A Touch of the Beast Read online

  There had been a time when something as simple as leafing through the mail had made her heart beat too fast. After she’d broken up with Michael there had been too many angry letters waiting for her in the mailbox, too many unwanted messages on her answering machine. She hadn’t heard from her ex-fiancé in four months, but still every now and then she expected him to rise up out of the bushes.

  Yeah, romance was nice enough, but it just wasn’t worth the hassle.

  As she walked through the front door, a chill ran down her spine. She felt as if someone was watching her. Sheryl turned around slowly, and her eyes swept the empty sidewalk. Debbie was busy working in her flower bed again, and no one else was in sight.

  She brushed off the odd feeling, attributing it to unpleasant memories of her ex, and closed the door behind her.

  “It’s such a long shot,” Cassie said as Hawk threw sloppily folded clothes into his suitcase. “And North Carolina is so far away. I can’t believe you’d listen to a crazy woman who accosts you in the pharmacy.”

  “What makes you think she’s crazy?” Hawk glanced up as he closed the suitcase. His sister was pacing near the door, her hands clasped tightly. She wasn’t usually so tense, but with everything that had happened lately, she had just cause.

  “Everything you told me about her,” Cassie snapped. “The way she dressed, the way she sneaked up on you, the completely insufficient note. An address, that’s it. How do you know that address even exists? She might’ve made it up or it might be the address of a dry cleaner or a bakery or some poor person’s house. What she said about you looking like our mother, that’s definitely crazy. What do you think you’ll find at that address, anyway? Another weird woman offering riddles about the past?”

  Compared to Hawk, his sister was tiny. But the vast difference in their body mass had never stopped Cassie from standing up to him and speaking her mind.

  “I don’t know what I’ll find.”

  Cassie ran a nervous hand through her hair, brushing the black strands away from her face. “I know you, Hawk. You think you’re going to drive up to a house with a white picket fence, knock on the door, and our biological mother and father will come to the door with open arms, wondering where we’ve been all these years.”

  He’d quit expecting anything like that years ago, though there had been a time when he’d been absolutely obsessed with finding his birth parents. “You’ll be okay while I’m gone.”

  “I know I’ll be okay,” she said, a little bit calmer than she’d been a few minutes ago. “It’s just…I can’t talk to anyone else about what’s going on. They’ll think I’m nuts! And I am worried about you, you know. I don’t want you to go all that way and be disappointed when you don’t find what you expect to find.”

  “I don’t expect to find anything.”

  “Yes, you do,” Cassie said softly. “Hire someone to check out the address for you. You can find a private detective in North Carolina and have him check it out. That way you can stay home and no one gets hurt.”

  “And what exactly would I tell this private detective?”

  Cassie just pursed her lips. She knew too well that they couldn’t bring anyone else into this mix.

  “I’m not a kid anymore,” Hawk said. “I don’t expect to find anything but answers about your condition.”

  “My condition,” Cassie scoffed. “I hate having a ‘condition’!”

  “Call me anytime you need to talk. I’ll have my cell phone on twenty-four/seven.”

  His sister almost pouted. “It’s not the same.”

  Cassie Donovan wasn’t one to pout, not for any reason. But the episodes were tough on her. She’d always had dreams that seemed more real than dreams, but something unexpected was happening with these seizures.

  She was seeing a few minutes into the future immediately after each convulsion. It was hard to swallow, impossible to explain. But over the years they’d learned to accept that some things were just that way.

  Impossible.

  Cassie sighed, apparently resigned to the fact that he was going to North Carolina. “If you insist on making this trip, you could fly instead of driving,” she said as she followed him down the long hallway. “It would be much quicker. Fly over, visit this address, fly home.”

  “I don’t know how long I’ll need to be there, and besides, flying would only save a day or two.” He glanced down at the dog who walked beside him. “Baby hates to fly, and I can’t leave her here. Last time I went on a two-day trip, she didn’t eat the whole time I was gone.”

  “You love that dog more than you love me,” Cassie said, sounding very much the way she had at the age of twelve.

  Hawk hid a smile. “You know that’s not true.”

  “What if I tell you that I won’t eat until you get home?”

  He laughed. “The way you’ve been eating lately, I know that’s a hollow threat.”

  Cassie hit him lightly on the arm as she danced around him. “That’s not very nice.”

  “But it is true.”

  Again she seemed to pout.

  Hawk dropped the suitcase and took his sister’s face in his hands. His tough, tanned hands only emphasized her paleness. There were dark circles under her eyes, and while she’d been eating plenty lately she wasn’t gaining weight. The thinness of her face told him that she’d lost a few pounds. She might not like it, but he had to do something.

  He couldn’t possibly sit around here and twiddle his thumbs and just wait for something to happen. If he could find an explanation for what was happening to Cassie, maybe even a cure, then he could rest easy. Maybe.

  Protests about unrealistic expectations aside, he had to admit that the woman’s final comment had been haunting him for the past two days. You look so very much like your mother.

  “What if our biological mother gave us up because she knew we were different?”

  “We were infants,” Cassie argued. “How could she possibly have known?”

