Under Her Skin Read Online Free PDF

all officially cleared. In the meantime, I want Lindi and Dr. Nevala to compare notes on the victims.” He shook his head and held up a hand, cutting off Gloria as she opened her mouth to speak. “Confidentiality doesn’t survive death, Gloria. I just want to know if there’s anything in the CAP-C files or the girls’ medical records that might point us in the right direction.”
    Anxious to quiz Kade about shapeshifters, I gathered up the notebook I’d placed on the conference table in front of me. I hadn’t taken any notes—quickly, I jotted down the four victims’ names. As if I would forget them. “Anything else we need to know before we get started?”
    “I’d rather not contaminate your observations. But we’ll keep in touch,” Jason said. “You and Dr. Nevala should trade numbers, too—you’ll need to consult.
    Dammit.
    I felt Kade beside me, the heat pouring off of him reminding me of his hands against my skin, his lips slanted across mine.
    When the meeting broke up, I headed toward the door, hoping to escape to my office, even for a moment.
    Nevala followed me out. I stopped in the hall and faced him.
    “What are you doing here?” I hissed.
    One corner of his mouth crooked up in a half-smile. “Returning your phone?”
    “That’s not what I meant.” I clamped my mouth shut as Scott passed us. He slowed, staring at me curiously.
    “Everything okay, Lindi?” he asked.
    “Fine,” I said, but my voice shook.
    Scott looked back and forth between me and Nevala. “Lunch today?” he finally asked.
    “Sure,” I said.
    He moved on, but glanced back at us. Nevala continued to grin.
    “My office. Now,” I said, my voice tight. Spinning away from him, I marched down the hall without watching to see if he followed me.
    When we reached my office, I shut the door and moved around to keep my desk between us. I have two wing-back chairs that I use to talk to clients, but they’re set up to eliminate distance. I wanted to keep as much space between us as possible.
    Kade looked around the office curiously. I had shelves of toy bins, books, art supplies. Anything that might help a child relax and play, and maybe even talk to me.
    “This is nice,” he said, nodding.
    “I don’t care what you think of my office,” I said. “I want to know why you’re here.”
    His mouth quirked up in that odd grin again. “Because I’m supposed to kill you.”

Chapter 6
    People don’t like snakes. I actually get that—there’s something viscerally appalling about an animal so different from oneself, made of muscle and scale rather than skin and bone. Snakes aren’t fuzzy or cuddly or cute.
    Not that I feel that way, of course. I love spending time in Dad’s herpetarium, the small outbuilding that had formerly served the old house as a garage and now housed Dad’s entire collection. When I’m there, I can close my eyes and listen to the gentle swish of scales over sand, the slight hiss of my brethren—or at least distant cousins—testing the air around them. I find it soothing.
    As a child, I used to like to shift in the herpetarium and sun myself under the heat lamps. I couldn’t often shift and go out into the real sun, because, Dad said, I had a dark secret to keep, and people would want to lock me up, study me, keep me caged for the rest of my life. The herpetarium was a nice alternative.
    But I’m basically an okay person. I give loose change to homeless people, volunteer in a food bank, work to give hurt children a voice. My entire life has been about developing my human side—the side of me that is kind of cuddly and cute.
    I hadn’t ever imagined that my mere existence would be cause for someone to hunt me down and kill me in cold blood. So to speak.
    I blinked hard and shook my head, hoping to dispel the sense of unreality that had been fogging my thinking since Emma had told me she changed her hand.
    “Why would anyone want you to kill me?” I asked. “I’ve never hurt anyone.”
    “You