“I still feel like we should have a code word or something. Maybe a secret knock everyone has to give before entering. Or we could have a Marine stationed outside the door, like on The West Wing.”
“Molly, it’s Jaeger’s office, not the White House situation room.”
“So? They’re still planning a precision military strike against an unsuspecting enemy.”
“On a handful of coyotes, not the nation of Afghanistan.”
Molly shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Ladies, if we could please focus for a few minutes?”
John Jaeger sounded more amused than annoyed. He sat perched on the edge of his desk beside the huge bulletin board on which all of Renny’s problems had been tacked in blown-up prints of living color. Yeah, seeing that was fun, and it was even more fun knowing an identical board graced the office of Alpha’s sheriff just down the road.
If this was her fifteen minutes of fame, Renny wanted to go back to peaceful anonymity.
“We’re focused. Focused on kicking ass.” Molly grinned.
“We can’t kick until we can find.” Zeke stretched his legs out in front of his chair and scowled at the large map of the town and its outlying areas. “I’m having trouble believing that five coyotes unfamiliar with this area are managing to stay so successfully hidden. Our patrols haven’t found a thing anywhere aside from where we already know they’ve been. It’s frustrating as hell.”
“Tell me about it. Vonnie is refusing to field any more calls asking why we haven’t taken care of this already. She’s putting our concerned citizen callers straight through to me now.”
Oh, good, because Renny hadn’t been feeling bad enough about bringing her troubles down on Alpha. She’d never wanted anyone else involved in her mess, and she couldn’t expect the residents of town to put up with it for much longer.
“You know, there’s still the option of me leaving,” she offered. “I’m the reason Geoff and the others are here, so if I go, I’m sure they’ll follow.”
“Yup, right over my dead body,” Mick growled. He glared at her, clearly unhappy at her for bringing up a possibility he’d already vetoed.
“That’s not an option.” Jaeger dismissed the idea for at least the fifth time. “We’re not letting a bunch of psychotic coyotes drive anyone out of Alpha. This is your home now, just as much as it is for the rest of us.”
“It’s not like I want to leave, but it would make things a lot easier for everyone else.”
“Except me,” Molly protested. “I finally have a pedicure buddy, and you want to take that away from me? How could you be so cruel?”
“No one is going anywhere.”
“Except Hilliard and his little-boy band,” Zeke said. “The men at the scene last night confirmed that the coyotes had vehicles concealed nearby to both the ambush site and Mick’s property. Their scent trails end there, so no luck tracing them back to wherever they’re holed up.”
“So, what do we do next? Just sit on our hands and wait until they stage another attack?” Jaeger shook his head. “I’m not happy with that option.”
“Because it isn’t one,” Mick grumbled. “I want this done and my mate safe.”
“That’s what we all want.”
“What if we’re ready for his next attack?” Renny had spent all night thinking about this, barely sleeping despite the comfortable room they’d stayed in at the Stag’s Rest Inn, Alpha’s best bed-and-breakfast. She’d kept the thoughts to herself, of course, because her mate had been lying right next to her and she didn’t want his head to explode on the crisp, white sheets. “We could set a trap for him. Lure him out at a place and time when we’re ready for him.”
Mick fastened that intense blue glare on her. “You mean use you as bait. Not happening.”
Huh, no brain matter on the upholstery. Renny decided to consider that an encouraging sign.
“Why not?” she asked. “I’m the cause of all the trouble. Why can’t I be part of the solution?”
“Hilliard is the cause, not you.”
“Semantics. It doesn’t alter the fact that I’m the reason the coyotes are in Alpha, and that they’ve shown us they’re not leaving until they get me. It seems to me that it makes more sense for us to control the next time they attack instead of waiting for them to catch us unprepared.”
Jaeger pursed his lips. “What did you have in mind?”
Mick turned on the mayor, fangs showing. “Nothing. It’s not happening. Drop it.”
Renny squeezed his hand. “Let’s not have this fight again, Cujo. No one is going to get hurt. That’s the whole point of us being prepared and in control of the situation.”
“I still haven’t heard what situation we’re talking about.”
“I figured you guys could work out the details.” More like, they would demand to. “Luring Geoffrey out shouldn’t be that hard. I mean, he’s proven how badly he wants to get his paws on me. We just have to offer him the opportunity, or at least make it look like that’s what we’re doing.”
“Brilliant plan,” Zeke observed. “Expect for the one pesky detail about there being no actual plan there.”
“She’s going to be the bait, does she have to be the strategist, too?” Molly demanded.
Jaeger held up his hands. “Children, calm down. Before we start fighting over who’s responsible for what may or may not be an actual plan, I think we need to consider a few hard truths. The attacks on Renny so far haven’t exactly been predictable. I’m not convinced it would be so easy to lay a trap for these coyotes.”
