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

  “A zone cleaner,” she chuckled. “When I was home long enough, that’s what I did too. Or at least that’s what I tried to do. I’m actually not much of a cleaner myself. I hire out when I can afford it.”

  If she was hiring a cleaner, she had to be single. If she had a partner, they would split the cost and she would have said, “We hire a cleaner.” Not that it mattered. This wasn’t anything close to something romantic.

  “I guess I never thought of that option. I would rather spend money on other stuff.”

  “Stuff like what?” she asked, studying the pictures on his mantel.

  “Car stuff, video games, food. You know, the usual.”

  She shrugged. “Can’t say what’s usual for you. But I too spend too much money on food.”

  “Speaking of food.” He motioned toward the dining room. “Would you like a house tour first or are you ready to eat?”

  “I could do a tour first. Interested to see what you’ve done with the rest of the place after seeing your immaculate living room.”

  He led her through his small house, pointing out the bathroom. “I know its small but I do have guests from time to time. Just in case you need a place to lie low during your investigation, you’re always welcome here.”

  He kicked himself for saying it. He didn’t need her staying at his house, but it seemed right to offer. It might get dicey for her if the Abbott Keepers figured out why she was in town and what she was up to exactly. Those boys did not play. Honestly, he was dreading having to tell them about this little operation.

  It weighed heavily on his mind that if he couldn’t get this whole thing locked down, Tally would be in real danger. His animal was not happy with that thought. There was no way he would let her get hurt. She might be dangerous, but she was still a person and didn’t deserve whatever the Abbott boys would do to her.

  They’d tried to wipe the mind of Rhett’s mate when she first came to town. She’d seen too much and was immune to magic. There was a step farther and they wanted to do that to her. Only, it would likely mean she’d end up brain-damaged if not dead. Not that it mattered to them. Those dragons didn’t give a shit about human life. They only cared about shifters and mostly that meant dragons. If this secret got out, it would mess with their money and they weren’t having that. The article she had up already was going to get her in trouble when they found it.

  “I hope I don’t ever have to take you up on that offer, but thanks. Which one is the bathroom again?”

  He pointed across the hall. “Right there. I’ll be in the kitchen getting the food plated.”

  Zach left Tally and went to start getting everything ready. He knew what he made was going to taste great; he was a good cook. But still, he was nervous to see if she liked everything. He also couldn’t wait to hear what she had done that day. He’d had a stressful day but obviously he couldn’t tell her anything about that. Instead, he would have to lie and tell her how boring his day had been.

  He put the food onto the plates and took them to the dining room. He had a bottle of wine out and also a container of water. If she wanted something else, he had iced tea and juice in the fridge too. He’d stocked up in anticipation of the night. He didn’t want anything to spoil her opinion of him. It was odd how worried he was about it. This wasn’t a date he told himself for the millionth time. This was work. He was trying to get on this woman’s good side for work.

  “Wow, this looks great,” Tally said, coming into the dining room. “I can’t believe you cooked all this and cleaned up after you got off work. You really are super productive and know how to get stuff done. Impressive.”

  He tried to stop the giant smile from spreading across his face and failed. “Thanks. I try sometimes. Should we eat? What would you like to drink with your meal?”

  “Wine is fine.” She sat down and waited while he poured her a glass.

  “Nothing fancy, but it goes really great with the food.”

  She sipped from her glass. “This is great. Thank you again for doing all of this and working with me. You don’t understand how big a break this has been for me.”

  “A break?” His heart pounded hard in his chest. “If that means you found something that I missed then I think I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

  She ducked her head. “I’m not sure if I found something new. I assume you’ve spoken to all the parties involved in your city. I mean it’s a break for me. I feel much more confident now that I have a source that works on the force. I know that I’m not crazy and chasing after a false lead.”

  “Glad I can be of help. So what did you think of everything I gave you?”

  “It was a lot.” She opened her eyes wide and set down her wine glass. “Most of it I already had, but the names of the lion shifters was something new and very helpful.”

  “How so?” He willed his heart to slow. He hadn’t messed this up. It was fine.

  “I was able to find all of them on social media and three of them still live in town.” She took a bite of her food and almost moaned with pleasure. “I tracked Lydia down to a coffee shop where there was a puppy adoption going on.”

  “Yeah, she’s always out doing something good for the community.” He almost let out a sigh of relief. Lydia never talked about her mother in public. There was no way she’d talk to a strange human about her family history of violence.

  “From her Facebook and Insta, I can assume so. Plus, she talked to me when she didn’t even know me. That’s just out of this world to me.”

  Zach almost choked on his food. He took a quick sip of his wine. “Really? She’s never talked to me. The one time I’ve seen someone bring it up, she would have taken his eyes out if he hadn’t been able to run away fast enough. How did you manage that?”

  Tally smirked. “I just asked her.”

  “No freaking way. Impossible. You’re making it up.”

  She laughed. “Well, she didn’t talk to me about her mom, but she told me about ways to use social media to my advantage. It was really helpful. I won’t try to talk to her again though. I don’t want to upset her. Instead, I found her little brother. He was much more useful.”

