03 - You Only Live Nine Times Read online

  They watched the camera footage on his laptop. A large, dark car pulled up in the parking lot. It tilted towards the driver’s side magnificently and then sprang up as a huge weight lifted out of it. The weight being a large looking man – for surely it couldn’t be anything other than a man – who heaved himself out of it. With a lumbering shuffle, he moved around to the trunk and produced a black bag. Seemingly uncaring and unhurrying, he continued his shuffle into the alley. He returned moments later and packed himself back into the car; it dipped, almost scraping the road as he drove away.

  “Probably our guy,” stated Isis, unnecessarily. Well, it was unlikely he was dumping the contents of his trash can in that alley. Plus his whole demeanor screamed 'suspicious'. Ms. Kitty bridled at the mere fuzzy outline of him caught on film.

  Raf hummed and rewound the video to re-watch those few moments. “Shame we can’t see what he really looks like, too far away. We can’t even see the license plate on the car. The guy’s huge, though. You think he’s a shifter?”

  “From his size, I would guess so.” Hard to believe he could be anything else. Unless he was actually a couple of humans standing on top of one another. But no, that only worked in movies. “And I guess he’s the guy Leaky saw at the cemetery.” What was that description Leaky gave? Oh yeah, big and fuzzy features. Spot on.

  Raf rubbed his chin, thoughtfully. “This doesn’t help us much, all we know is that he’s a big guy who drives a big, dark car. Doesn’t narrow it down much. But I guess by the shape of the car that it’s a BMW, but that is just a guess.”

  “And he has a slight limp. Rewind it, let’s watch it again.”

  They watched it repeatedly, and sure enough the guy walked with a strange limp. It wasn’t very pronounced, more like one of his feet had trouble keeping up with the other.

  “He has a strange gait.” Raf opened his mouth as if he were about to say something but just chuckled.

  “What?” she purred, sliding a finger along his neck.

  “Strange to say, but he kind of walks like one of the zombies you see on TV.”

  “Like in the Walking Dead, I love that show.” And it’s main character was one of her favorite stars of her many erotic fantasies. Many a time, she would come swooping in and save him from a group of walkers, and then he would ravish her senseless. That’s right – she would always save him. She was a modern gal, she believed men and women were equal when it came to slaying zombies. Or at least, Rick Grimes used to occupy those fantasies. Now, they were all about Raf. The zombies were still there, which was a little odd. Maybe she’d been spending too much time talking to Jeff.

  “Me too,” he murmured snapping her out of her reverie. “I’ll watch anything with zombies.”

  Back to the point. “You’re right, he does have a zombified walk.”

  “You think he could actually be a zombie?”

  “Ummm, I doubt it. While Jeff is a perfect fit for the mailroom, he can take as much time as he wants sorting it all out. But, we often do catch him trying to suck on packages every now and then. Zombies don’t really have the concentration or hand-eye co-ordination to drive cars. It’s best that they don’t go out on their own. They are dead after all.”

  Raf quirked his lips. “You know I think I’d like to meet this Jeff. Actually talking to a zombie would be interesting.”

  “You should come by the SEA offices, I’ll introduce you around to all the crazy people. I don’t want to sound too tempting, but a woman in archives is actually half fae.”

  “Fae?” His eyebrows knitted in confusion before he let out an ‘oh’. “You mean a fairy? You work with a fucking fairy?”

  “Half fairy.” And a flirty minx to boot – even flirtier than Isis. “But she has wings and everything.” And wouldn’t she be the jealous little fairy when she caught sight of the arm candy Isis was toting. She’d be a dead fairy if she tried to touch, mind.

  “Yeah, I’d actually like that. Coming to your office, I mean, getting to know more about the SEA.”

  Yes, that thought was enticing - Raf working at the SEA. Her tiger growled happily. She need never let him out of her yellow-eyed sight. Plus there were so many cupboards and storage areas to drag him into whenever the need took her. So like every hour. How about right now? Damn, down kitty, take it easy on the poor boy. He deserves at least another hour, or thirty minutes, or more like ten minutes before she pounced. For now, distraction, think of the case.

