Chapter 16
Jillian, Vaughn, and Howard spent the rest of the day visiting with Douglas and looking for information about Simon and Wayne, in the event they were brothers. Maybe they were cousins, and that’s why Wayne had a different last name. Or half brothers and they still looked a lot alike. Or Simon and Wayne were twins, and then brothers or cousins of Gaston, and Wayne had changed his name so Kira wouldn’t catch on that he was related to her dead husband.
They returned to the guest house, and Jillian began doing searches for information about Simon Wells, taking a seat on the couch. “Shifters homeschool, so no records of schooling.”
Vaughn brought over cups of coffee and sat beside her. “Voter registration?”
“Appears he doesn’t vote. Same with either a Wayne Grunsky or Wells. But Wayne Wells has a car.” She gave the make and model to Vaughn so he could call it in to Leidolf. “How much do you want to bet he’s Wayne Grunsky?”
“I’d say he is. Then just changed his name for when he met up with Kira and Brutus. Does he have any property?”
“Simon has the car and a house.” She pulled up the Google map that showed the location in San Diego. “Close houses, mostly one-story. Looks like garbage day for whenever the satellite caught the shot, but no garbage at Simon’s house.”
“Because he’s up here. I don’t understand though. If this is about revenge…that Simon or Wayne want to avenge Gaston’s death, why not just kill Kira and Brutus?”
Jillian looked at the floor for a moment, then turned her attention to Vaughn. “What if Gaston was the honor student, like Lydia said. The good guy. And what if his brothers or cousins, whoever they are, were the screwups, in trouble? Maybe they looked into Gaston’s death and believe he couldn’t have died the way he did.”
“Because they’re divers too and know he’s too good at what he does. We already know Wayne’s a diver.”
“Right.”
“So then what? They check into who he married? Befriend Kira and her lover, Brutus, and learn about the diving they plan to do with Douglas for the treasure? They figure they’ll wait and cash in on the treasure?”
“Could be, and then something goes wrong with the friendship. One of the jaguars is shot.”
“Then your brother is shot and Douglas is injured. But by whom?”
“One or more of the four jaguars has to be the culprit. I don’t see anything else here. Want to head back over to the jailhouse and see if the incarcerated jaguar will shift and talk?”
“Might as well. With three jaguars still on the loose, we need to resolve this.”
When they arrived back at the jailhouse, two police officers and Howard greeted them.
“Has he shifted?” Vaughn asked.
“Nope. We have Brutus in a cell and left prison clothes for him so he can shift and dress if he decides to cooperate. So far, he won’t.”
“Well, we have a few more details about the situation,” Jillian said.
“Hot damn,” Howard said.
“Yeah, so we’re going to see if that will help us get anywhere with him,” Jillian said.
Vaughn wasn’t sure what she had in mind and figured they should have discussed it already, but Jillian started right in on Brutus as soon as they walked into the secure part of the jailhouse where they had six small cells, one housing Brutus.
“We know who you are, and what you’ve been up to. Howard is going to take you to the jaguar lock-up facilities in Dallas first thing in the morning. You might as well tell us where your partners in crime are so the JAG won’t be so rough on you.” Jillian folded her arms and looked crossly at the jaguar. He was lying down, either pretending to sleep or maybe really sleeping from the tranquilizer, the run he’d had, and the injuries he’d suffered. “Had you figured on killing Douglas at the clinic before he could ID you?” Jillian didn’t believe Douglas would have known the man in his jaguar form. Not when he’d been wearing hunter spray. So they wanted to know why Brutus had gone to Douglas’s room.
“If you were looking for the money he used for the expedition or the journal he wrote showing where he was going to have Miles dive, you were too late. It’s all secure.”
The jaguar didn’t move a muscle.
“Did you know that the man you killed, Gaston Wells, has a couple of brothers? One pretended to be your friend,” Vaughn said.
Jillian was surprised Vaughn would bluff about that, but then again, if Kira didn’t know Gaston had any family, Brutus wouldn’t have either. She didn’t believe Brutus would have made friends with Wayne if he’d known the man was related to Gaston.
