Framing Felipe Read online

  Framing Felipe

  -Number Two-

  by Holley Trent

  Copyright Holley Trent

  Published 17 May 2013

  All Rights Reserved.

  Framing Felipe is a work of complete fiction. All characters appearing in this work are

  fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover images available at 123rf.com (models) and stock.xchng (background and

  magnifying glass).

  WARNING: this story contains adult situations including sex and strong language. It is not

  intended for consumption by minors (age of majority as specified by your territory of

  residence).

  CHAPTER ONE

  The slam made Sarah Miller’s sleep-‐drunk body leap for cover. Or try to, anyway. The

  Suburban’s seatbelt kept her ass firmly affixed to the leather seat. Her jerk had done

  nothing productive beyond driving her too-‐tight ponytail against the headrest, and giving

  the seatbelt strap an outlet to bruise her naked collarbone.

  “Shit.” Unclenching her fists, she blinked until her eyes cleared—until her surroundings

  presented in sharp focus. Now grounded in the present and her safety assured, Sarah’s

  heart rate slowed.

  The last time she’d had such a disorienting awakening, she’d opened her eyes to find a

  gun barrel leveled at her face. But, she wasn’t in that place anymore. She was in as safe a

  place as she could be. Her boss, Dana, had stopped for gas and now stood just outside

  Sarah’s door next to the pump. It was her loud exit that jostled the exhausted investigator

  from a much-‐needed nap.

  With a sigh, Sarah massaged her sore neck and settled as low on the bench as she

  could, deciding to try sleep once more. She rested her head against the window base and let

  her eyelids droop.

  Sleep deprivation wasn’t unusual in Sarah’s world. As a young Marine deployed

  overseas, she’d go days without sleeping…not that anyone could sleep through explosions

  shaking the ground and bullets constantly whirring past their ears. Rest became a sort of

  catch as catch can luxury. But then, her schedule hadn’t been much more conducive to rest

  in the next job she’d held, either. She’d travelled from town to town for weeks on end,

  delivering the same motivational speech—the same rehearsed spiel—to schoolchildren,

  women’s clubs, and morning news show hosts.

  She told them all about her leadership.

  Her bravery.

  Her patriotism.

  Lies, mostly. For the most part, she’d done what she had to do. Bravery had nothing to

  do with it. In a way, her role—pulling that trigger, and setting up traps—was her calling. In

  her estimation, she didn’t have any choice but to be a soldier.

  FRAMING FELIPE – 1 – Holley Trent

  She’d gone into the Marines because she had something to prove. That a slight, weak

  woman—the daughter of a delivery truck driver and hairdresser—could be something no

  one expected. A superhero, she’d imagined. That’d been her schoolgirl fantasy. She’d

  wanted to save the world—at least a little corner of it—and maybe go to college under the

  G.I. Bill. She hadn’t managed either. Coming home on a stretcher instead of on her own two

  feet had put a damper in her hustle. Her priorities had changed.

  Straddling the sharp blade between consciousness and delicious sleep, she was once

  more ripped free of Sandman’s embrace when a rough gargling sound pulled her stare

  toward her left. She growled out a small grumble of annoyance and ground her teeth.

  This wasn’t the first time Shrew and Company’s receptionist and some-‐time bartender,

  Tamara, had jostled Sarah from sleep. They always seemed to get picked to bunk together

  on these away missions.

  Tam snoozed with her chin tipped forward to her chest and her jaw dangling open,

  rasping with each exhale.

  Sarah grinned. That was as sweet as Tam came. Awake, she barked orders into phones

  like a tiny blonde dictator or could otherwise be found slaking her exceedingly high levels

  of frustration into the punching bag hanging in the office’s back corridor.

  And it wasn’t just Sarah and Tam sleeping through the trip to the mountains. Sarah

  leaned to the right, and caught sight of Astrid in the front passenger seat via the side view

  mirror. Astrid’s posture was erect and her head held high, but her slackened jaw gave away

  what her eyes, shielded by her favorite mirrored sunglasses, could not.

  “Two down…one to go.” Sarah turned her torso as far left as she could manage and

  peered back into the SUV’s cramped third row.

  The crown of Maria’s head rested atop the bench back so her elegant features faced the

  ceiling. Her chest rose and fell in a slow cadence, and her lips moved soundlessly in her

  sleep. That was Maria in a nutshell: always having an answer for everything, even in her

  sleep.

