Page 14 of Lightning Strikes

Who knows what this woman is up to… Mac is gorgeous, strong, and loving… But for someone to be this psycho? I’m not falling for it. There’s something more going on and I’m following my gut.

I pull out my phone and call Melissa, who not only is a vet tech and someone that’s as close as a friend can get… But also a brilliant hacker.

“Miller!” She squeals into my ear, wincing as I pull it away.

“Hey, I’m parked near the PD, can you do your hack thing and pull all of the information we have on Rookie Laura Szabo?”

She whistles under her breath, but I can I hear her heels tapping along the clinic’s tile hallways and she closes a door. “Give me a few minutes to log into my secure networks and tap into your phone and re-route…” I space out as she mumbles about what she’s doing, turning my stare out my tinted windows into the tall pine trees lining the narrow street. I roll down my window for the fresh, forest air as I wait for her to give me the information I need. “Okay… Szabo… Lateral transfer from Florida, she graduated from the Orlando police academy ten years ago. Didn’t you say she was a rookie? She’s surely not… She did get into some trouble and they offered her a few options. Either move to her daddy’s precinct or never work again, AKA prison… Mother is Georgia Szabo… Daddy is Blane Morrow.”

“Fuck.” I whisper and shake my head. “Thanks, Mel. I just need her address.” She rattles it off and I hang up as I input the information into my GPS. The chief’s daughter… The chief who hates Mac. Jesus, is the whole department in on it? This is next level fucked up.

I turn the truck around and I shake my head as I drive. Mac is screwed unless I figure this all out… I can have her go a bit crazy until we leave… She’s already halfway there so what’s another push? I can’t believe they’re setting Mac up… but for what?

I park in front of a new two-story house that sits on several acres of unfenced land. No animals, no plants or grass to be seen. I sigh as I jump out of my truck, jogging up to the front door and knock lightly against the wood door. I step back as I glance around, taking everything in. I note that every window is covered by thick, black drapes. The house itself is newly painted, a matte dark gray that I actually like. I hear someone speaking on the other side of the door, getting closer to opening it up.

The woman that opens it frowns at me and looks around. “How can I help you?” She moves her hand to her waist, where I presume she’s used to holstering a weapon. Her long, blonde hair is braided over her shoulder and her brown eyes are dull and lifeless, so damn cold that I feel like bony fingers are digging into my spine… So either she’s a psychopath or she’s been through some shit.

“Yes, actually. I was told to come talk to you about one of my old friends… Mac Daniels. I have a friend that works the emergency lines and she was worried that he’s working with a female rookie. Can… Can we talk?” I blink my big blue eyes at her and fidget with my clothes. Looking down at my feet as I hunch my shoulders.

Good thing I’m still wearing loungewear and not my scrubs.

She nods, stepping back to allow me to enter her spacious, andempty, home. The door closes behind me and I can feel her giddiness from here… So I assume she was placed with Mac for a reason. And I will figure it out before Mac and I leave. If we leave… It sounds good while we vent about it, but who knows if we will actually make the move. His parents have grown up here, and their parents, and… basically generations of Daniels have been here in Prescott.

She leads me to her kitchen and I take a seat at the island as she busies herself with making two cups of coffee. I watch her closely as she opens up the drapes around the window over her sink. Well, she’s not a vampire. She can be in the sun. I snort to myself over the old myths and busy myself with fidgeting some more, trying to seem meek.

She hasn’t talked, probably psyching herself up for the same reasons I am… Deception.

She plasters a fake sympathetic smile across her plump lips and slides a white porcelain mug to me. Black coffee, thank goodness. “Sorry, I just moved in so I don’t really have groceries… Is black okay? I might have sugar somewhere…”

I nod and pretend to take a sip. I don’t let the pads of my fingers touch anywhere on the cup and make sure that none of my saliva touches the rim. Even if my plan works, I don’t want my DNA in her house. “Thank you. Is this a safe place to talk?”

She nods and leans back against her white marble countertop across from me, pressing her lips together. “I can help you, ma’am. Just tell me what happened and I’ll do everything I can to protect you.”

I lick my lips and look away as I blink my eyes several times. Damn it. How to people force themselves to cry? “I… It’s hard to talk about.” I slump my shoulders forward and stare down at my lap. “I thought he loved me, you know? But then started taking me to these ‘office parties’ and his buddy dragged me to a different room.” I sniffle and place my hands over my eyes and whimper. “It was awful, you know? I trusted them because they’re cops…”

She moves closer to me and pats my shoulder. “Can you tell me the other man’s name?”

I shake my head and place my head on her shoulder and wrap my arms around her. “He was older… Didn’t wear a uniform but Mac kept calling him ‘captain’. Mac and I had been going steady for a while… His tastes are a little different…” I sigh into her shoulder and place my hands on her head and frown at her. “You have to be really careful.” Then I push my magic into her head and she slumps into me.

I haven’t broken into someone’s mind on purpose before… But I need to do this now. The last time this happened, I was a teenager and annoyed with one of the girls at my old school… I happened to touch her face when I was pissed off… It took a few weeks for my parents and I to figure out what I did. I ended up pushing into her mind that she had to tell the truth and apologize to every single person she had wronged. Not that I was too upset about that, but my mother was terrified of what I had done, and of what I could do in the future.

Apparently that’s not a ‘normal’ healer trait. Which is bullshit because they barely told me anything about being a healer anyway. Just pawned me off on the pack doctor in Idaho and forced him to teach me. Even without him knowing what I could do, he still taught me everything I needed to know about shifter biology.

I root around Laura’s mind and remove every memory she has of Mac, her father, being a cop, and me. I whisper into her ear that she just moved here with her fiancé and she hears voices and thinks she can talk to spirits.

That should keep her off our backs for a while… We need to trap her and her father… I’ll drop in and fix some of that up after I figure out a way to get Melissa to help me out.

I’m too lightheaded to continue to play in her head, so rooting around her mind for conversations and memories have to wait. I blink my eyes open and grunt as I pick her up, throwing her over my shoulder as I carry her around the first floor looking for a damn couch or a bed. Every room on the first floor is empty aside from the appliances in the kitchen and some stools at the island…

I stalk up the dark hardwood steps and find the master is fully furnished and toss her on her bed before stepping out. I look around for her phone, finding it in her back pocket… but she doesn’t have it set up with facial recognition or her thumb print. Damn it. I toss it onto the bed and head back downstairs.

I grab my cup and wash it in the sink before placing it in the dishwasher. This went better than expected… I didn’t think I would be able to do it. I’ll have to send someone over to check on her tomorrow to see if it worked.

Not Melissa. Maybe I can hire a teenager to drop off a gift bag for a ‘birthday’ or something.

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