Chapter 10

Tanner’s heart was pounding like a drum by the time he ran into Chad’s camp and raced for the cabin he and Zarina shared. It was possible his elevated pulse might have something to do with the fact that he’d run back from the other camp at breakneck speed. He’d nearly killed himself half a dozen times over by jumping off cliffs and outcroppings he never would have normally tried in an effort to get there faster.

That wasn’t why his heart was beating so fast, though. It was fear that he’d be too late and get to the camp to find that those guys with the guns had attacked and Zarina was already dead.

But there was no indication the camp had been attacked. No scent of gunfire or strangers. No stench of panic. That didn’t keep Tanner from sprinting for the cabin anyway, only to slide to a stop when he realized the door was wide open. He burst inside, looking around wildly, but Zarina was nowhere to be seen.

His clawed hands clenched and unclenched as his inner beast fought to take control. The animal wanted to tear apart the camp piece by piece until it found Zarina. Tanner cursed and shoved the beast back, desperate to get the thing under control. He needed his human half in charge right now, not a raging hybrid.

It took a few seconds, but he got the animal into its cage so he could think clearly. That’s when he picked up Zarina’s scent—along with everyone else’s—coming from the main building. They must have barricaded themselves in there in case trouble came this way.

Not a bad plan if it wasn’t for the fact that he’d told Zarina to stay put before he’d left. Then again, why the hell did he think she’d do a damn thing he’d told her? She never had before.

Tanner strode toward the big building, claws and fangs retracting. He was still a few feet away when the door opened and Peter stuck his head out, relief mixed with worry on his face.

“Are you the only one back?”

“The others will be here soon,” Tanner said, walking past Peter into the meeting house/dining hall. “They’re transporting the wounded.”

Chad intercepted him before he could take more than a few steps. Tanner ignored him for the moment, focused instead on finding Zarina. He let his nose guide him, following her scent to the far corner of the big open building. She and Lillie were surrounded by a bunch of scared-looking kids. As if feeling his gaze on her, Zarina lifted her head and looked his way. Smiling at him, she said something to the kids, then detached herself from the group and moved in his direction. His heart slowed drastically at the sight of her until he realized she was wearing a gun on her hip. What the hell was she doing with a gun? She didn’t have the first clue how to even use one. Not that she had any business using a weapon in the first place.

He started toward her, but Chad sidestepped to block his path. “How bad was it? Was anyone badly hurt?”

Tanner resisted the urge to pick Chad up and physically move him out of the way. He knew the older man was simply worried. The prepper communities up here were like an extended family, and like family, they looked out for each other.

“No one from here was injured,” Tanner said as Zarina reached them, Lillie at her heels. “But the other camp took some serious injuries. Five people, three with gunshot wounds.”

“I’ll get the medical supplies set up in Lorraine’s cabin,” Lillie said. “It worked well as an operating room before. We can make it work again.”

Zarina nodded as Lillie hurried off, then looked at Tanner. “You said five people were injured. What happened to the other two?”

“They were hit with some kind of tranquilizer darts. They were still unconscious when I left.”

“Tranquilized?” Chad’s eyes filled with confusion. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Tanner admitted. “All I can say for sure is that whoever attacked the camp was in the process of dragging them away when I got there.”

Tanner hadn’t realized that the rest of the building had gone quiet until surprised chatter suddenly filled the silence. Chad frowned and turned to field questions, even though he had no answer to most of them. Tanner used the interruption to finally focus on Zarina.

“Why the hell do you have a gun?” he demanded.

She lifted her chin to look up at him. Something told him she didn’t like the question. “Why do you think?”

“Dammit, Zarina. This isn’t a game.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “There are some seriously bad guys out there. They’re well trained and heavily armed, and they haven’t shown any hesitation when it comes to hurting people. You’re not some kind of comic book superhero. You should have stayed in the cabin like I told you.”

Her brows rose. “Like you told me? What am I, your pet?”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

She folded her arms. “Then what did you mean?”