  Double fuck. “Was he?”

  “Yeah. He didn’t give me much because he was at his older brother Vaughn’s house, but he’s willing to meet with me.” She looked over his shoulder. “In like two hours. I’d invite you to come along but you know, KOP.”

  Triple fuck. “Yeah, I get that. What are you going to ask him?”

  “To tell me about the incident. Lydia wouldn’t even remember since she was so young, but he will. More than old enough. I’ll bet anything his drug use is related to this in some way. I mean, what are the odds that all his siblings are fine and then bam, this one is all messed up? No, something happened to this kid.”

  He nodded. “Well, good luck. You have a knack for getting people to talk it seems.”

  She rubbed two fingers together. “My money gets people to talk.”

  He was going to have to stop this. He knew he should. But he also wanted to see what would happen. He’d never been able to get them to talk. No one had. He’d always wondered what had happened. He knew it was wrong but he wasn’t going to stop her. His gut told him not to. Wherever the chips fell, he was going to let her get this part of her story.

  Chapter Ten

  He was nervous. She couldn’t tell if it was because she was going to meet the lion or if it was because she was on to something. Looking around his home and being in his presence alone again, she didn’t feel like she was in danger. Quite the opposite actually. She felt very safe around him. That was why she had stupidly told him her plans.

  She’d just wanted to leave dinner early and tell him she wanted to get some sleep but then she’d just blurted out the part about meeting Nolan Lionheart. She hoped he wasn’t going to try and stop her. Though if he did, it would mean that he was not trying to help her. And that would make her really sad and scared.

  The rest of the me
al went off without a hitch until she started to get up and get ready to leave for the meeting. There was still food left on her plate.

  “Lucky for you, the house where Nolan is staying is really close to here. Shouldn’t take you longer than ten minutes to get there. You can finish eating and still be early. I think being ten minutes early is just as good a thirty.”

  She shook her head. “No, the house is like half an hour away. I need to leave now or I’ll be late and I don’t want to risk losing his trust.”

  Zach’s brow furrowed. “Half an hour? Nolan lives near the edge of town in a nice subdivision. It doesn’t take that long to get there.”

  “I put it in my GPS and it says half an hour.”

  “Can I see?” Zach held out his hand and she handed it over. Only after it had left her hand did she begin to worry that he would see something else. If he was a double agent or whatever, handing him her phone was not a good idea.

  “See, I put it in right.”

  “You did, but this isn’t his older brother’s house. This is a very unsafe place for you to go alone.”

  She laughed. “I’m fine, trust me.”

  He shook his head. “Not in a place like this. I’m going to come with you. I won’t be close. I’ll keep to the sky if you’re really worried. But no way am I letting you go alone. Even if you say no, I’ll follow you. So please don’t make this into a big deal.”

  Tally took a deep breath. “No. You’re going to mess this up for me. Don’t make me regret telling you about this before I do it.”

  “You’re going to be grateful I’m there once you see this place.” He gave her back her phone. “Look up the address again and look at the street view. Then Google it and check out the newspaper articles about it. I’ll show you Facebook group posts about it too. This house is bad news in town and people want us to tear it down.”

  “If it’s so bad, why haven’t you guys done anything about it?” She started to check it out as he asked. The street view was a little different than she’d been expecting. It was dilapidated and there wasn’t a great view of the first floor. There were overgrown bushes obscuring the door.

  “It isn’t in town limits. Technically, it’s in the human town jurisdiction. Since it’s a shifter problem, they don’t want to mess with it. They think it keeps their riff raff in one place and keeps them out of town. So they won’t even let us deal with it. It’s really screwed up.”

  She was skimming articles about the house. Drug deals happened there. Not surprising. She should have seen this coming. Of course a drug addict wanted to meet her where it would be easy to buy drugs with the money she was giving him. Maybe he wasn’t going to talk to her at all. Maybe he was going to rob her and then run off with the money and buy his drugs. Even if he didn’t, maybe someone else that was doing drugs there would rob her. She shivered. Maybe this wasn’t such a hot break after all.

  Zach put his hand on her forearm. “You look scared. Don’t be. Worried maybe, but you don’t need to be scared. I told you, I got you. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  But could she trust him? More importantly, would she want to trust him with her life? Getting robbed wouldn’t be so bad, but what if it was something worse? What if he was in on it? She was starting to find it hard to breathe. Maybe she was getting in over her head.

  “I need to visit the ladies’ room. This wine is getting to me.”

  She got up from the table quickly and rushed to the bathroom. She was suddenly very clammy and her head was spinning. She was a seasoned reporter; why was she reacting this way? It was a simple meeting. She’d done far more dangerous things. Hell, staying in Abbott for a night was more dangerous. Dragon shifters didn’t play and were notoriously secretive. With all her asking around, she had put herself in danger. She hadn’t even blinked doing that. So why was she so nervous now? What was the matter with her?

