Free Desert Bound (Cambio Springs) by Elizabeth Hunter Page B

know Joe Smith?”
    She scrunched up her face. “Allie’s Joe?”
    “Yeah, I heard that he and Marcus got into it at the Cave a while back. Right before Joe took off.”
    That surprised her. “Allie’s husband took off?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That rat!” She glanced quickly at her kids, who were all looking at her, then she turned back to Alex. “You know, Marcus mentioned that Joe borrowed some money from him and wasn’t paying him back. But he mentioned it in passing, like it wasn’t a big deal. He did that. He’d loan money to people, but never more than we could afford or anything. I didn’t even think about it. I doubt he did, either.”
    “Caleb’s probably going to ask about that.”
    “I don’t know much more than what I told you.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Do you honestly think that Joe had anything to do with this? He doesn’t seem like the type.”
    “I don’t think anyone knows what Joe is capable of at this point. Now that he’s gone, all the shit is coming out.”
    “Oh…” She rested her forehead on her hands. “Poor Allie.”
    Alex rubbed Josie’s shoulder and thought that Marcus had been a lucky man to have a woman who’d just lost her own husband, but still had room in her heart for a friend. And whoever made Josie lose that man was going to pay, if it was the last thing he did.
     
    It was an hour later when Caleb finally came by. Alex was heading out the door, but Caleb put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him on the front walk.
    “Don’t put your hands on me, skinwalker.” Alex knew it annoyed Caleb to have that term thrown around.
    “Do you enjoy pissing me off, McCann?” He hadn’t risen to the bait, which left Alex vaguely disappointed. “Because I know you’re not stupid.”
    “I’m helping out a friend. And she’s as baffled by this as we are, so don’t step over the line in there, or I’ll hear about it.”
    Caleb drew back. “What kind of bastard do you think I am?”
    “I think you’re a hell of a good detective. That’s why I hired you. But when that ‘detecting’ happens to be about a friend, I don’t give a shit about offending you. I’m more concerned about the woman in there who lost her husband.”
    “And I’ll keep that in mind. But you know I have to question her.”
    Alex nodded. “She can take it. But just saying, her kids are in there, and her mother-in-law’s a mess. Josie might be easier to talk to if you got her out of the house.”
    “Noted.”
    He started to walk back toward his car, but Caleb called him again.
    “McCann.”
    “Yeah?”
    “You’re not part of this investigation. You know that, right?”
    Alex grinned. The shit-eating grin he knew Caleb hated.
    “I am nothing but a humble citizen, Chief.”
    He could hear Caleb muttering all the way to his car.
     
    Alex was sleeping, but he heard it. Soft padding feet creeping through his trailer.
    Big padding feet.
    He woke when the bed creaked to find a hundred pound mountain laying half across his legs, staring at him with lazy golden eyes. He shifted to his back and scooted up a little, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
    “Hey, baby.”
    The lion was silent, but her lip curled up. Alex smiled and reached out, running a finger through the soft hair behind her left ear. The instinctive purr made him smile, but the smile was wiped away when she got up on all fours, leaned down, and hissed in his face, baring vicious two-inch long fangs.
    A full-grown cougar was a terrifying sight, but it was the silence that had always freaked Alex out more than anything. When wolves hunted, there was panting and crackling as they ran through brush. Little yips and barks to let each other know the movements of the pack. But cats were silent hunters, they could creep up rocks and through brush with little trace, their silence broken only by the occasional, blood-curdling scream.
    So it was probably stupid that the only thing Alex could think of was getting Ted to shift back to human