Undercover Tiger: Sarge (BBW Paranormal Tiger Shifter Romance) (Undercover Bear) Read online

  “Did you know? That things were this bad?”

  She shook her head. “Roger had mentioned something about a couple layoffs. The way that Mr. Berstein just sounded? I feel like we’re about to lose fifty people or more.” Roger, the guy Lydia worked out with, was a vice president. He knew a lot about the inner workings of the company.

  “You know what accounts he's talking about? Did Roger mention anything in particular to you?”

  Lydia was such a free spirit and so kind to everyone that a lot of times, people told her secrets. She just seemed so trustworthy.

  “No. I mean, Roger is hinting that he’s going to come out of the closet soon. But we don’t talk about work much.” She paused for a moment. “Except there was one thing…”

  “What was that?”

  “A couple weeks ago, when I was out to lunch, I heard somebody talking about an investigation.”

  “An investigation? What kind?”

  She looked around her, and I realized we were still standing in a throng of people: people who could overhear us if we weren’t careful.

  “Let’s get back to work,” she said with a wink.

  “Of course,” I said, following her back to our office. Once there, she shut the door, and I noticed that her hands were trembling slightly.

  “Lydia, what's wrong? I mean, I know this all sucks, but this isn’t like you at all.”

  She rolled her eyes, “I know it's not. I'm being ridiculous. But I didn't hear about the investigation here at work.”

  “Where did you hear about it?”

  “From my brother.”

  “The cop? You mean to tell me that we’re being investigated by Portland PD?”

  She nodded slowly. “He just told me about it last week. He said that I should start looking for a new job. That there’s some heavy shit going down here. I assured him that he had it wrong, that we didn't know anything about things going wrong here. But he was very adamant. So I told him I would start looking. I even told him I was going to tell you about it. Because I'm not leaving here without you. We’re a team.”

  I nodded. “Of course we are. Did he say what they were investigating? Anything specific?”

  She shook her head. “He couldn't really say much more. Just that some people had made a complaint about some of their invested money going missing. You don’t think any of that's true, right?”

  “I don't know,” I admitted. “I mean, I guess there has to be somewhere this lawsuit came from, right?”

  I sighed heavily and leaned on my desk. Not only was I probably losing my job, but thanks to some smarmy dealings of my coworkers, I might go to jail too. This was not how I planned on my Friday going.

  There was a rap at the door and our senior associate, Mr. Boston, strolled in. He was smiling.

  “Ladies, how are we today?”

  Lydia and I both exchanged an anxious glance. Were we about to lose our jobs? Or worse?

  “Mr. Boston! I would like to say I'm so happy to see you, but considering the circumstances…” Lydia said.

  “We’re not.” I finished for her firmly.

  “I guessed you wouldn't be after Mr. Berstein’s speech. But you ladies have nothing to worry about. Your clients are not the ones who filed the suit. And with the amount of layoffs that we’re doing today, you won't even have to get reassigned. So you just continue to do what you've been doing the entire time. Between you and me, you’re some of the lucky ones. Just keep your head down, and everything will be just fine.”

  Somehow. I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that as much as he was trying to be honest with us, he had no idea what was about to happen.

  Things were anything but fine.

  Lydia and I got hardly anything accomplished the rest of the day. We spent most of it plastered to our office window, watching the senior associates shuffle people in and out of their offices. Some left looking dejected, obviously have just lost their jobs, and others looked relieved. We assumed that they had been reassigned. It was around four o'clock when Lydia finally decided she had had enough.

  “I'm going to knock off. Maybe hit up happy hour or something. Join me?”

  I sighed heavily. I could have used a drink too. But considering we hadn't gotten anything done all day, there was still a pile of work sitting on my desk that I needed to complete before I felt good about leaving for the weekend. Lydia always said I was a workaholic. She was right.

  “Nah, I need to get some of these files sorted before I leave. Raincheck?”

  She shrugged, “Suit yourself. If I don't have a date… Maybe I'll just Netflix and drink some wine in my jammies. Call me later? Let me know if you want me to order a pizza for you.”

  I laughed at her. “Definitely.”

  She grabbed her jacket and walked out the door. I watched her make a beeline for the exit that we took, which most other people didn't use. They all came into the main entrance, swiping their security badges and taking the crowded elevators up to our floor. Lydia and I and just a few others always took the stairs. It was quieter, and they gave us an opportunity to not have to make small talk with every other person on the floor. We both liked it that way.

  I sat at my desk, inputting mathematical figures and all the files that I had, until finally I looked out the window and realized that quitting time had come and gone. It was completely dark, and I could only see the streetlamp illuminating the small parking lot where some of us kept our vehicles. I looked out into the main room and noticed that most of the lights were off there too. The janitor was cleaning up some of the cubicles, but besides his boom box playing, there was no noise. I didn't like staying this late, as it made me uncomfortable. I was a strong, independent woman but that didn't mean that sometimes I still felt unsafe leaving the workplace alone at night. But as I collected my things, I realized that the reason that there was no one else left but me was probably because of how many people had lost their jobs. What a sad thought that was.

