Tooth and Nail (Small Town Shifters Book 3) Read online

  She opened the backpack and yawned. There was a lot here. She was excited to dig in, but she was way too tired to do any work well at this point. She set an alarm for four hours later and went back to bed. So far, so good. She couldn’t wait to get started unraveling this mystery.

  Chapter Seven

  Zach ran a hand nervously over his head. How the hell was he going to explain this to his boss?

  He wasn’t a special agent or MacGyver or whatever. This whole thing was way outside of his job description. He didn’t have the authority to make up jobs for himself when he had—you know—an actual job to do. This was something for the FBI to handle, not some random KOP in the middle of nowhere.

  But it was already done. He’d been up the entire night making copies of information to give her that she mostly already had. There were a few things that might pique her curiosity but nothing that was going to put shifters in jeopardy. Just the names of the lion shifter attack victims and the reports on it. They were all available if a member of the public requested anyway and if she wanted to, she could get that stuff herself. He hoped that by giving her something, he was going to get on her good side and get her to trust him.

  They were going to be having dinner at his house that evening too. There was no way she was going to be alone with him for an extended amount of time and not have her pants charmed off. Er...be charmed into friendship. Man, his animal was really making this even worse. It had a thing for the beautiful human. Which was neither here nor there, but it was hella annoying. He wanted to be professional. If he seduced her, nothing could happen since it would be an immense misuse of his power and incredibly unethical.

  Just thinking of the mess he was in made him queasy. Even if he hadn’t been making copies all night, he wouldn’t have been able to sleep. He wasn’t sure he was going to have a job by the end of the day and if he did, he wasn’t sure how he was going to pull any of this off.

  He hadn’t been lying when he said it was an all-hands-on-deck kind of day. But that was because of him. He wasn’t supposed to come in until the afternoon, but he wanted to talk to Beau and Rhett at the same time. He figured even if Rhett was mad as hell, his cousin would stick up for him and help smooth this all over. Plus, it might take all of them to get this thing figured out and squared away.

  When he got in, the two were waiting for him with coffee and donuts.

  “We got another drop-off,” Rhett said, pushing the donuts toward him. “Guess Beau saved some nice lady’s cat when a shifter kid scared it away. She dropped these off as a thank you on her way to pick him up from the vet today.”

  “The cat is fine,” Beau told him through a mouthful of donut. “She took him in for anxiety. She’s a real sweetheart though.”

  Zach nodded. He’d already had a cup or two of coffee but one more couldn’t hurt. After he’d scarfed down two donuts and downed a cup of coffee, he cleared his throat. “So, I called you guys in to talk about something really important.”

  “We were already in,” Rhett reminded him. “What you mean is, you decided to come in for some unpaid overtime to talk to us.”

  Zach nodded. “Yeah, that. Anyway, I found the human woman that everyone was talking about.”

  “Really? What’s she like?” Beau asked.

  “Beautiful.” He said the first word that came to mind and then kicked himself mentally. “I mean, she is beautiful, but ‘tenacious’ and ‘stubborn’ and ‘shrew’ might be the ones that you’re looking for. And she already knows stuff. And she’s putting it on the internet.”

  “What?” Rhett asked. “Knows stuff like what?”

  “She’s investigating the rumors of out-of-control shifters in the area. She has a website and she’s already written a story about it. She has nothing of substance yet, but she won’t stop until she does.”

  “Fuck.” Beau stood up and put his hands behind his head. “She’s going to find out about me and it’s going to ruin this town and our squad.”

  “Maybe not,” Zach told him. “Because, well, I’m working with her.”

  Rhett and Beau looked at each other and then at him. Neither said anything so he plunged ahead.

  “See, I figured if I was working with her, I could steer her away from any of the sensitive stuff. And we’ll know what she knows. We won’t have to run her out of town or anything. Which, if we did that, she would be much more suspicious. So I figured I could, you know, pretend to work with her and keep an eye on her.”

  “Are you trying to get laid? This is a huge and really stupid thing to do to get laid, bro,” Beau said. “I don’t understand what’s going on with any of this.”

  “Explain from the beginning exactly what happened and what you mean by ‘working with her,’” Rhett said.

  Zach told them about seeing her in the diner and then pulling her over. He told them how his animal brought him to her and how he told her they should work together and went to her room. It was at the part where he told them he’d given her a backpack of info that they both freaked out.

  Rhett stood up, knocking his chair back. “You gave her information?”

  “Nothing she didn’t already have,” Zach clarified. “She already knows some stuff like I said. She knows about the lion, I just let her know who the victims were. She would have found that out soon enough. It was in the paper after all.”

  Beau nodded. “Yeah, but that would have taken her a minute to figure out on a holiday weekend. Maybe she would have left before she even got that far.”

  “She would not have. This series is already the most popular thing on her website.” Zach went to his desk and pulled up her website. He turned the screen and showed it to them. “There are nearly a thousand comments. That’s huge. Like, very huge. Most of their stuff barely even gets twenty comments let alone a hundred. The second most popular thing is still under two hundred comments. And when I looked yesterday, they were only at three hundred. This thing is growing like a wildfire.”

