Chapter 2

Squatch.

My inner wolf was thrilled she’d called me when she needed help.

We aren’t supposed to fall for our employees — especially not the strippers and working girls. The MC doesn’t have rules against it, but we’re all advised to keep emotional distance from them. We pay them if we want to fuck them, and we don’t get involved. Simple.

But this little tiger pulled at my emotions and there was nothing I could do about it.

Daffodil was still in my bed. I roused her, walked her home, and then stepped into the clubhouse control room. Mad Dog was manning it, leaned back in his chair, scanning four rows of five monitors. Watching.

“Kitty says she has a situation. I don’t know the details. She seems to think it’ll require a truck that can be cleaned, and extra-large garbage bags. I’m gonna take the van. She seems calm, so I’ll go alone.”

We have a black van with no textiles in the back. Looks normal from the outside, but the back of it has seen more bleach than a blonde’s head.

He nodded and flipped a switch so whoever was on patrol wouldn’t hear him talking to me. “How’d she sound?”

If she was panicking, I’d need someone else to help with body disposal. It usually takes two people to get rid of the bodies and their vehicle. Also, if she was going to fall apart because she’d killed someone, then she couldn’t know where the bodies were taken.

“Sounded solid. I’ll make a determination on site.”

Another nod. “Let me know if you need help.”

“My phone’s home. I have a burner with the app running.”

I wore a ball cap on the way to her apartment, and took a route without traffic cams. I didn’t for sure know why I was going, but it’s always good to cover your tracks if you’re headed to do something illegal.

There were no parking spaces open near her apartment, but her car backed out as I neared, and I backed into the slot. She parked nearly a football field away in the next closest empty spot. She wore jeans, sneakers, and an oversized black hoodie, pulled up to hide her long dark-blonde hair. I smelled a gun on her, but I didn’t see it.

If she had the presence of mind to park me close to her apartment, she was probably in good enough shape I didn’t need to call another brother for help.

Neither of us spoke until we were in her living room. Two dead bodies. I was impressed that she’d started with the garbage bags. She’d not only killed them, she’d tried to handle disposal on her own as well.

“They broke in and were stealing my shit.”

I shook my head and pulled a signal blocking sleeve from the pocket of my hoodie. “Phone?”

She went to her bedroom, returned with it, and I put it into the sleeve. “Anything else voice activated? Television, remote, Alexa, Google?”

She looked at the TV leaned against the wall near the door. “It’s unplugged.”

I looked at the body near me, sniffed towards the other one, and walked into the kitchen to take a closer look.

“Castle doctrine says you can use deadly force for people inside your home. We can call the cops and you might get hassled a little, but you won’t be arrested.”

“No cops. They were in my business for weeks when I had nothing to do with a death.” She sighed. “Plus, I didn’t kill the guy in the kitchen with the first strike, so I hit him some more, after the fact. I don’t know if they’ll be able to figure that out or not.”

I felt my eyebrows go up, and I met her gaze.

She crossed her arms and didn’t look away or down. “I’d killed one of them already, so the second one had to die, too. I’m not dealing with the cops when dead bodies are involved. I’m just not.”

“Okay. No cops. What did you use?”

“My cast iron skillet, and I know you’re supposed to get rid of the weapon, but I won’t. It was my great grandmother’s skillet. No soap and water. No bleach. I’m not messing with the seasoning. I was able to take what would fit into my backpack with me when I left home. Not much made the grade, but that pan did. I’m keeping it.”

“I’m assuming the bottom of the skillet made contact, not the inside?”

She put her hands on her hips and it made me want to kiss her until she melted.

“Yeah. Okay,” she said. “Maybe a good salt scrub, some time in the oven, and then a good re-seasoning?”

“We’ll talk about that later. Maybe oil on the bottom and burn it off with a flame before the salt scrub and re-seasoning. Velvet might have some ideas, too. Do you know who these guys are?”

“They have ID. Address is a few streets over. Same address. Same last name. Forty-eight and twenty-three. I’m guessing father and son.” She nodded to two wallets on the coffee table, and I looked at her hands. She was wearing clear gloves.

“When did you put the gloves on?”

“Before I handled either body or the garbage bags.”

Is there anything sexier than a kick-ass kitty-cat who handles her problems and keeps her head? She only needed me to help with taking out the garbage after the fact.

