Shifters: A Samantha Reece Mystery Book 1 by Jaime Johnesee (libby ebook reader txt) 📕

as fast as my Hemi would take us. I took a curve going sixty and my beautiful baby clung tight to the road and gave me no fuss. Ben, however, clung tight to the oh, shit handle and made me smile.

“Get my cell out of my purse, please?” I asked Ben.

I was embarrassed I hadn’t put it in my pocket after talking to James, mostly because my purse is a mess. It’s full of used tissues, gum wrappers, and fast food receipts. Normally, I wouldn’t want anyone going through that mess, but this was not your normal situation.

“Who should I call?” he asked, holding up my phone triumphantly, a large pile of wadded up Kleenexes on his lap.

“Go into my contacts and call Gerald Jackson … and put it on speaker, please.”

He did as I asked and handed the phone to me. I waited as the phone rang once, twice, and finally Gerry picked up.

“Gerry Jacks—”

“Gerry, it’s Sam. Our serial killer came after Ben Fitzpatrick. I’m moving him now. Oh, and Grisly is a fucking grizzly bear shifter.”

“You serious?”

“As a heart attack. I saw it outside my house earlier and he just tried bursting through Fitzpatrick’s door. I caught his scent. It was the same as the crime scene. He’s one big mean bastard.”

“Looks like you were right on the nose about him being a shifter and that causing him to hate weres.”

“I wish I wasn’t. We nearly lost our lives here, Gerry.”

“You bringing the witness into the office?”

“Yes. I think that’s the safest spot for him now.”

“Agreed.”

“I’d prefer not to be cooped up in the FBI building, but I guess it’s better than being bear food,” Ben said from the passenger seat.

“See you in twenty,” I said to my boss. He grunted and hung up the phone. I handed my cell back to Ben.

“Do you really think this is a good idea?” he asked, looking uncomfortable.

“You didn’t seem to have any problem going into my office earlier.”

“Yeah, that was before I ran out of your office elevator gagging and in tears. It tends to make the sort of impression that is hard to come back from, and not the sort folks in a federal building easily look past.”

“Not to worry, they’ll just assume you were disgusted by the body you found.”

“I don’t know.”

“Trust me, you don’t have anything to worry about.” Except for Quinn and Chad grilling him, but, other than that, he had nothing at all to fear.

“I’ll trust you. It’s not easy for me, but I know if we are going to have any sort of friendship at all there has to be trust there.”

“Right-o,” I said, thoroughly uncomfortable with any talk about trust at this point.

I may have agreed to start fresh with Ben, but I would have an underlying trust issue with him until he proved himself trustworthy.

Call me crazy, but I prefer to think of it as a normal, healthy distrust, considering he infected me and left the scene. I know I had kind of forgiven him for it, but that doesn’t mean I’d forgotten.

“So, do you trust me?”

Damn. I was hoping he wouldn’t ask that.

“Not yet. Sorry, but I figure honesty has to be there for trust to take root and grow.”

“I understand. Well, I will do my best to earn your trust. I promise you that.”

“Show, don’t tell,” I said quietly.

It’s something I hear Kelly telling her daughter, Quinn, and Chad from time to time. She’s a pretty cool lady.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“When we get into the office they’re going to split us up and ask us a bunch of questions. Feel free to leave out what we were discussing before Grisly appeared. Maybe just say we were talking about The Facts of Life and other shows we watched.”

“Are you sure?”

“Look, don’t lie to them or anything, but the Bureau doesn’t need to know about our jaguars or any of the personal stuff; that’s private and not relevant to the case, in my opinion.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

“No problem. I don’t need them knowing about my private life.”

“I hear that. I won’t say anything. Do we let them know I am the jaguar that bit you? I feel like that might come up, especially since your coworkers saw me at the diner.”

“Yeah, they already know you sired me. If I were you, I’d tell them it was an accident that happened while you were feverish and you came into town to make amends.” It felt odd trying to get our stories straight, but I had the hunch it was the right thing to do.

If Ben told them he’d infected me, it’s possible they’d find it interesting that he came back for me. It’s only natural that they’d jump to wondering if he had anything to do with Grisly. Bianchi and Buono worked together as The Hillside Strangler, it wasn’t a far reach to question the timing of it all.

Hell, I had questioned it myself.

“You sure?”

“Look, I don’t think you have anything more to do with Grisly than what you said, but you have to admit, it looks suspicious you arriving here at the same time this all started.”

“I suppose it does.”

“I worried about it myself for a bit there.”

“Really? That kind of hurts.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, it hurts, but I understand why you’d think I came back with this killer. It doesn’t look good, but I swear I had nothing to do with him at all.” His plea sounded sincere.

“I believe you. My gut tells me you’re being honest about it. If it wasn’t for my sixth sense, I’d have you in handcuffs, and you’d be going into my office for a whole different reason.”

“So, the bear that came after us, that was the guy I saw at the motel, the one killing those women?”

“Yes. We knew he was a shifter, but we had no clue he was a bear. Hell, when we originally named him we thought he was human; we named him Grisly Adams because those he left behind looked like they’d been sliced up