The Bear Truth (6 page)

"Did he recognize you? Did he say anything?" I could tell that Lukas had a million questions, but he wasn't asking the right ones. At least, those weren’t the right ones yet. Asking questions was part of my job.

"What else did you see? Are you sure there wasn't anyone else out there in the dark?" I asked.

"I had my gun drawn, but there wasn't anyone else nearby. I let my senses search the air for another’s scent, and I listened for any sounds of movement in the woods. Honestly, though, all I could think about was Markus. I knelt down beside him, and all I could see was blood. I knew it was bad, real bad. I just kept thinking that the ambulance had to get there. It was right before the Summit, and we couldn't afford to lose Markus. Everything rested on him being able to close this peace treaty with Lopers. It was a freak accident at the worst time. I couldn’t help but be a little pissed at him too. Going out running alone seemed reckless and stupid."

"There is no way that Markus would've been out there if he didn’t have a reason," Lukas said venomously. "You're missing something. There has to be something in that file. The sheriff would have known why Markus was out there." He started to push the papers around looking for something, even though I was sure he had no idea what he was looking for either.

Billy pushed his seat back from the desk. He seemed to be at a loss. "You can look through the paperwork as much as you want to, Lukas. Whatever you're looking for isn't there. There was nothing about this that was suspicious. It was a freak accident. It could've happened to any one of us."

Lukas's fist slammed down on the desk. "But it didn't! It happened to Markus!” His hand landed on one of the pictures. He pulled it closer to him. I saw his forehead wrinkle as he looked at the picture. He pointed. "What's that?"

Billy and I pushed forward in our chairs to take a closer look at whatever Lukas was pointing at. I couldn't see anything in the picture other than darkness. Then as I studied it, I could see the reflection of what appeared to be a shiny symbol etched in the rust of the trap.

"It's the bear trap. You know that. It snapped shut around Markus's ankle and nearly tore it off clean. That thing had the grip of death. I'm amazed that he managed to move at all," Billy said with a shudder.

"I know what it is," Lukas said sarcastically. "What's on it?"

"What do you mean what's on it?" Billy leaned in closer to try and see what it was that Lukas was pointing at. Lukas shoved around the pictures, and he grabbed another one. This one had a closer view of the trap that was locked around Markus’s foot.

"This," he said emphatically.

"What the hell?" Billy stood up. He walked over to a large metal cabinet that stood next to the desk. I assumed that it contained guns and ammunition and whatever else the deputies would need in the course of doing their jobs. Billy used a key from his key ring to open the doors. He reached in pulled out something that gave me the chills. It was a large cardboard box that had ‘EVIDENCE’ marked across the side in bold red letters. He carried it with obvious effort, and set it on the desk. Then he took the top off. I didn’t have to look inside to know what it was.

"This is the trap," Billy said. Lukas approached the box carefully. I didn't blame him. It was a symbol of everything of the thing that took his brother away from him. I stood up and stood next to Lukas as we both peered into the box. Billy reached in and pulled the rusted piece of large metal out.

Lukas grabbed the picture off the desk and then looked at the trap in Billy’s hands. "It's not the same one," he said.

"You can see the blood on the blades," Billy said slowly. "I think what you're seeing in the picture is just a shadow of the light reflecting on the trap."

I finally was starting to see what it was in the photo that had caught Lukas's attention. It was so subtle that anyone could easily miss it. It was a very crude etching of a symbol. A symbol that I knew well. It was a symbol that Billy should've known too. "It's the symbol of the Rally Against Claws." I let the words hang in the air. "I saw it. Twice actually. It was tattooed on the assholes who kidnapped me."

Lukas looked at Billy. "You've got those two assholes still in custody?" Billy nodded "Then I think it's about time we question those boys."

My senses were on full alert. There was something in those pictures that had been missed. Or maybe it wasn't that it had been missed, but it had been seen. When Billy pulled out the bear trap that didn't have the symbol etched into it, I knew something was wrong. Someone was concealing the evidence of who was involved with Markus’s death. I wasn't going to stand for that. Maren trailed behind us as Billy and I approached the cells.

"I want to know where Joshua is," I said. I didn't even give the scumbags a chance to stand up and come to the bars.

"We need to be a bit more subtle about this, Lukas," Billy said. Maren had given me the clue I needed to push forward. I was glad that she convinced me to let her help. She might have her own questions for her kidnappers. But right now, I just needed to know a couple of things. Why were they in town? What kind of trouble were they up to? Were there more than the two of them and Joshua?

"Patience, Lukas," Maren said softly. I knew she was trying to keep me calm. It wasn't my strong suit, but I knew that she was right. For once, I had to think first. I couldn't go barging into the cells demanding answers as much as I wanted to. I had to start with a bit more of a subtle hand. It was an approach more like Billy’s, even though I hated to admit it. I decided to hang back and let Billy take the lead.