This wasn’t how this conversation was supposed to go. “Just that I want you safe.”

“You mean you want me to stay all safe and tucked away while you go out and risk yourself for others.”

He ran his hand through his hair. Why was she turning this around on him? Couldn’t she see how terrified he was at the thought of something happening to her? “Zarina, you know how much you mean to me. You have to be careful.”

“And you don’t?” she demanded, her voice rising. A few of the preppers looked their way. “We’ve been together long enough for you to know me. If someone is in trouble, I’m going to help them the same as you would. I’d never expect anything less of you, so don’t expect anything less of me.”

He was trying to come up with a reasonable response to that when a ringing noise interrupted him. He frowned. None of the preppers had cell phones, so where the hell was it coming from?

When the sound came again, he realized it was from Zarina’s backpack. The satellite phone. She must have figured it out at the same time, because she shrugged the bag off her shoulder and quickly dug the phone out.

“This is Zarina Sokolov.”

She said it so tentatively that Tanner would have smiled if he wasn’t still mad at her. He guessed she wasn’t used to answering a DCO satellite phone. But the urge to grin disappeared the moment he recognized the voice on the other end of the line.

“It’s Cam,” Zarina said, holding the phone out to him. “He said he needs to talk to you, that it’s urgent.”

Ignoring the curious looks Chad and the other preppers were giving him and Zarina, he took the phone from her and put it to his ear. “What’s up, Cam?”

“I tracked down two of the missing preppers and three of the homeless people you mentioned,” his brother said. “It took a while, because the descriptions you gave me were the only thing I had to work with, but once I found the first one, locating the others went faster.”

“And?” Tanner prompted, even though he had a feeling he already knew the answer.

“Two of the men and a woman washed up along different stretches of the west shore of Lake Washington. The other two guys were found way over in Elliott Bay. Without any IDs on them, they all ended up getting labeled as John and Jane Does and their cases put on the back burner, but when I started poking around, the ME office noticed the connection and started digging. He says that all five victims were beaten to death.”

Tanner cursed. “Were any of them drugged?”

“Yeah,” Cam said. “How’d you know about that? Even if you could get TV up there, we’re keeping that detail out of the news.”

Tanner took a deep breath and told him about the attack that had just happened and the men he’d seen trying to kidnap the preppers. “I don’t know what they’re doing with the people they’re grabbing, but I recognize professionals when I see them.”

“Dammit, Tanner, what the hell is going on up there?” Cam demanded. “I’m trying to do what you asked and keep this low-key, but it’s starting to get out of hand. My captain thinks this is gang-related and that I know more than I’m saying. I don’t know how much longer I can keep the lid on this, especially if more bodies show up.”

Tanner sighed. “I understand. Try to give me a little more time, but don’t do anything to risk your career. Let me know if you hear anything else.”

“Was that the police?” Chad asked, his jaw tight.

Tanner nodded. “Yeah. My brother. He’s a cop with the Seattle PD.”

Chad cursed, his fists clenching like he wanted to punch something. Probably him. “Dammit, Tanner. I trusted you! You know how we feel about cops. You promised you wouldn’t get them involved.”

Tanner could have pointed out he never promised not to get the cops involved, just the feds. But the distinction would likely be lost on the man. Besides, none of that mattered now.

“Yeah, well, they are involved, so you need to get the hell over it,” Tanner said. In the background, his inner hybrid was pacing back and forth in its cage restlessly. It wanted out—bad. “While you’re standing here worrying about the authorities rousing your people, someone is out there right now picking you off one or two at a time. This is bigger than your damn paranoia, Chad. There are some sickos out there tranquilizing and murdering your friends. The Seattle ME has five bodies in their morgue, and two of them are preppers. Someone beat them to death, then dumped their bodies.”

Chad’s shoulders sagged, the color draining from his face as he sank down onto the closest bench. “Why the hell is this happening? Why would someone do something like this?”

