Spy Snow Leopard (Protection, Inc. Book 6) Read online

  While he was in the kitchen making it, I hacked into his laptop. Once I was done, I made my own phone ring. I pretended my sister had an accident and was in the hospital. Kelly didn’t want to drive me there, but once I said I’d told my mom whose house I was at, he called me a cab. It dropped me off at the hospital, I walked in, I waited a while, I called another cab, and I went back to my crummy motel room, linked my laptop with Kelly’s, and started looking through his finances.

  I’d figured there was no way a man like him wasn’t doing all sorts of dishonest things. And I was right. I’d figured he was cheating on his taxes, and he was, but it turned out he was also committing stock market fraud. And probably other crimes that were so complicated I couldn’t even tell what they were. So I downloaded all the data and sent it anonymously to the IRS and the FBI.

  But there was one thing I did before I did that. And it wasn’t part of my plan. Originally, I’d just wanted Kelly to go to jail. But when I was in his house, looking at all the nice stuff he had, I’d thought, Why should a man like Kelly live like this, when a man like my father had to work so hard to get so little?

  And when I was looking at his bank account, which had more zeroes than I’d seen in my entire life, I thought, I can’t give Dad any of this. He’s gone. But if I gave some of it to myself, maybe that’d be the next best thing.

  So I transferred some of his money to my own account, erased the record of it, and then turned him in.

  I was right: he’d been committing financial crimes I hadn’t even noticed. But the FBI figured out what they were. And the IRS thought he’d hidden some of his money so well that even they couldn’t find it. I’d taken it, of course, but since he actually was hiding money to evade taxes, they didn’t believe him.

  You can kill a little girl’s father and walk away free if you have enough money. And it’s not illegal to raise prices on medicine until sick people can’t afford to live. But the one thing you can’t get away with is cheating on your taxes. That’s why Al Capone went to jail. And so did Jared Kelly.

  I’d been planning my revenge ever since I was nine. It had kept me going all those years. Now it was done. I thought I’d feel satisfied, but I didn’t. I felt lost. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d only learned about finances and computers so I could ruin Kelly’s life, not so I could have a career playing the stock market or doing other people’s taxes.

  But when I’d been flirting with Kelly, and getting him to make that stupid complicated drink and think it was his own idea, and hacking his laptop, and taking the fake call from my non-existent sister... I’d enjoyed that. It’d been dangerous and tense and I’d had to use all my skills. It made me feel alive. Like my whole life between the day Dad died and the night I’d strolled into that bar had just been marking time.

  When I’d been researching Kelly, I’d come across a whole lot of other scummy rich men just like him. The world seemed full of them. Who would it hurt, really, if I siphoned off some of the money they’d cheated off other people? Why not get a little of my own back at their expense?

  So I used his money to buy some more fancy outfits, and I started looking for wealthy creeps. It was easy. I just flirted and smiled and flattered them until they left me alone with their phone or laptop, and then I drained their bank accounts and disappeared.

  And that’s how it started. At first I only stole from men who were scum of the earth. Then I branched out to men who were only moderately scummy. Then men who were just very rich. There was never a moment when I decided to stop being a thief who only stole from people who deserved it and became a thief who only stole from people who could afford it. But it happened. And I just kept going.

  It didn’t take long before I had plenty of money. I could have invested it, lived off it, and never stolen again. But I’d gotten to like the lifestyle. It was exciting. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I was afraid of what would happen if I gave it up. When you stay on a merry-go-round long enough, you fall over when you jump off. What if I quit stealing, and never felt alive again?

  Maybe if I hadn’t been stopped, I’d have woken up some morning and thought, “What am I doing with my life? Is this the person I really want to be?” But that’s not what happened.

  I targeted a tech billionaire, Carter Howe. He was just a rich playboy, not a criminal or a terrible person as far as I knew. So I wasn’t expecting to run into any trouble.

