THE FINAL HAPTER
Ty was waiting for her when she got out of the bath almost an hour later, and she could tell he was more exhausted than he’d let on.
“You didn’t have to wait up for me,” she said.
“I wasn’t sure which side of the bed you preferred.”
His smile was rugged and handsome, his eyes soft in the light of the single lamp that lit the room.
“At this point, I’m too tired for anything that complicated,” she laughed.
She went to the side of the bed and sat down, sliding back and laying on her side. The bed dipped behind her, the weight of his large frame filling a void she didn’t know she’d been feeling as she snuggled against him and pulled his arms around her.
“How is your leg?”
“It hurts,” she said. “But it hurts a lot less, and it’s not terrifying to look at. I guess that’s something.”
“It will heal faster than you think.”
“Why?”
He paused, clearly shocked by her question. His pause made her realize that there was more to it than she had originally thought.
“I thought that I wouldn’t turn into a dragon because he cut me,” she said, her body stiffening even though she was trying to remain calm.
“You’re not,” he promised. “But there are some magical qualities that many of us have, and healing is one of them. Every shifter who has touched you today, even just your shoulder, has helped you heal.”
Senora rolled her eyes then shook her head when she realized that he couldn’t see her.
“So now you’re all healers, too,” she scoffed. “What other amazing powers will you have when it’s convenient?”
Ty chuckled in her ear, but he ignored her.
“Look at your leg now,” he said.
She did, despite meaning to ignore him.
“It’s still awful,” she said. “But I didn’t bandage it because you said it needed to air out.”
“It does. Look at it now and memorize what it looks like. In the morning, you will see the difference, and maybe then, you’ll believe me.”
“Or I’ll assume that the salts you made me soak in helped and that the wound wasn’t as bad as it originally appeared to be. The ranger said I didn’t need stitches.”
“I guarantee you needed them before he got his hands on you.”
She shook her head, but he held her tight and ignored her protests.
“You’ll see,” he insisted. “Now, quit talking so much so I can sleep.”
“But you’re-”
“Shh,” he said, gathering her closer and loudly inhaling, his face buried in her hair. “You smell so wonderful. Sweet dreams.”
She almost said something, but she decided against it. They could banter all night, and then they would be left tired in the morning, completely unable to focus. She would let him have the last word. It wouldn’t hurt anything to let him win one argument.
His breathing was already heavy on the back of her neck when she closed her eyes and started drifting off slowly. Faces and names floated through her mind as she struggled to shut off her thoughts. Every face, every lost soul from the list Carla had given her and her own list of cold cases danced around in her head. She tried in vain to push them aside, but they would not be ignored.
She laid there for an hour, trying to avoid the thoughts that would not be silenced. It was part of her nightly ritual, but she’d been hoping for a reprieve for just one night.
She turned over, snuggling into Ty’s chest and begging her tortured mind to let it go; at least for the night. She was exhausted, and she needed sleep. There would be time tomorrow to hunt down the teen stuck in a group home, and to track down Peter Ageke. All those things would take time, and she needed to be fresh and have her mind clear-
She sat up suddenly, pulling herself out of Ty’s arms and waking him up in the process.
“What’s going on?” he said, his voice husky with sleep.
She was on her feet and heading for the desk, her wound all but forgotten. She looked down at it when she realized that she wasn’t limping and gasped. It looked as if it had been healing for a week, and just an hour ago, it had still been an angry red on the edges, the flesh tattered like an old shirt around the outside of the wound. Now, the wound looked one-dimensional and only days from healing fully.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
“I told you.”
“There has to be another explanation,” she said.
He shrugged.
“Believe what you want. Is that why you jumped up?”
His question reminded her of where she’d been going. She shook her head and went for the notepad in the desk drawer. Grabbing a pen, she wrote the name Peter Ageke down, then crossed out each letter of the name, starting with G.
She was three letters in when she realized that she was right.
She finished writing and turned the paper around to show Ty.
“Peter Ageke is an anagram. The man that was with the dragon that took Ava was the Gate Keeper.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Did he know he was called that at the time?”
“He gave himself the moniker. So he’s either named Peter Ageke and likes anagrams, or he is the Gate Keeper and is using an anagram to taunt us.”
“He taunted us in Glen Rose at the farm.”
