Free The Good Die Twice by Lee Driver Page B

glow to the landscape. Hoping the balconies
connected the rooms, Sara stepped outside only to discover the
balcony to the adjacent room was more than forty feet away. She
tried to listen for voices but too many conflicting noises were
coming from the animals and birds in the nearby trees.
    Sara had no choice but to kick off her shoes.
Now she understood the downside to wearing nylons.
    The change was quick. Sara rarely had to
think long about it. Just a slight focus and the dress fell away,
discarded, as much a nuisance as the nylons. The gray hawk took
flight, landing on the railing of the adjacent balcony, its sturdy
talons clinging tightly. Its feathers ruffled in the mild breeze
and the setting sun wrapped the hawk in warmth. Its eyesight and
hearing were keen, just as they had been the night Rachel was
murdered.
    Sara Morningsky was a shape-shifter. Once
thought only to be the subject of tall tales told by the elders
about men who would shift into wolves and prey upon livestock or
unsuspecting men, Sara knew firsthand that a shape-shifter was
anything but a myth. Nor was it a curse. Sara’s grandmother had
always called it a gift. Sara could shift into a gray hawk or gray
wolf. And even in her human form she possessed the keen senses of
the hawk and wolf.
    Cautiously, the hawk turned its head and
peered into the room. One of the men, the shorter one with the
cratered face, had fired the gun that killed Rachel. He was seated
in a barrel chair by the patio door. The other two men stood in the
shadows. But the draperies blocked the hawk’s view of the person
seated behind the desk. Whoever was seated there just set a lit
cigar in an ashtray. The hawk lifted off, spread its forty-inch
wingspan and flew to a tree branch where it might have a better
angle of sight.

    “Use your head, Sheila. I thought you wanted
to be known as a hard-hitting reporter, not some dame who rode her
Dad’s coattails up the ladder.”
    “I do.” Sheila struggled to keep up with
Dagger’s long strides as they climbed the winding staircase. “Where
are you going?”
    “I’m looking for Nick.”
    “You mean you’re looking for Sara.” Sheila
stopped in front of Nick’s opened bedroom door. “Well, the bed’s
made so I guess her virtue is still intact.” Sheila pulled Dagger
into the bedroom and shut the door.
    “Sheila, keep your head on the case, not
sex.”
    “What case?”
    Dagger unwrapped her arms from around his
neck, her lips leaving a trail down his neck as if marking her
territory. He held her at arm’s length. “Rachel Tyler was alive
prior to four o’clock Thursday morning. She has been missing for
five years. Where has she been and who killed her? I would think
you would be chomping at the bit on this one.”
    Sheila rolled her eyes and turned away.
Sitting down on the bed, she said, “Give me something more to go on
than a missing body that suddenly shows up now and is missing
again.” She pulled off her shoes and watched coyly as Dagger sat
down next to her. Turning, she forced Dagger down on the bed and
straddled him. His protesting seemed mute. She was on him like a
raging nymph, forcing her tongue into his mouth and his hands over
his head.
    Dagger? Dagger heard Sara’s voice but
it sounded as if it were in his head.
    He broke free from Sheila saying, “Sara,”
like a man calling out a lover’s name in his sleep. He forced
himself up, sending Sheila tumbling off the bed.
    Sara, why is it I can hear you in my
head? Dagger asked in thought only. The voice was more distinct
than just someone listening to his conscience. It was as clear as
if she were standing next to him.
    Dagger? Come quick. I’m outside Robert
Tyler’s bedroom at the end of a maze of halls. It’s past an
alcove .
    Sheila crawled up off the floor and blew a
strand of platinum hair from her forehead. “Sara? You’re calling
another woman’s name while you’re kissing me?”
    “Not now, Sheila.” Dagger tore out of the
bedroom and down