Chapter 18
Cinnamon’s black bowl turned out to be a portable charcoal grill, familiar because I’d seen a very similar object resting beneath an out-of-season scarecrow near the second crime scene. This particular incarnation of the device had been tossed over the hillside beside our parking area, the hot coals sizzling into the snow and not quite managing to set the forest alight in the process.
“I tried it out,” the twin noted. “Look.”
By way of demonstration, he fell back to the ground on four paws and trotted a short distance away through unsullied snow. Tiny specks of black rested in his first few prints, but the more important point was what was missing—any olfactory indication of Cinnamon’s passing whatsoever.
I doubted the trick would have stood up to the heat of summer, but dry winter air already made scent-tracking difficult. Add in feet scuffed through charcoal and the result was no obvious sign of a shifter’s presence at all, at least not after a light breeze had carried away scent that lingered in the general vicinity for the first few minutes.
Grey is the killer. I didn’t want to believe it and I really didn’t want to deal with the aftermath. But, given the fact that the Tribunal enforcer had recently kidnapped two innocent infants, it was time to pull out the big guns.
First, though, my supporters needed direction. “Wolfie, are you tracking Grey’s car?”
“Working on it,” my former alpha said without looking up from his laptop. Strings of letters and numbers scrolled across the screen. And even though the computer-speak made no sense to me, I was confident that if there was a digital trail to be found then Wolfie would find it.
“Celia,” I continued, “can you pull some strings and make that town meeting happen sooner rather than later? Tomorrow morning is the latest we can manage since we have to reach All-Pack by sunset.”
“Will do,” my mother said, willingly taking direction from a child who she’d once left behind on purpose.
“Ginger, I need everything there is to know about this region’s All-Pack. People have been closed mouthed and vague. But we’re going to look like idiots if we turn up with an armed contingent and it’s really just a family-friendly picnic.”
“Fat chance of that,” the twin huffed. But she was already striding away, fingers flying across her smartphone’s screen as she assessed which of her copious contacts would be the best to question first.
Finally, I turned to my greatest asset—my mate. “Hunter,” I said at last, pulling his attention away from the grill Cinnamon had abandoned at our feet. My mate’s face was a hard mask, his stance suggesting that he was no more pleased than I was to have been caught cradling a viper at our bosom. Still, I knew he’d want to be snapped out of his brown study, so I included him in my flurry of requests.
“There’s one more vote up for grabs and we need one more ally. Can you finagle an alliance with Hoyt Taylor by hook or by crook?”
I expected the same easy agreement from my partner as I’d received from the other members of our crew. So his answer shook me to my core.
“No,” he said simply, naysaying me for the first time in front of our shared clan. Then, without another word, he grabbed my hand and drew me away from the circle of interested eyes.
And perhaps it was only the tree shadows blocking out the weak sun, but the air felt unaccountably colder as we walked side by side up the trail.
***
“What do you mean, no?” I demanded as soon as we’d stalked far enough away so our words wouldn’t easily carry back to the shifters we’d left behind. “We need to call Robert and catch Grey before he kills again. The charcoal, the timing, Nina’s pups—it’s obvious he’s the one we’ve been hunting all along.”
“Agreed,” Hunter said simply.
“But...?” I drew him out. My muscles were vibrating with the urge to rush, to run, to reach Grey before it was too late. Still, I forced myself not to pace, to instead open myself to my mate’s essence and sense the wolf hidden beneath his skin.
What I saw scared me. Hunter’s animal half stood so still it almost appeared to be a mannequin rather than a living, breathing wolf. Only the beast’s eyes moved, flicking from side to side as it assessed each potential threat or source of prey.
This was the killer I often forgot lurked beneath my mate’s genial exterior. This was the alpha protector who I now realized wasn’t disagreeing with my reasoning so much as he was unwilling to let me out of his sight and into the path of danger.
It was a sweet sentiment, but alpha protectiveness wasn’t going to save the twins and get us through All-Pack unscathed. So I attempted to draw Hunter back into the realm of words and rational human thought. “We have to be smart about this,” I admonished, vividly aware for the first time in a long time that my mate’s bloodling nature lay no more than an inch beneath the surface. “If we don’t win territorial rights,” I reasoned aloud, “then we won’t have a home to return to.”
As I waited for his rebuttal, a chickadee called cheerfully above our head and the soughing of wind-pressed pines on the ridge filled the air. So what lay between us wasn’t silence...but the moment was definitively uncomfortable and completely devoid of human communication.
