Page 6 of The Tracker's Rage
Chapter 3
We met Tom at his favoritesteakhouse restaurant. He was dressed in jeans and a forest green polo shirt, looking relaxed as he enjoyed his free day. He looked handsome, like an older version of Idris Elba.
“Ladies,” he greeted, “it’s so good to see you.”
We walked in and were seated within minutes. Several TVs played sports channels. Tom’s eyes drifted from a basketball to a football to a hockey game in under a minute. The poor guy was in dude heaven and couldn’t handle himself.
I cleared my throat to get his attention. His dark gaze drifted to mine. He shifted in his seat as he noticed my expression, and all at once, his demeanor changed and he became Detective Freeman.
“You’re gonna help unravel me, kiddo?” he asked. “’Cause I’m all tied up in knots with what’s been going on lately. I can tell something’s going on with you. That business at the warehouse... I still have a ton of questions.”
“There’s definitely something going on with me.” I smiled sadly. “And I hope that what I’m about to tell you will help undo some of those gnarly knots.”
As quickly and succinctly as I could, I told Tom everything, from finding out I was a werewolf up to my fight with Blake. He listened, opening and closing his mouth several times as if to say something, but never interrupting. When I was done explaining, I stopped to glance around to see if anyone around us had tuned in to our conversation, but I shouldn’t have worried. Everyone was distracted with their food, their lunch companions, or the big-screen TVs.
“A werewolf?” Tom said once he regained his voice. He blinked several times as if his internal processor was overheated. Maybe I had short-circuited the poor guy. He scrubbed his goatee, then his head. His T-bone steak sat forgotten in front of him, growing cold.
Rosalina attacked a huge onion ring and gave the detective a sympathetic nod. “Crazy, huh?”
“What do you think now, Tom?” I asked after a moment of silence. “Does that help you believe that Blake is alive? Or does it make it harder?”
“It certainly explains...” he started slowly, his mind ramping back up to speed, “the state of your clothes when we got to the warehouse. It also makes it more likely that you could’ve defeated a strong beta like Blake—if that was indeed Blake.”
“So you still don’t believe I fought him,” I said.
He shrugged. “I thinkyouthink you did, but maybe some of that rhabo got you...” He twirled a finger over his temple.
Maybe I should have been mad that he didn’t believe me, but I wasn’t. The detective was all about the facts, things that added up like equations.
“There’s something else,” I said. “Something new.” I turned to Rosalina with a pointed look that let her know this would also be new to her.
She set her fork down and pushed the plate away. “I’m ready... I think.”
The fearful tone in her voice made my heart tighten. How much more would she be able to take? When she joined me in a partnership for our agency, she didn’t sign up for any of this. At this rate, one day, she would decide I wasn’t worth the trouble, and our agency, which we’d worked so hard to build, would go up in flames.
But what else could I do? I had to tell her, then hope that this alpha business wasn’t going to cause more disruptions than we already had.