  Hawk brushed one thumb over his sister’s ashen cheek. “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  Chapter 2

  “Hey, there’s someone here to see you.”

  Sheryl looked up from her chore as Cory stuck his head into the room. She never knew what color her young part-time helper’s hair would be. This week it was black. And spiked. Odd appearance aside, the teenager was wonderful with animals. Sheryl’s patients didn’t seem to mind what his hairstyle was like. They also didn’t mind that his pants usually hung so loose on his narrow hips they looked like they were about to fall to the floor.

  “A drop-in?” she asked.

  “Not exactly. He’s an inspector or something. He has a clipboard and a business card. I told him he could wait in your office.”

  Sheryl’s heart sank. Just what she needed! There was bound to be something in this old building that wasn’t up to code. “I’ll be right there.”

  “He’s kinda nice lookin’, for an old guy,” Cory added with a grin. “Maybe you shouldn’t leave him waiting too long.” He wagged his eyebrows suggestively.

  “Not you, too!”

  “Not me, too, what?” Cory asked, almost pulling off the innocent expression. “I’m just trying to, you know, fix you up. You’re hot, for an older woman. If you weren’t too old for me, I’d definitely ask you out.”

  She’d never imagined that she’d be “too old” at twenty-six. “Cory, do you like your job?”

  “Sure!”

  “Then I suggest you shut up.”

  Cory locked his lips with nimble fingers and watched her work. Silently.

  Sheryl finished with the small dog on the table, then handed it over to Cory for grooming.

  Her offices were located in an old building. True, the place needed some work, but the rooms were spacious and the hallway was wide, and some of the interior walls were red brick, giving the place a solid and homey feel. In addition to the equipment necessary for her practice, she’d livened the place up with plants and hung fram
ed pictures—photographs and drawings of animals—down the long hallway. The clinic wasn’t home yet, but it was certainly beginning to feel that way.

  The man who waited in her office was indeed “kinda nice lookin’.” But he didn’t look at all like a building inspector. Did men who worked for the state of North Carolina dress in black, wear their hair in a short ponytail and sport a gold earring in one ear? She didn’t think so.

  “Dr. Eldanis.” The man, who hadn’t been waiting in a chair but was perusing her bookshelves, offered his hand for a quick shake. “Tony Carpenter, North Carolina Department of Structural Safety. I need to ask a few questions and take a look around the building, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  “Sure,” she said, seeing this intrusion as an annoyance that came with owning an old building.

  “You’ve been here how long?” he asked.

  “Three months.”

  He nodded curtly. “And the building was empty for several years before you bought it, correct?”

  Sheryl cocked her head and studied the man’s face for a moment through narrowed eyes. “Yes. The building was empty for quite some time. Don’t you have this information in your files?”

  He gave her a practiced and disarming smile. “The database is woefully out of date, I’m afraid. I always find it best to cover everything pertinent when I conduct an inspection.”

  Sheryl no longer trusted disarming smiles. In fact, they put her on edge.

  Over the next several minutes, Mr. Carpenter asked a few questions about the condition of the building. He made a couple of quickly scribbled notations on the paper on his clipboard, and while he certainly wasn’t nervous, he was definitely wound a bit too tight.

  There was something about the way he glanced around her office that made Sheryl suspect that he was a little bit too interested.

  “Did the previous residents leave any materials behind?” he asked, finally laying his eyes on her again. “I understand that several years ago there was a fertility clinic at this location.”

  “Yes.” Sheryl crossed her arms across her chest. “That was quite a long time ago, Mr. Carpenter.”

  There was that smile again. “Call me Tony.”

  Oh, I don’t think so. “A few years after the clinic closed, a doctor’s office opened here. After that the building stood empty for more than five years before I bought it.”

  “I see,” he said, making a notation. “And you didn’t come across anything out of the ordinary when you moved in? Sometimes businesses will leave files and materials behind in their haste to leave.”

  Sheryl backed slightly away from the so-called inspector. Why wasn’t he asking questions about the plumbing and the electrical? Why didn’t he want to know if the roof leaked when it rained, or where she stored her fire extinguishers? And why was this inspector working on a Saturday morning? It just didn’t add up.

  The fertility clinic he seemed to be so interested in had been closed for close to thirty years.

  “Can I see your ID, please?” she asked him.

  “I showed your assistant….”

  “I’d like to see it myself.”

  The man with the ponytail reached into his pocket and withdrew a business card. Sure enough, it read Tony Carpenter, North Carolina Department of Structural Safety. Looked to Sheryl as if the card had been printed up on a computer. A very good computer but still… She could print up a card declaring herself a queen, but that wouldn’t make it so.

  “Wait right here,” she said with a smile of her own. “I just remembered I have a phone call I need to make. I’ll be right back, Tony.” She left the room as casually as possible, then once the door was closed behind her she hurried down the hallway to the lobby. She snagged the phone on the front desk. Every instinct told her that the man in her office was not who he said he was. If she was wrong, she’d be embarrassed. But if she was right…

  Wyatt had a small police force. They weren’t exactly NYPD but they did their best, considering that most of the officers were younger than Sheryl and the chief was a good ol’ boy who had grown up here and was trusted not because he was good at his job but because everyone knew him from way back.

