The Following Morning
Eight riders made a silent journey from the ranch house to the mesa and found, as they’d expected, the Doc’s cold, lifeless body. Carefully, reverently, they placed him over the back of one of the horses and made their way to Hannah’s grave. They buried him beside her, vowing never to reveal what Hannah and her bonded spirit had been denied in this reality would not be denied to them in the great beyond.
Doc had had a good day. He’d just hung up the phone from telling the sheriff that he had thirty days to remove the bodies from Doc’s cold storage units. Doc then told him what the next thirty days was going to cost the county and that anything beyond that would be double the amount. The sheriff had sputtered and threatened, but Doc had just smiled.
Doc was sure the sheriff had a hand in all that was going on and wouldn’t have been surprised to find out he’d been involved with the cover up of Hannah’s death long after the fact. He was just heading up the basement stairs when a beautiful woman with long black hair and dark eyes had confronted him.
“I got all the way to Puerto Vallarta when it dawned on me, there was still money to be made,” Angelica said, pointing a gun at Doc in his morgue.
The slight stutter on the S in still was a dead giveaway that the woman holding the gun was a snake shifter. Doc would have bet every dime he had that she was a timber rattler.
“If someone told you I was a rich man, they lied.”
“Rich is a relative term. I figure it would be worth something to you not to be convicted of Cyrus Waverly’s murder. It would be a shame to spend your last days in jail.”
The Doc smiled. She had no idea. “Well last days is a relative term as well. And if I die of anything other than natural causes and trust me, Trey Mitchell will make sure they run a toxicology report looking for female timber rattler venom, someone will start looking for you.”
“You killed Cyrus,” she said with certainty. “I saw you.”
Doc nodded. “I did. The bastard deserved to die. But if you know that, it means you had to be there. You must have been who he was expecting. You should know that I just snapped your picture and sent it to the cloud. Again, if I die, Trey Mitchell will have all she needs to come after you and she will.”
“Hmm. It seems I may have overplayed my hand. We are at an impasse you and I. Indulge me.”
“No. Leave my house, my town, and those I love alone, and I will ensure your picture and any evidence I have is destroyed after my death. Try and hurt anyone I care about, and I’ll use my last breath to see you convicted.”
“And likewise, you leave me alone, and no one will ever know who killed Cyrus.”
The snake shifter left. What she didn’t know was that everyone would know as soon as Kennedy found the video. He drove out to Koyama' and straight to Himeen Mesa. He parked, locked up his car, and made one last, painful climb to the top.
He sat down with his back to the large rock outcropping and watched the sun begin to fall. As his eyes began to close for the final time, he felt the air become charged with the magic of shifting.
She was here. Hannah had come for him. As he expelled his last breath, she reached out her hand to him. His soul rose from his lifeless body, and they were both young again, just as they had been so many times before.
“We’ll get it right this time,” he said.
She smiled at him. “We never had it wrong. We were just not meant to be in this life. My sons are my heritage. They and their mates will carry on and the Legend of Koyama' will never die.”
Thank you for reading Ghost Cat Canyon: Strong! I hope you enjoyed the Ghost Cat Canyon series as much as I enjoyed writing it. There are five books in the series, the first is a novella. The books are available on all retail platforms (links below).
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Bold - https://books2read.com/ghostcatbold
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Strong: https://
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