  Isis nodded decisively. “We just need to find someone who tops seven feet and has the walk of an extra from the Walking Dead and we have our guy.”

  “Anything in the files?”

  Reluctantly, Isis left the warmth and pressing hardness of Raf’s lap to drag her own laptop over. She soon resumed her rightful place, though. “No one who matches that distinctive description if that’s what you mean. And also no red flags yet, but I’ve only looked through Howler’s, one of the nerd’s and that Topanga whore’s so far.”

  His lips quivered in mirth at her choice of word for Topanga, but wisely he chose not to say anything. “So Topanga seems normal, then?”

  Isis didn’t bother to hide her moue of distaste at all the talk of another female cat. On the other hand, her tiger snarled and made quite a few other bodily noises in a most unladylike way to show her feelings on the feline. “I looked at her first, and yes. Degree in business, sound financials, owns her car and her house. All in all, I’d say she was pretty average and dull. The only interesting thing about her is that she drives a Corvette.”

  “Nice,” commented Raf.

  “Glad you approve,” she said, sourly as Ms. Kitty huffed. What was the unhealthy interest men had in cars? They were nothing compared to bounding along on four legs, the wind rippling through your fur. Sigh. “I did find that odd lab rat though. I know why he looked so miserable - he’s Dr. Howler’s stepson. His mom is a pretty prolific chemist, and she works for Forever Young, too. Junior didn’t exactly do well in high school or college, so I reckon the job was given to him out of pity by his stepfather. Might be why he’s a little pissy.”

  “Wouldn’t exactly give him a motive to steal corpses, though.”

  “Unless he was trying to frame Forever Young.”

  “Well, he’s not doing a good job at it – our connection to Forever Young is tenuous at best. He could have left all kinds of evidence at the crime scenes, but all we found was part of a surgical glove and a key that may or may not belong to an employee’s locker. At the moment, we’re working on a hunch. Plus, he’s five-foot-eleven. Not big enough to be our huge guy, not small enough to be the other, either.”

  “Yeah, oh hey look, here’s that woman, Leslie’s file, Jessie put a star next to her. Oh-ho! Read this.”

  Raf’s eyes widened. “Mental break down?”

  He scanned through the info Jessie had put together. Dr. Leslie Uggams suffered a breakdown about a year ago. A huge, messy breakdown, at the offices of Forever Young. She tried to attack Dr. Howler and had to be restrained by cops.

  “Yep, Jessie says she couldn’t get hold of her medical file, so we don’t know what’s up with her or what caused the flip-out.”

  “Well, it’s confidential.”

  “That and the doctor handling her case is pretty well-off and the firewalls of his practice are monumental.”

  Raf pouted his lips in disapproval. It was really hot. Meow. “I’ll pretend it’s the confidentiality thing.”

  Isis patted his head affectionately. “You do that. Says here she doesn’t have any dependents, so what was that earlier about leaving to look after a sick kid?”

  “Odd. Doesn’t necessarily mean anything, she could have just wanted to go home. She could have been skiving off work to go shopping. Or maybe she just means that she had a dog or something. People treat them like kids.”

  “Yeah, and it’s creepy. I have cats, but they’re more like roommates.”

  He snickered and turned away from her.

  Miffed, she asked,
“What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, I just heard you as we were leaving your place. You were practically kissing them and telling them they had smooshy, adorable faces.”

  Isis sniffed, haughtily. “Well, if I had a human or shifter roommate, I would do the same to them, too. Ooh! Dr. Leslie Uggams has a BMW.”

  “Maybe we could go and talk to her, maybe she might know something. Worth a shot I guess.”

  “Maybe I should pick up some shoes first.” She extended her leg and wiggled her bare toes, enjoying the way Raf’s eyes travelled up and down said leg. “Yours are a little big on my feet.”

  “Yeah, you look good in my clothes, though,” he teased, his hand ghosting over her curves.

  “I look good in anything.”

  “True.”

  *

  “Shit, fucking hell!” snarled Raf in a manner that would make any shifter proud, and certainly had her tiger howling in glee.

