Accidentally Catty (22 page)

Beck knelt under the tape to gaze at the crusted, dark stain. Again, his eyes held sorrow Katie would chalk up to the sort of remorse one felt when hearing an elderly man had been beaten into a coma.

Yet Beck lingered, closing his eyes, his nostrils flaring, as though he were deep in thought.

She brushed against him to encourage him to hurry it up. Their hour had surely passed. The last thing they needed was a surly vampire stomping through what was already a hella mess.

Beck rose and began digging through the stacks and stacks of paper, frowning, mumbling, and cursing the disaster area while he sifted. “I have no idea what this means—any of it. It’s all like reading a foreign language. Though it’s a relief to know I can read,” he quipped, ever optimistic. “I don’t know what to take, Katie. Damn. Can you read any of this?” He shoved a piece of paper in front of her with what she supposed was Dr. Green’s handwriting.

And it was in a foreign language.

Perfect.

Katie nudged the paper to indicate she didn’t understand it. Now how to tell him to gather as much as he could carry so they could sift through it when they returned to the house.

Again he must have read her cougar mind. “I’ m going to grab as much of this as I can, and we’ll take it back to the house, but first, let’s go through his desk drawers. Maybe we’ll find something personal that will help.”

Drawer after drawer contained absolutely nothing. Most likely, the police had taken whatever was once contained in the drawers as evidence. But then, why hadn’t they taken the research Dr. Green was doing?

Her newly acquired large head butted sloppily against the top of Beck’s thigh when he stopped short at a small TV tray with an array of pictures. She followed his line of vision, smelled his hesitation much the way she would if she were hunting him as prey.

Instinctively, she knew this would be the time to pounce were she on the prowl—when his defenses were down, weakened by whatever had caught him off guard.

Katie let her nose nudge his hand, telling herself it had nothing to do with the shiver that left her delirious along her spine and everything to do with asking him what was taking so long. They needed to get the hell out before someone caught them.

Beck swiped at the picture on the tray, holding it at an angle she could see.

Faded and torn at one edge, and yellowed from age, the photograph was a sketch rather than a picture taken with a camera. A woman, dressed in something out of the 1800s with a hoopskirt and a hat with feathers peered back at her. Her features were sharply defined, almond-shaped eyes, solemn and lifeless, bore into Katie’s. The woman’s high cheekbones led to a nose that worked perfectly with her face and lips that were wide, but only wide enough to add a sensual hint to them. It was her full mouth that made Katie look twice. She knew that mouth . . .

Beck rolled the sketch up and jammed it into his flannel jacket pocket.

Oh, no. They weren’t leaving here until he explained his reaction to the sketch. She used her mouth to tug on the hem of his jacket, but he brushed her away with an impatient hand.

So she did what any good cougar with the strength of ten men would do.

Charged him again, tipping his big body over as though he were nothing more than some wooden blocks.

She’d smile in satisfaction at the surprised, then clearly annoyed expression on his face, if she could, that was. Instead, she flattened her lithe new form over his and opened her mouth wide to hiss her displeasure.

Beck narrowed his gaze and wrinkled his nose. “Breath mint?”

Okay. Enough. She reacted by digging through his jacket until she saw the tip of the sketch and managed to use her paws, awkward, awkward, awkward, and mouth to slide it out. She cocked her head at him in question and waited.

His eyebrow rose. “You could have just asked.” Then he barked a laugh up at her meant to taunt. “Sorry. I guess your words are otherwise engaged.”

Katie put her paw on his mouth and growled, leaning into him with a threatening lick of his jugular. Which was ever so yummy on her tongue.

He sputtered it back at her with a sharp blow from his lips. “Don’t you threaten me, Dr. Woods. There’s going to come a day when I can do what you just did, and I’d bet my eyeteeth, I’m a badder ass. Just you keep that in mind when you go knocking me around like some stuffed toy.”

Frustration made her wrinkle the sketch with a clunky shove.

He sighed, forlornly and with great exaggeration. “So I suppose you want to know why the picture caught me off guard?”

Katie responded by pounding her paws on his chest with impatience.