“John’s right,” Zeke said. “The first night, one of them chased Renny right onto Mick’s front lawn, so clearly they weren’t worried about stealth. Then they went after her in broad daylight, when she wasn’t even alone, in the middle of a public shopping area. And last night’s ambush might have been set up on a back road, but it was still early enough that they couldn’t have predicted no one else would happen by to derail the operation. I’m not convinced that even the best plan we could come up with would end up going the way we expect it to. Hilliard’s pack seems too unstable for that.”
He looked like he was about to say more, but a buzzing sound made him reach for the phone in his pocket. The deputy frowned down at the display and rose.
“Excuse me,” he said. “It’s Sheriff Lahern. I have to take this outside.” He had the phone to his ear before he was out the door.
“I agree with Zeke.” Jaeger shook his head. “You can’t lay a trap for an animal unless you know how it thinks, and I’m not crazy enough to figure out how Hilliard and his pals think. If they even do.”
Renny bit back a growl of frustration. “Then what are we supposed to do? I can’t just go about my business waiting for the other shoe to drop. My nerves couldn’t take it. I already feel ready to crawl out of my skin.”
“I get that this isn’t easy, Renny, but keeping you safe is everyone’s top priority. Catching Hilliard runs a close second, but it’s still second.”
She gave the mayor a sour look. “Speak for yourself.”
Renny could see her mate gearing up to give her another lecture, but Zeke’s return saved her bacon. Or at least her eardrums. He had an odd look on his face as he tucked his phone back into his pocket.
“Well, that was unexpected,” he drawled. “The sheriff was calling to tell me that one of our fugitive coyotes has been located.”
Mick stiffened. “Hilliard?”
“No, Bryce Landeskog. He’s at the sheriff’s office.”
Renny frowned. “He turned himself in? I don’t believe that.”
Zeke shook his head. “No, he’s dead. Someone left his body in the Dumpster behind the building.”
The room went silent. They all stared at the deputy, as if waiting for a punch line.
“What the fuck?” Jaeger finally managed.
“That’s exactly what the sheriff wanted to know.”
A tone sounded from the corner of the mayor’s desk. “John?”
“We’re a little busy, Vonnie. Hold my calls,” Jaeger instructed over the intercom.
The badger’s voice came back clearly. “This call isn’t for you. It’s for Ms. Landry. The man said it was urgent.”
“Put it through.” Still frowning, Jaeger reached over to activate his phone’s speaker function. The line clicked open.
“Hello, Renny, my sweet. Have you missed me?”
Mick wasn’t sure whether the people in the room with him looked more surprised or confused. Renny just looked grim. She recognized the voice as well as he did.
“Hello, Geoffrey.”
Molly’s eyes went wide and she slapped a hand over her own mouth, as if to stifle any potential noise. Zeke and Jaeger both narrowed their eyes and focused on the speaker. Zeke crossed to the bulletin board and picked up a marker, then tacked up a blank sheet of paper where everyone could see it.
“I hope the snack I left last night didn’t leave you feeling unwell this morning.” The coyote’s voice sounded falsely sweet in a way that made Mick’s hair stand on end. “I regretted the decision almost immediately—it was the heat of the moment, you understand—but by then it was too late to reverse it.”
Getting dept to trace call.
Need few mins.
Pump for info.
Location?
Zeke used one hand to scrawl his instructions on the board while the other typed text into his phone with surprising dexterity. The deputy was a man of hidden talents.
“The decision to poison me with tainted deer meat, you mean? Oddly enough, I wasn’t all that hungry last night. Something about being attacked on the way home from work just killed my appetite.”
Renny spoke to the telephone, but her eyes had locked on Mick’s. Her hand squeezed his in reassurance.
“That was an unfortunate incident.” Geoffrey’s voice cooled and hardened. “I’m afraid my employees chose to ignore the limits I had placed on their actions. You were never to be put in such danger.”
“It sounds to me like your ‘employees’ had a habit of ignoring that kind of instruction, Geoffrey. Or didn’t Bryce bother to tell you that he tore my side open trying to catch me a couple of weeks ago?”
“Bryce has been dealt with,” the coyote snapped. “He disobeyed and disappointed me one too many times. You won’t need to worry about him any further.”
“No? So, I just need to worry about Eric, Will, Tommy, and you, then. Is that what you’re saying?”
“You wouldn’t have to worry about me if you had just cooperated from the beginning, Renny. But I’m afraid you’ve earned your punishment. Don’t worry, though. I have too many plans for you to kill you. You’ll live a good long while yet.”
Mick watched the look of disgust cross his mate’s face and stroked her arm. When she looked at him, he shook his head. No way was he letting Geoffrey Hilliard get his hands on his mate. He’d rip them off first.
“Really? Don’t I get a vote there? Because if the choice is between death and submitting to your ‘plans,’ I saw this really pretty burial shroud on Pinterest.”
The coyote growled at that, then issued a soft, low-pitched woof all the more threatening for its lack of volume. “Don’t make things worse for yourself, Renny. I only have so much restraint, especially where you’re concerned. I could still decide to make you suffer.”
