Page 29 of Protected By Her Mate

A cold chill runs up my spine. “Who’s dead?” I demand.

“I don’t know… I… she looks like… maybe… that woman we were looking for.”

My mind is blank, then I remember. “Catherine Grant.”

“It might be her.” She pauses and fear creeps into her tone as she says, “I think someone was in the garage with me. I’m scared, Lennox. I’m alone in here.”

So she’s in a parking garage near the courthouse. I weave past a group of startled tourists, all of them looking up at something a tour guide is pointing at. “I’m almost there,” I tell her.

“Stay on the phone with me,” she begs. “I called for an ambulance, but Judy said it’s fifteen minutes out.”

“I will.” She’s silent on her end as I run, but I’m reassured by her long, slow breaths. She’s calming down.

“Look around, Charlie,” I say. “Tell me what you see.”

I’m trying to distract her, get her to talk to me. Once the police and paramedics arrive the garage will turn into a zoo and evidence might be lost.

“There’s a dead body,” she says with no hint of humour. She’s rattled.

“Look past the body, sweetheart. Tell me what you see.”

“Am I your sweetheart, Lennox?” Her voice is fainter than I like, propelling me faster than I thought possible. I can see the garage now, know it’s the right one. I can feel her inside it.

“Yes, you are,” I say, hitting the garage door so hard it bounces back, but I’m halfway up the first flight of stairs when it slams closed.

“I see pillars, about twenty or thirty cars. An attendant station, but there’s no one in it.”

“What about the lights?” I demand, taking the stairs three and four at a time before tripping and falling face first into a concrete wall. My wolf growls at our collective clumsiness and forces me to my feet. “What floor are you on?” I can tell she’s on a higher level, but I don’t want to run right past it.

“Five.” Her voice wavers and she whispers, “Lennox, the lights over my truck are out. I think they were on when I parked here. Oh god, this is every scary movie I’ve ever seen come to life!”

I burst through the door of the fifth floor, stumbling in the semi-lighting as I try to orient myself.

“Over here,” Charlie’s distressed voice calls. A shot of relief goes through me as I spot her. She’s pressed up against the concrete wall next to the hood of her truck.

As I sprint toward her, she launches herself away from the wall and into my arms, gripping me like she’ll die if she doesn’t hang on as tight as possible. My wolf calms as I hold her to me, but he’s sniffing the air, trying to ferret out a presence. Too many scents to separate. A few shifters, too many humans to count.

“Oh god, I thought someone was going to kill me,” Charlie whispers against my chest.

“I won’t let that happen.”

“I know,” she says with a sniffle.

After only a minute, too soon for me and my wolf, she pushes away. “We have to…” Her eyes dart to the shadowed form beneath the open door of her truck. “We have to look at the body before the medics arrive. We have to know if it’s her.”

I don’t care about the body. I want to drag Charlie back into the cradle of my arms, then take her away from this mad city, back to Wolf-Haven where I can ensure she has a long, healthy life with no dead body jump scares.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking. A jump scare, like in the movies,” she murmurs, so distracted she’s not aware she’s picking up on my thoughts. She heaves a long-suffering sigh and kneels next to the body. Pulling out her phone, she snaps a few pictures.

I follow suit, kneeling beside her and examining the body. “Marks on the neck. Strangulation maybe.”

Charlie shivers, her hand creeping up her throat.

I check the clothing while Charlie continues to document the scene with her phone’s camera. Using my pen I go through the victim’s pockets. “Nothing.”

With a hand on Charlie’s arm, I urge her to stand and pull her a few feet away. “I think we have what we need.” Sirens approach the parking garage, so I speak quickly. “I won’t have jurisdiction over this so don’t give them any information about our case, okay?”

She nods, her eyes big as she watches the ambulance approach.

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