  I should explain that none of the men I stole from ever got anything more from me than a kiss, and most of them didn’t even get that. Once they started pressuring me for sex, if I hadn’t managed to hack into their accounts by then, I’d make an excuse to leave, then disappear and move on. So if I couldn’t get to them by one or two dates, that was usually it.

  But Carter was different. When I told him I wanted to wait, he said that was fine instead of getting pushy. He didn’t leave his phone or laptop lying around, his office door was always locked, and he never left me alone long enough for me to pick the lock. So instead of seeing him once or twice, we dated, sort of, for a couple months. In retrospect, I guess we saw each other as a challenge. He wanted to get into my pants, and I wanted to get into his laptop.

  I was overconfident and careless. I’d forgotten why he was a billionaire. He hadn’t inherited his money, like most of the men I scammed. He’d earned it, and he’d earned it in computers. He had the same sorts of skills that I did. I’m sure that’s how he caught me. He must have checked out my fake identity, found something that didn’t add up, and gotten suspicious.

  I showed up for a date at his house. We were supposed to go to the opera, and I was wearing high heels and a strapless, floor-length, red satin gown. He told me how beautiful I looked, and then he apologized and said he had to make a business call and it’d take about fifteen minutes. I smiled and said I’d brought a book.

  He went into his bedroom and closed the door, and I took out the other thing I’d brought, which was a set of lockpicks, and opened his office. There was his computer. I broke into it pretty fast—too fast, which should have tipped me off—set up remote access so I could get into it from my laptop, turned it off, locked the door behind me, and sat down on his sofa to read my book.

  I remember how smart I felt. Right up to the point where he walked in holding a monitor. He turned it around, and there was a full-color, high-definition video of me breaking into his office, complete with close-ups of his computer screen showing exactly what I’d done there. I’d checked the office for hidden cameras, of course, but I obviously hadn’t checked well enough. Like I said, he was a tech billionaire and he knew his stuff.

  I couldn’t deny what I’d done, so I bluffed. I said, “I’m an FBI agent and you’re under investigation for securities fraud.”

  “Bullshit!” he said.

  I said, “I’ll prove it. I’ll call my home office and put them on the line.”

  I reached for my purse. I was going to go for my pepper spray. All those years ripping people off, and that was the first time I’d have to used it.

  But I never got the chance. Carter moved faster than I’d ever seen anyone move before. He grabbed my purse before I could get to it and threw it across the room. He was so angry, it scared me.

  I said, “Harming a federal agent is a capital offense. And keeping me here against my will is kidnapping. Just let me go, and that’ll be the end of this.”

  I started toward the front door. He stepped in front of it. And he said, “Stop lying to me. I know what you are. You’re a predator. I should show you what that really means.”

  I thought he was going to kill me. I panicked and bolted for the kitchen. I was going to grab a knife to try to fend him off, then run out the back door. But I’d never tried to run in heels and a long dress before. I tripped and went flying. My head slammed into his marble countertop, and everything went black.

  I woke up freezing cold. My head ached. When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see anything but white. Just flecks of white, whirling
around me in an icy wind, and more white beneath me.

  It was snow. I was in a snowfield, in the middle of a blizzard. Even when I remembered what had happened, I had no idea where I was or how I’d gotten there. Carter lived in Las Vegas. It didn’t snow like that there.

  I yelled for help, but I could tell that even if someone was there, they couldn’t hear me over the wind. So I got up and started walking. I was still in my high heels and satin gown. As far as protecting me from the cold went, I might as well have been naked. My shoes kept slipping in the snow, but I was afraid I’d get frostbite if I took them off. I was wearing a lot of pricey jewelry—a diamond choker, emerald earrings, and an emerald bracelet—but it was so cold that the metal burned my skin. I finally took them off and dropped them in the snow.

  When I took off the bracelet, I noticed that my left hand was bleeding a little. I had a few puncture wounds, not very deep. I couldn’t think what they were from. I finally decided I’d stabbed my hand on a fork or something when I’d fallen. After a few minutes, the blood froze.