“Exactly. Getting away with things is like a game to him. I’m sure he’s taunting us.”
“So what do we do now?”
Senora sighed and bit her lip.
“There’s nothing we can do. He kidnapped an eleven-year-old WereDragon seven years ago. That doesn’t really mean anything right now.”
“Kaden saw him.”
“He did. And Kaden’s dead, so we have no help there.”
“Maybe one of the other parents saw him.”
“Maybe they did. But I’m not going to get my hopes up. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable, and getting a good sketch of him could prove to be impossible.” She made her way back to the bed, feet dragging and feeling more defeated than she had before she went to bed the first time.
She curled up a little closer, focusing on how his embrace made her feel and letting go of the images fighting for space in her head. She needed sleep. She was no good to them tired.
Ty held her and didn’t say a word. It was as if he sensed that silence was what she needed right now, and she was thankful for his intuition. It was nice to have someone who could read her so well and was willing to put aside his own needs when she needed him to the most. She would have to make it a point to thank him in the morning, but for now, she was reveling in the silence and enjoying the strong warmth of his embrace.
She started to fall asleep within a few minutes of crawling into bed with him, and even though she knew she was as safe as she could be, she still left the little bedside lamp on. He didn’t comment on it, and she wasn’t going to explain. She just wanted that one small reassurance, and she could finally let go and sleep. Her last thought before she fell to sleep was to wonder if her leg would really be healed in the morning, then to laugh at herself right before the darkness came.
***
Ty heard Senora laugh, but he resisted the urge to ask her what was so funny. An instant later, she was completely relaxed in his arms, and her breathing became heavy and even. He watched her for a while, brushing her chocolate waves out of her face and letting the silky strands slip across his fingers before they dropped back onto her shoulders. She was something else, he conceded, though he wasn’t sure if he could handle her. She was amazing, strong, hard-headed, and hell-bent on never sleeping with him again. Normally, he would see that as a challenge, but Senora wasn’t a woman that you challenged. She knew who she was and what she wanted, and any attempt to convince her otherwise was not going to end well. If he ever wanted to have a chance with her, he had to play his cards right and wait for her to come to him. He didn’t know if he could wait, and laying with her like he was, was harder than he’d expected. But he needed to know she was safe more than anything else, and her leg needed to heal.
He’d downplayed the severity of the wound, and like the others, he’d worried about infection. Dragon claws were known to be rattled with bacteria that was beneficial to them but harmful to humans. If she’d been wounded like that any other time, she would have died of raging fever within a few hours. But the ranger had been there and prepared with a first-aid kit and his quick thinking, followed by the healing powers of everyone who had touched her. He knew Senora struggled to believe some of the more magical things about his kind, but he couldn’t blame her. She’d been thrown into this, and landing on the back of a werewolf as you ran for your life through the forest wasn’t the best way to find out that shifters existed. She’d been a trooper through it all, and he wasn’t going to push her.
So he hadn’t told her that the salts he’d poured into her bath were really a magic potion made to look like nothing more than scented Epsom salts by the healer who lived at the base of the mountain and who was older than all the trees in the forest. And he didn’t tell her that she would now be immune to dragon related infections for the rest of her life. He wouldn’t tell her how her blood would run thicker through her veins, and her muscles would heal faster from exertion than they ever had. And he would take to his grave the fact that there would never be a dragon on this earth who could enchant her because a small piece of dragon coursed through her veins and would always be there.
Because she would hear these things, and no matter what he said, she would believe that she’d been infected by the dragon. She wouldn’t enjoy the improvements her fragile human body had been given. She would think infection, and she would be desperate to fix herself. He wouldn’t be able to find the words to convince her to embrace her new strengths, and she would believe in her heart that he’d lied to her.
He couldn’t bear to live knowing that she thought that of him. So he would keep everything to himself, and he would sleep better knowing that she would be safer tomorrow than she had been the day before, and he wouldn’t have to keep her in his sight to know that she was no longer vulnerable. That took a huge weight off his shoulders, and it was worth the anger she would surely feel if she ever found out.
There was a chance she would figure it out on her own, but her skepticism would keep her from making that leap. For once, it was nice that she refused to believe the simplest things, even when the evidence was there in front of her. Her hardheadedness would save her in the end, and Ty didn’t want to change a thing about her. She was perfect the way she was.