  I closed the office door behind me and walked toward the stairs that Lydia had descended just a few hours before. I pushed open the metal door carefully, afraid that I might sound some sort of alarm system, considering it was so late. I looked at my cell phone and saw that it was just before nine o'clock. I remembered the fire marshal coming in for a training once and telling us that we had to be out of the building by ten, so hopefully nobody came for me. I walked down the cement steps, looking at my phone and considering texting Lydia and taking her up on her offer, but just as I pulled it out, I made a startling discovery.

  I had just gotten down to the final floor, and lying on the landing was my senior associate, Mr. Boston. Oh my God. My eyes widened and I felt sick to my stomach as I dropped my bag and phone and leaned down, feeling for a pulse. There was blood coming out of the back of his head and he wasn't breathing. I searched the ground for my phone and immediately dialed 911.

  “911, what is your emergency?”

  The phone shook in my hand as I breathed heavily, barely able to get out the words. “It's my boss. I think he fell down the stairs. He’s hurt really bad, and I can't find a pulse.”

  Oh my God, oh my God. What a nightmare. Dark blood filled the concrete floor and I tried not to move him.

  “I'm dispatching police and an ambulance to your location. Just stay on the phone with me.”

  I gasped for breath as I leaned back on my heels. “Should I try CPR?”

  Not that I had any idea how to do it, but it seemed like the right question to ask.

  “Are you trained?”

  “No,” I said dejectedly. If there was a chance of saving him, I couldn't even do it.

  Silence filled the space around me, and even though the operator kept talking to me and asking me more about myself, I couldn't even get the answers out. Finally, I heard the sirens. I left the staircase and ran out into the main foyer. There were police officers and EMTs standing at the door, attempting to get in. I opened the door for them and held it open as they flew past me. “He'
s in the staircase! He's not breathing!”

  They nodded to me as they took a gurney past. I hung up on the 911 operator, and I sat in one of the waiting room chairs that filled our lobby. I was sure that I would have to give some sort of statement, and I was desperate to know if he was going to wake up or not. Just a few moments later, a police officer came to speak to me.

  “Are you Natasha? The one who called it in?”

  I looked up to see a beautiful male specimen standing in front of me. He had dark hair and gorgeously tan skin. What stuck out the most to me wasn't his chiseled features or his obvious overabundance of muscles, but the fact that he had beautiful, dark purple eyes. I had never seen anything like it. I tried to wipe my tears from my face on the sleeve of my coat. “Yes, that's me.” He sat down next to me and passed me a tissue.

  “Here. I’m Sergeant Giovanni Janson. I can understand how difficult this must be for you. Did you know him well?”

  I immediately realized that he said did. That meant that he was gone. I hadn't been there in time.

  The tears continued to stream down my face. “He’s my direct boss. I just saw him earlier today. What happened?”

  He shook his head. “I'm sorry that I can't give you any more details. But to me, it looks like a fall.”

  Fall. My boss had fallen to his death on the stairs that I took twice a day every day for the past three years. Suddenly I felt like I was going to be sick again.

  3

  Giovanni

  Her body shuddered in front of me. She looked small and frail, sitting in the plastic chair. But I could tell that wasn't her way. The operator had said that she asked about CPR, but I suspected she already knew it was too late. The coroner would be arriving shortly, and I anticipated that he would say that the man fell and his death was practically instantaneous. It looked like a neck snap to me.

  “Do you think you can tell me a little bit more about him, or anything that’s going on in this office lately?” I needed her to give me something. Sure, this looked like an innocent accident to some, but the team and I knew what was really going on in this building. And perhaps this man knew too much. If he was going to talk, it would be all too easy to make this look like an accident.

  “Not really. I mean, we don’t talk outside of work. I think he was married. God, who’s going to tell his wife?”

  I wanted to reach out and hold her hand, to make sure she understood that it was okay. She was so beautiful. She had long, dark blonde hair that flowed just over her shoulders and bright blue eyes. I could feel myself falling into them with every beat of my heart. There was something about this girl. My tiger prowled just below the surface, racing back and forth in my brain, letting his will be known. He wanted to claim her, and he wanted her to be his. But I had to maintain control. I had a job to do.

  “Someone from our department will do that. It’s part of the job, unfortunately.”

  She put her face in her hands. “Of course it is. I'm sorry. This all seems so surreal.”

  “I'm sure it does. But back to today—was anything strange going on at work?”

  She sat up and ran her fingers through her hair. “Kind of. I guess some of our clients are mounting a lawsuit against the firm, so they laid a bunch of people off today. I watched all day, but no one really seemed angry enough to… push him? Oh my God, do you think someone pushed him?”

  I put my hands out in front of me. “That's not what I'm saying. We just need to cover all the bases.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “He didn't take the stairs.”

  I squinted at her. “I'm sorry?”

  She shook her head adamantly. “He never took the stairs! He had a heart attack last year, and he said his doctor encouraged him to take the stairs, but he never did. There's no reason for him to have been on the stairs.”