  I thought, Maybe I died when I hit my head. Maybe this is Hell.

  I wasn’t even sure I believed in Hell, but once that had occurred to me, I couldn’t stop thinking it. I was a thief. I was selfish and greedy. I took and took and never gave anything to anyone. Maybe I’d been sent to this place because I belonged there—because my heart was cold as ice.

  I don’t know how long I’d been walking before I heard a voice. A low hissing voice inside my head. It said, Let me take over.

  I thought I was so hypothermic that I was hallucinating. At least, I hoped it was a hallucination and not a demon. I ignored it and kept stumbling on through the blizzard in my high heels and opera gown. Every now and then I’d slip on ice or trip over a rock buried in the snow, and fall. Every time I did, I’d get snow down my dress and in my hair, and I’d get even colder and wetter. The voice kept on hissing, demanding that I let it take over. It scared me. I felt like I was losing my mind.

  Finally I tripped, fell, and couldn’t get up. I was too weak, and my arms and legs were too numb. I lay there in the snow, and I thought, This is it. I’m going to die here. If I’m not dead already.

  The voice hissed, Let me take over, or you’ll definitely die! I can survive the cold. You can’t.

  By then I was so desperate that even a hallucination seemed better than nothing. I said, “Do it.”

  Then the voice became more than just a voice. I felt this... presence... inside my head. It was fierce and feral and angry, and it would do anything to survive. And it was me. I could feel that.

  It hissed, Let go of being human. Be me.

  I focused on what I’d felt from that presence: rage and pride, ruthlessness and cunning, and above all, the will to survive. I pushed away the part of me that was Fiona, and I tried to fall into that other part of me.

  My body seemed to stretch out. And then I was something else. I wasn’t cold any more. I was crouched on all fours in the remains of my dress, with my tail lashing. I could see through the blizzard that I was on a mountain peak. And I could smell that there was prey nearby.

  I let that other me guide me. I stalked my prey through the snow, found it shivering in a shallow cave, and then I pounced. It was a small deer. It felt so good to pull it down and eat it up. Then I curled up in the cave and slept.

  When I woke up, the blizzard had stopped. But I was still a snow leopard. And I stayed that way for a long, long time.

  For months, I hunted and stalked on that mountain. I kept trying to shift back, but I never could. I was trapped inside the leopard. There was just enough of me left to realize that whether this was Hell or real, it was my punishment. Carter had been right: I was a predator. And now I’d become one for real.

  With every day that went by, the leopard got stronger and I got weaker. I could feel myself wearing away, and I knew that eventually nothing would be left of me. I’d be a snow leopard who didn’t even remember that she used to be a woman.

  Every now and then, I’d see a hiker or two. When I did, I tried to go to them and ask for help. Only I couldn’t speak, and all they saw was a snow leopard hissing at them. They ran for their lives. It felt like they were seeing what I really was: a monster. I finally stopped trying.

  Then one day I smelled something strange on the wind. It was an animal, but not one I could identify. I climbed a tree to lie in wait and see what it was. Eventually it came into view. It was a huge, shaggy grizzly bear. And it was carrying a backpack in its mouth.

  That was so strange that I pushed back my snow leopard’s instincts to climb higher, and climbed a little lower down. The bear sniffed the air, then looked up at me with these huge hazel eyes. It dropped the backpack. There was a shimmer in the air, and the bear was gone. A big naked man stood in the snow where he’d been.

  He opened the backpack, took out some clothes, and got dressed like the whole thing was completely normal. I was fascinated, and I climbed a little lower.

  I thought, He’s like me. He’s a person and an animal.

  When I thought that, I realized that it had been a long time before I’d been human enough to think in words. That scared me.

  The man looked up at me and called, “My name’s Hal Brennan. I’m a bear shifter, like you saw. I’m guessing you’re a shifter too, and you’re stuck the way you are. Is that right?”

