Creatus

nerves. She was strong, though, she had no doubt she could abstain as long as she wanted.

Stopping at her old English classroom, Kris peered through the rectangular window on the drab-brown door. Beth sat behind a desk in the front of the schoolroom, her head leaning over a stack of three-ring binders in every color of the rainbow. Portraits of classic authors—Shakespeare, Dickens, and Twain—lined the walls, along with posters touting motivational cliches with images of kittens and puppies. Like Kris, Beth had always been a contradiction. Probably the reason they got along so well. Kris smiled at the picture of a kitten hanging off a tree branch with the words “Never Give Up” written across the top in large, bold typeface. She was almost certain the faded and curled-at-the-edges poster had been there since her mother attended high school.

“Hello, Ms. Witters…” Kris drew out her words in the sweetest schoolgirl voice she could mimic as she opened the door.

Beth jumped up from her stack of folders, her reddish-blond curls bouncing on her shoulders. “Kris!” Her friend ran around the desk as if she hadn’t seen her in a year, even though it’d only been a little over a month. Beth grabbed and squeezed her, holding on a good twenty seconds before leaning back to appraise her. “Oh, my God! You look so good. Where did you disappear to, a spa retreat?”

Kris chuckled. “No. What do you mean?”

“You can’t tell me you don’t see it. You’re practically glowing,” she squealed. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

“No, I’m not pregnant. Sheesh!” Kris smacked her friend on the shoulder. “Are you?”

Ignoring her, Beth lifted Kris’ hand with her one hand and fanned herself with the other. Oops… she’d forgotten to remove Derrick’s ring so she wouldn’t have to explain. Beth lowered her head, but lifted her eyes with a penetrating gaze. She must have been practicing on the students, because even though Beth was an inch shorter than Kris’ five-foot-four stature, all of a sudden she felt as if she was fourteen again.

“Really?” Beth challenged. “This is some major bling. What gives? I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.”

Kris licked her dry lips, not wanting to lie to her friend, but knowing she couldn’t betray her new family’s trust. “I’ve known him for years, but we met up recently, and we just… clicked. I’d always known he was the One. But since he wasn’t from here, I didn’t think we could ever make it work.” There, that was all true, she thought.

“Where’s he from?” Beth asked, her brow still lowered. “And how come I’ve never heard about him?” She shook her head, obviously unable to make sense out of the fact that her best friend had kept something from her for years.

“England,” Kris announced happily. Another truth. “It’d been almost six years since I’d seen him, and then one day, he just showed up.” Inside, she cheered at her cleverness. She was good at this. It was all truth. Nothing she could get in trouble for revealing.

Beth pressed her lips together in a straight line, clearly not buying her story, but she nodded anyway. “Got a picture?” she asked offhandedly, seemingly uninterested as she reached down and picked up Kris’ right hand. “This looks familiar, though. Didn’t you sell this ring when you were sixteen?”

“What are you, a detective?” Kris snorted, hoping Beth would drop the interrogation bit.

Beth planted her hands on her hips. “No… I’m your best friend.” She grabbed her purse off the desk and threw it over her shoulder, marching off without a glance backward. Kris followed, smiling, happy to know that Beth did care. In fact, she was beginning to realize more people cared about her than she had known. Heck, even a detective she’d met only once, fourteen years ago, cared. He could have filed the attempted-suicide report, but he actually wanted to see her. People—creatus included—cared if she lived or died. The thought made her want to smile as much as it made her want to cry. She’d never been alone.

Chapter Seventeen

As soon as the elevator doors closed Kristina inside, Derrick shoved through the stairwell door and bounded over the railing to the ground level. He would not get close enough to hear her, he decided; he’d just stay nearby in the event he needed to protect her. He hadn’t told her about the rogue’s words, as he hadn’t wanted to upset her, but now he wondered if he should. The rogue was obviously targeting Kristina, rather, targeting him by threatening the most important person in his life now and forever. A creatus knew the worst thing you could do to a creatus is kill the one whom they’d fallen for.

Derrick slammed through the steel doors into the parking garage, racing toward his BMW HP4. He had arranged special parking for the motorcycle with his condo’s proprietor, so that it’d be right up front. Kristina hadn’t asked, and he hadn’t bothered to tell her it was his.

Normally he loved the extravagant multi-color finish in metallic blue with silver and white accents, but today he wished he’d had it specially ordered in a solid black. He pulled his full-face helmet over his head quickly and backed the bike into a dark corner, waiting for Kristina to emerge from the elevator.

He watched gratefully as Kristina surveyed her surroundings before stepping away from the doors. Then she clicked the key fob, lighting the parking area as she rushed to the Navigator’s door, locking herself inside the cab. She acted tough, but he presumed the fact that she’d been attacked twice in her life—the first time watching her mother die—had to mess with her head.

Once she left the garage, he followed. He knew her destination, so he had no concern about losing her in traffic. He made a detour via an exit ramp then returned to the highway a few blocks later, ending up behind her again. Far enough that he could just see his truck’s medical parking pass on the rear window.

Derrick watched a black sedan trail Kristina by three car lengths, changing lanes within a minute or so when she did. Though the car looked simple enough, Derrick knew better. It was the new police interceptor. The dead giveaway; it didn’t have the vehicle model stamped on the rear of the vehicle. He doubted the local Boston police department footed the bill for the new Taurus SHO, so this had to be a FED of some sort. His brother had been right.

He clicked the Bluetooth on his helmet and spoke clearly, “Mike.” The line connected and his brother picked up, sounding bored with his simple, Yeah, as an answer. “I need you to run a tag,” Derrick told him.

“Fire away,” Michael chirped in response.

He figured that’d cheer his brother up. Derrick read off the numbers as he watched Kristina jerk the Navigator at the last second to take a different exit than she should have. The anonymous driver of the sedan stepped on the gas immediately, surging forward with the vehicle’s two turbochargers. Derrick followed the sedan; he knew where Kristina was heading.

“Nothing,” Michael said. “A spook, I’d guess. Please tell me this guy isn’t following Kris.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“Just what we need, Derrick!” His brother spewed a sentence of obscenities masquerading as adjectives and ended his tirade with a vulgar noun. “My girl told me that O’Brian was ticked because some guy with spiky blond hair had come into his office, took the disc out of his drive, and then walked out without a trace. I assumed it was another spook.”

“The video from the Tobin Bridge?” Derrick inquired.

“One in the same. Moron,” his brother grumbled under his breath, knowing Derrick could still hear him. “What were you thinking?”

Derrick resisted cursing himself. Though it was impossible to change Michael’s ways, he still tried to influence his younger sibling. “I wasn’t thinking about anything but Kristina.”

“That’s obvious. You think what I do is a joke, don’t you? Do you know how many times I’ve thwarted an investigation?” As his brother rambled on about ‘security’ and ‘I told you so’ nonsense, Derrick took the next exit, drove back in the opposite direction, and scanned the roads for the Interceptor. Nothing. The driver must have backtracked. He’d obviously discovered Kristina was staying with him somehow, so he’d probably head there and wait for her return.

Derrick made a pass by the high school. He saw his Navigator, but no black sedan. He circled the neighborhood a couple of times, waiting for the young women to exit. After a few minutes, they came outside arm