Cougar's Mate (18 page)

Chase’s head swam with all the possibilities as he tried to see this from Shannon’s standpoint. "Was it a home invasion? She witnessed the murder but didn't know who they were, and they came after her? Or maybe it had to do with someone the cop had arrested previously and the man was out for revenge? And she had seen what he’d done to her boyfriend?" Chase asked, grasping at any case that could clear her of having killed her own boyfriend.

"Family and friends are always the first suspects. You know that, Chase."

"Damn it, I know it, but she said if someone came around saying she was a person of interest in a crime that was committed it would be a lie."

“Hell, when did she tell you that?”

“A little while ago. If she witnessed the murder, and I highly suspect that she had, which was why she ran, she
would
be a person of interest. It might have been a case of self-defense even, but she was afraid it wouldn't look that way because he was a cop and she ran off. That makes her look guilty in the eyes of the law. Was the place a human-run town?"

"Yes. So they're not going to keep it hushed up. They have a dead cop and they need to pin the blame for his murder on someone."

"What have they got on her whereabouts?"

"They thought she was headed for Florida. They'd been tracking her, or they thought they had, but discovered she'd thrown her cell phone in the bed of a pickup truck headed to Florida when he’d stopped for gas at a service station and run in to use the restroom."

“Did she get gas there?”

“Yeah, used her credit card. She had to or she would have had to go inside and pay with cash. That’s where they picked up a grainy picture of her by the pumps. No other pictures of her anywhere. Not at her house. Nowhere.”

“Except her driver’s license,” Chase said.

“Didn’t look like her at all. She’d had blond hair and it had been cut short.”

Chase couldn’t imagine her as a blond. Then he frowned. Was she really a blond? No. All of her hair was dark.

"They found her abandoned car in Texas only about two hours from where she lived in Canyon out in some farm land. They said there was no sign of blood or a struggle though, so they assume she was still alive when she left the vehicle. Still, the police think she might have been the victim of a crime because she had left everything behind. Some think she might have witnessed her boyfriend's murder, and the murderer or murderers caught up with her finally. But because they haven’t located her body, they're still looking."

"This isn't good," Chase said, rubbing the whiskers on his chin.

"No, it isn’t. At least they have no money trail to look for. So that's good."

"Was he a shifter?”

“We don’t know and we can’t go asking them. Not without alerting them we might know something of her whereabouts.”

“If her boyfriend's family are shifters, they could track her trail."

Dan let out his breath. "Yeah. There's the real problem. Her boyfriend's two brothers are police officers also. He's got an uncle on the police force in another town."

"Hell. And how much do you want to bet they are shifters and they’re behind trying to have her hung? They know a shifter can't be tried for murder. She can't go to jail."

Dan didn't say anything.

The news really hit Chase hard. "They want to put her down.
God damn it
."

"That's what I figure. They’ve got to catch up to her before the human police force does. They’ve got to kill her—in the line of duty. They can say that she killed his brother and ran. She resisted arrest, maybe one of them will cut himself up or something, and then say he had to fatally wound her."

"That’s the reason she ran." Chase got off the bed and paced across his bedroom. "Okay, I don't believe she would have killed her boyfriend other than in self-defense."

"We don't know that for sure, Chase. She could be a black widow with dead boyfriends all over the place."

"Dan," Chase said, sounding exasperated with him.

"Okay, I agree, but from the sounds of it, this could be an act of outrage. If she learned he was cheating on her and she killed him for it, she wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Certainly not where his brother is concerned if they were very close."

Chase swore under his breath again. "Okay, you’re the sheriff. What do you want to do about it?"

"Well, hell, Chase, we've been friends too long for me to say what you can or can't do under the circumstances. You think she's innocent."

"She is until proven guilty, or have we lost that concept somehow?"

Dan didn't say anything for a moment. Then he said, "Okay, listen, believe me, I'm on your side, all right? I'm just trying to play devil's advocate. To protect herself, she might have killed her boyfriend. Hell, she might have killed you up on the mountain for the same reason if you hadn't gotten lucky."