  Sarah chuffed and rested her head against the window once more. It’d been a rough

  few weeks for them all, but at least the other four had been in each other’s company. Sarah

  had been undercover for the past month and a half with no one’s counsel but her own. She

  hadn’t had much choice. She had to go deep.

  FRAMING FELIPE – 2 – Holley Trent

  Although she’d been pegged as being “Entirely Antisocial” by that one doctor who’d

  signed off on her SHREW Study participation, the truth was, she liked her girls.

  Needed them. They pushed her toward even keel—away from mania.

  In the past two years, they’d become her unofficial support group and psychosis litmus

  test. They kept each other sane. Down-‐to-‐Earth. Civil.

  More or less.

  Sarah had been told enough in recent memory she needed to chill out—to bring her

  energy level down a bit—so she was making a concerted effort. Unwinding was tough,

  though, given her job and her harried schedule. Sometimes, being on the go seemed easier

  than staying still. Easier than resting.

  She blew out a cleansing breath and closed her eyes.

  A knock on the window very near her ear made her bolt upright once more. She

  mouthed to Dana at the gas pump, “What the fuck?” and although Dana was scowling into

  the Suburban, there was no way she could see Sarah though the window’s dark tint.

  Dana crooked her index
finger at the window, beckoning Sarah.

  Sarah, grumbling wordlessly, stabbed her seatbelt release. Before her feet could alight

  on the ground, Dana said in her usual well-‐modulated alto, “We’ve got a problem.”

  “So what else is new?” Sarah quipped, her voice sounding thick and rough. She cleared

  her throat.

  Problems weren’t unusual in their world. In fact, they were the norm. Expected. There

  were always problems. People disappeared, the Shrews went out to find them. People

  needed protection; the Shrews were hired to guard them. People needed a plan—the

  Shrews gave them two plans.

  But, something about the tone of Dana’s voice—which rarely changed from its usual

  calm, flat, delivery—set Sarah on edge. No one else would have recognized it, but Sarah had

  worked with her boss enough over the past two years that she could hear that tiny shift in

  modulation. Besides, this was her friend. What kind of friend would she be if she couldn’t

  read her moods?

  That was Dana’s panic voice, and the one she used when she felt personally threatened,

  which was rare indeed. There wasn’t much that could put fear in Dana’s gut. Fear, for her,

  was something she transmogrified and filtered into more productive things—into action.

  FRAMING FELIPE – 3 – Holley Trent

  But Sarah knew that unmistakable quaver. It was the voice Dana used when her were-‐

  mountain lion lover, Patrick, headed into The Smokies each month to shape-‐shift. It was the

  voice she used when one of the girls visited Doc and came back with a questionable

  physical report. It was the voice she used on the rare occasion when she didn’t have a plan.

  Sarah pulled in a long inhale and softly shut the Suburban’s door. She eased away from

  the vehicle with Dana following in her wake.

  In the convenience store, the duo made a beeline for the ladies room without

  discussion. As there was only one stall, Dana locked the outer door and leaned against it.

  “What happened?” Sarah asked, folding her arms over her chest. “Is it Patrick?”

  Dana’s intense stare would probably have rendered any other woman into jelly—made

  them look away—but Sarah knew Dana wasn’t trying to be intimidating. At least at that

  particular moment. All the Shrews had their quirks and oddities. They coped with their

  physical mutations in different ways. The mental ones, too. One of Dana’s side effects from

  the Shrew experiment was enhanced vision, so sometimes when she stared, it was simply

  because she was seeing more than the naked eye should have been capable of. She fixated

  on things just like her were-‐cat Patrick did.

  Sarah waited until she was done.

  “No, it’s not Patrick,” Dana said finally, pushing off the door and striding toward the

  sink. She turned the cold water on full blast and splashed it onto her face.

  “I don’t believe you.” Sarah pressed her back against the wall near the sink, waiting for

  her friend and mentor’s rebuttal.

  Dana turned off the tap and raised one dark eyebrow at her. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “I don’t have a death wish, boss lady. I think you’re broadcasting again. I read it off

  you.”

  Dana’s reaching hand, halfway between the sink and paper towel dispenser, stilled.

  “What else?”

  “Nothing. I guess you’ve been practicing.”