I had her sit on her sofa before I opened my backpack and lined the items we’d need on her coffee table beside the wallets. Heavy-duty extra-large garbage bags. Thick rubber gloves. Bleach. I’d brought actual body-removal bags, but left them in the backpack since we weren’t going to use them. If she’d shot them and we needed to keep the mess from spreading, we’d have needed them.

“Those thin gloves can sometimes leave enough of a print LEO can grab it, if the crime techs are good. Leave them on and put these thicker ones over the top.” I put a pair on as well, and then pulled a garbage bag from the box. “Assuming rigor hasn’t set, we’ll fold them in half. Ass goes in first, and then we can pull your garbage bags out.”

I reached for the IDs and called the control room with the app. “I need to know what kind of car these guys drive. Kitty and I can handle it without help. Just need to know which car to use to take out the trash.” I read off the names, date of births, and address.

“She okay?”

“Yes.” He’d been asking about her physical and mental condition, and we both knew it. The answer to both was that she was more than okay.

Three minutes later, he told me, “Black Tacoma, 2001. Grey Pathfinder, 2016.”

“Thanks.”

I disconnected, walked to the front window, and looked out. “Does the dad have keys on him?”

“Yeah.”

“Nissan?”

She dug them out of his pocket. “Yeah.”

“Unlock it.”

The lights blinked. Bingo.

“Put the IDs back in their wallets, and the wallets back where you found them. Keep any cash, leave the credit cards alone. We want to make this look amateur and not professional.”

I picked up a garbage bag and stood. “We’ll put the bodies in the van. You’ll drive the van, we’ll dispose of the bodies near their house, and then I’ll drive the Pathfinder...” I ran through the possibilities in my head. There was a chop shop east of town I could take it to, but could I stay away from traffic cams to get it there? I didn’t think so.

“Fuck. I don’t know. I guess we drop it in the hood with the keys on the dash and hope someone steals it. I’ll consider our options while we dump the bodies.” I ran my hand over my beard. “Please tell me you have an electric trimmer. I need to get rid of this before we get started.”

* * * *

Kitty.

The van wasn’t far from my front door, so it wasn’t far to take the bodies. Squatch carried the taller man, I carried the shorter. Both men were balled up into quadruple-bagged garbage bags, so they didn’t look like dead bodies. And Squatch and I are both stronger-than-human, so no human would’ve guessed we were carrying people in those bags, since we didn’t look as if they were terribly heavy. I’m sure an analyst would’ve known it by the way the bags hung, but I don’t think a regular person would notice.

I also figured I was overthinking it, but I was scared as fuck. No way would I allow myself to be taken into custody — even if it meant letting them kill me. I’d rather be dead than caged again.

Once we had the bodies loaded into the van, Squatch had me take my phone out of the sleeve and leave it on my bedside table.

He’d already shaved his head and face with the trimmer, so his hair and beard were about a quarter of an inch long. Now, he pulled something from his pocket, took his ball cap off and hooked it over his pinkie finger, put a flesh-colored knit cap on, and put the ball cap back on. He looked bald under the cap. Without his long hair and scruffy beard, even I wouldn’t have recognized him, just looking into a vehicle.

Standing before me though, I’d have recognized him with a paper bag over his head. His body, his size, his stance, his confidence. That, I’d have recognized anywhere.

We didn’t speak again until we were outside my apartment. He got me situated in the van, put a baseball hat on my head, tucked my ponytail into my shirt, and kissed me on the nose.

“The hoodie up will draw attention. Leave it off. Don’t look sideways at other cars. No eye contact. No singing. No picking your nose. Look bored. Drive like you have all the time in the world. Stay in the same lane. Don’t pass people. Don’t speed. Don’t do anything memorable.”

He climbed into the back of the van. “You’ll be driving it out of the parking lot again when we return to get their Pathfinder, so it’s best you drive it now, too. Pull out onto the main road and make a right turn.”

He had me drive one road past where we’d have turned off to go to the men’s house. It was rough-paved, and there weren’t many houses. He reached forward and touched under the dash, and the headlights turned off. My tiger’s vision took over, but a warning would’ve been nice. Several minutes later, we were on a long straightaway without houses when he said, “Stop. Don’t pull over. Just stop where you are.”