Chase ground his teeth.

"I have to take more of an unbiased view on this."

"So what do you want me to do? Stand down while these men track her down and murder her? Not wanting anyone to learn about it? Oh, sure one of them didn't mean to, but they fought over the gun, and he just happened to shoot her somewhere that she'd bleed out before she could get any medical assistance."

"If I tell you to bring her into town for questioning, would you?"

Chase paced across the floor some more. "I'll talk to her."

"If she admits she killed her boyfriend for a reason other than self-defense? Anger? Something else? What then?"

"I said I'd talk to her."

"Now?"

"Yes. Now. We need to know what to do. Call you back in a little while." Chase ended the call, threw on a pair of boxers, and headed to the guest room. He knew she was innocent of killing her boyfriend in cold blood. He just had to figure out what to do to keep her from being the family’s terminal target.

So much for moving a pure cougar out of the territory when Dan had sent him to hunt her down in the first place. This had become a nightmare of epic proportions.

When he reached her door, he knocked. No answer. He worried then that she'd heard him talking to Dan and got the gist of it, and she'd run. Maybe that’s why she’d wanted to stay in her own room, so that she could slip out when Chase went to sleep tonight.

She couldn’t fight this on her own. He knocked again. She could be sound asleep. But he had to talk to her now and figure out what to do. He shook his head at himself. If anyone had ever said he might one day be aiding and abetting a murderer, he'd have told them he was crazy.

When she still didn't answer the door, he said, "It’s just me, Chase." Then he pulled out a tool he could use on the door and unlocked it, assuming the worse. She was gone.

He tried to open the door, but it hit the bedside table. She had moved it to protect herself from him? He felt bad for her all over again.

"Shannon, it's just me," he said, reaching in to turn on the light switch, hoping she was in the room and hadn’t slipped out the window, when he saw Shannon in her cougar form crouched and ready to pounce.

***

Shannon had moved the bedside table against the door and fallen asleep, but hurried footfalls headed in the direction of her door had awakened her and she was up on her feet in an instant. Chase wouldn't have bothered her unless something was terribly wrong. She was half asleep and so confused she wasn't sure what to think. Or maybe someone else was here. The sheriff, ready to lock her up and then turn her over to Hennessey.

She’d stripped out of her sweats and shifted and was just waiting across the room, ready to protect herself. The table was still against the door, and she was still concerned Chase might not be alone. That Hennessey would be with him. He'd shoot her if he could get a shot off before she pounced on him, claiming self-defense. Or maybe, he’d wait until he’d had her manacled and driven off with her. And then shoot her and bury her in a shallow grave somewhere in the woods.

Chase was peering in through the narrow makeshift entrance he’d managed to make to see into the room, the table pushed partly away from the door, his eyes wide. "I'll close the door so you can get dressed and move the table. I'll be waiting in the living room. We need to talk." His voice and look told her he meant what he said, that he wanted to reassure her, but that they had to do this.

He closed the door and walked down the hall to the living room. She heard him take a seat on the couch. She shifted, moved the table, shifted again, then headed for the living room—as a cougar.

He cast her an elusive smile. "It works better if you can talk also."

She sat her romp down on the floor and didn't move. If he said anything she didn’t like, she was out of here, running again as a cougar.

"Okay, here's the deal." He explained everything that Dan had told him, including what he had thought—that she had protected herself in self-defense. And that her boyfriend and his family were all shifters.

He told her he suspected her boyfriend would have been stronger than her. Not some little guy. But then again, in a fit of rage, people were known to do that which no one would ever believe they could do.

***

Hell, if the sheriff and Chase knew as much as they did, there was no sense in Shannon keeping the secret any longer. Chase wouldn't believe her word against another police officer’s, but someone had to hear the truth. And yeah, both of the men were six feet-two, and no way could she have killed her boyfriend all on her own. Though she imagined that if someone was angry enough, maybe he’d been doped up or drunk, and the person caught him off-guard, maybe.