And that was when Mick’s wolf had enough.
The animal surged forward in his mind, not bothering with warning growls or posturing theatrics. It simply seized control of Mick’s impulses and threw him in front of his mate.
“You’ll die before you get within ten feet of my mate.” His voice sounded barely human, even to his ears, but no one in the room seemed to misunderstand. Zeke’s eyes went wide, and Jaeger’s mouth tightened. Renny cast him a worried glance.
There was a pause on the line. “Michael?” Hilliard sounded surprised for a moment, but he quickly masked the note. “You again? I don’t understand why you’re so determined to shove your snout into this situation, brother-in-law. I already told you, the little bitch is mine.”
“She bears my mark,” Mick snarled. “And I hers. You have no claim.”
“You marked her? That’s impossible.” Uncertainty, shock, and then rage spilled out of the coyote’s end of the connection. “You already had your mate, remember? Or did sweet little Elizabeth mean nothing to you in the end? Because you certainly went to a lot of trouble to avenge her. Don’t tell me you slaughtered your own pack for nothing.”
The taunt landed on the occupants of the room, and Mick glanced among them, trying to gauge the response. He knew that Renny knew his story, that she’d worked it out from the time she spent in his hometown after he’d left it. He’d suspected that Jaeger knew as well, because the mayor of Alpha made it a point to check out the histories of all the town’s newcomers as a way to ensure they posed no threat to the other residents. But he’d never discussed his past with Zeke, despite their friendship, and he’d never talked about anything much with Molly.
He figured everyone in town knew or suspected that he’d had a mate before and that something had happened to her, but it wasn’t something he talked about, and Alpha had certain rules. Most of the residents had wound up here because of problems that made it impossible for them to live among their own packs and clans and prides and families. It was considered only polite not to pry into those problems, but to let the individual decide what to share and when.
So much for that philosophy. Mick felt like his life story had just made the front page of the Alpha Town Cryer newspaper.
He pulled his gaze from the others and focused on the telephone speaker. “Don’t try to turn this into another of your games, Geoffrey. I can still add you to the ‘slaughter.’”
“You have to find me first, wolf. Let’s see if you can manage it before I take back my little bitch. I can’t wait to see if she tastes different now that you sank your teeth into her.”
The line clicked and went dead.
Mick spit out a curse. Beside him, Renny leaned closer and stroked his arm. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m right here,” she assured him.
Fury rode him too hard to let him be easily soothed. He looked at Zeke. “Did you trace the call?”
Zeke stared down at his cell phone. “Hold on. They’re pulling it up.… Fuck.” He raised his eyes and his expression was grim. “He used a burner phone. The location of the tower he bounced from tells us he’s here locally, but we won’t be able to trace him by the phone. Especially if he’s smart enough to have dropped it and moved on immediately.”
“He doesn’t sound stupid,” Jaeger said, bracing his hands on his desk and leaning forward. “Dumb as a lump of shit for going after another man’s mate, but not stupid. Send someone to check out the spot the signal originated from, but if they find more than that phone, I’ll eat my shorts.”
“I’ll feed you your shorts if you let anything happen to Renny.” Molly stood to glare fiercely at the mayor. “If the son of a bitch isn’t going to stick around in the spot where he called from, then what the hell are you wasting time for going there? Shouldn’t you be … oh, I don’t know, out searching for this asshole?”
Mick’s wolf approved wholeheartedly of the lioness’s show of loyalty, and so did Mick himself. He was just too busy trying to control his urge to go kill someone to unclench his jaw and tell her so.
Jaeger’s expression lightened with amusement. “Sheathe your claws, kitten. We’re not going to let anything happen to your friend. We’ve already got the search under way. See those colored areas?” He gestured toward the bulletin board and its highlighted, marked-up map. “Those are the sections of the search grid we established yesterday. We had men out there all afternoon, and they hit the ground running this morning. No one is wasting any time here. We will find this coyote, and we will deal with him.”
“Can the dealing include the introduction of his balls to a peavey hook, in true Pacific Northwestern style?”
Mick took in Molly’s evil expression. Then he remembered what a peavey was and pictured her wielding the long-handled spike with its pivoting hook attachment. He reflexively crossed his legs and eased a little farther away. He caught Zeke and Jaeger doing something similar.
“At this point, I don’t care about making him suffer or pay or whatever.” Renny sighed. “I just want him to go away and leave me alone. I’m ready to have a life for a change.”
“We’ll make it happen,” Mick assured her. He tugged her close and nuzzled her hair. “Whatever it takes, even if it kills him.”
“Duh, that would be the fun part.” Molly looked as if she were still picturing what she could do with some uninterrupted Hilliard time and a few of her favorite logging tools.
Jaeger eyed her warily. “How about we concentrate on finding Hilliard for the moment, and worry about what’s going to happen to him later? The quicker we locate the bastard, the quicker we can all have our turn to chat with him.”
Mick bared his fangs. “Me first.”
Oh, yeah. He had plans.