“I know him as Brent. Everything I’ve said is true about just knowing him from work. I started there three months ago and I didn’t like him from the get-go. Vengeance said I smell like perfume that Brent likes, that it’s rare, but I got this at a Christmas gift exchange at work. It must have been the gift he brought. I took men’s cologne in for the exchange. It’s a common thing to buy for those things.”
“We’ve talked to many females who Bill has dated and shared sex with. You carry the scent he buys them and prefers they wear. Perfume confuses our sense of smell. We aren’t picking up any trace of sex from you or even the scent of a male but we can’t read you accurately. I can faintly scent another female. Did you hug or brush up against one?”
“Wow. You really do have an enhanced sense of smell, don’t you? I read about that. I hugged my friend, Amanda, when I met her for dinner. You won’t smell sex on me.” She blushed at the thought that he could smell her that well and hoped her deodorant was really as good as it boasted.
Wrath’s intense gaze studied her body. “You are his type. Has he ever approached you with an interest in sharing sex?”
She hesitated. “The first week I worked there we had an incident.”
“Explain what an incident is to you.”
She sighed. “I was bent over a desk reaching for the phone. He walked by and smacked my ass. He made a sexual comment, he hit me hard enough that it hurt, and I was mad. I threatened to bring him up on sexual harassment charges and raised hell. We deal with each other in the office but it’s tense at best. Now he’s taken to bringing his cell phone to work and showing off pictures of naked women’s body parts. It’s disgusting.”
“He wanted you but you weren’t interested.” Wrath nodded. “Does he go out of his way to annoy you?”
“Sometimes I swear he does but I can’t prove it. Otherwise I’d have gotten him fired. Mel, our boss, says we’re just different people and I need to try to get along with him. I just can’t.”
Wrath stepped closer. “Vengeance didn’t believe you because of how you look and smell. You lied to him about not having sex in a long time so he refused to believe you about anything.”
“I didn’t lie about that.”
Wrath frowned and his gaze narrowed. His eyes were rounded but slanted slightly at the corners, giving them an exotic appearance. The irises were a dark brown, almost black. His slightly flattened nose twitched.
“Even I don’t believe that. You are attractive with a body that draws attention. Males would want to touch you and they would approach you often for shared sex.”
“Well, I don’t want to be touched.” She frowned at him. “I was in a really bad relationship. Do you know what a stalker is?”
He hesitated. “No.”
“I dated a guy for about six months and I thought he was someone nice. We moved in together but he got weird. He wasn’t abusive. He didn’t hit me but he got really creepy and it turned so bad that I moved out. He started stalking me. That’s following me around and leaving threatening notes on my door. I finally had to get a restraining order. I had to have the police make him leave me alone. It was a bad experience and I haven’t dated since. I thought he was normal but I obviously have bad taste in men. I haven’t met anyone since then that I’m interested in enough to take another chance.”
“How was he creepy and weird?”
She hesitated. “As an example, I came home and he was wearing my panties.” She made a face. “Just my panties. He picked up his belt and told me he wanted to spank me. I moved out after that. Creepy, weird, and kind of scary. I’m not into guys who wear women’s panties and I’m sure not into being spanked.”
Wrath nodded. “Human males are freaks.”
Lauren smiled. “Some of them are and I found one who turned me off men. Then I found out he’d been sleeping with another woman while we lived together. He told me, trying to hurt my feelings, but I think he really thought I’d be jealous enough to want him back. I just felt sorry for her and glad I wasn’t with him anymore.”
Wrath appeared a little surprised. “What do you know of Bill?”
“Just what I said. I know he goes to a lot of bars and brags at work about how he can pick up women easily. He’s good-looking until he opens his mouth.”
Wrath grinned. “Do you know what bars?”
She shrugged but a memory surfaced. “I don’t know where he lives but he did mention that there was one around the corner from his place and he goes there often. He was telling someone he never had to worry about getting popped for a DUI because he just walks there and back.”
“What is a DUI?”
“Driving while under the influence of alcohol. I guess he gets pretty drunk. It’s illegal to drive after drinking.”
“I have his address and I’ll have it checked out. Thank you.”
“May I ask you something?”
He didn’t say anything. She figured that wasn’t a “no”.
“Everything I’ve ever heard or read about New Species says all of you live at the NSO Homeland or the NSO Reservation but you are here. Why?”
He took a breath. “Some of us want to find the humans who harmed us, though it is risky for us to leave the safely of the NSO. Bill is at the top of our list of people to find. We’re going to bring them in to be punished for their crimes or…kill them. Whether they live or die depends on their willingness to be taken in. We have formed a small team to hunt and locate them. We also work with a team of humans who work for the NSO but they aren’t here right now. This is their task force headquarters. They have homes elsewhere. It is not safe for us to live with them so we stay here in the basement where it’s secure. It’s a joint venture between the New Species Organization and the government.”
