Chapter Eight
Rafe
"You busy?"
Colby's voice pulled me away from the paperwork I was halfheartedly working my way through.
"Never too busy for you," I responded, the same way I did every time he asked. I was rewarded with the smile that my Omega saved just for me. The one that made me feel simultaneously like a hero and the luckiest bastard on earth. "What's on your mind?"
Colby waved a sheaf of papers in the air. "Cyber finished their report on Harley's tablet."
"Awesome." Unlike the human population that we live among, shifters don't tend to be technology obsessed. Yeah, we use computers and cell phones and so on, but we don't live by them. In most packs, only a handful of members besides the Alpha even have cell phones – after all, our howls can be heard miles away – and there is usually a central computer bank that everyone uses when they need to. Individual laptops and the such aren't common unless they are needed for work. We'd been more than a little surprised to find a tablet computer when we searched Harley's room.
So had his Alpha.
I raised a brow and spun my chair, holding out my hand and biting back a grin as my very obviously pregnant mate closed the door to my office and sashayed his way across the room to stand between my knees.
I ran my hands up the back of his thighs, caressing his firm ass as I kissed his protruding tummy. "How's my baby?"
"We're both fine, Alpha," Colby said softly, stroking my hair as I nuzzled his stomach. "You?"
"Good, baby." I braced my feet against the floor and tugged Colby down into my lap, running my nose along his neck and drawing in the deliciously spicy pheromones there. "What's the report say?"
Colby tipped his head back, allowing me more room to kiss along his neck. "They found an online dating account and some messages that suggest Harley may have been arranging to meet up with someone just before he was taken."
“Anybody in the pack mention it? I don’t remember Zade saying anything.”
“That’s because he didn’t,” Colby confirmed for me. “In fact, I pulled Zade’s interview transcripts, and he was asked three different times about social media accounts and so on. He said there weren’t any.”
"Shit."
Colby just nodded and lifted his shirt to lay my hand on the tautly stretched skin of his tummy.
"You're sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, but I’m kind of craving your touch," he admitted.
Setting Colby back on his feet, I rose from my seat and reached for his hand. "Let's go."
"What?" Colby seemed both bemused and confused. "The shift just started two hours ago."
"We have some time off accrued," I reminded him, all but dragging him behind me to the parking lot. It only took a quick glance to find Fugly sitting in the corner of the lot. There was no way the ugly-ass monster of a minivan could fit in the assigned space intended for my Omega’s sleek motorcycle.
At the end of the driveway, I hesitated briefly. If I turned left, I'd be headed toward our pack lands where a nearly endless number of responsibilities – including the target of the investigation we'd been discussing – waited. I turned right and pulled out onto the highway.
That Colby sat quietly as I drove, gazing out the window and commenting on the scenery, spoke volumes about the progress in our relationship since those early days when he constantly questioned my commitment to him, to us. "Don't you want to know where we're going?"
Colby's hand landed on my dick, cupping me through my jeans and squeezed gently. "As long as we're together, I'm good, Alpha."
I barely managed to keep the van on the road as all of my blood ran south. "Damn it, Coby. You know what that does to me."
His answering chuckle assured me that I was right and it hadn't been an accident.
Silently praising the brilliant individual who designed push-button fold-flat rear seats, I pulled off the road and parked in a secluded area. Colby was already unbuttoning his jeans as he climbed into the back.
~*~
“It’s bugging you.” Colby was spooned up in front of me on the flattened seat where we had collapsed after our rather frantic coupling. His back was against my front and his words vibrated against me.
“That Harley had that dating profile?” I asked even though I was already sure what Colby meant. He nodded and I sighed, brushing a kiss over the nape of his neck. “Yeah, it is. It sure increases the number of potential suspects.”
“And the fact that no one in the pack admitted knowing about it is either suspicious as hell or proof that he was sneaking around,” Colby observed. “Which, of course, is why the three of them are crammed into a Blood Valley guest house.”
As much as I wish I could say that offering to put Zade, Levi, and Harley up while they were on our side of the mountains was done with nothing but altruistic goals in mind, I've never really been one to lie to myself. The truth was that no one in the COPSD office was quite convinced that Harley had really lost his memory.
I shrugged. Colby already knew the answer.