Only after I’d nearly given up on hearing him speak did Hunter mutter a reply at last. “If Grey tears out your throat,” he whispered, his voice husky with emotion, “then I’ll never have a home to come back to again.”
His statement was impossible to argue with, but I had to try. Before I could open my mouth, though, my mate’s skittish eyes turned back toward the trail we’d so recently walked down.
Then I was flying through the air, Hunter’s arm pushing me behind him and tucking me close against his side. Abruptly, I found myself enfolded in a backwards embrace, a lupine form of protection and possession. And in the face of the day’s drama, I’m not ashamed to admit that, for a long moment, I melted and simply allowed myself to be held.
“Am I interrupting anything?”
The words pulled me out of the warm haze that had engulfed me. And when I stood on tiptoes and peered over Hunter’s shoulder, the unusually pinched face of the familiar one-body returned me to the present with a jolt. So that was what had set my mate off.
Greeting Robert with quirked lips, I couldn’t help thinking that this was not the best possible time for the FBI agent to appear. Because I’d never gotten around to explaining why I’d left so many details out of my earlier explanations of shifter politics, a fact that my human partner clearly resented. My only excuse—that life had been busy for the last couple of days—seemed to pall in the face of the fire in Robert’s eyes.
“I was just about to call you,” I said, deciding to play it safe by pretending nothing between us had changed. Perhaps if I bluffed hard enough, I’d get lucky and be allowed to put off the tricky conversation until a day when I wasn’t juggling way too many volatile lupine tempers.
Unfortunately, Robert wasn’t so easily appeased. “What a coincidence since I’ve left about twenty voice messages for you this morning and backed them up with several emails.”
Okay, now I was confused. Yes, his part in my meeting with Byrd and Franklin meant my partner deserved an explanation of the All-Pack undercurrents. But twenty voice messages? Wasn’t that a bit excessive?
Taking in my crinkled brow and ignoring the way Hunter’s body continued to stand between us, Robert elaborated. “About the killer. I think we know who he is. But I didn’t want to apprehend the subject without your input since you suspected he might be furry.”
Despite his annoyance, Robert was polite enough not to add that this was the entire point of my place on the FBI’s payroll. As a liaison, my job didn’t only consist of sniffing out potential werewolf offenders. I was also supposed to get in touch with the appropriate shifter authorities and make sure defenseless one-bodies weren’t harmed if a perp decided to escape by going full-on wolf.
The second responsibility had been easy to agree to when Hunter was the Tribunal enforcer and could do the dirty work for us. Now, though, the shifter in charge of taking out the killer appeared to be...the killer.
I swallowed down a strangled laugh, which made both of my companions look at me like I was crazy. “Right,” I said inanely, attempting to decide whether Robert would allow me to send him away for his own safety or whether he was bound and determined to meet the killer with badges out and guns blazing.
Too stubborn to run, my wolf countered. As usual, she was right. I was going to have to suck it up and manage two unwieldy male egos, all while hunting down the strongest uber-alpha I’d ever met, saving two human children, and ensuring Arborville didn’t toss our lupine members out on their ear.
Oh, yeah, and did I forget to mention—it was now only thirty-two hours until All-Pack?
Time to be a team player. Stepping out from behind Hunter’s protective arm, I trailed my fingertips across the exposed skin of my mate’s wrist to soothe his ruffled lupine temper before joining my work partner in the open. “We just figured out how he did it,” I offered, accepting the inevitable and pacifying the second grumpy male with what he craved most—information.
“He put charcoal on his feet to mask the scent,” I continued. “Wolfie’s tracking his car now, so we should have a lead on his location shortly.” Well, at least I hoped so. “We were going to call you as soon as we pinned down a general search area.”
And that last part was an outright lie. Behind me, Hunter snorted, which I took to be a good sign. At least it had sounded like a human snort.
Now it was Robert’s turn to look confused. “I’m not going to ask how your friend is tracking the subject’s car since I’m pretty sure I’d have to arrest him if I saw him in action. But I would like to know why?”
“So we can find him before he kills again,” I responded slowly. I felt like the one-body and I were talking at cross purposes, and not just because we’d gotten off on the wrong foot. Wasn’t it obvious that finding Grey was our top priority at the present moment?
“But that was the point of my calls and emails,” Robert answered after a short pause. “We know exactly where he is. We’ve had him under surveillance since early this morning. He’s at home, alone. We’ve just been waiting on your presence before we move in.”