Under Wraps

Chapter Eight

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Opie’s face hovering above me, his watery eyes studying my forehead. His big nostrils flared, and I heard him say, “She’s coming around, sir.”

I tried to sit up, but my head and shoulders protested, the searing pain roaring through my body. My head throbbed, felt raw and cold above my eye, and my stomach seemed to curl over on itself. I blinked twice, trying to avoid the angry fluorescent glare above my head.

“Where am I?” I finally muttered, my lips sticky and stiff.

“She’s talking!” Opie said, his small hazel eyes not leaving mine. “What should I do?”

Police Chief Oliver looked down on me next, the dark brown of his eyes highlighting the huge purple bags underneath them. He was an enormous walrus of a man with a heaving chest puffed out and decorated with police paraphernalia, and a fine trail of drying marinara sauce on his navy blue tie. He crouched so that he was eye level with me.

“Are you okay, Miss Lawson?” he asked slowly, enunciating every word.

“I don’t know,” I said, trying to take in the scene. “What happened?”

The chief stepped back and clapped Opie on the back. He said, “She’s going to be okay, Franks. Let’s just give her some room,” and both men stepped away from me.

I rolled my head, my skull filling with a new needling, angry pain. I tried to blink it away and then focused on the wall in front of me until I realized that I was stretched out on a sticky pleather sofa in an office that smelled of feet and corn chips and was stacked with bargain basement office furniture. “Where am I?” I repeated.

“It’s okay, Sophie. You’re fine. You’re in my office,” the police chief answered, and I felt his warm hand closing over my wrist, felt his finger find my pulse point and pause. “Don’t try to move,” he said when I attempted to sit up again. “You had quite a scare out there tonight.”

I struggled to a sitting position despite Chief Oliver’s warning, and yelped at the dull ache that blossomed from my shoulder and inched across my chest. I gently touched the cool spot above my eyebrow and winced, pulling my fingers away and examining the sticky traces of drying blood on them. “Am I dead?” I asked mournfully.

Opie grinned stupidly, and Chief Oliver set my wrist down, patting my hand gingerly.

“No, honey, you’re just fine. It seems you ran into”—I watched his eyes shift uncomfortably—“a bad element. What were you doing all alone in the middle of the night anyway?”

I thought of UDA, of Mr. Sampson and the broken chains. “Looking for my kitty,” I answered finally.

“Well, you should do that in the daylight hours and in a better part of town. You’ve got a pretty nasty bump on your head and you’re a little bruised up, but I think you’re going to be just fine. Officer Franks can drive you home.”

“No,” I said, planting my feet firmly on the floor. “I ran into a bad element? What does that mean? What happened to me? What, exactly, happened?”

I might have been paranoid, but I would almost swear that Officer Opie and Chief Oliver shared a look. I considered that it could have been the “nutty cat lady is getting hysterical” look, but I thought there was more to it. “Please,” I said. “I need to know.”

“Gangbangers, likely,” the chief said, nodding officially.

“Gangbangers?” I asked skeptically.

Though I didn’t remember much of the night and admittedly, my experience with gangs could be summed up by the toe-tapping musical brawl from West Side Story, I would have been willing to bet money that today’s gangs hadn’t evolved to bared teeth, claws, and superhuman strength. I winced again when I took a deep breath that sent pinpricks of pain throughout my chest and back. “You’re sure it was a gang? Did you see them? Did you see anyone?”

The chief raised one challenging eyebrow, and Opie nodded his head wildly, his strawberry-blond hair bobbing against his forehead. “Gangbangers, definitely. We didn’t see ‘em, but that’s what they were. Definitely,” he said.

The chief stepped away from me and eyed Officer Opie. “Franks, why don’t you help Miss Lawson to her feet?”

“I think I’m good.” My legs were a little shaky, but I opted to steady myself against a cold metal file cabinet rather than risk my chances with Opie’s awkwardly outstretched stick arms.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” I said, “but I’m feeling much better now. I just need to get home and rest.”

“I’ll drive you,” Opie said, dangling a chain full of keys in front of me. “We can take my squad car.”

I looked from Opie to the chief and realized that I’d be lucky to walk out of this station under my own volition (rather than be thrown over the shoulder and carried out by Opie), let alone be allowed to drive my own car home, so I agreed to let Opie drive me.

“But I need to stop by my car first,” I said quickly, “just to grab a few things.”