Beck’s face turned into a mask of stone when he grabbed at her paws with big hands to still them.

And then he dropped a bomb. “This”—he pointed to the paper—“is a portrait of my mother.”

Beck’s mother was from the 1800s?

So did that mean his father was from the future?

How was this possible? Maybe he was mistaken. He couldn’t remember a goddamned thing about himself, but he could remember something so crazy it should be on the SyFy Channel?

And then she paused, remembering at one time just how impossible she’d thought everything that had passed in the last two days was.

Did this mean cougars did have eternal life after all? Like vampires and werewolves? Her thoughts scattered so, she couldn’t remember what Nina and Wanda had told her about their paranormal details.

How unfair was it that she could neither question him about how he knew who was in the sketch nor press him for details? Beck was probably feeling lucky, too.

And then a thought crept in—unbidden and unwanted.

What if she couldn’t shift back to her human form, and she could never ask anyone anything again? Her nirvana took a nosedive into doom.

Beck sat up suddenly, ramrod straight, placing a hand on her head that almost made her purr. “Did you hear that?”

A tilt of her head, the twitch of an ear, and she caught what Beck was hearing. Footsteps. Of the human variety. The soft fall of sneakers, padding along the corridor was distinct.

She was on her feet in seconds, creeping to the door of the office with Beck right behind her. They absolutely couldn’t get caught. Aunt Teeny would have to break out the cookie-jar money to post bail.

Beck peered around the corner, holding his hand in front of her nose to keep her from moving. Despite imminent disaster, Katie yearned to nuzzle it, smell his skin, rub her face against his callused skin. Heat shot along her spine at the thought.

“Damn,” he hissed, shoving the papers he’d gathered inside his jacket.

Yeah. Damn.

Damn what?

Her eyes followed his around the corner.

Oh, yes. That was a
damn
.

And a
what the fuck
all in one thought.

Why was Esmeralda Hunt at the animal park, and why was she heading toward Dr. Green’s office?

Their intake of breath was simultaneous. There was nowhere to hide a cougar and a man the size of a skyscraper in this tiny office. Not to mention, try explaining a cougar on the loose with said skyscraper.

Just then Esmeralda veered off to the left and down another corridor they’d yet to explore.

Which meant they needed to bust a move while the busting was good.

Katie made a leap for the opening of the door, only to find she was awkward for a moment. Her brain registered two feet—not four paws.

She skidded out into the slick hallway and crashed against the wall, her paws slipping out from under her while she tried to get a grip on the floor. When she attempted to right herself, she flopped back down on her belly, her paws splaying in all directions.

Jesus Christ and a kitten.

But Beck was behind her, pushing her back end upward and whispering with a harsh tone, “Get it together, Dr. Woods—we need to get out of here now!”

His hard shove lifted her to her feet again and catapulted her into moving. Again she scrambled, but this time only momentarily before she began to successfully alternate her front and back legs into coordinated movement.

Beck ran toward the door they’d come in like he had wings on his feet, punching the door open and holding it for her. Katie zipped past him and made a dash for the parking lot, darting toward the fence.

The slap of Beck’s feet behind her, heavy in their work boots, came to a stomping halt. He looked up at the fence with a grimace, muttering a curse.

Yeah, she concurred. How the hell was she going to climb a chain-link fence like this?

“Dude!” a voice out of the darkness whispered with fierce intensity.

Katie’s big head swung to her left. Her eyes zeroed in on a big hole in the links of the fence and a round face, surrounded by dark hair poking through it.

Kaih!

Both she and Beck made a beeline for him, the pads of her paws crunching against some loose gravel.

“You better hurry it up! The vampire? She’s wide awake, and she says you’re almost ten minutes past the hour. Make it fast because I do not want to see what your dick looks like after it’s been pulled out through your belly button.”

Beck threw his forearm over his mouth to muffle his squeal of laughter. “Glad to see you, man.”

Kaih pulled at the hole in the fence with two hands so Beck could climb through. “Better me than the Count. She’s homicidal when she gets going. I don’t know how I talked her into letting me come alone.”