  It had to be Zach; he was spooking her. This was crazy and she wasn’t going to let him scare her. She was a strong woman and she could take care of herself. If he wanted to follow her, fine. But she wasn’t asking him to do that. She could do this on her own. Depending on how he acted, she would know just how much she could trust him. If he followed too closely and messed this up for her, it would be obvious that he wasn’t helping her at all. If he was trying to sabotage her, she wanted to know.

  She went back to the dining room. Zach nodded at her. “So, as I was saying, I’m going to follow you to the house but keep my distance.”

  “And like I said, I don’t need you to do that. But if you insist, fine. Not like I can stop you. I just don’t want this to get messed up. I only have one shot to get him to talk to me.”

  “I get that, but I don’t think you’re going to get any information that’s worth risking your life over.”

  “I’m not risking my life,” Tally sighed. “Look, this is really important to me and I just don’t want anything to go wrong. This isn’t something worth fighting over. We agree here.”

  He nodded. “Okay. We should hurry and finish.”

  Tally checked the time. She’d been in the bathroom longer than she thought. It had only seemed like a minute but it had been nearly fifteen. She needed to get on the road soon if she was going to get there early like she planned.

  “How are you going to be able to keep an eye on me if you’re in the air?” she asked as she shoveled food in her mouth. Not very ladylike or attractive, but she needed to get as much fuel into her system to keep her energy up.

  “I have extremely good hearing. I won’t be able to see through walls or anything though, so you should try to stay outside if you can. It shouldn’t be a problem. They don’t let humans in the house unless they’re using. Those are the rumors anyway and I believe them. Nolan Lionheart isn’t big time or anything, so they won’t be skirting the rules for him. And if they do, do not go in that house. It’s a trap.”

  She nodded. “That’s a good plan, actually. Thanks for all the information. I wouldn’t have even known to look out for all this stuff if it weren’t for you.”

  “Yeah, but you also wouldn’t have gotten into this particular mess if it weren’t for the information that I gave you. It’s my duty to keep you safe. Also, it would look really bad to have my first partner getting robbed or murdered. So, some of this is for my pride too.” He winked at her.

  Tally blushed. Was he flirting with her? This whole thing was starting to get so bizarre. Not that she would mind him flirting. He was handsome after all, but that wasn’t what she was here for. Pity, any other time and they could have had so much fun together.

  Once they’d both finished every scrape on their plate, Tally stood up. There was no more delaying. “I think I should get going.”

  “We should get going.” He told her with a nod. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine.”

  “I’m fine. You don’t have to keep telling me that.”

  “I was talking to myself this time.” He shook his head. “I worry too, you know. Again, it would be very, very bad for my ego if anything happened to you.”

  She laughed. “Well, as long as we keep your ego safe, it’s all worth it.”

  “Exactly.”

  She put on her shoes and then turned to shake his hand. Instead of taking her hand, he wrapped her in a hug.

  “I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Thanks.” She extricated herself from his arms and went to her car. This night was turning out much stranger than she had ever anticipated.

  Chapter Eleven

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Zach berated himself as he stripped and walked out of his garage. After the door closed behind him, he transformed and stretched his wings. Tally was already on her way to the house. He was much faster than her and had enough time to get there first and double back. Even though he was leaving a few minutes after her, there was more than enough time for him to stake this place out. He had texted his coworkers to make sure that if anything went wrong, they knew where he was.
/>   He didn’t think anything would happen. There was no way they would let a human inside that house. It really was a drug den. If she did go in, he had no idea what he was going to do but it wouldn’t be pretty. His animal hated everything about this. The night had been going so well and now here they were, out in the freezing air and having to put a woman’s life in danger. It would be so bad for him and his Keepers if this went south.

  Why had he given her that stupid name? She never would have figured it out on her own. Not fast enough anyway. She would have left town and done some research on her own. If she did get the names, there would have been time before she came back. They could have come up with a plan. Like getting Nolan and his big mouth the fuck out of town. That guy was a loose cannon and a nuisance.

  If anything happened to Tally, he would make that guy pay. Zach hadn’t been lying when he said his ego was at risk. He’d barely been on the force for a year and if he let a human get hurt, this would be the end of his career. He wouldn’t be able to show his face in town again either. Hell, maybe not even ever. It would be too shameful. He had put her in this situation and now he had to protect her.

  He swung around to the edge of town and then dove toward the area where the house was. He passed a leopard shifter moving swiftly toward the woods as he got close. He recognized it as one of Nolan’s friends. So he was probably already there. There were no cars out front though, so Zach had no idea how many people were inside. He would guess at least three since he knew a dealer and his girlfriend were permanently squatting at the place. It was still early too. Odds were in his favor that only the three of them were there. While Nolan wasn’t his favorite, the guy wasn’t known to be violent. Only a junkie.

  He doubled back and followed the road until he found Tally’s car. She was making good time. He stayed high in the air as she got closer. His animal started to fight him once she got to the house. It didn’t like this one bit. Tally hadn’t done anything wrong. A beautiful woman like her shouldn’t be in any danger. He mentally kicked himself for thinking the beautiful part.