There was one man in each one of the cells in front of us. It might have been hard for people who knew me before to believe, but I hadn't spent a lot of time in the cell block of the Greyelf Police Department contrary to popular belief. Greyelf was a small town, and there wasn't a lot of trouble on most days. So it looked odd to even have two of the five cells occupied. Neither one of the men stood up when they saw us standing there.

I finally had a good look at them. The details of their physical appearances hadn’t registered in my mind the night before. I have been only concerned with getting Maren away from them and off to safety. Now that I could see them up close, they looked rather… ordinary.

They couldn’t have been more than kids, in their early twenties at most. But the thing that gave them the initial appearance of being older than their age was their size. I was tall. But even sitting down I could tell that these two were almost as tall as me. I could see why they would have been able to easily keep Maren in line.

They looked at me, and I looked them. It was obvious that the feeling of contempt was mutual based on the expressions on their faces.

"Tell you what guys, you'll get out of here a lot faster if you cooperate and answer the man’s question," Billy said. He looked back and forth between the cells. Neither of the men moved. Instead, they simply glared at the three of us from behind the bars. It was almost a little eerie. If I didn't know better, I would almost have thought that we were the ones inside the cells.

"Go to hell, pig," one of the men said.

Billy flipped open the file folder that he had been carrying. I hadn't even noticed. He thumbed through it. He didn't look up as he started to rattle off a list of offenses. "Burglary. Resisting arrest. Possession. And various other misdemeanors going back to when you were twelve. Looks like you decided to step up to the big time by adding kidnapping to the list now, Joe. Can I call you Joe?" Billy looked up at the big man on the other side of the bars.

Joe shrugged and seemed unimpressed. “I was out there taking a walk. You can't prove I had anything to do with any kidnapping."

"We want to talk to our lawyer," said the other man from the cell.

Billy looked at his file folder again. "Yeah, sorry I didn't mean to forget you there, Craig. So for you, we've got grand theft and a charge of kidnapping already. You also spent some time in juvy for selling pot to your friends. Says there you were accused of murder just six months ago."

My ears perked up this time. Now we were getting somewhere.

"Those charges were dropped. There was no proof I was involved. When our lawyer gets here, you're gonna let us out. Until then, we’re not talking," Craig said.

I felt the heat of anger building inside of me. I hated their cocky attitudes acting as if they had done nothing wrong. They honestly thought they were going to get out of this town without anything else happening to them. I don't think they fully appreciated where they were right now. I was gonna make sure that they did. I stepped forward and put my face right next to the bars. I glared at Joe.

Now we were going to have some fun. As I moved my face closer to the bars, I let the bear ride to the surface. I knew what they were seeing. I'd watched it in the mirror a million times after my first phase. It was baffling the way that you can control the transition when you knew how.

But, of course, the bear was always slightly out of control in my world. That was part of the reason that Markus said he had to send me away. The impulsiveness and anger could spin out of control all came from my bear. It just wanted to run free the majority of the time. My nose slowly elongated and pushed through the middle of the bars. Even a hard ass like Joe wouldn't be able to contain his fear at the controlled shift that was happening in front of his eyes.

As I expected, the big man started to scoot back in his bunk. It didn't matter if it was involuntary or not. I had send him to the edge of reality. Now I was just going to push. I let my bear’s teeth show. Then a growl ripped from my chest and out into the room. The threat came through loud and clear. Then I pulled back and let my face returned to that of a normal man. It nothing else, it was a reminder that they were dealing with someone who wasn’t ordinary. They were dealing with a bear.

"You're a freak,” Joe said, but I could tell by the quiver in his voice that I had stunned him.

"This is my town," I said. "Anybody who thinks they're gonna come in here and cause trouble has got another thing coming. I may be new, and I may not have been the alpha for very long, but I know how to deal with guys like you. Where's your boss? Where’s Joshua?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. It was just me and Craig here," Joe said, but his voice lacked conviction.

So they were going to play hardball. That was okay. I didn’t mind. "Open the cell, Billy," I said.

I felt Maren's hand on my arm. "What are you doing, Lukas?"

It bothered me that I had to do this in front of her. But the time for subtlety was running out. I had a feeling everything hinged on the beginning of the Summit. What happened last night was just the opening act. If they were willing to come at me through Maren and potentially even take out the sheriff, I suspected there was little that they wouldn't do. It was time for action. The time for words was over.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Billy said.

"I don't recall asking for your opinion," I countered. Both of us knew that in the end I would win. Billy was part of my clan. That meant that when push came to shove, I was always the one that would win unless he chose exile instead. I didn’t want to have to use that threat on him. He had to understand that this wasn't the time for proper police procedure. This was clan business, and that meant that it fell under my jurisdiction, not the law.

"I can't let you do this, Lukas," Billy said.

"Then just hand me the keys. Let's not make this about us," I said. Billy just stood there and did nothing. I knew then that he wouldn't stand against me. But he wasn't going to help me either. I had to respect the man's values. He was a man of the law, and I needed him. The people of Greyelf needed him because I intended to make sure that Billy was the next sheriff of Greyelf.