  Isis eyed the source of his annoyance was a surprisingly sanguine demeanor. “Well, it’s not wrong.”

  Raf fumed as he paced up and down, clenching his fists. His pristine, dark blue car had been daubed in red paint with the message ‘shifter fucker’. Isis couldn’t deny the accuracy of the words, but then, they had been put there maliciously. Clearly the writer thought that fucking shifters was something disgusting to be embarrassed about. Sexually repressed, brainless, a-hole. Didn’t know what they were missing. Ms. Kitty chuffed in agreement.

  “Who the fuck would do this?” demanded Raf, speaking to no one in particular. No, he was just ranting.

  Isis did have an answer for him, though. “Do you really have to ask? Blonde, too big tits and too little brains - ring any bells?”

  He scrunched his nose. “Georgia?”

  “Sure, she’s a bunny boiler if ever I saw one.”

  “I didn’t think she’d be this dumb.”

  “You’re just so irresistible to woman that they go crazy around you.” She let out a suffering, sarcastic sigh. “It’s a personality fault of yours, but I’ll live with it.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered, not seeing the funny side of it at all. “I can’t drive it like this.”

  “No.” Driving around with that message was just asking for trouble. Actually it was a brazen invitation to some of the city’s more lascivious shifters to jump his bones – male and female. Oh, no, neither she nor her feline wanted that at all. Freaking shifters should keep their damn horny paw, claws, hoofs and trotters to themselves.

  “Not that I’m ashamed of what we did,” he added, hurriedly.

  “Settle down, honey, I know I’m the best thing that ever happened to you.” She ignored his guffaw. “I wouldn’t advise anyone driving around the city with that advertisement on their car.”

  “I have my bike; we can use that. I’ll drop you at your place and head to the station to have a word with Georgia and my captain. It might not be pretty.”

  Part of her relished the thought of human Barbie getting a verbal smack down for her bitchy antics and wished she could be there, but she realized it might only make things worse. For now, she would have to console herself with taking a ride on Raf’s motorbike.

  “Hmmm, clinging to you while we travel at high speeds, sounds good to me.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Isis slipped into a clingy shirt. It was one of her favorites. The deep sea green color highlighted her vibrant eyes, and it had an almost obscene neckline and clung to her figure, making her waist look tiny, and her boobs look huge. So why did her eyes stray toward Raf’s t-shirt so casually slung across her bed? It was an itchy cotton material that swamped her, and wearing it would give anyone who saw her the impression that she was actually a fan of the Los Lobos Lions – Los Lobos perpetually losing football team that ironically didn’t contain one single lion shifter. Ms. Kitty yowled knowingly. Ugh, why was she even bothering to ask the question? Wearing that t-shirt made her feel a hundred times more sexy than usual – and she was always smoking – because it belonged to him. That sometimes stiff, sometimes playful, always gorgeous human that had her heart thumping like a bass drum and her sex almost begging for him to take her. People always said that men thought with their pricks; they neglected to mention what happened when women let their hoohahs take over. Lots of girly simpering and sighing if Isis was anything to go by.

  Oh, but it wasn’t just sex. If it were, it would be easy. A few quick bangs and out. But this, oh this! There were feelings involved. She enjoyed his darn company. Horror of horrors, she’d actually consider cuddling with him. Even their shower tryst, although it couldn’t be called sweet lovemaking, was more than sex. Would she have come so hard with someone other than him? Could she have?

  Naturally, she wasn’t given time to come to grips with her thoughts. Because the most irritating ghost since Beetlejuice decided to pop by for a visit. Even for a ghost her timing sucked.

  Cleo popped into view and Isis almost jabbed her eye with her mascara wand. “Fuck, you scared the hell out of me!”

  “Sorry, honey.”

  “All these fricking years, you’d think I’d get used to that,” Isis grumbled under her breath.