Tanner sighed. “I have no idea.” He moved closer to Chad while keeping one eye on Zarina. She was staying put, but likely only until the vehicles full of injured arrived from the other camp. “Is there any chance you or anyone else pissed someone off?”

Chad shook his head. All around the building, everyone else did the same. Tanner thought as much.

Outside, the trucks started arriving from the other camp. When Zarina headed for the door, Tanner immediately followed.

“I need to talk to you,” he said as he fell into step beside her.

She kept walking. “I don’t have time to talk right now. There are injured people coming in, and I have to get ready for surgery.”

“I know, and I’m not stopping you,” he said. “I just want you to know I’m taking you back to Seattle and putting you on the first plane to DC.”

Zarina stopped outside Lorraine’s cabin to glare at him. “You’ll only be wasting your time, because I’m not going.”

With that, she spun on her heel and walked into the cabin. A moment later, Spencer ran up carrying the wounded girl from the other camp and disappeared inside as well, leaving Tanner standing there alone with the memory of Zarina’s words for company.

Seeing the injured woman with hair the same color as Zarina’s only firmed his resolve. He didn’t care what he had to do; he was putting her on a plane tomorrow.

* * *

“So you think Mahsood somehow heard about Joanne Harvey getting attacked and decided to bail in case she gave up this address to somebody?” Chase asked, flipping the light on as they walked down the narrow stairs to the basement of Bell’s home.

The basement was the only part of the house they hadn’t gone through yet, and Tate hoped they’d find something useful down here. Because the rest of the house had been a bust. Beyond the two toothbrushes in the bathroom, a closet full of clothes that wouldn’t have fit Bell, and several dozen banking documents with Mahsood’s name on them confirming he’d indeed lived here, they hadn’t discovered anything worthwhile. From the clothes hangers lying on the bedroom floor and dresser drawers half open, it looked like Mahsood had recently packed a bag and left in a hurry.

“It’s as good a guess as any,” Tate said. “Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. While I’m fairly confident we’re right about Mahsood being the real target here, nothing we’ve found tonight gets us any closer to him or Bell’s killer. For all we know, Mahsood may have already left the country. He has a history of doing that. Plus, with Bell gone, I can’t imagine where else a man like Mahsood could be hiding. He’s a doctor, not a spy. He doesn’t have the training to stay off the radar and survive for long.”

“Any chance he’s getting help from Rebecca?” Chase asked. “You said Mahsood has been on her payroll for a while.”

“Maybe.” Tate said. “He’s being hunted for damn sure, so it would make sense that he’d turn to the woman who’s been paying the bills for all these years. Hell, if it wasn’t for his relationship with Bell, I would have said that’s why Mahsood came back to Maine. Something doesn’t feel right about this.”

Tate did a double take when he reached the basement. The place wasn’t some kind of dank hole in the ground used for storing Christmas decorations and old magazines nobody had the heart to get rid of. Disappointingly, it also wasn’t any kind of hybrid lab either. There wasn’t a holding cell, hospital gurney, or tray of evil gleaming medical equipment in sight. Instead, Bell’s basement was a tidy office space. The walls were lined with metal shelving units filled with file boxes while an expensive desk and computer occupied the center of the room alongside a long table.

“What do you mean, doesn’t feel right?” Chase asked, glancing around.

Tate shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seems to me if Rebecca was interested in taking care of him, what the hell was he doing hiding in his boyfriend’s house, living off leftovers?”

Chase seemed to consider that for a moment before nodding. “I see your point. We’re missing something here.”

“Obviously.” Tate walked over to the shelving unit nearest the computer desk and chose a heavy cardboard box at random. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and something in one of these boxes will help us figure out what we’re missing.”

“Wouldn’t it be a better idea to check out the computer first?”

Tate set the box on the desk and took off the lid. “Probably, but I don’t have the first clue how to hack a computer. How about you?”

Chase lifted a brow. “You’re kidding, right? I don’t even have a password on my computer at home because I can never remember it.”