Brutus lifted his jaguar head and looked at Vaughn, his golden eyes round. Surprised to hear the news? Looking to see if they were lying or telling the truth?
“Simon Wells is the other. He looks identical to Gaston. He drives a Humvee. Owns a house in San Diego about a half hour from the club. And when Wayne was shooting at you earlier, Simon was driving the getaway vehicle. That’s how we know about it. My partner Jillian caught sight of the license plate. Cat Clubber. Clever, huh?”
Vaughn was really good at interrogation, a great job of misinforming. Simon looked identical to Wayne, not Gaston. Brutus kept watching Vaughn, studying his expression, listening to his voice, probably processing the new information.
“So you think he’s one of you, but something goes wrong, and you have a falling-out. Someone shoots someone. But you didn’t know that Wayne was Gaston’s brother and he was seeking revenge all along.”
Jillian figured if Wayne had wanted revenge, he would have killed Brutus and Kira outright. She assumed Simon and Wayne wanted a piece of the action—a pile of the treasure Douglas could find for them.
Jillian’s stomach grumbled, and she said, “You know, it’s lunchtime. How about a pizza?”
“Yeah, sounds good. Want to make one or have a couple delivered?” Vaughn said.
“Will they deliver out here?” Jillian asked.
“Yeah. One of the guys working at a pizza place off the ranch is a wolf, and he delivers all the time. Hey, maybe while we’re looking into this case, I can take you to a restaurant the wolves own. And the rest of the gang. We can do it before Miles and Howard leave with Brutus,” Vaughn offered.
“I’d like that,” Howard said.
An hour later, and with no change in Brutus’s form, they were enjoying pizzas topped with meat and veggies, feeding the police officers too, while Brutus watched them.
Would he like some too? Jillian would offer if he would talk. Then she had a brilliant idea. She just didn’t want to send the wrong message to the guys she was working with, or the police officers either. But it would seem more authentic if she just dove into what she was going to do.
She pulled out her phone and quickly set it to mute, in case someone tried to send her a real call, then she pretended to answer it. “Ohmigod, good work, Demetria! Tell Everett and Miles they’ve done great too!” She paused while everyone in the jailhouse was listening, waiting to hear the good news. Probably wondering why she wasn’t putting the call on speakerphone. “Nah, he’s not talking. But as long as you’ve got her talking, we don’t need his testimony.” She avoided looking at Brutus, dying to see how he was reacting. She smiled at Vaughn and Howard as they stopped eating their pizza.
“Wow, really? Three dead husbands? How much life insurance money did she get?” Again, a long pause, allowing Demetria enough time to pass along further information, if the conversation had been real. Jillian put her fingers up indicating three and mouthed the word three, like she just couldn’t believe it, her eyes wide with expression.
“Wait, so she’s saying Brutus is her lover…like we didn’t know that. When Douglas caught the picture of them at the Kitty Cat Club with their tongues down each other’s throats and his hand on her ass, we sort of concluded that. But implicating him as the mastermind? Good. They’ll both go down, but at least we know he was more to blame than she was. Was he the one who killed her husbands? Staged the car accident, the killing at the overlook at the Grand Canyon, and the diving accident?”
Nice lengthy pause.
“Okay. Well, when you bring her in, Vaughn is taking us all out to dinner. Yep, he offered and he’s buying. It’ll be different from the cat club. Different atmosphere, I’m sure. You’ll enjoy it. Anything else you want to pass along?”
She pretended to listen, nodded, and said, “Right. Miles already told me he hadn’t been interested in her as a prospective mate, and once he saw her kissing her so-called brother at the club?” She smiled at Brutus. “Right. So I’m glad he’s not too upset about the betrayal.” But what she really wanted to know was who had shot Miles! She wanted to shoot the culprit for having done so herself. They didn’t know enough to be able to pretend they knew though. “Okay, thanks, Demetria. Wonderful news! See you soon.”
Then she turned her phone off mute and stuck it in her pocket. “Can I have another slice? This calls for a real celebration.”
Vaughn served another slice of pizza for her, but she could tell he was dying to learn if Demetria and the others had really caught up with Kira. She hoped he realized she was just playacting. Even so, Brutus was just watching them, not shifting, not acting like he was going to give his version of the truth. Maybe he knew Kira wouldn’t sell him out. Or maybe he believed she would, and that’s what he deserved for trusting her.
