Free One True Mate 1: Shifter's Sacrifice by Lisa Ladew Page B

they are twenty-five years old.” He shook his head. “That’s not much to go on.”
    Wade clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re a cop, son, this is what you do best.”

Chapter 11
     
    Ella stalked into her driveway, trying to keep herself together. She hated the state of her mind and thoughts lately. Painting in her sleep was just one more reminder of her recent failings. Maybe her mother had been right about her.
    Ella dug her keys out of her pocket, her eyes glued to the arc of white paint on the front of the house. She would paint over that mistake now. Tonight. She didn’t want to have to look at it anymore.
    Before Ella could step up onto her porch, a small animal shot out of the bushes on the side of the house and ran for her like it wanted to attack her. Ella almost screamed until she realized it was Smokey. He put his two paws around her ankle and aggressively smelled up and down her leg as far as he could reach. She could hear the sniffs of breath he took in and out of his nose.
    “Smokey, what?”
    He looked up at her and yowled, a mournful, sad sound that confused her.
    She reached down and tried to pick the cat up, but he evaded her hands and shot out of her reach. He looked at her one last time, then prowled to the center of the driveway and sat on his haunches, looking very little like a cat and much more like a guard dog. Ella watched him for a moment, then shook her head and stepped up to the house. He had a cat door. He could get in whenever he wanted.
    By the time she was inside, his strange behavior weighed on her more heavily. What if the man from Mrs. White’s shop had been here? What if he was in her house right now? Ella had never been much of a cat person until she and her mother had moved in with Aunt Patricia, so she didn’t know a ton about them, but it stood to reason that they would be good at sniffing out bad people. What if Smokey had been trying to tell her something?
    Ella dropped her keys in the bowl next to the door, her eyes wide, attempting to take in the entire house at once. She snapped on the light, then walked through the front room and kitchen slowly, barely breathing, placing her feet lightly, trying to hear noises from the house. It felt empty to her, but did that mean anything?
    Ella took the three thousand dollars out of her pocket and put it in the fake can of soup in the kitchen pantry where her aunt had always kept cash. She changed the cats’ water dish and filled their perpetual feeder. Then she began a thorough investigation of the house.
    She swept through all the bedrooms, looking under beds, in closets, and behind things. She checked each bathroom and shower, then pulled down the attic stairs and checked up there. She didn’t know what she would do if she found someone, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep if she didn’t at least look.
    Finally, most of the house clear, she stood at the top of the basement stairs, looking down the too-steep steps. Her mind ran free, imagining many different kinds of monsters down there waiting for her. But the only other option was to leave the house. She had to look.
    The stairs creaked as she walked down them, each one making a different sound. Ella tensed more with each stuttering descent, until she finally reached the bottom, mostly because the closer she got to the bottom, the more her legs were exposed to the rest of the basement.
    But when she got all the way down, the basement sat completely empty, which she had expected since she’d already given away or sold everything that had been in the large, open room. What she didn’t expect was how safe she felt down there. Sounds were dampened, making her able to hear her own blood rushing in her ears. The heavy concrete walls pressed in from all sides, making her feel like she was undetectable. Ella shook her head. What a strange thought.
    She purposely took a deep breath, her first of the day, and wished for a chair to sink into. She felt the tension retreat