Immortal Distraction by Elizabeth Finn Page A

The walk back from the first level was a haze. She’d stumbled through the halls, feeling so lost in thought that a time or two she had found herself in the wrong part of the building in some random corridor. She tried to figure it out, but there was no sorting through it. Mind control? Hypnosis? A damn concussion to poor Mike’s brain?
    When she picked up, she was startled to hear Mike’s voice. He sounded nervous, or perhaps just confused. “Detective, I’m really sorry about what happened today, but I just can’t seem to figure it out myself. I … I…” And after a loud, steadying sigh, he continued, “I swear when we met in hall, I had no memory of that man, and then it was as if the memory was there or was back in my head again. I mean … the memory was back. I don’t… I don’t know what to say or how to explain it, but…” And then he trailed off.
    “Mike, it’s okay. I’m sure it was nothing.” She wasn’t convinced of that at all, but what the hell was a person supposed to say when someone admitted something impossible happened to them. Truth was, she believed him. And it had something to do with Angus. She believed that as well.
    “Well, beyond that, I analyzed my equipment when I returned to my office, and Brit … there’s nothing wrong with my polygraph. I mean, I got readings from him, but they don’t make any damn sense, and not because the polygraph was functioning improperly … because he was functioning improperly.”
    “What are you saying?” Her heart was pounding, her palms were suddenly clammy, Humphreys was staring at her in annoyance, and she was on the verge of panicking.
    “There’s something wrong with him. No perspiration reading, and I mean nothing.”
    She was grasping at straws. “Well maybe he just doesn’t sweat much…”
    “No, Detective, I mean not even trace levels that are inherently there if you’re human. And his pulse… He had a pulse, but it wasn’t normal, not human normal, not any sort of normal at all. It was unsteady to say the least. And I’m talking … really unsteady. Maybe you’d hear a beat like that if a hundred-year-old man was getting ready to infarct. Too slow, too uneven. Nothing normal … or viable about it. And I don’t care what species you are. You can’t survive that sort of random, chaotic beat.”
    Brit was silent. She had no idea what to say, no idea what to think. Every last part of the past hour of her life was impossible, and yet, she was awake, she was certain she was sane. She was also certain Mike wasn’t crazy either. There was something oh so very wrong with Mr. Angus Scott.
    * * * *
    She looked hysterical as she stood in his doorway. “I want to know what you did to him!” She was practically shrieking. Clint was standing behind her waiting for word he should escort her from the building. Of course that wasn’t going to happen.
    “Clint, you may go. Brit, perhaps you should come in and sit down before you have a stroke. I don’t relish the thought of you dying in my hallway from utter fury.”
    When she brushed past him, it was with a sidewise glance that left him convinced she thought he was a monster. Wasn’t he? She refused to look away from him, but it wasn’t nearly the expression he’d prefer to see from her. She was leery, nervous; distrustful was an understatement.
    “What are you?”
    “A man.” He smirked slightly, but he knew better than to push his luck. She wasn’t up for his torment.
    “Bullshit! You’re … you’re something … there’s something different about you!” She looked like she might unhinge at any moment and slug him.
    “Is that so? And what is so different. Does my body not work like a man?” He cocked his head to the side as she stared at him. “You know full well it does.” He continued to study her, but he didn’t push her. He stowed the smirk he would normally be giving her, and he watched her without a shred of challenge.
    He wasn’t expecting the blatant