The chief nodded, and Opie led me out of the office and into the cold night air. We walked in awkward silence across the parking lot, and I sucked in a tortured breath when I saw my car in its space on the street.

My car, my little green baby, my first big-girl purchase, was a complete mess of crumpled steel and scratched-up paint. The driver’s side door was smashed in like a tin can, and the cut on my forehead throbbed when I examined the forehead-sized crack in the passenger-side window. The driver’s seat was shredded, and cotton stuffing bloomed from tears in the passenger seat, too.

“Those gangbangers,” Opie said, clucking his tongue, “they can really do some damage.”

I nodded solemnly and stuck my head into the car, feeling around on the carpet for my keys. I remembered the sound they made as they fell onto the floor, right before I felt the wind get knocked out of me. I shuddered, then closed my fingers around the keys.

“Okay,” I said to Opie. “I’m ready.” I cocked my head, swallowing over the lump that rose in my throat when I took a last look at my shredded interior. I blinked.

“Wait.” I slid back into the cab of the car and leaned down to where a long, jagged gash had been made in the center console. There was a spray of cotton from the shredded seat, a sprinkling of broken glass, and a tuft of dark fur.

I picked up the fur and stuffed it in my pocket.

After an uneventful—and quiet—drive home in the squad car, Opie pulled up to my apartment building. I plastered a smile on my face and turned toward him, wincing softly as the new bruises on my shoulder and rib cage protested.

“Thanks for the ride, Officer Franks. I can make it from here.”

He looked skeptically at the clean, well-lit sidewalk in front of my Nob Hill building and wagged his head, his eyes wide and ominous.

“I don’t think so, Sophie. There’s a bad element out there.”

I squinted out the window at the deserted street, fairly certain a lone tumbleweed would roll by at any minute.

“Gangbangers?” I asked, unable to keep the annoyance out of my voice.

Opie didn’t answer, and before he could go for the door handle, I rested my hand on top of his.

“Officer Franks, what really happened tonight?”

Opie stared out the windshield, and I watched as he gnawed on his bottom lip, deep in thought.

I took a chance. “I really don’t think it was gangbangers.” I touched the broken skin above my eye, fresh pain blooming at the slightest touch. “I don’t think they do this kind of damage. This almost seemed … personal. Don’t you think?”

“We got to you just in time,” was all Opie said.

“Well, when you got to me, what did you see?”

A full thirty seconds of silence passed, and then Opie looked me full in the face and said, “We should get you upstairs.”

He insisted on walking me to my front door and standing far too close to me while I pushed the key in the lock. Then Opie slipped in front of me and into the apartment, doing a Law & Order-style, guns-drawn exploration of the house while I eyed him disdainfully from my spot in the hall. When Opie was certain no gangbangers were using the plastic ficus for cover, he left.

I immediately fished in my bag for my cell phone and sighed when I saw that Parker had tried to call me six times. I dialed him, and he picked up on the first ring.

“Lawson!” he shouted into the phone. “What the hell? I’ve been trying to call you for hours! Is everything okay?”

“It’s Sophie,” I sighed, “and yes, I think so.”

“Is everything okay at UDA? Where’s Sampson?”

“Yeah, yeah, the UDA is fine. But I don’t know where Mr. Sampson is.” I slumped into the couch, and found myself bawling.

“I can’t understand what you’re saying,” I heard Parker say between my hiccupping wails. “Slow down.”

“Something attacked me!” I sniffed. “They said it was gangbangers! But I don’t think it was gangbangers!” Sniff, sniff, wail. “My car is broken! Like a tin can!”

“Stay right there. I’m on my way.”

Barely fifteen minutes had passed when there was an insistent rapping on my door. My heart thundered as I stood on tiptoes and peeked through the peephole, seeing Parker’s head, distorted and huge in my view.

I opened the door timidly, just an inch, and my eyes settled on Parker’s. His were deep navy blue and intense.

“You didn’t ask who it was.”

I rolled my eyes, the relieved joy of seeing him standing in my hallway seeping away. “I have a peephole. And what is this, some kind of after-school special? I’m the victim here.”

Parker pushed the door open and walked past me. “And I’m trying to make sure that it never happens again.”

I closed the door and tumbled the lock, glancing once more out the peephole for Parker’s benefit. Then I sat on the couch, and Parker settled down next to me.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” he said.

But I couldn’t.

