Scratch by Mel Teshco

Chapter One
     
    Alexia Leigh watched the last of the dark-suited mourners
drift away from her father’s graveside, her eyes dry and a chill icing up her
insides. She’d cried herself empty these last five days. Cried long and bitter
tears until there were no more tears to give. Until the once vibrant spark of
life within had sputtered and died, leaving her cold. Empty.
    Her only solace was that her mum and dad were together now,
bound for eternity in their own piece of heaven. Just what her father had
always wanted.
    A snow-white rose clasped to her chest, she pressed a kiss
to its velvet-soft petals, the scent stirring up a memory of her late mother’s
perfume. With unsteady hands, she placed the rose onto her father’s smooth
granite headstone. “Rest and be at peace,” she whispered. “I will prove
the critics wrong.”
    Her father had been so jubilant when he’d found real,
tangible proof that shape-shifters—at least, big-cat shape-shifters—really did
exist. He’d told no one about his findings except Alexia, who’d been his
assistant even when she’d been too young to earn more than pocket money.
    Of course they’d kept the information top secret. They’d
wanted to first decipher the writing in the leather-bound journal that had been
found beside the big cat bones whose skull and skeleton showed decidedly human
characteristics. The old-world language inside the journal had matched none of
the data found anywhere else on the planet.
    The ancient book had been the key to her father’s success.
Not that it’d mattered in the end. Thomas Leigh had been Australia’s leading
archeologist and held in high regard…until someone had broken into his
townhouse and leaked word of his research notes. The cemetery was empty of all
but its headstones by the time she slung a leather-clad leg over her Ducati
motorcycle and fired it to life. It was only as she was about to pull on her
helmet that it became apparent she’d been mistaken.
    She wasn’t alone.
    Liz Hemlock, flame-haired bitch and piranha reporter,
approached her with narrowed eyes and the clack-clack of high-heels. The
reporter’s most acclaimed articles had featured Alexia’s father’s downfall. And
his subsequent suicide.
    Alexia’s gut churned, fury and grief reawakened as she
twisted on her motorcycle to face the other woman. “What do you want from me
now? Isn’t my father’s death enough for you?”
    The other woman’s stride didn’t falter, though her face
flushed a little. Probably more from heat than anxiety. Liz dragged a notebook
from her jacket pocket, her red-lacquered fingernails sharper than talons. “I’m
sorry for your loss, Ms. Leigh, but I’m doing my job with the same degree of
passion you do your own.” Her green eyes flashed. “My readers only want the
truth.”
    Alexia took in slow, steadying breaths, pushing back
emotions she’d thought had been cried out with her tears. No matter how much it
hurt to hear, she needed to know how far the other woman had been willing to go
to obtain her stories. “Does that include breaking and entering to get
your readers what they want?”
    Liz averted her gaze for perhaps a second, while the faint
flush of earlier became twin flags of red. “I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”
    Alexia closed her eyes as the full realization of the
reporter’s deception hit her front and center. It had been Liz who’d
leaked the information. How the hell did the woman live with herself?
    She’d been so damn distracted by her father’s downward
spiral from glory, she hadn’t had the time to draw breath, let alone dwell too
much on the perpetrator or his or her motives.
    She blinked back a red haze. Her voice cracked. “Why?”
    Liz pressed a hand to her belly, as though the conversation
upset her.
    Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
    Alexia’s world had been turned upside down when she’d found
her father’s inert body slumped over his desk, but it was a waste of time