But once she told her side of the story, she had to run. And Chase wasn’t stopping her this time.

She loped back into the guest bedroom. To Chase's credit, he stayed on the couch, waiting for her. He didn’t come after her to ensure she shifted, dressed, and didn’t attempt to sneak out through the bedroom window.

Dressed in the gray sweats, one of the Yuma T-shirts, and socks, Shannon rejoined Chase on the couch and pulled the throw over her lap, keeping her distance from him. She was scowling when she asked, "Did Hennessey mention that he and his brother had some kind of business dealings—I assume illegal—and my boyfriend cheated him on it? That Hennessey was furious and they got into a huge fight and he killed his brother? That I was in the house at the time, though he had thought I was sleeping until I heard the fight and it escalated? That after Hennessey stabbed his brother, he came after me? Did he mention that he found the perfect patsy for his crime? Me? And oh, the best part of it? I have to die. I can't have a prison sentence. Cougar shifters in prison would be a disaster. So I didn't have any choice. Who do you think they'd believe? A police officer who is the brother of a fellow police officer? Or me?"

"Hell. I believe you, Shannon.”

But he still didn’t offer to pull her close or comfort her, not that she appeared as though she wanted to be touched at the moment. She might look relaxed while she curled up on the couch, but she was coiled to strip, throw open the door, shift, and run.

“Do you mind if I tell Dan the story?"

"Go ahead. It won't make any difference."

"It sure as hell makes a lot of difference." Chase set his phone down before he called the sheriff, and then he did what she hadn’t wanted and yet had wanted him to do, feeling like a bundle of contradictions. He pulled Shannon into his arms and held her tight, his one hand keeping her close, his other hand stroking down her back in a tender caress. "I'm staying with you until we resolve it one way or another."

She was stiff in his arms, wanting to relax, but she couldn't. "The only way to do that is to kill him. You know that, don't you? He's killed his brother. I have to take the blame. There’s no other way. If I'm dead, his secret will remain. Even if by some miracle he was found guilty of the murder, the same problem exists. He can't live in prison. He'd have to die."

Chase took a deep breath, running his hand over her hair. "We need to clear your name. We'll take care of this one way or another. He's not touching a hair on your head." And then he lifted her chin.

Her darn eyes were filled with tears. Not once had she had any real hope. Not until Chase had hunted her down. And then, she could have killed him!

He leaned down then, and kissed her.

Chapter 11

Chase felt bad that he had never considered that Shannon’s accuser had killed his brother and Shannon had been the innocent bystander, running for her life. Anyone who had heard the police officer’s version would have thought he told the truth, especially since she had run away. He understood why she would have felt that he and Dan might have thought her guilty because they were also law officers.

Now Chase kissed Shannon's lips, his hands cupping her face, his mouth gentle against hers, rubbing, pressing, lightly pulling her lip with his, and kissing again. It wasn't a kiss borne of lust, or the need to quench some sexual craving, though he admitted touching her, being close to her, kissing her, did make him want more. His body couldn't help reacting to hers.

But when he saw the tears in her eyes, the hope there that he would stick by her, help her, and protect her, he had to kiss her, to seal the bargain, to tell her in no uncertain terms that she wasn't doing this alone.

She finally wrapped her arms around his waist, held him close to her, and sobbed.

For a long time, he just rubbed her back, holding her against him, letting her cry her heart out. He realized then she had to have been sick with grief over her boyfriend's death, but she hadn't even had a moment's rest to consider it while too busy keeping herself alive.

He shouldn't have kissed her, but he couldn't help himself. She seemed to need this as much as he needed to comfort her. When she stopped crying, he got her a tissue from the box on the coffee table. She wiped away her tears and collapsed on the couch. He sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulders.

"Tell me about him."

"Hennessey is a bully."

"Right." But Chase didn't mean about him. "Tell me about your boyfriend."