“You didn’t, Runs Like a Ballerina.”

Katie shuddered at the sound of Nina’s voice.

“Stop doing that!” Kaih insisted.

Nina popped Kaih in his dark head with a snap of her finger. “I wouldn’t have to do that if you’d have done what you were told. I told you to stay put.”

Kaih fought a cower, and he was almost successful when he rebutted, “You did. But you’re an angry vampire. Doc Woods can’t afford to have any more trouble. Wanda said for sure your big mouth would create an unnecessary amount of noise and maybe even some property damage. I was just trying to keep everyone out of trouble.”

Nina, possibly two inches taller than Kaih, leered down at him. “You think I’m angry?”

Kaih gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing under the light of the moon. He rocked back on his heels in a nervous gesture. “Sor . . . Sort of. Yeah.” He puffed his chest out, gathering his bravado. “I think you’re angry.”

Nina chuckled. “Silly. This is me happy. You haven’t even touched angry. Now move,” she ordered. Her face, so pale in the half moonlight, all business and determination shifted expressions as her eyes widened when she caught a look at Katie. “Holy shift. Is that the doc?”

“Shhhheeeiit!” Kaih yelped, jumping back to fall on the hard ground, shooting fallen leaves up in his wake.

Nina knocked him in the shoulder with the flat of her hand. “Why don’t you just fucking call the cops on that phone of yours and tell them we’re here? Shut up, dipshit.”

Kaih instantly clamped his mouth shut, backing away to let Nina pull at the fence and help Beck through first. He turned, taking Nina’s place at the fence to help Katie safely through what was, due to Nina’s strength, now a jagged metal hole.

Katie’s fear they’d all be caught made her rush her exit, catching her side with a stinging tear to her side. Instead of a hushed “ouch,” her cry of pain came out in a growl of discontent.

Nina looked to Beck while she bent the fence back in place. “Can she understand us?”

His nod was curt, his shiny, black hair brushing against his collar. “I think she can. We’d better get the hell out of here before we’re found out.”

But Nina was in no rush. Instead, she sat on her haunches in front of Katie and chucked her under the chin with a sympathetic grin. “Some crazy shit, huh, Doc lady?” Then she frowned, pressing her fingers to Katie’s stinging side. “Dudes, she’s bleeding pretty bad. Let’s get the fuck out of here. You okay to make a break for it, Katie?”

Katie didn’t bother to try to answer Nina’s question with her body language. Instead, she took off at a jog. As her feet became surer beneath her, her sprint turned into a soaring run—free—without worry.

Trees passed by her in a blur of falling leaves and aged trunks. She hurtled over logs as though they were mere twigs in her path. The light on Teeny’s front porch beckoned her, guiding her toward home—and maybe a flea bath if that damned itch around her neck was a sign.

Katie made it back to the house and up the wide steps of the front porch, panting. The pain in her side now a dull throb.

She experienced a moment of inner, childish satisfaction that she’d beat everyone else back.

“Vampire beats cougar,” Nina said on a chuckle from the direction of the porch swing. “C’mere and let me take a good look at that cut.”

Katie sauntered over to her, turning so Nina could see the cut clearly.

Her arched brows met each other in concern. “We need to clean that up. I don’t know if you heal like we do, but if not, you’re gonna have some nasty gash in your human form.”

She sank back on her haunches when Nina mentioned her human form. What if she was stuck like this? How did Wanda and Marty summon a shift at will? Or not shift when they shouldn’t, for that matter?

Nina used her sneakered foot to nudge Katie’s front paw. “I know what you’re worried about, Doc. But Wanda and Marty tell me it’s about concentration. At least when they first started shifting. You have to focus on your bones and crap—or something like that. Now they can do it by just thinking it. You will, too.”

Katie let out what she hoped was a sound similar to relief, grateful for the comfort and astounded it had come from Nina.

“So what the hell? Did it just happen? Wait. Hoo, shit! Did you end up all nekkid in front of the teenybopper?” She threw her head back and laughed. When she tilted it back upward, her eyes widened.