  Dana blew out a ragged breath, and her hand continued its journey to the machine. She

  cranked the handle up and down several times, then tore off a strip of scratchy paper towel.

  Before pressing it against her misty face, she cleared her throat. “Patrick’s been helping

  me.”

  FRAMING FELIPE – 4 – Holley Trent

  “Ah.”

  Made sense that Patrick would be her tutor, since it was because of him Dana had

  learned she was the sort of psychic who projected thoughts to people around her. Even for

  a woman who’d always been so masterful at keeping her emotions bottled up, there was a

  huge learning curve to erecting the new walls she needed to keep her thoughts personal.

  Dana patted her face dry and tossed the paper toward the overflowing trashcan. “It’s

  not Patrick. Not exactly, although I worry he may be affected.”

  “We’re heading there now, so…”

  Dana shook her head and sauntered toward the door. She wrapped her fingers around

  the handle and paused for a moment with her other hand poised over the lock. “Look, I

  didn’t want to say anything around the other ladies because they can’t compartmentalize

  the same way you do. They shoot without asking questions, and I need someone discreet.”

  “Okay…”

  Dana unlocked the door and pulled it open.

  They stepped out of the restroom and walked past the waiting queue of women that

  had clustered in the hallway in only a few minutes.

  Sarah followed Dana to the coffee counter and accepted a paperboard cup when her

  boss handed it to her. Sarah filled hers with cappuccino from the dispenser machine and

  waited while Dana pressed a lid onto her cup.

  When Dana spoke again, while guiding Sarah to the potato chip aisle by the elbow, her

  voice was a whisper. “I wanted us to work as a team on this were-‐bear problem since the

  cats can’t take care of themselves, but there’s other stuff going on in the mountains that

  may be a new problem for us. I’ve never been contacted this way before. I don’t know how

  the man got my personal cell phone number, but he seemed to understand far too well

  what we do.”

  She picked up a large bag of mixed nuts and some pretzels.

  “He sounded very frightened, and had a hard time articulating what was going on.

  English wasn’t his first language, so I don’t quite understand all he said. The jist was that

  his twin is missing and he’s worried his brother is courting trouble.”

  “Why?” Sarah picked up a packet of caramels, and followed Dana to the cash register.

  FRAMING FELIPE – 5 – Holley Trent

  “The missing man—Felipe—he and his brother have been circus performers since they

  were six. They’re orphans. Parents died in Spain when they were toddlers, supposedly.

  They got bounced around for a while from one family member to another and ended up

  with some elderly aunt. A man offered to take them off her hands and teach them a trade,

  so the aunt let them go.” Dana pointed at the chocolate aisle as they eased up in line. “Get

  something for the sleeping beauties. They’ll probably need it when we wake them in an r />
  hour.”

  Sarah nodded and retreated to the candy, scooping up several bags of peanut M&Ms.

  When she returned, it was Dana’s turn at the register.

  Sarah plopped her items down on the counter.

  Dana leaned in close to whisper, “Felipe and his brother are this circus troupe’s

  headline act. Acrobats. I did a bit of research. Found some press mentions and couple of

  photos. They do some really dangerous stunts, and are well-‐known in the biz for them.”

  “So why would he run?”

  Dana held up a finger, bidding Sarah to wait, and swiped her credit card through the

  machine. The clerk handed her a bag and the two women stepped through the automated

  doors into the parking lot. Dana continued, “That’s what the twin was unclear about. I

  couldn’t discern anything psychically. What I do know is the twin thinks if Felipe doesn’t

  return, the guy who adopted them—the one who runs the circus—he’s going to hurt

  people. Make them suffer for Felipe. He’s doing something dirty and the twin warned me if

  it got out, it’d be bad for people like Patrick.”

  “How’d he know about Patrick?”

  Dana lifted her small shoulders in a shrug as they paused at the Suburban’s rear gate.

  Her cheek twitched. For Dana, that was practically crying. “Sarah, I can’t be in two places at

  once.”

  “I understand. What do you want me to do?”

  “Find Felipe. Try not to spook him. Just root him out and get him under cover until we

  can make sense of this.”

  “Did the twin have any ideas where Felipe might be?”

  FRAMING FELIPE – 6 – Holley Trent

  Dana nodded. “Yes, but you should talk to him in person, see if you understand him

  better than I did. I’ll need you to head out as soon as we get to Patrick’s. You can take his