“Did we?” The somber curve to the sheriff’s lips couldn’t be called a smile. “We did our best, but it was rarely enough.” She turned and stared at Myron’s vehicle as it turned back to the main road. “He was married to a Breed, you know.”
She hadn’t known.
Cassa turned her head quickly to the rapidly disappearing car before turning back to the sheriff.
“I had no idea.”
Had Myron mated his Breed?
“She was killed a few years before Lyons came forward,” the sheriff said. “An entire group of Breeds was killed that night. It was Valentine’s night. She was pregnant at the time with their first child. David Banks was part of the group that hunted them down, though we couldn’t prove it.”
Good God. David Banks had been part of the Deadly Dozen, she had known that, or at least her informant had claimed he was, and Cassa hadn’t doubted it. But to hear this, to know he had killed so indiscriminately, for the fun of it, still had the power to shock her to the core of her soul.
“I’ve known Myron a lot of years,” Cassa said. “I had no idea.”
Danna shrugged. “It’s fairly common knowledge here in Glen Ferris. For a while, we didn’t think Myron would survive her death. He was in bad shape.” The sheriff shook her head in concern. “When he finally pulled himself out of it, he just wasn’t the same anymore. A few years later he married Patricia, but she knows Myron never forgot his first wife, Illandra.”
Which explained why Myron’s wife was so possessive and jealous. She had a man who she knew belonged to another woman. It wouldn’t matter if that woman had died, or if she was living, in her heart Patricia knew that his heart belonged to another.
“You talk to enough folks and you’ll hear about Illandra,” Danna sighed. “We all loved her, especially those of us who were part of the Freedom Society. If we’d known who the men were in that hunting party, we would have done a little hunting of our own.”
Cassa saw the rage that flashed in the sheriff’s eyes, the pain that filled her face for the briefest second. She knew Myron was close to all his family. He thrived on family, and evidently Danna did as well.
“Anyway, just be careful where you meet him and who sees it,” Danna advised. “Patricia’s been sick lately, and she doesn’t need any more grief than she’s already dealt with here.”
Cassa nodded slowly. She could relate to that, she could understand it. Cassa had her own ghosts, her own regrets that she knew would follow her probably even into death.
She understood Patricia a little better now though, where she hadn’t before. She’d always liked Myron’s wife, but she’d always known that Patricia had hated it when Cassa met with Myron over the Breed revelations more than a decade ago.
If Myron had mated his Breed wife though, would he have eventually been able to wed and to have children with another woman? And there was no doubt those children were Myron’s. They looked just like him.
She wished now that she had questioned her friend more extensively when she first learned that he had been part of a group that had smuggled Breeds through the States after their escape. She wished she had delved into more than the fact that Breeds had been escaping those labs for decades.
There was so much information to process at times with this new species of humanity though. Sometimes Cassa could well relate to the average citizen’s fears and phobias where the Breeds were concerned.
Breeds had been created with one purpose in mind: to kill, and to do so savagely and without mercy. To look at them, to see the near perfection of their bodies and their features, it was hard at first to imagine that killers lurked behind their charming smiles or saddened eyes.
But that was exactly what lurked there. A creature that had been bred with the intent to bring out the most animalistic instincts that could be imagined.
“I better be going then,” the sheriff finally announced as she turned away. “If you need anything, Miss Hawkins . . .”
“Actually, I do,” Cassa informed her.
The sheriff turned back to her slowly with a frown. “How so?”
“I need to know more about David Banks and his disappearance. There’s been no body, no clue to his whereabouts or who may have wanted him dead. This is my story, Sheriff Lacey. I’m going to need information from somewhere.”
A smile flashed across the other woman’s face. It was tinged with a hint of knowing mockery as well as friendliness.
“So, since you can’t meet with Myron, you’ll just ask me?”
Cassa lifted her hands with amused helplessness. “We do what we must.”
The sheriff laughed at that. “That we do.” She shrugged her shoulders beneath the heavy jacket she wore. “But, where Banks is concerned, there’s not a lot I can tell you. I know his ex-wife, his kids, in-laws and grandkids. I know his birthday, I know where he ate when he ate out and who his golfing buddies in town were, but that’s about it.”
Cassa pulled the notebook and pen from her back pocket and flipped it open. “Who were the golfing buddies?”
Danna’s eyes glittered with amusement as she shook her head. “You’re a quick one. No one knows anything, but I’ll give you names.”
The sheriff gave her names—names of the golfing buddies, Banks’s favorite waitress and his banker. By the time they’d finished talking and Danna was driving away, Cassa was left with a head full of information that she had no idea how to categorize at the moment.
She was also left to face the mating heat and its building effects. The burn between her thighs, the light sheen of sweat between her breasts and the knowledge that, on more than one front, running from Cabal wasn’t going to work.
Even more, running from herself wasn’t going to work. The old saying you can run but you can’t hide more than applied at the moment. She was running from the emotions she had hid for far too many years, and now she was going to have to figure out exactly how to deal with them.
Tucking her hands back into the pockets of her jacket, she turned and headed out of the park for the walk back to the inn. It wasn’t a short hike, and it would be hell with the mating heat rising inside her body. It would give her time to think though. And right now, she needed plenty of time to think.
◆ CHAPTER 8 ◆
Cabal followed his mate as she made her way back to the inn and to her room. He’d shamelessly eavesdropped on her conversation with both the male she had met with as well as the sheriff that had arrived later.
Following her smacked of deceit, especially considering the night that had just transpired between them. But he’d be damned if he knew what else to do at this point.
For the first time in his life, Cabal was conflicted.
Emotions. He knew what they were; it wasn’t as though he didn’t have feelings. He just made certain he didn’t have them often. He was immune to having a conscience—with the blood that stained his hands, he’d be crazy not to be immune to it. He liked sleeping at night, and worrying over lost lives outside his control wasn’t conducive to sleeping.
Or were feelings out of his control?
He shook his head at the thought, as his hands clenched at his sides. He was lingering outside Cassa’s room like a damned stalker uncertain if it was time to strike.
She was his mate. He had every right to be in that room with her. To touch her. Except there were other responsibilities that came with touching, responsibilities he just didn’t know how to carry.
As he stood there staring at the door to her room, he was reminded of another young woman, who had often given him cause to think of Cassa.
Jolian. The little Jaguar Breed had been young, clumsy, uncertain with herself and her place in Sanctuary. She had also, for a brief time, been suspected of spying within the Feline Breed compound.