“That’s why I always write mine down,” Tate agreed, pulling out his phone. “I’ll have the intel people back in DC hack into it from their end while we dig through these boxes.”

The cop walked over and selected a box. “If we open up the first few of these boxes and find nothing but old tax records, I’m going home, and you can find your own way back to the hotel.”

But they didn’t find old tax records. Instead, they discovered a good portion of Mahsood’s adult life chronicled in photos, newspaper articles, awards, personal letters, and lab journals. The stuff led them on a convoluted journey as a man with a promising medical career decided to create monsters for money for no other reason than because he could. Tate understood Bell and Mahsood had been involved, but he couldn’t understand why Bell would keep crap like this in his basement. If anyone had ever seen it, somebody would be going to jail. Or losing their medical license at least.

“Damn. You have to look at this,” Chase said from where he sat on the other end of the table, folders scattered everywhere. “I did not see this coming.”

Tate pushed his chair back and walked over to Chase’s side of the table. While he’d focused his attention on the past ten years of Mahsood’s life, the deputy had been sorting through the stuff from his college days.

Chase held up a picture that stopped Tate in his tracks. At first, he thought he was looking at Ashley, but then he realized it was a very young Rebecca Brannon cuddled in the arms of an equally young Mahsood. The doctor’s jet-black hair was longer than it was now, and he had his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest to show off several gold necklaces.

“Yup, Mahsood and Rebecca used to be a thing,” Chase said with a laugh. “Pretty serious based on the number of photos in here.”

Tate took the picture, looking more closely at it. Rebecca and Mahsood were leaning against the railing of an outdoor deck. The fancy house it was connected to was just visible to one side while the blue-green water of a sun-dappled lake comprised the rest of the background.

“Any idea how long they were an item?” he asked Chase.

The cop motioned at the folders on the table. “Maybe four or five years, most of it while they were in college. There are lots of pictures of them at that house, wherever that might be. It seems the relationship ended when they were both in their midtwenties.”

Tate thought about that for a moment. “If I remember right, that’d be about the time Rebecca went into politics.”

“Hmm. So Mahsood was good enough for a college fling but a liability when it came to a political career?”

“Probably,” Tate agreed. “Twenty-five years ago, I don’t think people would be so accepting of their differences.”

Chase grunted and jerked his chin at the medical journals Tate had been reading. “Anything good on your side of the table?”

“Depends on your definition of good.” Tate reached across and picked up the journal he’d been skimming. “On the bright side, Mahsood kept meticulous notes. Unfortunately, that means I’ve been reading page after page of exactly how he experimented on Ashley and everyone else he managed to get his hands on.”

Chase’s face twisted. “When did it start? On Ashley, I mean.”

“When she was fourteen.”

Tate leaned back on the table and flipped through a few pages. He couldn’t believe someone would write all this depraved shit down. It was like Mahsood thought it was completely normal.

“Rebecca ran off to Europe when she got pregnant with Ashley, and Mahsood never mentioned a father in here, so I have no idea who he is,” Tate said, forcing down the sour taste in his throat. “She hid Ashley with some loyal family servants, and for a while, that was the end of it. But when Ashley turned fourteen, the couple made the mistake of mentioning she was special. Rebecca took her away from the couple and had her thrown into the mental institution. Let’s just say Mahsood was excited to have the opportunity to study something so completely new and different. According to this journal, he was also thrilled to be back in Rebecca’s life and have her unlimited financial backing to do anything he wanted. And he definitely did anything he wanted.”

Chase shook his head. “Did Rebecca have any idea what he was doing?”

Tate flipped a few more pages until he got to a photo of Mahsood and Rebecca at the institution. “If what Mahsood wrote in here is true, they had frequent meetings to discuss his progress, especially in the past few years when he was developing his hybrid serum.”

“Good to see she overcame her concerns about their ethnic differences so they could work together again,” Chase said sarcastically.

Tate snorted. He wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them sat on the deck of the lake house in the photo Chase had shown him sipping wine and discussing how to experiment on Ashley next.