  “What are you trying to accomplish here?” Rhett asked him. “This isn’t our territory. If you thought she was a threat, you should have called it in with the FBI special shifter unit.”

  “I know, but I didn’t want them sniffing around here. I’m hoping to keep this contained to our little neck of the woods.”

  “I’m not sure that’s going to be possible if the story is getting legs,” Rhett said. He sighed heavily and sat back down. “But it’s already done. I don’t see how we can backtrack now and have you stop. This is going to have to continue until you either mess it up big time or she leaves on her own. You’re going to have to keep me in the loop. I want to know every move this girl makes and every single word you say to her.”

  Zach nodded. “Understood. I don’t want to mess this up. In fact, I’m terrified I’m going to screw it all up somehow and we’ll be in a worse place than if I did nothing, but I think I can do this. I’m like ninety-nine percent sure I can.”

  Rhett laughed. “Don’t worry. You can’t mess it up more than it already is. This woman must be a pretty great investigator to come up with a story that shifters have worked so hard to keep under wraps. Hell, I didn’t even know about all of this and I’m a very old Kop. I really want to know how she found out about it.”

  “I’ll bet anything she was involved in an incident and she can’t be compelled to forget.”

  “Fuck.” Zach slumped against the nearest wall. “I didn’t even try. I’m not very good at it, but I should at least try.”

  “You really think if it were possible the Abbott boys wouldn’t have done it already?” Rhett asked. “There’s no one around better at using magic than the dragons of Abbott. That’s why they’re so damn rich and powerful yet nobody really knows about them.”

  “She has to be immune and a victim. Let’s do a background check.” Beau sat at his computer and started typing furiously. “This might take me a while, but I’m going to do a deep dive on this woman and I’ll have everything for you probably by the end of the da
y.”

  “We’re having dinner tonight at my place,” Zach told him. “I would love to have as much info as I can get before that. Anything that will help me keep the upper hand.”

  “She’s coming to your place.” Rhett rubbed his chin. “She must already trust you. That’s good. Women don’t usually run off with men they barely know. Especially women investigating conspiracies. I bet she doesn’t trust easy at all.”

  That made Zach feel uneasy. He didn’t know why exactly, but the wording turned his stomach a little. He smiled in spite of the inner turmoil. “Great. At least I’m doing something right.”

  Chapter Eight

  The alarm blared as Tally’s hand roamed around trying to find it. Her phone was usually under her pillow, but this time it wasn’t in the familiar place. She was reaching around the nightstand, eyes still closed, but was coming up empty-handed. Finally she sighed, opened her eyes, and sat up in bed. Her phone was on the floor on the other side of the nightstand. She had to get all the way out of bed to make the infernal noise stop.

  It was just as well since she’d already slept way longer than she needed to. There was an entire backpack of information just waiting for her to dive in and get reading. And she wanted to get to as much of it as she could before the meeting tonight. As she got started on the info, something caught her eye almost right away. The police report from the lion incident.

  It was real. It had actually happened. This was proof. Of course, it didn’t say that the shifter was out of control. It said the woman had been on drugs and nearly injured her children. If there hadn’t been kids involved, this paper wouldn’t have even existed.

  Her own children. There was no way drugs made her do that. No way in hell. Tally was sure of it. This was something else. She went to the web to find anything about the woman but came up empty-handed. The kids were a different story. They were nearly all still in Lake Magnolia. That was a very lucky break for her. Only one of the four had moved away from what she could tell. There was a woman and two boys still in town.

  The woman would be her best bet. Lydia Lionheart looked like just the type of woman she’d be friends with. But should she go without Zach? It might be a bad sign and make him think she didn’t trust him. On the other hand, she was only in town for a limited amount of time. This was a huge break for her and way better than anything she’d find on her own. She debated as she ate breakfast in bed. In the end, she decided to go without him. This was too important to waste an entire day sitting around spinning her wheels. This was going to yield some new info.

  Just her luck, Lydia was pretty active on social media and none of her accounts were private. In fact, she wasn’t just active—it looked like she was even doing ads on there. Tally had heard of this kind of social media work but had never been diligent enough to pursue it herself. It would make things easier on the website if she did. She and Bettina talked about it often. Most people in their field did some kind of advertising and Insta was the latest trend. Maybe this was her way to get her foot in the door?

  She saw that Lydia would be at Dilly’s for a puppy sale. Not the best place for a high-impact meeting, but it was better than showing up on her doorstep. Plus, puppies. Everything was better with puppies.

  Tally got dressed and drove to the spot. She bought herself a cup of coffee and milled around. Lydia was easy to spot. Even in a town of shifters, she was easily the most gorgeous woman in the room. Her shiny black hair was literally #goals. No wonder she was getting paid to advertise hair gummy bears and magic pills. She was born with that kind of hair, but seeing it in person, even Tally wondered if the gummies would work. She watched from a distance as the woman flitted from group to group and then back to the puppies. She was like a breath of fresh air.