  I didn’t know how to answer him, but he said, “If you’re stuck, come down exactly one branch more.”

  I jumped down another branch and sat there.

  He said, “I thought so. Some stories about a snow leopard approaching people here got back to the shifter community. There’s no leopards in Wyoming. Sooner or later, someone’s going to either decide you’re getting too close to people and need to be captured or shot, or you’re a rare specimen of an albino mountain lion and ought to be in a zoo. I’d like to get you out of here before that happens.”

  I tried to say, “Yes, please get me out.” But all that came out was a long hiss.

  Hal said, “I think I can help you shift back. But you’re going to have to come down. I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

  My snow leopard didn’t want to do it. She didn’t trust him. To be honest, I didn’t really either. But at that point, I didn’t care. If he could help me become a woman again, great. And if he killed me, that would be better than being trapped like this forever.

  I jumped out of the tree and walked up to him.

  He said, “Great. I’ll talk you through it. I promise, this is much easier when you have help. Now lie down. I’m going to sit next to you.”

  I lay down and let him sit by my side. Hal told me later that he’d never tried to talk down a stuck shifter before, and he’d had no idea if he could do it or not. But I never guessed. He sounded completely confident, and that gave me hope.

  He put his hand on my head and scratched me behind the ears. I twitched a little. It had been so long since I’d been touched. But it felt good. Calming.

  “I’m going to ask you a few questions,” he said. “Just nod or shake your head. Were you born a shifter?”

  I shook my head.

  “I thought so,” Hal said. “So I’m guessing someone bit you. Is that right?”

  At first I wasn’t sure. Then I remembered those puncture wounds in my hand. I nodded.

  This may sound weird, but it was the first time that I realized that Carter must have done this to me. When I was bitten, I hadn’t even known shifters existed. And then I nearly froze to death, and then my snow leopard took me over. I had no context for anything, and I wasn’t in any condition to think clearly. But once Hal suggested that someone had bitten me, I remembered what Carter had said about making me a predator for real.

  He did this to me, I thought, and snarled.

  Hal didn’t so much as flinch. He just said, “I’m guessing that wasn’t something you wanted.”

  I shook my head and snarled again.

  Rip his throat out, came that hissin
g voice. He hurt us.

  Hal went on, “Had you even heard of shifters before someone made you one?”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let me tell you about them. Us.”

  Hal sat there in the snow for something like an hour, stroking my fur and talking about shifters. He explained that the voice inside me was my snow leopard, and that it was the part of me that was raw emotion and animal instinct and the will to survive.

  “It’s taken control of you because you needed it to,” Hal explained. “You would have died without it. But it’s safe to be a woman now. Once you shift back, I’ll give you some clothes, we’ll hike down to my car, and I’ll get you a good meal of human food, whatever you like. And then I’ll take you to stay with some shifters who can teach you the ropes. How’s that sound?”

  It sounded great. I felt this weird rumbling in my chest, and my body started vibrating. A moment later, I realized that I was purring.

  Very casually, Hal said, “So here’s how you shift back. Think of something that only a human can do. Something you’ve done a lot, so you can picture how it looks and feels and smells and sounds. I used to be in the Navy, so I might picture cleaning my gun. The way the metal feels in my hands. The weight of it. The smell of the oil. The sound of the parts clicking together. You got anything like that?”

  I didn’t even have to think about it. When Hal had mentioned metal and oil, something popped right into my mind. It was fixing a car engine, like I used to do with Dad. I could smell the engine oil, and feel the weight of the wrench in my hand...

  And just like that, I was a woman again, stretched out in the snow with Hal’s big hand resting between my shoulderblades.

  He helped me to my feet, and took off his long coat and put it over me. Then he picked me up, since he hadn’t brought any shoes that fit me, and carried me to his car. We had a long drive ahead of us—we were in Wyoming, and he lived in California. I had no money, of course, so he paid for everything, even my clothes.