Read Online Under Her Skin by Margo Bond Collins - Free Book Online

tone level, but some of my outrage seeped through, anyway.
    Dad raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. “It’s a reasonable assumption, Lindi. It seemed at least possible.”
    “Well, I didn’t.” I slumped back in my seat. “I guess I didn’t want to think about it at all.”
    “I was surprised that you never wanted to search out your birth parents,” Mom said, standing to begin clearing plates from the table. “Most adopted children do, you know.”
    I rose to help, gathering the salad bowl from the middle of the table. “Most adopted children don’t have to consider the difficulties of searching for a snake family.”
    “So you did consider it, then.” Dad followed us into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator to put away the dressing and butter.
    In another family, this might have been an uncomfortable discussion, but Mom and Dad had always supported me. My decision to avoid researching my roots had been perfectly logical.
    Or at least, I had thought so at the time.
    Now I wondered if I had been frightened of what I might find.
    Dad’s next statement drove that idea home. “You know I would have helped you. We might not have found anything, but we could have searched together.”
    I closed my eyes briefly as I nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
    “Do you want to try now?” His warm hand on my shoulder felt like support, but tears pricked my eyelids, anyway.
    “I think maybe I’d better not.”
    If they were really all dead, it would be like losing them all over again—and for the first time.
    And if they weren’t dead?
    I was afraid that finding them might be dangerous to us all.

Chapter 10
    The next morning, Kade and I found something in the CAP-C files almost immediately.
    I had been reading out client names from the file headers, becoming increasingly bored with the repetitious work, when I said, “Preston Bryant.”
    “Wait.” Kade flipped through a computer printout he’d been perusing. “Bryant? Open that one. Check for a sister? A Kirstie.”
    I scanned the intake socio-economic information. “Yep. She’s right here.”
    “Then we’ve got a match.” He glanced at the rest of his list. “So do we keep going, or do we call in reinforcements?”
    I hadn’t asked before, had been almost actively restraining myself from it, but now I had to know. “Are the Bryants shapeshifters?” I whispered as I leaned toward him, glancing at the open door.
    His gaze flicked to the door and back, too, and he nodded, holding up one finger.
    Picking up a pen, he scratched a word onto a sticky pad next to him.
    It took me a moment to work out what it said.
    Definitely a doctor’s handwriting. Or maybe a mongoose’s.
    Wait.
    Fine. But I wasn’t planning to wait for long.
    * * *
    Later, after Kade had left for a shift at the hospital, I had three back-to-back CAP-C appointments. Two were court-ordered evaluations, the first for a divorcing couple in a custody fight, the second for a toddler, a little boy whose father had been accused of physical abuse. The final meeting of the day was with a teenage girl whose sexual-abuse outcry against a teacher had gained some media attention recently. It had also led to some pretty vicious threats from classmates who called her a liar, among other things.
    All in all, it was about as rough as my days got—or at least, as rough as they had gotten before I had to spend my time looking at slides of dead girls.
    By the time midday rolled around, I was ready to be left alone with the silence in my mind, so when Gloria stuck her head in and asked, “Want to get lunch today?” I simply groaned in response.
    “That bad?” she asked.
    “Worse. I’m going to stay behind and catch up on paperwork here.”
    My boss waggled her fingers in farewell and shut my office door behind her.
    I hadn’t been entirely honest, though.
    Peeking out the curtain over my window, I waited for everyone to pile into their cars and drive away.
    Then I began watching the YouTube videos I had