My eyes were locked on Detective Parker Hayes sitting on my couch at 3 A.M.: dark hair disheveled and unabashedly sexy, his square jaw littered with razor stubble, T-shirt on backward, his undershorts sticking out of the top of his sweatpants.

“Is that Daffy Duck?” I asked, eyeing the black cartoon ducks on his waistband.

He zipped up his sweat jacket and crossed his legs. “Geez, Lawson, can you keep your mind off my shorts for five minutes and let me concentrate? Now tell me what happened tonight.”

I opened my mouth to say something haughty and disgruntled, but Parker clapped a hand over my lips, effectively silencing me. “Just tell me what happened tonight, Sophie.”

I told Parker again about finding the broken chain and then about the attack on the street. “It was horrible,” I said, feeling my body start to shake. “The parts I remember. And then I woke up in Chief Oliver’s office.” I hugged my arms across my chest, holding onto my elbows. “They said it was gangbangers, but it wasn’t.” I wagged my head.

“You’re sure?”

I raised an eyebrow at Hayes. “You know what we’re dealing with.”

“Actually,” Hayes said, rubbing his palms on his thighs, “I don’t. Gangbangers I’m fairly used to. This kind of thing”—he gently thumbed the cut over my eye—“I’m really not. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m a little sticky from the blood and sore, but other than that, I’m pretty much fine.”

“You shouldn’t have been out alone in the middle of the night. It could have been much worse. I don’t know what I would have done if …”

I raised an eyebrow. “If what?”

Hayes shook his head. “Nothing. Was there anything else you remember? Anything else you can tell me about?”

I blew out a sigh and crossed the living room, digging my hand into my coat pocket. I sat down next to Hayes again. “When I went back I found this.” I held the little tuft of hair out to him.

“What is it?” he took it, examining it from every angle.

“Fur. It was stuck in one of the tears on my console.”

“Fur?” Hayes’s eyebrows shot up, and he sniffed at the tuft. “Dog fur?”

I looked down at my feet. “I’m thinking werewolf.”

“Sampson.” Hayes put the tuft of hair down on the coffee table and bounded to his feet, crossing the room in two long strides. He touched me gently, staring deeply into my eyes. “Did he bite you? Are you hurt badly?”

He gently rubbed his thumb over the cut on my forehead again, and I winced—although whether it was from the residual pain of the wound or the screaming desperation of my sex-starved body I wasn’t sure. Either way, it was uncomfortable and I stepped away.

“I can’t imagine Sampson would do something like this. And if he did, why now? Why not any other time, when we were alone together at the office? He wouldn’t attack. Not me, of all people.” I swallowed hard against the lump rising in my throat. “He likes me.”

The muscle in Hayes’s jaw twitched. “If he hurt you in any way …”

I pulled at the sleeve of my shirt, and Hayes’s eyes went wide at the yellowing bruise on my forearm. “He didn’t scratch me or bite me.”

“But your eye—”

“That was from the car. I hit my head. If it was Sampson”—I shook my head slowly, trying to avoid the newest flood of tears—“well, it doesn’t seem like the person I ran into was the same person who tore that guy limb from limb. I mean, look at me.”

Hayes swallowed hard. “I am.”

“What?”

“Look, Lawson, maybe the chief and Officer Franks just got to you before Sampson had a chance to really hurt you. You said you don’t remember much. And, how much do you really know about werewolves? What they’re capable of?”

I opened my mouth and then closed it again, frowning. “My boss is a werewolf.”

“Your boss is a man who becomes a werewolf when you leave at night. How much do you know about him when he’s dogged out?”

I felt my eyes narrow, and Hayes raised his shoulders as if to say “So?” I blew out a defeated sigh and flopped down onto the couch.

“Not too much, I guess.”

“How does he act when you chain him up?” Hayes’s cobalt eyes were on mine and they were smoldering. “Is he violent?”

“No,” I said, shrugging. “He never has been.”

“And his hair—fur, I guess—does it look like this?” Hayes held up the clump of hair again.

“I don’t know. He’s fine when I lock him up and I—I leave before he changes.”

“So you’ve never actually seen him as a wolf?” Hayes sat down close to me on the couch, his thigh brushing mine.

I clamped my hands together in my lap. “Well, no, not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

“I’ve seen a little of the change.” I stood up, started pacing. “Once, after I chained him up I stood outside of his door. Just to see, you know, I was curious. I heard it happen.” My stomach folded as I began to remember the horrible grunts and shrieks that came from Mr. Sampson’s office as his body underwent the transformation from man to wolf. “It sounded so awful, so painful. But I forced myself to peek, just for a second.”