Jillian noticed Howard looked a little flushed, so she finished her pizza in a hurry. She didn’t want to say anything about him looking feverish, not in front of Brutus. But that’s what she was worried about. “Hey, Howard, while we’re waiting for the others to get here, you said you’d teach me a new board game.” He hadn’t, but she hoped he’d play along.
“Yeah sure, but let me tell you I won’t go easy on Vaughn. You can be my partner though.” Then Howard smiled at her, and he, Jillian, and Vaughn left the police officers to watch over the prisoner.
The officers knew to get ahold of them if Brutus shifted.
As soon as they were in the Land Rover and headed back to the guest house, Vaughn asked, “Did they catch her?”
Jillian smiled, glad he wasn’t sure and hadn’t totally fallen for it.
“No. But I had the notion that if he thought she sold him out, he might come clean. Didn’t work though.”
“He might have to think about it,” Howard said.
“Oh, don’t go to the guest house,” Jillian told Vaughn. “Howard looks like he’s running a fever.”
Vaughn glanced at him. “Hell, Howard, why didn’t you say so?” He turned around and went to the clinic.
After the doctor gave him antibiotics, Howard said, “I wondered when I mentioned playing a board game with you. I figured you needed to talk to us in private. Certainly not about this.”
“You and Vaughn and my brother. All peas in a pod when it comes to neglecting your health.”
“Since I’m staying at the other house now, why don’t you drop me off?” Howard asked. “And I’ll meet up with you when the others get in.”
She didn’t want to say she hoped he was going to rest, but she suspected he would. After they dropped Howard off at his place, she and Vaughn returned to the guest house and sat down to color on their pages for a while.
Wanting to take a break from the subject of the jaguars, Jillian figured she and Vaughn could get to know each other a little better. She began coloring one of the peacock’s feathers aqua. “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you join the navy and not one of the other branches of the service?”
“I love the water. What about you? Why did you join the army?”
“My dad was a Navy SEAL.”
Vaughn didn’t say anything for a moment, then swore. “Don’t tell me. Kelly Matthews is your dad?”
“You know him?” She couldn’t have been more surprised.
“He was our training officer, and he tried to kill me several times.”
Jillian laughed. “He was just trying to teach you how to survive.” But she couldn’t believe they knew each other.
“Are you sure he wasn’t just psychic and wanted to make sure I didn’t end up dating his daughter? Then again, his daughter tried to kill me. Like father, like daughter.”
“I told you. If I had wanted to kill you, I would have. You don’t hold grudges do you?” She raised a brow.
He laughed, then got serious again. “I was surprised Martin would take your brother into the organization.”
Jillian frowned at Vaughn.
“Only because they’re a jaguar organization, and they don’t even have wolves permanently on staff yet. Well, us now, but that’s just a new situation.”
“Martin said he takes in at-risk jaguars and puts them through the rigorous training the JAGs offer. They often make better agents than the ones who join who weren’t screwups. Maybe they’ll do that with select wolf shifters now too. Miles will get paid for helping us with this mission, and once they reach Dallas, he’ll be scheduled for training. Sometimes, I think Miles got himself into trouble because Dad was such a strict military man. I think the training will be good for him.”
“What about us, I wonder? Are they going to send us through the training too?”
“Probably.” She talked about her mother, the military wife who gave up her own career as an accountant to move around with her SEAL mate. Now that they had their own climbing business, her mom did all the accounting and marketing, and her dad did everything else.
“What about your parents?” she asked.
“Gone. We had a really bad forest fire when I was young, and several wolves were cut off from any route of escape. Some of us were able to get to a river and were swept a long way downstream. Bella, my cousin’s mate, is a red wolf, and she’d lost her family too, then was taken in by the gray pack. We actually grew up together, and Devlyn had always loved Bella. The feelings she had for him were mutual.”
“Wow. Is she any relation to Leidolf?”
“No. Not that we know of.”
“I wonder what my dad will say when he learns we’re courting.”
“Hopefully, he won’t want to kill me.”