  Sheryl asked for a policeman to be dispatched to the clinic and then hurried back to her office. She might need to stall the so-called inspector for a few minutes, since law enforcement response was erratic at best. She burst into the office, ready to answer any question the ponytailed man might have.

  Her office was empty.

  It was a two-day trip by pickup truck from Greenlaurel, Texas, to Wyatt, North Carolina. Two full days, with a few hours’ sleep at a hotel in Tennessee along the way.

  Hawk was tired, he was cranky, and with every mile that had passed he’d wondered if this impulsive trip was a mistake. Cassie needed him, the horses he’d left behind needed him.

  But the odd woman’s words kept echoing in his head. She said the answers to his questions could be found in the past. What if Cassie’s new health problem was genetic? What if the address in Wyatt somehow led to their birth mother? It was a long shot, but he had to do something.

  Cassie would be in good hands during his absence, and so would the horses he trained and cared for. The Donovan Ranch was a good-size organization, not a two-man operation. There were people to care for Cassie, if she needed help, and there were employees to care for the horses. If there was even a small chance that he might be able to help his sister by coming here, he had to try.

  Wyatt was a small community, smaller even than Greenlaurel. It boasted a town square, complete with courthouse, sheriff’s auxiliary office and local police department. The square was completed with shops necessary for a small town to survive. Maybe they picked up some of the tourist traffic that ventured off the interstate. There were a couple of antique shops, a candy shop, two small restaurants, a bookstore and other assorted businesses. All around town, signs advertising Wyatt’s autumn festival were posted. This weekend. With any luck, he’d be long gone by then.

  Two turns off the main square, he found Pine Street. There it was, 204. The freshly painted sign out front read Eldanis Veterinary Clinic. Hawk parked his truck at the curb and reached over to run his fingers through Baby’s fur. She whined, as if she knew what awaited her here.

  “We’re just visiting,” Hawk said as he left the truck. Baby came with him, though not as enthusiastically as usual. “No shots, I promise.”

  Baby perked up considerably, and they walked into the clinic side by side. Down the hallway that led to individual rooms, a thin teenage boy with spiked hair was pushing a broom. Curious, the kid glanced toward the lobby, checking out both Hawk and Baby as he continued with his chore.

  A woman stood at the counter with her head down, a phone in one hand, a pen in the other, as she made note of an appointment. She said something pleasant to the person on the other end of the phone and smiled as she lifted her head to see who had arrived.

  Sleek, dark-blond hair had been pulled back into a long ponytail, and intense blue eyes sparkled when they landed on him. Pretty girl. Very pretty. Hawk had to remind himself that he wasn’t here to admire the scenery; he didn’t have the time. Still, he had to admit that she had a nice wide mouth and a genuine smile…and man, were those eyes blue.

  The smile was wider and more real for Baby than it was for him, even at the end of the day. According to the hours on the sign at the entrance, the place would be closing in five minutes.

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked as she walked around the counter. She wore a long white smock that disguised her figure. Beneath her smock baggy trousers hung loosely around her legs. Her shoes were of the sensible sort.

  Could she help him? It would be a whole lot easier to figure that out if he knew what he was looking for. “I guess I need to speak to Eldanis.”

  “I’m Sheryl Eldanis,” she said, her smile fading slightly. “What can I do for you?”

  Sheryl Eldanis was definitely the cutest vet he’d ever laid eyes o
n, shapeless clothes and all. And he’d known his share of vets. “I’m not really sure,” Hawk admitted. It didn’t really matter what she looked like. He needed answers, and if she was the one who had them, he didn’t care how pretty she was.

  “I’m looking for information. Have you been in this location very long?” She was much too young to have been here more than a couple of years at most. “What I’m looking for is probably going to go back several years. I’m not even sure what it might be, exactly. Some information from past activities in this building, I imagine.”

  All pretense of friendliness disappeared. The smile vanished, the blue eyes went hard. Her stance changed, as she became defensive, and the muscles in her body tightened. “What are you?” she asked sharply. “The second team? I don’t go for the fake building inspector, so two days later they send in an aw-shucks cowboy to charm the files out of me?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She lifted a finger and wagged it at him. “You can tell your friend that I called the police after he disappeared. It only took one phone call to find out that there isn’t any Tony Carpenter. There isn’t even a Department of Structural Safety!” Eldanis stepped behind the counter and lifted the phone, dialing with anger and precision. “Let’s cut out the middle man this time around. You can talk directly to the chief of police.

  “Sandy?” she said into the phone.

  Hawk glanced down at the gray cat that had begun to weave between his legs. In and out, around and around, that long tail twitching and twining. He smiled and reached down to snag the friendly feline with one large hand. He felt her deep purr in his palm as he said hello.

  “Hey!” Eldanis called, moving the phone away from her head so she wasn’t shouting into the receiver. “Laverne doesn’t like—”

  She stopped speaking when the cat in question purred and wound its way around Hawk’s neck to settle comfortably on his shoulder. The long tail twitched and wound around his head.