The Shifter's Conspiracy (Paranormal BBW Werewolf Romance Novella) Read Free

not like that, I’ve never been that type of girl. And I wasn’t about to ruin my integrity just because he was pressuring me.
    He’d been an asshole ever since. Did he think it was charming, or clever or something? I didn’t know for sure. Needless to say, we never went out for drinks anymore.

I didn’t want to let his insults get to me, but I found a few small tears streaking down my face over at the scanner. Brushing them away, I tried to concentrate on my work. Concentrate? It was just scanning stupid files. One didn’t need concentration for that. The fact was that even though I didn’t care about Eric, his insults still stung me deeply. I was self-conscious about my weight, and for him to point it out like that was about the meanest, most hurtful thing he could do. Did he not get that? Or was he deliberately trying to break my confidence?
    Then a light bulb went off in my head. I left the files at the scanner and headed back to my desk. Turning the monitors back on, I logged in and started scrolling back through the files I’d started on each girl. I’d included pictures of each of them in the files. One picture was a headshot, mainly for identification purposes, but each file also had a few photos pulled from Facebook, photos I thought gave a sort of general impression of each girl’s demeanor, what she actually looked like when she was out in public.
    I went through file after file, more and more confident with each one I opened. By the time I reached the last one, I had one-hundred percent confirmation. I was being cautious, so I decided to grab someone else just to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. But who?
    I decided to grab my boss’s secretary, one of the only other women in the office and someone who certainly wasn’t competing with me for a spot on the abductions case. I could trust her to give me an honest response. I walked quickly to her desk which sat just outside Lieutenant Jackson’s office down the hall.
    “Shelly,” I said sweetly, trying to be persuasive. “Could you come take a quick look at something for me?”
    “What is it?”
    “Oh, nothing really, I just need your opinion on something.”
    “Well, make it quick. I’ve got a lot on my plate this morning.”
    I led Shelly back over to my desk and brought up the images of the different girls. I didn’t know how familiar she was with the case. Like most people, she probably knew the names, but not the faces. That was good; it meant she would be more objective and honest with her answer.
    “I don’t know what I’m lookin’ at,” she said impatiently.
    “Just look at the pictures and tell me what you see.”
    “I just see a bunch of young ladies. Nothin’ really jumps out at me.”
    “Do they have anything in common?”
    “Not that I can tell. Different hair colors, different complexion. I don’t see anything really.”
    “What about their body type?”
    “Yeah, now that you mention it, they do all seem to have the same proportions.”
    “Great. Thanks, Shelly.”
    “You done? Can I go now?”
    “Yes. Thanks again, you’ve been very helpful,” I said warmly.
    I watched calmly as Shelly walked back to her desk, but inside my heart was racing. I was high on adrenaline. This could be a dead end, but for the moment it was something. I’d found at least one link that the girls all shared: a body type. What could it mean? Well, my initial thought was that we had a serial killer, or serial kidnapper. A specific body type would explain why he only went after certain girls and left others alone.
    But who should I bring this lead to? Who could I trust? I knew it was potentially useful information, but I didn’t want to hand it over without being offered a chance to get more deeply involved in the case. For the time being, I decided I’d sit on the info and do more research to bolster my story. When the time was right, I’d bring it to someone else in the department.

Later that night I bumped into Frank