  I typed some notes into my phone. “Anything else unusual?”

  She shook her head. “No, that's it. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful.” She chewed on her lip in the most adorable way, but then started crying again. She was so clearly shaken up that I just wanted to reach out and hold her. Protect her. It was my tiger’s instinct, and luckily, the human in me knew that was going way too far. I didn't even know this girl, so if I offered her any sort of comfort, it would just freak her out. I tried to keep my tiger under wraps.

  “Is that all? I just go home now?”

  I nodded. “We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”

  She stood up and searched her pockets, “My purse. I left my purse back with him.”

  I gave her a small smile. “It's no problem. I'll get it.”

  She sat back down and put her face in her hands again. I walked away from her, back toward the scene of the crime, to retrieve the purse. Shane was already standing there with Logan, and they didn't look happy. “What's wrong?”

  Logan raised an eyebrow at me. “His neck is snapped all right.”

  “Yeah, I kind of figured that. A fall from the stairs will do that to you. Anybody taking a tumble like that? There's no way they’re surviving it.”

  Logan pointed down at the body. “Coroner says his neck was snapped before he fell. Somebody tossed him, probably from the third floor or higher.”

  “Tossed a guy of his size? I mean, it would take somebody our size to do that, and even then, it would still be difficult.”

  Logan nodded. “It would take someone with shifter strength. Maybe we’re right about the money laundering scheme. Maybe we’ve been looking at it all wrong. What if this isn't just some typical guy skimming money off the top? What if someone was taking funds from one place to funnel into another?”

  “What the hell does that have to do with us? Shifters, I mean.”

  Shane and Logan exchanged a nervous glance. “Guys, I'm on your team. No secrets,” I said to them

  Shane sighed. “There's a place around here. A hospital or medical center or whatever, specifically for shifters. They can't get any federal money; even with the legislation passed, they still get passed over all the time. A couple of the main contributors? They invest here. One of them has even been mentioned in the investigation. What if all the money that they were investing got taken? What if these humans thought that they could mess with the shifters and lost? Or what if one of these idiots is a shifter and was funneling money into the hospital without their knowledge? I mean, he would be so stupid. They were already giving money.”

  I shook my head. “Way too much red tape. There’s no way they’re taking money from here and funneling it into some medical center. They would get caught far too easily. Nobody's that stupid.”

  Logan laughed. “No, nobody thinks they’re stupid enough to get caught. Either way, gentlemen, there's a shifter involved in this murder. The closest thing we have to a witness is the girl sitting out there. You get any good information?”

  I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my notes. “The only thing that’s off is that she said he never takes the stairs. But now that we know that this was a murder, that doesn't really count. She said a lot of people got laid off today, so maybe this is just a disgruntled employee? Maybe it's not connected to our case.”

  “If it's a disgruntled employee who got laid off because of our case, then it’s still connected to us. But I don't think that's the case here. I think this is all intertwined.” Logan thumbed over his shoulder. “And I think that girl out there knows more than she’s saying. Gio, you at all interested in detail tonight?”

  My mouth dropped open. “You want me to follow her? Why?”

  Logan rolled his eyes and lowered his voice to a whisper. “You mean besides the fact that you’re releasing a very aromatic musk that says that you want to get into her pants?”

  Shane and Logan laughed heartily. Damn tiger, I couldn’t go anywhere without him getting me in trouble. “So what if I do? She’s now part of an open investigation, and now you think she has some sort of secret side?”

  Shane put his hand on my shoulder. “But you admitted you
do. Take the lady’s purse back to her and offer to follow her home. We’ve got to find out what's going on here. And you made the first contact, so you know that means she'll trust you more than any of us. Make this case happen for us.”

  I rolled my eyes but picked up the purse and walked back out. “You’ll be thanking me for this.”

  Shane shouted after me. “Drinks are on me when it's all over.”

  4

  Giovanni

  By the time I got back to Natasha, she seemed to have composed herself somewhat. Her tears were now under control and she was pacing back and forth, waiting for her belongings. When she saw me with her purse, she approached me. “Thank you so much. I just don't think I could go back in there… I just couldn't see him like that again.”

  “Well, it's an active crime scene now, so you wouldn't be able to.”

  Her mouth dropped open a little. “A crime scene? Are you telling me he didn't fall? Like for sure?”

  I turned her around and put my hand on the small of her back. My tiger growled with anticipation. “Natasha, let's just get you home for the night. On behalf of the Portland PD, I'm going to follow you just to make sure you get home safe. You are now considered a witness to a murder. We need to have our eye on you.”

  I felt her tense under my touch. Maybe she was hiding more than she initially let on. The guys had been right; she could even be a murderer.

  Or maybe she was just as excited as I was to be alone.

  I followed her through the streets of Portland outside the city to a small suburb. She lived in a quaint little cottage type house, on a fairly busy street. I could tell as she pulled in that she lived alone, and the house was completely dark. She pulled her car into her driveway and I got out behind her. My feet led me directly to her door and I held it open for her. Was this my tiger taking over? I knew that this wasn't part of the job.