  There were only three puppies left by the time Tally got there and after forty-five minutes they were all gone. The two women were cleaning up when Tally decided to make her move. The leader went to put things in her car and Tally approached.

  “Lydia Lionheart?” Tally asked.

  “Yes, that’s me.” She smiled, waiting to see what Tally wanted.

  “Hi, I’m Tally Nelson and I was wondering if you had maybe ten minutes to talk with me about social media advertising, building a brand, that kind of thing.”

  “Sure, I actually do have a minute. This thing wrapped up a little early so I’d be glad to speak with you.”

  “Great, please let me help clean this all up.” Tally grabbed a folding table and put it up to move and then started stacking the signs that were strewn about. It didn’t take long with three of them working.

  Lydia said goodbye to her friend and then settled down with Tally into a side table. Tally ordered another coffee and a pastry. The woman got a coffee too. When the food got there, she took a minute to snap a series of pictures.

  “You never know when you’re going to need to post something and not have any new content from that day. Best to have a backlog of pictures to pull from.”

  Tally nodded. “That’s really smart. That’s what I struggle with. How am I going to find content for social media and my blog? It seems like it would burn me out.”

  “Yeah, I could see that. I don’t have a blog. Only a social media stream. That helps for sure. I only have to get content for one site. But honestly, I think you could copy much of it. You would want to use social media to herd people over to your site. So mostly, you would be reminding people that you’re website exists and entice them to click. They should complement each other.”

  Tally had pulled her small notebook from her bag as Lydia was talking. This wasn’t what she was here for, but this was good information. This wasn’t how she thought of social media at all and it would actually help. If they could start getting more revenue and the website could be self-funding, it would really help their credibility. It would feel so professional to be getting a paycheck for doing the work she so loved. She was going to feel even worse in a few minutes when she had to reveal her true reason for talking to her.

  “So are you new in town?” Lydia asked, giving Tally the perfect segue to her topic.

  “Not exactly. I’m researching urban legends and there is a doozy of a one around these parts. They say that there’s a lion shifter roaming the woods. I mean, can you imagine?”

  Lydia stiffened and her drink paused halfway to her mouth. She narrowed her eyes. “Oh my gosh. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? What the heck? Why did you come here? How did you find out about this?”

  “Okay. Yes, it is why I’m here, but also I wanted to learn about social media too. I actually run a website and I would love to have even half your following and engagement on Instagram.”

  Lydia stood up. “Well, I’ve given you all the tips I can think of. Thanks for telling me your real reason. And how did you find out about this again?”

  Tally bit her lip. “I saw it on the web. I don’t want to say where but it’s a pretty small site. They were talking about urban legends and I’ve been researching them. Yours is the only one that I think is actually true or at least that it might be.”

  “Good for me?” Lydia finished her coffee and threw it in the bin nearest them. “I can’t help you and I don’t want to. I was only a baby when it happened and I don’t remember anything. It was so long ago that I want the issue to stay dead. But have a nice day.”

  Lydia smiled a big fake smile and walked out of the shop. That had actually gone much better than Tally could have hoped for. It was a long time ago, but there had to be someone who remembered what happened. Based on how nice Lydia was, Tally suddenly had a surge of hope. Maybe she should try one of the other siblings. One had left town but there were still two boys left. A quick Google search showed her that the second youngest had more than a few run-ins with the law. It was gross and manipulative, but that might be a good way to connect with the guy.

  Maybe he would love to stick it to the man and help her out any way that he could. Or maybe he would give her info in exchange for a few
bucks. She would drop by the ATM and take out as much as she could. Three hundred dollars. There was no way he wouldn’t talk to her for that much cash.

  Chapter Nine

  Zach was finished up the last of the pasta sauce when his doorbell rang. It was her. Showtime.

  He’d been working all night on getting the food just right and making sure that he had conversation to make in case things got a little dry. He was more nervous than he’d ever been for a first date. Not that this was a date. It wasn’t. It was dinner with a source and he was undercover. This was the most important dinner of his short career, and he wanted everything to go off without a hitch.

  He opened the door and gave Tally his biggest smile. “You found it.”

  She nodded. “I did. Pretty easy since I have GPS right in my phone.”

  “Hey, the turnoff is still pretty easy to miss and you didn’t. So good job. Please come in.”

  She stepped in and looked at her feet. “Shoes on or off?”

  “Your choice if they aren’t dirty.”

  “Off it is.” She slipped off her shoes and then shrugged off her coat which he took from her. “This place is so nice. Much better than most of the bachelor pads I see.”

  “I may have spent as much time cooking as I have cleaning since I got off.” That wasn’t a lie. His place wasn’t even dirty. He was just so nervous he didn’t know what to do with himself.

  “Well, it looks nice. You’d be surprised how many dudes don’t even bother cleaning when they have company coming over.”

  “Gross. Though I didn’t just clean for you—it’s my main room and kitchen day.”