She laughed, then got a call from her brother. Worried they were having trouble in San Diego, she answered it, while Vaughn continued to color on his wolf.
“We’re headed out on the next flight. Be in by six tonight, and Demetria said to go ahead and make reservations for seven.”
“Howard is feverish. The two of you might have to delay taking Brutus back tomorrow and wait another day or so.” Then she told him about her attempt to break Brutus.
Miles laughed. “I’ve used the fake phone call when I was out on a date and bored stiff. I would never have thought you’d do that. But great ploy. I’ll tell the others what you did so we’re all on the same page. Too bad we really didn’t have Kira in hand. Oh, another reason why I had to talk to you… Dad’s going to be calling you. Just a heads-up. Sorry. I was telling him the news about what I was doing, that I actually have an honest-to-God job, and how I had been working with you on this case, and I kind of—”
She got a signal saying she had an incoming call. “Don’t tell me. You told Dad I’m courting a wolf.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s calling now. Talk to you later.”
Vaughn stood, pulled Jillian into his arms, and kissed her long and hard. She began to kiss him back with a quiet desperation, ignoring the way her phone was playing its tune, not wanting to take the call from her dad.
“Want to take it?” Vaughn finally asked.
She laughed. “No, but I’ve got to.” She sighed. “Hello, Dad?”
“I hear you’re courting a wolf. When do we get to meet him?” After she was mated to him? No way was she going to let her dad interfere with her social life.
“We’re working a mission and—”
“Miles told me. Good work on getting him straightened out.”
She ignored her dad’s comment about her brother. She could argue forever with her father, and she’d never win. Best to just let it go. “We have training after this. But we’re still working this case. I don’t know when I’ll be back to see you.”
“Miles says he’s a SEAL. What’s his name? Maybe I know him.”
Maybe he wouldn’t remember Vaughn. Then again, her dad usually remembered everything—people, places, faces.
“Vaughn Greystoke.”
Silence.
Vaughn glanced at her. She put her hand over her phone’s mouthpiece and whispered, “He hasn’t said anything. Not sure if that’s good or bad.” Then she put it on speaker so Vaughn knew what he was getting into.
“Hell, honey. Is that SEAL still alive and kicking?”
“Yeah. I even shot him, and you’d never know it.”
Vaughn chuckled.
“I knew you had it in you. Much better choice than the guys you’ve been dating. What about Brock, his twin brother?”
“I have it on good authority that he’s fine too.”
“Good to hear. So where are you going to end up?”
“We’re not sure. If Miles is in Dallas, we thought of joining Vaughn’s pack in Colorado so we’d be kind of halfway in between the two of you and Miles.”
This time she heard her parents talking in the background, but she couldn’t make out their words.
Then her dad got back on the line. “Okay, your mom says if you end up in Colorado, they’d better need a climbing gym because she’s not going to be that far away from her daughter when you start having babies.”
Jillian felt her face flush with embarrassment. “We’re not mated yet.”
“Hell, and he’s a SEAL wolf I trained?”
Vaughn smiled and rubbed her back.
“Well, we’ll let you get back to your mission. Be safe. I trained Vaughn well, and I know he’ll have your back.”
“Congratulations,” her mom said.
“Thanks, Mom, Dad. I’ll call you later.”
When she ended the call, she was afraid Vaughn might not like it that her parents planned to move close to them. Or that they’d decided they were mated before she and Vaughn had gotten to that point.
Before she could talk to Vaughn about her parents’ plans, he said, “I didn’t figure that you telling your dad that you shot me would go over too well. I’m surprised he didn’t ask if it was by accident or on purpose.”
“He knew it would be on purpose. I’d never shoot anyone accidentally.”
Vaughn laughed. “Hope he’s mellowed out some.”
“Nope, but you can handle it. They’ll be moving right next door to us.”
Vaughn groaned.
“That is if the courtship works out.”
“It’s going to work out.”
“Do they have a climbing gym in your area?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, well, that’s what my folks will be setting up. Believe me, if you’re not busy, my dad will expect you to be over there helping out. Oh, did I forget to mention? With me, you get the whole family.”
Smiling, Vaughn just shook his head.