“So, what now?” Chase asked.

Tate had been thinking about that himself. Maybe he could figure out how to get this data to Kendra and the other DCO analysts they trusted while at the same time keeping it away from Rebecca. He opened his mouth to say as much to Chase—without mentioning the DCO of course—when a creak on the stairs stopped him cold. He and Chase both pulled their weapons just as Ashley appeared on the steps, eyes glowing yellow-green and small fangs partially extended.

Tate held up his free hand in a placating gesture and holstered his weapon. Beside him, Chase lowered his gun but didn’t put it away.

Tate didn’t know Ashley well, but she was looking a little rough around the edges. Her long, curly dark hair fell wildly around her shoulders. The jeans and sweater she wore were scuffed and ragged in places, and her tennis shoes looked like they were about to fall apart. She seemed tired, too, like she’d been on the go for a while. It took a lot to wear out a shifter, so if she truly was exhausted, that meant she’d been pushing for a while. Maybe since escaping the mental institution.

On the bright side, she wasn’t soaked in Bell’s blood. She could have washed it off, he guessed. Then again, washing blood off her clothes didn’t seem like something Ashley would care about.

“It’s okay, Ashley,” he said softly. He needed to calm the coyote shifter before things went bad. “No one is going to hurt you.”

She tilted her head to the side and regarded him thoughtfully. “Where’s the doctor?”

“Bell or Mahsood?” Chase asked.

Ashley turned her gaze on the deputy, eyeing him like something she scraped off her shoe before letting out a low growl. Flashing fangs in public wasn’t something most shifters did very often, but apparently, she hadn’t gotten the memo.

“Mahsood,” she sneered. “Where is he?”

“We think he left a couple of hours ago,” Tate said. “We’re not sure where he is. Any chance he’s running from you?”

Tate wanted to keep her talking long enough in the hope that she’d retract her fangs. Then maybe they could think about capturing her somehow. But the moment he said they didn’t know where Mahsood was, Ashley’s interest in both of them flipped off like a light switch. One moment, she was standing tense and ready on the steps; the next, she was up the stairs and through the door that led to the kitchen.

Even though Tate knew there was no way in hell they could catch her, he raced after Ashley anyway, Chase at his heels.

“Holy crap,” Chase said breathlessly when they both pulled up after sprinting a few hundred yards through the trees, watching as Ashley bounded off silently into the darkness like a ghost on nitrous oxide. “How fast can these damn shifters run?”

Tate leaned over with his hands on his thighs, catching his breath. “Faster than we can, obviously. Makes me wish I still had my shifter partner. You’re worthless.”

Chase grunted, falling into step beside Tate as he started back toward the house. “I can definitely see how a shifter partner might come in handy. Makes me wonder what the hell you added to the team.”

Tate chuckled. “Me? I was the brains of the operation.”

The deputy shook his head. “I’m not doing anything with that one. It would be too easy. So, what’s the plan now that our best suspect left us staring at her butt as she ran us into the dirt?”

Tate let out another laugh. He seriously needed to get Landon to recruit Chase for the DCO, because he definitely wouldn’t mind working with the guy again. Considering the fact that the deputy was almost certainly going to get fired from the sheriff’s department, Chase would need it.

“First, we need to get all those photos we found scanned and sent out to an intel analyst back at my office,” Tate said. He considered taking pictures with his phone and emailing them, but there were way too damn many for that. “You know where there’s a FedEx or UPS store around here?”

Chase looked at him like he was crazy. “At this time of night? Are you kidding me? Nothing is going to be open.”

Tate scowled and climbed over a fallen tree. “I didn’t ask if they were open. I asked if you know where one is.”

Chase muttered something about losing his job for sure after tonight.

“Come on,” Tate cajoled. “How hard can it be? You’re wearing a uniform.”

“Yeah, I am,” Chase said. “Which will make it much easier to ID me in the lineup tomorrow.”