Keeper of the Shadows - By Alexandra Sokoloff Page 0,3
in the stomach.
She knew Tiger. Had known him. He was a street kid, a runaway, one of the eternal hopefuls who left their small towns and got on buses to Hollywood with big dreams of fame, fortune, love—and ended up turning tricks on the Boulevard instead.
Boulevard of Broken Dreams, they called it. You got that right, she thought, feeling a flare of anger and grief.
The Boulevard was part of her Keeper jurisdiction, so she spent a lot of time with the street kids. She was drawn to them, she ached for them, most of them running away from exploitation at home only to fall into the hands of the same kind of predator on the streets.
Tiger was a shape-shifter, and like so many others, he’d thought he could use that talent to make his fortune.
But it was a sad fact that despite their incredible talents, shifters were rarely productive members of society. Their sense of self was too amorphous. After all, they could and would subtly alter their physical form to match other people’s fantasies. And because of that inconstancy and lack of center, they tended toward indulgence of all kinds, which too often turned to addiction.
Along with that ability to create fantasy, they were also some of the most manipulative creatures on the planet. And they far too often got caught in their own manipulative traps.
Tiger was smart, and he was manipulative. Just sixteen or seventeen years old—Barrie had never been able to pin him down about his age—but already he was an expert hustler. He had been using his shifter talents to attract an upscale clientele. She had been sure he was also stealing as well as conducting any number of other illicit activities.
It had taken some time for him to trust her, but Barrie blended in well with the street waifs; at her height and weight she could easily look like no more than a kid herself.
She’d worked on Tiger, bought him meals, flattered him, joked with him, chided him, and time after time had hammered him that he could be using his talents for anything he chose, no dream too big. And she’d thought she’d gotten through to him. She’d persuaded him to check in to a local shelter, Out of the Shadows, that specialized in getting young prostitutes off the street and out of the life.
She whirled in her chair—and saw Mick Townsend looking down at her with an odd expression. She suddenly realized she was crying.
Townsend was staring at the tears running down her cheeks. “What is it?” he asked gruffly.
She swiped at her face. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
He was about to speak again when she pushed her chair back, stood abruptly and walked out past him, willing herself not to break into tears again.
She made it across the newsroom and out without crying, but broke down again in the elevator.
Damn Townsend, anyway; he seemed to have a radar for every vulnerability. She hit the side of the elevator with her fist, pounding in frustration, and the concrete pain of it brought her back to herself. Somewhat.
She wasn’t being fair, she knew. Townsend couldn’t help the way he looked. Maybe he had come to L.A. to be an actor, as so many people did. And most came to their senses and realized the competition was hopeless and the ruthlessness required to act soul-killing, and wisely chose other professions.
But some were not so wise or so lucky. Those were the ones who clung to the desperate delusion that they would “make it,” that stardom was just around that next corner. Instead they ended up used-up in their twenties...
Or like Tiger. Dead.
And most likely with no one even to claim his body.
She could do that for him, at least. So she swiped away her tears and stood straighter, resolved.
Chapter 2
Barrie wasn’t exactly dressed for the morgue, so she changed in the car in the parking lot. She never knew where the job would take her, so she always carried several changes of clothes in her trunk. She chose old jeans and a tank top and hoodie, washable and discardable in case she got into an autopsy room. You never could quite get out the smell of the morgue.
Then she drove east, toward the L.A. County Coroner’s Office, just minutes from downtown in Boyle Heights.
Her purpose was layered. She had to make sure the right medical examiner got assigned Tiger’s autopsy;