Page 20 of A Lady's Heart
Amy. I think someone’s been in my apartment.
Mandy took the stairs, clutching the railing to slow herself as she hurried downward. She rushed outside and glanced around.
Keeping their animal natures secret in the midst of a mostly human city had made the development of certain items logical in the shifter community. Since the Takhini pack owned the apartment, they ought to have shifters stay there, ergo, there should be a place nearby where she could cache her clothes.
She found the box elegantly disguised as a decorative post office box. For all she knew the top half of it was used for snail mail, but the bottom held a door that slid open to reveal two private compartments. The back of the box was set just deep enough into the trees that she could strip down quickly and stay out of sight.
Standing in the nude, Mandy placed all her things into the hidden space. That included her phone, but she would have no way to answer it within seconds anyway.
Then she closed the door and applied her thumbprint to the small pad, thoroughly impressed with the Takhini pack’s high-tech security.
The momentary distraction gave her something else to think about other than how scared she was—unreasonably scared, probably, but with her history, unreasonable became reasonable enough in a heck of a hurry.
She crouched low and willed the change to come over her, limbs and torso rearranging themselves quickly to her other form. Her animal side was more powerful and less delicate than her human form, but still susceptible to tranquilizer guns of human animal enforcement.
Staying out of sight was imperative. Mandy wasn’t trying to do anything other than keep safe.
She slipped quietly through the trees until she had a good vantage point of the back door, her apartment windows visible above her. Silently she lay on her belly and waited.