When my fist crossed his face, I don't think Billy knew what hit him. I heard Maren's gasp. I pulled the keys off of Billy's belt before he even hit the floor.

“Stay down,” I warned him.

"What are you doing?" Maren cried out.

"Making sure that nobody gets in my way," I said. The words were more a growl than anything, and I wasn’t sure she even understood me.

I unlocked the door to Joe’s cell. The man finally looked afraid. That was good. There was a part of me that liked it when people were afraid of me. I knew that Maren wanted to stop me, but she also knew that she couldn’t once I got started. We’ve been through this routine more than once when we were younger.

“You talk, or I’m to make you talk. It’s your choice,” I said calmly. “You can talk to me man-to-man, or I can talk to you bear-to-man. Personally, I’ve love it if you chose the latter option. My bear is itching to come out and say hello.” I let my threat linger in the air between us.

“You can’t do that. I’ve got rights. I’m not a freak like you.” The man’s prejudice was coming out. That was good too because that made me angry.

“We’ll see about that. Like I said, this can be easy, or this can be hard. What’s your choice?”

“Lukas,” Maren whispered behind me. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

I didn’t agree with her. She and I had come a long way, but perhaps I hadn’t come as far as I had hoped. But that was a thought for another day. Not today.

I watched the man as he slowly inched even further backward on his bunk. He wasn’t showing any signs of cracking quite yet. I had heard a lot about these Rally Against Claws activists. They had a long history over the last eighteen years of creating quite a nuisance for various shifter clans. It wasn’t surprising to me that they had made their waves to Greyelf now. After all, we were on the cusp of the largest Summit in history. We had clans represented from all over the United States, and even a few who had traveled from other countries. Shifters were a reality, and it was time that the rest of the world accepted it. We weren’t going to sit in the shadows any longer. Second-class citizenship was really no citizenship at all. We needed integration.

That was the entire focus of Markus’s last three years. He had disappeared from the national spotlight, mostly to focus his energy on trying to figure out the best way to bring all of the clans together in one common cause. There was strength in numbers. On our own, we wouldn’t be able to make enough of a difference to be able to change the world for our people. But together, we could make the progress happen.

I understood why Markus had been targeted. It just blew my mind that after eighteen years and so many threats, this ragamuffin crew had somehow managed to do what no one else had been able to achieve. They brought the great Markus Kasper down.

As that thought sunk into my mind, I thought about the man in the cell next door. I also thought about the boy that Maren and I had met all those years ago at the drive-in. There was something about them that was different.

I slowly backed out of the cell and closed the door. I locked it again. I heard Maren’s sigh of relief, but her body went rigid as I made my way to the cell next door. Billy laid on the floor. He might have been unconscious, but I wasn’t going to check.

This time I simply strung my arms through the bars and rested my forehead against them. I looked at the man. He was big, yes, but he was also…pretty and almost feminine in his appearance. I had missed it the first time because I had been angry and focused on the wrong things. Markus always said that I was focused on the wrong things. It was part of my nature to act first and think later.

I unlocked the cell door. Then I closed it behind me. The man showed no fear. Unlike Joe, he seemed calm and almost content with his status.

“You’re not afraid of me,” I said the words not as a question but a statement of fact.

“I’m not ever going to be afraid of freaks like you.” Craig simply stared at me. I wasn’t sure if he was crazy or simply resigned his fate. “I’ve lived around your kind my whole life. There’s nothing you can do to me or say to me that I haven’t already seen or heard.”

There was a part of me that wondered what had happened to Craig in his past that made him so angry against shifters. These types always had a reason for being angry. Perhaps a shifter had hurt someone important in his life. It was interesting to me that hatred against shifters when it was nothing but normal human nature that was at the core of those types of incidents. It really didn’t matter if it was shifter or man; evil came in all forms. But to have created that kind of hatred inside someone against an entire species was the part that was really frightening.

I needed to take a different tack with Craig. I knew that. I had landed on an idea, and I just needed him to confirm it. “So you knew my brother.”

Craig looked surprised, which was the first real expression of emotion that I had seen on his face. It was the only answer I needed. But I left the question open because I wanted to hear him speak the answer out loud.

“What?”

“I can smell him on you,” I said. It was a bluff, but he didn’t need to know that. It was well-known that shifters had super sensitive noses, so for all he knew I could be telling the truth. I was rewarded when he sprung up and began to swat at himself and his clothes.

“I can tie you to his murder scene.” I was bluffing again. But once again he didn’t need to know that. “You’ve already got a long line of offenses in your past. I’m guessing that any judge would be more than happy to throw you in some cell for the rest of your life. And first-degree murder will make sure you don’t see the light of day for the rest of your life.”

Regardless of what I said, there wasn’t anything about him that made me think that he would be able to commit the kind of violence that was actually done against my brother. No, I didn’t think that Craig was the source of this at all. It had all sprung from the mind of one crazy man.