Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

he said softly. “Go get cleaned up. I’ll keep the villains at bay for that long.”
    He shut the door behind me.
    I stood on shaky feet and turned the water to hot. I stripped off the clothing and scrubbed and scrubbed, but I couldn’t get rid of the smells. Finally I came out and searched through Adam’s cabinets. I found three bottles of cologne, but none of them smelled like him.
    Finally I splashed his aftershave on instead. It burned on the healing cuts and scrapes I’d picked up off the cement floor of the garage, but it covered up Tim’s scent at last.
    I couldn’t put on the clothes I’d just taken off because they still smelled like…everything. Even though the shirt smelled only of Adam and the underwear was a clean pair of mine and I was pretty sure that someone had scrubbed me up before they put me in them since I remember being covered with blood…
    As soon as the thought occurred, I remembered standing in Adam’s shower and Honey’s voice in my ear. You’ll be fine. Let me just get this stuff off you —
    I began to hyperventilate so I grabbed a towel and breathed through it until the panicky feeling went away.
    So, no clothes, and I couldn’t stay in here much longer before someone came in to check.
    No one would ask the coyote questions she couldn’t answer.
    For a frightening moment I wasn’t sure I could shift, when shifting had always been second nature.
    You need to stay human, Mercy. We’re in the hospital and you need to stay with us just a little longer . Samuel’s voice.
    I didn’t care about police and this wasn’t the hospital. Fur slid over my skin at last and my fingernails turned to claws. It took longer than it ever had, but in the end I stood on four paws. I whined to myself because I still didn’t want to go out.
    The door opened before I could figure out any alternative, which was just as well as there were no good hiding places in the bathroom—not even for a coyote.
    Ben sniffed. “Aftershave? Good enough. Someone had time to run some sheets through the wash, and I put them on the bed. So the sheets are clean.”
    I realized I was looking up into his face and dropped my gaze and tucked my tail.
    â€œLike that, eh?” he said. “Mercy…” He sighed. “Never mind. Come on, then. Get back to bed.”
    I didn’t need to sleep, but I curled up in the clean sheets and waited for Ben to leave so I could go…somewhere. I couldn’t go home because Samuel was there and he knew.
    Everyone knew and Tim was right: I was going to be alone.
    I should go swimming …but that wasn’t right. My foster father had done that. No, I would never kill myself, never do to someone else what he had done to me.
    After a while the door opened and Adam came in. He must not have had time to wash properly, because he still smelled faintly of Tim’s blood and the stuff Tim had made me drink. I’d thrown up on him, I remembered with regrettable clarity.
    â€œZee’s being released as soon as they can get the paperwork through,” Adam said. He must have been talking to Ben because I was pretending very hard to be asleep. He didn’t say anything more for a minute, as if he were waiting for some response. Then he sighed. “I’m going to shower. When I come out, you can take a break.”
    Ben waited for the shower to start before he began talking. “I don’t know how much you remember. That fae, Nemane, was going to take her fairy things and leave before the police got there, but Adam thought that her part of the story was necessary to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the gremlin was innocent. And that you had reason to kill Tim. So he showed her the video the security cameras caught and she changed her mind and gave us a couple of things to prove your innocence. She was very impressed that you fought your way free of the goblet’s influence.”
    I pulled my tail tighter over my face. I hadn’t fought, not until the very last. I’d let Tim…I’d wanted him. For a moment I felt the pull of his beauty, just as I had then.
    â€œShh,” Ben said with a nervous look at the bathroom. “You have to be quiet. He’s on edge right now and we don’t want to send him over.”
    I didn’t want to hear any more. Zee was free. Tomorrow I’d be very happy for it. He could take the shop back in lieu of