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"No. I mean, how come you didn't tap me on my shoulder like Mrs. Wyndham tapped Mikie? And suggest we both go find Geraldine? I mean, you're super-smart. You must have figured it out. After all,"
he added with a grin, "you weren't suffering from testosterone overload like me and Michael. "
Shocked, Moira replied, "That wouldn't have been my place. " A beta female, thrusting herself between two alphas squaring off? Moira's mama didn't raise no fools. "Besides, I figured out who murdered your sister. What . . . did I not reach high enough for you? Are you implying I'm an underachiever?"
He had the grace to look abashed, and quickly changed the subject. "Listen, when we get there—"
"I am not staying in the car. "
"Yes, you are. I'm not having anything happen to you, too. "
Touched by his concern, it was a long moment before she could speak. When she did, she told him a bald truth: "I'm not having anything happen to you, either. "
He smiled at her. "Guess we're fucked, then. "
"Guess we are. " As far as romantic declarations of love went, this one left much to be desired. So how come you can't stop grinning, you twit?
Jared pulled into Geraldine's driveway sedately enough, and Moira noticed he had a pleasant look on his face. "That's right, Geraldine, nothin' to worry about out here," he muttered, still smiling inanely as he shut off the engine. "Just a fella who wants to ask you a couple of questions . . . nothin' to get excited about . .
. "
"Jared, really. " Moira didn't try to hide her exasperation. "Now I'm definitely not staying in the car. You need me for this. You've got this silly idea in your head that because the full moon isn't until tomorrow night, Geraldine is harmless. I can assure you that's not the case. Soothing words and silly grins aren't going to put her at ease. She's going to know what you want the minute she gets close enough to smell you. "
He had been nodding politely during her lecture, but now smirked. "And me without my Old Spice.
C'mere, sugar. "
What on earth was wrong with the man? she thought before he grabbed her and pulled her close. She would have imagined he'd be a bundle of nerves, this close to confronting his sister's killer—
Probable killer, her ever-logical mind interjected.
—but he practically whistled in contentment.
"Listen, weirdo," was as far as she got before his tongue plunged into her mouth. With anyone else this kiss would have been an alarming development. Since the tongue belonged to Jared, it was actually a quite enjoyable development. Yes, indeed. Most pleasant. Especially the way his lips were so soft, the way he kissed and licked and nibbled and—
CLICK.
—handcuffed her to the steering wheel.
Moira sat stock-still for a thunderstruck moment. Then, heedless of the lurking Geraldine and the quiet neighborhood, she shrieked. "What did you do? "
"Uh. Moira. Not so loud. " He rubbed his ear. "I don't have to answer that question, do I? It's—what d'you call it—rhetorical. "
She tugged experimentally. She couldn't get over the fact that he'd ruthlessly distracted her and then shackled her like a dog.
When she spoke, her voice was quite calm, but Jared looked at her warily anyway. "You carry handcuffs in your car?"
"Hey, I was a Boy Scout before I was a Marine. "
" Boy Scouts carry handcuffs? "
"Okay, well, I'm out of here. " And he was . . . he was opening the car, getting out, standing up. "Sorry, honey. But no way are you going anywhere near that killer. Not while I'm still breathing. "
"Something which can be rectified!" she shouted. He winced and shut the car door. "And I'm a killer, too, you moron!"
He snorted, then turned and started for the house.
Moira fumed inside the car. Oh, it would serve him right if she stayed docilely put while Geraldine cuisinarted his entrails. For two cents, she'd do it.
Yeah, right.
"Lord, love has made me a fool," she mumbled aloud. Inwardly, she added, I have fallen in love at last. With a man who has spent his entire adult life hunting my kind. She normally got quite a kick out of irony. Not today.
She gave the handcuffs a hard yank. Metal groaned, but didn't break. She pulled again, and slipped her hand out of the now too-wide handcuff loop, then smacked it irritably, watching the cuffs swing from the steering wheel.
Well, that was that. No way would Jared be able to overlook that little feat of superhuman strength. One way or another, this would all be over tonight.
***
One way or another, this would all be over tonight. Jared expected to feel hot exultation, but instead only felt relief. Relief, and the hope that there could be a future with Moira after this was behind them.
Assuming she would speak to him ever again.
Well, he didn't care if she gave him the silent treatment for a damn year, if she was safe. Ten years. He'd take furious over dead any day.
