching across the desk, Clare took the distraught woman’s hand in hers. “I’ll do everything I can to find her. That’s a promise.”
CHAPTER 2
Oliver Hale dove his hands deep into the pockets of his exquisitely cut suit pants and stared out the window toward the distant mountains.
His lips thinned into a hard line. He refused to think about what was across those ranges.Whowas across those ranges.
Leaving Motham had been the right choice, he reminded himself firmly. Taking this job had been the right choice. In his two hundred plus years on this planet, he’d chosen to always move forward, to never, ever look back. The past held horrors beyond words, traumatic memories best forgotten.
Gods knew, he’d endured those flashbacks from his childhood, managed to lock them up behind an iron wall through sheer willpower.
Why then, did the memories of that night with Clare Doyle keep haunting him?
Three years. It had been three gods damn years since he’d left Motham City.
And yet the dreams of her still startled him awake at night, his fangs descended and his cock rock hard.
Oliver cursed under his breath and turned back to his empty desk. There just weren’t enough crimes in Selig to stop him from thinking forbidden thoughts. Feeling forbidden emotions.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? Selig was civilized, progressive, law-abiding.
What he’d give for a feral wolf gang shooting, or a monkey shifter murder.
But nothing like that had happened in his time as head of the investigation bureau in Selig. Folks were decent here. Monsters mixed with humans with only the rare, not particularly serious crime. A stolen car, a pickpocketing or two. A house break-in was an even rarer occurrence. In Selig, humans and monsters worked together, married, and were generally pleasant to one another.
Such a different story from Motham.
How he’d loved that fucking crazy place.
You loved…
No!!!
