Realizing it would take him forever to search every street in the city, he flew back to the train graveyard, shifted, dressed, and hopped into his car. He didn’t want to spook her by just jumping out naked. He would phone her and set up a meeting. Dawn had predicted the drag racing and the accident with the boy on the bike. Because Luca was ready for it, he had managed to get the kid out of the way before disaster struck. Luckily, Joe had caught up with the reckless driver and issued a citation and hefty fine. No one was hurt, thanks to Dawn.
She might just be their only hope of finding this missing girl. Luca knew enough not to say anything to Joe or anyone else about Dawn. He knew what it was like to be different and how that affected every part of your life.
After two years of being with Lisa, he’d never told her about his shape-shifting ability. Maybe on some level, he had known he couldn’t trust her with that part of himself. That still didn’t make her rejection hurt any less than it already did. He would have to reach out to her soon and talk about what was really behind it. Her breakup phone call had been a sucker punch to his gut, but he didn’t have time to wallow in his romantic feelings nor know how he was going to diffuse his sergeant’s hate-on for him. He had to find that little girl, and he needed Dawn’s help.
* * *
Dawn glanced around her as she stepped off the subway and walked up the stairs. She wouldn’t have been quite so paranoid if it wasn’t for the weird dream she had had last night. Like she was being watched from above. Had the gang bought a drone? If so, that might be a good thing, at least for her. She was sick of giving them a heads-up when the cops were around.
She replayed the dream in her mind as she hustled down the street toward her office building. She looked up at the sky. Bright and blue. So why did she feel like a heavy black cloud was hovering over her? When she got to her building, she took one more peek over her shoulder as she scooted into the lobby and slipped into the elevator just as the doors were closing. Deep breath. She punched the tenth-floor button and, like everyone else on the elevator, she watched the numbers of each floor light up and ping as the elevator made its stops.
She got off the elevator and then walked briskly to Suite 1005, ScholarTech, a company that created educational software for academia. The suite took up one entire side of the building, with large windows and an open concept space with sleek Swedish workstations. One or two coworkers were already at their desks, heads down, either checking email or getting a leg up on the day. Good. She didn’t feel like making chitchat this morning. She was still feeling weird about her dream.
Arriving at her cubicle, Dawn dropped her backpack on the floor and kicked it under her desk.
“I guess that’s not a Birkin bag by the way you just treated it.” Nancy, the office assistant manager and her immediate boss, stood with one hand on the front wall that defined Dawn’s workstation. Dawn worked the phones at the help desk, and the wall was supposed to give her a sense of privacy.
She didn’t like engaging in the everyday office chitchat and gossip that floated around her, but she did enjoy her job. She liked helping people; most of her calls were from frantic students who were having issues with the software and were desperate to get their term papers or theses in. Dawn had a photographic memory, so she was always able to walk them through whatever glitch they had. She felt good about that. It was just one more positive change in her crazy, mixed-up life. Well, formerly mixed-up life.
Dawn gave Nancy a smile. “Yeah, I don’t go for expensive designer things. I’d just wreck whatever it is eventually.” That and she couldn’t afford them. She bought most of her clothes at thrift stores and had her own unique style. Today, she’d paired a long red retro sweater from the ’80s with black leggings and ballet flats. She got a lot of compliments on her outfits, which boggled her mind. Most of the women who worked in her office spent a ton of money on clothes, and Dawn couldn’t wrap her head around why. Saving money was her top priority. She was determined to make enough to buy a little place for her and her grandmother. The Arizona desert was cheaper and warm. That was her dream. No more Boston winters. No more crazy gang members chasing her down and using her psychic abilities for their nefarious purposes. No way would she give up her dream for a Birkin bag or a Chanel outfit.
The older woman nodded. She was dressed in a smart navy-blue jacket and matching pencil skirt, a bright coral shirt adding a splash of color. It almost matched the color of her bright asymmetrical bob. Inwardly, Dawn rolled her eyes. What was it with middle-aged women and that hair cut? It screamed: I’m a professional woman but I’m also a fashionista. Ready for anything.
“Can you get that list of office supply orders to me by tomorrow morning?”
“Sure thing,” Dawn replied, booting up her computer. It was her job to check the supply closet and order what they needed for the week. Ironically, the march of technology hadn’t seemed to stop the demand for Sharpies and paper clips.
Nancy gave her a little wave and marched off to her office. It was still quiet, and many of her coworkers hadn’t arrived yet. This was the best part of her day. Dawn slipped into the break room and filled her travel mug with freshly brewed coffee, adding a healthy dose of cream and two sugars. She liked her coffee strong, sweet, and creamy. She poked around the various open boxes on the counter to see what baked goodies were on the menu. Score! A strawberry cheese Danish. Dawn plucked it out of the box and laid it on a small plate, then scrambled back to her desk like a jewel thief who’d made off with a big heist. Taking a bite of the pastry, she gave a little moan of delight and began scrolling through her email.
A half hour later she’d answered a few emails and helped one frantic PhD student who’d been up all night finishing her dissertation and was panicking when she lost one of her graphs. She was on her second cup of coffee when the phone rang.
“ScholarTech help desk.”
“Ah, yeah. Is this Dawn?” a baritone male asked.
She didn’t recognize the voice, but she hadn’t been here long enough to have met everyone yet. “Yes. May I help you?”
“This is Luca Fierro. The cop you talked to the other day.”
Wow! She’d never thought she’d hear from him. From the way he’d looked at her after she’d warned him, she could have sworn he thought she was a nutcase. And she couldn’t blame him. What normal person walks up to a complete stranger and warns him about a terrible thing that might happen? “I remember. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. Can I meet you somewhere?”
“Um, I’m at work, but you knew that. Is it something I can do from here?”
“No. I can’t talk about it over the phone, in case we’re being recorded.”
And she thought she was paranoid. “Well, I can’t just leave. I only got here an hour ago.”
“I wouldn’t bother you if this weren’t important.”
“Is it more important than me losing my job?”
After a brief pause, he said, “It might be. Is your job a matter of life and death?”
That was not only cryptic but rude. “My job is what stands between me and starving to death. Is that enough?”
He made a sound of frustration.