Hayes was sitting erect now, his jaw tight, his lips pressed into a stern line. “And?”

“And it was dark, but I could see his eyes. They almost glowed. Not horror-movie red glow, but eerie, yellow.” I shuddered, remembering. “And his mouth. His teeth …” I looked outside, watching the sliver of moon beckoning in the darkness.

I could hear Hayes swallow behind me, his voice going soft. “And how much do you know about Sampson, the man?”

I shook my head slowly. “Hardly anything, really. He’s generally very private.”

Hayes stood close to me without touching me. Part of me wanted to turn around, throw my arms around him, and crumple into him, all horror-movie-esque. But he was playing the cop and I conceded, following him, going to sit down next to him on the couch as he flipped open his notebook, scribbled a few notes, and looked at me intently.

“You need some better protection,” he said finally.

I looked around my apartment, considering the pineapple on the kitchen counter as a weapon in a pinch, perhaps using my Le Creuset grill pan to inflict “blunt head trauma.”

“What kind of protection?” I asked.

“Well, let’s start with your car. Did you have a security system?”

“Does three inches of dirt, bug guts, and bird shit count?” I tried to grin.

Hayes raised one annoyed eyebrow, and I blew out a sigh. “Does it really matter?” I said. “My car doesn’t even have a driver’s side door that closes. So no, no security whatsoever.”

Hayes looked genuinely pained. “Sorry,” he said. “How about this place?” His eyes traveled to my front door, to the ancient brass dead bolt and the chain lock that hung, unfastened. “Do you have an alarm or anything in here?”

“I had a goldfish.”

“Ah yes, the attack animal of the toilet. Very dangerous.”

I put my fists on my hips. “Well, I’m not exactly a meek and meager girl. I’ve got two vampires living here—”

Hayes looked around him. “Who are where?”

I glanced at the table, spied Vlad’s empty laptop bag. “I have no idea. Anyway, I can fight”—I mean, theoretically—“and this neighborhood is really safe.”

“It is unless someone is looking for you.”

I gulped. “You think someone is looking for me?”

Hayes put down his notebook and ran a hand through his disheveled, dark curls. “I think it’s a distinct possibility.”

I slumped down on the couch, dropping my head back and staring at the ceiling. “So what am I supposed to do? Hire an armed guard?” I did a quick mental calculation. If I dipped into my savings, I could pay approximately … nothing … for round-the-clock protection. “I’m going to be dead before the sun comes up,” I groaned.

“How do you feel about guns?”

My eyes went wide, and my shoulders stiffened. “I hate them.”

“Have you ever shot one?”

My mind raced to an image of me with amazing Angelina Jolie thighs circled with gun-stuffed holsters, a la Tomb Raider. “I guess I could learn to be okay with them.” I saw myself doing one of those killer barrel roll things … and then shooting myself in the foot. “Or I could cause wanton destruction to my own limbs with one.”

Hayes stifled a chuckle and then looked at me seriously. “Well, for all intents and purposes you’re on the police force now—at least as far as this case is concerned. And I’d feel much more comfortable if you had a gun, just like any other officer.”

I chewed my lower lip, considering. “Would I have to shoot it?”

“Hopefully not, but that is the idea with guns. Generally, they’re most effective when used to shoot at someone.”

I was horrified. “You want me to shoot at someone?” Shooting people was a far cry from just looking kick-ass hot in leather pants and a thigh holster. “Is there an alternative?” Like a lethal baguette?

Hayes’s hand twitched; he looked like he wanted to grab my hand but didn’t. “I want to know you’re protected,” he said, “even when I’m not here.”

His eyes were so soft and comforting that I wanted to do what he said. “Okay,” I heard myself say. “I’ll at least consider it.”

That cocky half grin cut across his face, and when I stood up he gave me the once-over and muttered, “Besides, there’s nothing hotter than a chick with a gun.”

I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes. “And just when I was beginning to like you, too.”

“Do me a favor,” Hayes said when I walked him to the door. “No more late-night trips to UDA—or anywhere for that matter—without me.”

I raised an annoyed eyebrow. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

Hayes’s lips were set in a hard, thin line.

“Okay,” I sighed. “Fine. No late-night trips to UDA.”