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Chapter 1
Lacey leaned back in her chair, the worn leather and the aged wood sending a creak throughout the room. Five minutes after her guest had entered the room and she still couldn’t believe the fact he was there. “What are you doing here, Sam?”
A grin spread across the face of the familiar face sitting opposite her. She’d never liked that smile, not even after all these years. It brought back memories. Memories she fought she ordered her brain to forget. “Can’t an old friend just drop in and say hi?”
“I didn’t realise we were old friends,” Lacey replied, arching a single brow as she pushed back shoulder length brown hair. Across her desk, piled high with papers, files, and an old takeout bag, she narrowed her eyes. “Spill it.”
Sam’s smile dropped. “I’ve got a job for you.”
Lacey’s blood dropped several degrees at his words. She wasn’t sixteen anymore, she was a grown woman, for heavens’ sake, but something about the quickness of his tone from warm to cold set her on edge. It always had.
How long had it been since she’d last seen him? Not since that night, nine years ago. That familiar whiff of tobacco and pine wafted in her nostrils. After all these years of struggling to forget everything and one scent easily brought it all back.
Damn him.
Sam sat still, staring at her. Not much had changed about him. He still wore his hair slightly long, slightly greasy, but now a hint of white threaded through the dirt-coloured locks. Dark brown eyes hooked her gaze, as if reminding her who was top dog in the room, despite the name painted on the door.
But he was thinner than what she remembered, but considering she’d only been a teenager last time it wasn’t all that surprising. Adults always seemed bigger in a child’s eyes. He wore baggy jeans, a red and black plaid shirt over a scruffy t-shirt that had to be white sometime over a decade ago. Six foot three when standing, he still possessed that broad-shouldered, muscular frame that stopped anyone from crossing him. He may have looked somewhere in his forties, but she needed to add on another twenty-five years at least to get his real age.
Sam crossed an ankle over his knee, revealing cracked leather boots that seemed to have been re-heeled sometime in the last few days. The man had money to burn, properties and businesses stretching along the Pacific Coast, but wouldn’t pay for new boots. Typical Sam. A tight fist bastard even now.
But at least he’s got money, Lacey reminded herself.
Something didn’t have right then, not unless she counted the fifty bucks which had to last her until she next got paid. Which wouldn’t be until she landed a new client.
And considering she had nothing in her books, she couldn’t afford not to listen to him.
Inhaling deeply, she rose her chin. “What kind of job?”
“I need you to find someone for me.”
Automatically, Lacey’s dark brows narrowed, and she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the weathered desk. The cuffs of her white shirt slid down her arms, revealing bare skin. She hates wearing jewellery, and the last watch she possessed got smashed on a job photographing an abusive husband using his wife and child as a punching bag. Her work had ensured he’d been put away for fifteen years, so the sacrifice had been worth it. “Who?”
Sam sucked in a breath and tilted his head, his eyes darkening. “Mace and Kari Gibson, although they may be going under their mother’s maiden name. Bell.”
“Siblings?”
“My niece and nephew.”
Lacey sat up straight, a line forming over her brow. “I never knew you had either.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know, Mundie.”
Mundie. Nine years later and she still hated the way they called her that. A mundane. Not like them. “Are they like you?”
Sam nodded, running a hand through his dirty coloured hair. “They’re pack, yeah.”
Great. More werewolves. Just what I need. She thought she’d left that world behind. Guess not. “I’ll need details.”
He leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking under his weight. She hoped it wouldn’t break. There wasn’t enough money to replace it. “Mace would be twenty-seven, twenty-eight. Kari’s almost seventeen. Dark hair, brown eyes.”
“You got photos?”
Sam shook his head.
Lacey wasn’t surprised. Most shifters hated their photos taken. Considering their lifespans seemed to stretch at least four decades longer than most humans, no one wanted to be the one to out the supernatural community. Sam’s pack in particular banned most forms of outside influence. That meant no phones, no TVs. Radios were fine, as were vehicles, but most electrical items were of no use in the middle of the forest. The idea was to encourage a traditional way of life.
The idea was abhorrent to Lacey. She loved her smartphone. It was the only luxury she possessed, and it was second-hand. “Why do you want to find them?”