  Raf hadn’t mentioned any specific plans about seeing her later, and it was moving toward evening, but she wanted to be fully prepared, in case he happened to pop by. Yes, earlier he had seen her, hair wet, devoid of make-up and decked out in men’s baggy clothes, so imagine the look on his face when he caught sight of her in full-on sex kitten role. Meow. She’d even put on a mini-skirt – that’s how damn committed she was to making Raf hard as a rock just by looking at her. Course, it would help if her eye wasn’t now bleary and bloodshot from having a mascara wand jabbed in it, but she’d heal.

  Cleo wrung her ghostly hands as she idly walked up and down – straight through the middle of the bed. “I’m sorry about earlier, honey, with your young man.”

  Isis immediately felt a swell of annoyance at the term ‘young man’. She’d never introduced any of the boys or men she had dated to her mother. Probably because dated was such a strong word for what she had done before. And you really couldn’t rock up to your mom’s house and cry, ‘hey Mom, meet my fuck buddy, I forget his last name’. So wrong, so very wrong. But maybe her reticence had partly been because of her mother. She was sort of tedious. Knowing her mother, she would have made her erstwhile boyfriend sit down to have tea with her while she knitted and babbled about how awful reality TV shows were while displaying a ludicrous amount of knowledge of just what happened in all of them. No, that wasn’t what any of her men were for. They were for satisfying urges and that was it. Or at least, that was true of her previous men. Her current man extracted some very strange urges she never knew existed inside herself. She was back to the cuddling again. How long had that unholy desire been buried inside her? Too long, purred Ms. Kitty.

  “I was trying to stay out of the way,” insisted Cleo with an apologetic grimace.

  “Well appearing and walking right through him kind of ruined that,” drawled Isis, laconically.

  “He seems like a lovely young man,” commented Cleo, changing the subject

  “Yes, he is,” she said, tersely. Her tiger snarled and Isis gave her the beast a figurative bonk on the nose. It was one thing to get jealous over her cats, it was another to do so over her dead mother. She was dead for hell’s sake! Couldn’t do anything even if she wanted.

  “But?”

  Isis pursed her lips at Cleo the persistent ghost. “But nothing. You’re right; he’s lovely. What isn’t there to love?” Not a darn thing by her reckoning.

  “You’re worried.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Don’t tell me how I’m feeling!” snapped Isis, burning with fury as her tiger bared her teeth.

  “You’re worried because he’s your mate, and you think that you’ll get bored of him like you have with all the other men in your life.”

  “It’s not my fault I was
bored with them – they were boring!” Isis felt her blood boil, and her animal roared. The fact that her mom just stood there – or hovered there – smiling benignly and acting all reasonable only made her madder.

  “And you’re worried that you might leave him like your father left us.”

  “I’m not like him.” Selfish, tiger bastard.

  “No, you’re more like me.”

  “I thought you were trying to help me, not insult me,” she murmured, although with not nearly as much zeal as one of her usual insults.

  “You know before I met your father, I wasn’t interested in settling down. I was like you; I wanted to have fun and be my own person. I was worried that being in a relationship would mean that I would have to give up being me. But it wasn’t like that, being with him was wonderful.”

  “Yeah? Then why did he leave?” Her mom had tried to talk to her about it over the years, but she’d never been interested. Her dad ran out on them when she was two and then he died in a car accident. He didn’t love them enough to stay. What else was there to say?

  “He just wasn’t ready, honey. We were so young, and his tiger was so wild. He never really left us completely, not for long. He kept coming back, but every time his tiger became too much he made himself go. He didn’t want to hurt us; he was always afraid of that. Believe it or not you were a very small baby, so frail…”

  Isis and her tiger scoffed at that. Her? Frail?

  “Until you were a teenager I was convinced you were human. But, your dad he was coming back to us and then, the car accident… “ Cleo stared off into space for a few seconds, a look of such dejected sadness on her face that it elicited some weird, guilt-like emotions from Isis, that she would never admit to having. “I think, eventually he would have settled down with us. He just never had the chance.”

  “You missed him,” stated Isis, flatly.

  “So much, losing him was like losing a part of me. I’m so glad I had you; you made my life worth living.”

  “Jeez, I never knew I meant that much to you,” she muttered, ignoring the burgeoning guilt. She hadn’t exactly been a wonderful daughter. More like wild hellcat.