I did so, and he touched my leg, just above my knee. “Put it in park. Don’t shut the engine off. I need you to help me get these guys into the woods. You’re doing good, Kitty. Stay on the pavement. Be conscious of not leaving footprints.”

He took a two-by-six piece of lumber from the side of the van, put it on the ground, and then grabbed another and carried it while he walked to the end of the first. He put it down at an angle, going into the woods, and walked along them to return.

“This keeps me from leaving footprints in the mud. When I leave with the first man, bring the second to the end of the first board. Stay on the wood so you don’t leave footprints either.”

Squatch alley-ooped both men a good distance into the trees, and then he had me get back into the van. He broke the two-by-sixes into multiple pieces and put them into another garbage bag, placed it in the back of the van, and then he returned to the passenger seat, his gloves muddy from handling the wood. He’d left his door open, so he didn’t have to get it muddy to open it. He took the soiled gloves off, dropped them into a bag at his feet, closed the door, pulled two more gloves from the glove compartment, and put them on.

“You’ve done this before.”

He grinned. “No. Never. Keep driving. Turn around just before the curve up there. Don’t go off the pavement.”

The van had a tighter turning radius than I expected. I had to back up once to keep it on the pavement, but only because it was a narrow road. He flipped the lights back on at about the same place he’d turned them off.

“Back to your apartment. I’ll drive the Pathfinder, since I can be more certain of not shedding stray hair. I’m leaving my burner phone with you. If we run into problems, I’ll abandon the Pathfinder and run to the left of wherever we are. Go around me — keep going and then come back another route and look for me to the left of wherever I exited the vehicle. If you can’t do that without drawing attention, use the app on the phone to call the control room. Tell them where I abandoned the Pathfinder. Say it like that.”

He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “It’s going to be fine. Keep your head down and forward. Don’t look up or around. I’ll keep us away from traffic cams, but we’re going to go by a few private security cams. Prop your left elbow on the door and touch your face with your left hand. Drive with your right. Look tired and bored. Keep the bill of the hat down over your face as much as possible. Don’t follow too close. Half a football field or more.”

“What happens to the bag?”

“The bag holds what gets destroyed. We’ll add to it later — the gloves we’re wearing, the garbage bags you originally used, and our clothes, in case we got some of their DNA on them. Also, the wood pieces in the other bag. Shoes, too. We have a small incinerator at the bike shop. That’ll be our last stop before I take you home with me.” He sat back. “Thankfully, the men left their cellphones at home, this would be a helluva lot more complicated if they’d brought them.”

“I want to go home when we finish.”

“I’m sure you do, but this van will have already come and gone twice. A third time is pushing it. If you absolutely need something from your apartment, I’ll get one of my brothers to stop and get your phone and whatever you need while we do this. It’s best if we can leave your apartment alone though. Every piece of traffic is a chance a neighbor remembers something odd.”

“How will they get in without a key?”

He gave me a deadpan look, and I rolled my eyes. Stupid question. Locks only stop people who don’t break the law.

“Right, and I can’t go in and get my phone now because it’s kind of an alibi, turned on and sitting in my apartment while... other things happen.”

“Drive to the apartments on the other side of your building. I’ll walk through to get to their vehicle. Circle around and fall in behind me after I pull out. I’m headed towards Druid Hills. Probably one of the apartment buildings on 19th, but I’ll have to make a decision once I’m there.” He took a breath and met my gaze. “Worst case scenario is you getting caught driving this van with the IDs in it, and the wood with the mud that’ll match the dump site. If you get pulled over, get out and run. Take the phone. Get at least two miles away and let the control room know where you are. If you have to go kitty to get away, so be it. If you can carry the phone in your mouth, do. If not, destroy it. If you have to go cat, keep to the shadows and run a few miles away before turning back to human. Steal some clothes if you can. Head to the nearest yellow or green gas station and hide behind it. We’ll find you by scent. Oh, unless you’re near one of our properties, in which case just show up, wave to the camera until the light acknowledges you’ve been seen, and then hide until we arrive.”

Shifting into animal form around humans would bring the Concilio, who would also lock me away. Or worse. That was never going to happen, but I didn’t bother telling him. If I couldn’t get away, I’d find a way to get the cops to kill me.