Jared paused on the porch, unsure what to do next. Ring the doorbell, he supposed, and look into the woman's—Geraldine's—eyes and see if he could find murder there. He hadn't counted on the dog being a woman. He hadn't counted on a lot of things when he started this strange journey.
He heard a light thump behind him and turned just in time to see Moira's sneakered foot slip up and out of sight as she pulled herself up on the porch roof.
He ground his teeth. Christ, the woman was a damn monkey! He should have known someone that smart would have learned how to pick a lock . . . probably kept the picks in her hair as barrettes or whatever. Now she was on the roof, probably finding an open window . . . aarrgh!
He raised a fist to pound on the front door when it suddenly jerked open, hard enough to blow strands of his hair back from his face.
An enormously tall woman stood before him, grinning. Her hair was the color of damp dirt, as were her eyes. She had incredibly white teeth, which made her smile hard to bear. Quite thin, her collarbones stood out clearly against the yellow T-shirt she wore, a color which accentuated her sallow complexion.
She wore faded jeans with old stains on the thighs and knees—mud? Blood? She was barefoot and he saw her toenails were long enough to curl over the tops of her toes. He wondered in a distant part of his mind if she clicked when she walked on a wooden floor.
She looked cruel and hard, so he was unprepared for her soft, sweet, lilting voice: "Hello. Can I help you?"
He stared at her. His back itched where his gun was pressing against his flesh. "Uh . . . yeah. My name is Jared Rocke. Uh—" Why have you been killing women who look like your mama? How have you been able to fool the Wyndhams for so long? Are you aware you're the most frightening thing I've ever seen, and I used to live in Miami? "You're Geraldine Cassick, right?"
"Yes, of course. " The woman's smile widened, if that was possible. Jared nearly shuddered. He had no idea how this woman had been passing herself off as human for so long. "Rocke. How's your dead sister? By the way, your cunt of a girlfriend isn't fooling anybody. "
At "your dead" he reached for his gun. At "by the way" she slapped it out of his hand so quickly he didn't see her move, and didn't realize she'd cut him with her nails until later. At "isn't fooling" she seized his shirt collar and yanked him inside her house, shoving him hard enough to send him sliding across the hardwood floor, where he fetched up against the wall with a sickening thud. For a half second he thought the top of his head had fallen off. White stars exploded before his eyes.
"Now I'm really gonna kick your ass," he groaned, hoping his vision would clear soon.
"I'm terrified," she said in her weirdly cute, feminine voice. Her dad must have hated that voice, he thought dazedly, especially when he wanted a boy so bad. "Actually, I'm relieved. I can get rid of you and get back to business. I did not like having you sniffing up my backtrail, Roque. "
"It's Rocke. You were waiting for me. "
"O
f course I was!" she said. She crossed the room with terrifying swiftness and squatted down to look at him. He could see two—no, three—of her heads, floating around him in a shaky semicircle. Her six eyes were gleaming, fanatical. "Where better than to hang out and wait for you than here, where Michael-king-shit-werewolf and his monkey bitch live? My home, where I know everyone and they know me and oh, isn't it terrible about my dad, but you're all right, Geraldine, you poor, poor thing. "
Jared shook his head, desperate to clear it. Ten seconds ago he'd been standing on her porch. "Just in case I hadn't already figured you were off your fucking rocker," he informed her in a croak, "I think I've got it now. "
She ignored him. "Except, Jared, you were supposed to kill them. " Geraldine's tone became sweetly reproachful. "You were supposed to come to me first, because you figured my father had been doing the killings, and I would have told you the killer was Michael ! But you—did—it—all—backwards. " Each word was punctuated by a brisk, hard shake.
"It wouldn't have worked, nutjob," he managed, fighting to loose himself from her grip. Cripes, she was barely holding him, but her fingers felt like steel. He smashed his palm into the underside of her jaw, but her head barely moved. "You shouldn't have framed a dead man, Geraldine. That's where you took a wrong turn. "
"I'm going to kill that half-breed cow you've been fucking," she informed him with conspirational tenderness. "I can smell her all over you. She actually let you touch her? Let a nasty, smelly, monkey touch her?"
He tried to bring a knee up, hard, into her belly, but she shifted easily. She started choking him, throttling him almost absent-mindedly while banging his head against the floor. "Mm—not—smelly—" was what he managed before things started to go dark around the edges.
Suddenly her grip relaxed, and he sucked in painful breaths. Geraldine's face was, as if by magic, slashed in four long streaks, bleeding. So much blood, it rained into his face, spattered his shirt.