Page 71 of Israel

Chapter 27

“Israel? Israel!” It was Harrison’s voice. He felt the big lion shifter dragging him to his feet and up some stairs, and then there were soft couch cushions underneath him.

Harrison pulled up his eyelid and shined a light into his eye.

“Fuck,” Israel muttered, trying to bat his hand away.

Harrison ignored him and tried the other eye.

“Pupils responsive,” he muttered. “But they’re big as shit. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” he mumbled. He wasn’t. He felt high—not crazy high, but not quite all there either. He struggled to open his eyes. “Where’s Ashley?”

The other man looked haggard. “She wasn’t there when I found you.” He held up a cell phone in a blue sparkly case. “This was all we got.”

“I saw him,” Israel said. “He looked like Roger, and then Watson. And then me.”

“Shit,” Harrison said. “A full shapeshifter?”

“I don’t know how he’s doing it,” Israel said. “All I know is, I saw that fucker carry her off.” He felt like the bottom had dropped out of his world. “He has her.”

“I’ll get a roll call,” Harrison said. “We’ll find out who’s missing on the crew. Anybody we can’t track down goes to the stop of the suspect list.”

Israel nodded. That was fine as far as it went, and it had to be done, but knowing who it was wouldn’t tell them where he’d taken Ashley. If only they had more background on the guy.

“I still can’t believe somebody this sick didn’t have anything in his background,” he muttered. “Even if he can use other people’s faces, he still has to look like himself most of the time. It would take too much power to continually wear a fake face. So he still had to pass the employment agency’s background checks. He can’t have just made up a name—there’d be no history attached to it and the system would have flagged it. Unless…”

“What?” Harrison asked.

“What if the perp hacked the other end? What if he used the name of someone who was already vetted by the agency, and assumed his identity? You would have checked his ID when he showed up, but it wouldn’t occur to you that he wasn’t the person the agency sent.”

Harrison looked at him. “Shit. You think?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“Then what happened to the real guy the agency sent?”

Israel just gave him a look. Harrison went pale. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“This guy fucking just tried to kill me. He already had Ashley, so I was just a bonus. You really think he’s not capable of anything?”

Harrison just shook his head. “Shit.”

“Does anybody else know she’s gone?” Israel said.

“Not yet,” Harrison said. “We have to tell them.”

“No,” Israel said. “If we do, we’ll have to call the police. The humans won’t understand if we don’t. Word will get out—somebody will leak it. Hell, it could end up on social media. That’s the last thing we need.”

Especially with Larik the Draken lurking around.

“You’re not suggesting we cover it up?”

“Do you want her family to find out before we get her back?”

Harrison ran his fingers through his wild mane. “Fuck. They should know.”

“At least wait until we have some idea where she is,” Israel said. “If this guy hears there’s an all-out manhunt going on, then he could spook and kill her.”