Just the way she was.
She rolled over and sighed, burying her face against his chest and smiling. She wasn’t making this easy on him, but he had made her a promise and he was sticking to it.
He lowered his head and rested it on top of hers, bringing her as close as he could without waking her and wrapping the blanket around them both. Daylight would be there before he knew it, and this moment would be gone. He was going to cherish this time with her for as long as he could. He was afraid he’d never have another moment like this again.
They slept like that through the night, and even though Ty knew exactly where she was at all times, he still woke up, heart racing, the image of Kaden holding her by one leg as he flew through the sky etched forever in his memory. He would run his hands over her quickly, listen to her steady breathing, then force himself back to sleep only to wake up an hour or so later and go through it all over again.
When he woke up again just after dawn, he decided to give up on sleeping and settled in to watch her sleep. She rested peacefully in his arms until well after breakfast, and he made no move to wake her. Her soft features tugged at his heart and made him long for something that might never be his. But in this moment, everything was exactly as he’d hoped it would be, and he wasn’t going to break the spell. He was stiff and tired, and his arm was asleep, but he wouldn’t trade this moment for anything. She trusted him implicitly, and that was more magical than anything that had ever happened to him in his life. Senora bursting into his life had changed everything, and he would never be the same man he was before.
*
Senora’s eyes fluttered open, and she came face to face with Ty, who was smiling in the bright light that streamed through their bedroom.
“What time is it?” she asked, her voice husky.
“Just a little after nine. You slept through breakfast.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Because you’re beautiful when you sleep?” he said, arching an eyebrow and smiling down at her. “You needed the rest. Your body needed to heal.”
Remembering her leg and surprised that it wasn’t throbbing beneath the sheets, she pulled the fabric away and was stunned to find that the wound was almost completely healed.
“That’s not possible,” she breathed in a whisper.
“There are a lot of things that aren’t possible, but they happen.”
“There has to be another explanation. Maybe the wound wasn’t that bad. The salts dried it out, and now it looks really good.”
She was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince him. It wasn’t working.
“We need to get up and get going,” Senora said, jumping out of bed and getting a change of clothes out of her suitcase. “Are we checking out before we head to Oklahoma?”
“We don’t have to, but I think we should take everything just in case we decide not to come back. I paid Kaden’s room for a few days, and I thought we might have a look it before we leave.”
“That sounds like a good idea. I’m pretty much always packed, so give me about five minutes and I’ll be ready.”
She ducked into the bathroom and changed quickly, stuffing her dirty clothes into the small plastic bag that laid over the edge of the ice bucket and emerging from the bathroom less than five minutes later, hair and teeth brushed and feeling more refreshed than she had in a while.
“Thank you for letting me sleep. I guess I needed that. I’m ready to go if you are.”
She grabbed Kaden’s laptop bag and her own, throwing both over her shoulder despite Ty’s protest.
“I’ve got it,” she said, ignoring his offer of help.
He picked up her overnight bag before she could stop him, tucking it under his arm and carrying his own bag with his free hand.
“I’m going to hold onto our hotel key, but it looks like we got everything, right?”
“I have everything I came with, and the list is in my laptop bag.”
“Alright, let’s go to the front desk and see if you and your handy FBI badge can get us a key to Kaden’s room.”
She smiled.
“I would hope so, since they let you pay the bill.”
“I thought they would, too. But it turns out that people paying other people’s bills is pretty common here and they didn’t even find it strange that I wanted to do that. I thought it was weird, but it helped us out, so I’m not going to complain.”
They walked through the halls and to the front desk. The lady behind the counter looked up at them and smiled.
“Can I help you?” she asked nicely.
Senora slipped her badge out of her pocket and across the counter.
“I need to get into room one eighteen.”
The clerk furrowed her brow.
“Weren’t your people already in there this morning?” she asked, making a keycard for them as she talked.
“This morning?” Senora repeated.
“Yes. Two men came by and were in there for a few minutes, then left.” She handed the key to Senora. “They had a badge like yours, and I let them in. Was that wrong?”
Senora didn’t answer. She and Ty were already running out of the lobby and down the hall. Her hands were shaking as she put the keycard in the slot. The light turned green, and she shoved the door open, but she already knew what she was going to find.
The room had been tossed, and she could tell that whoever had done it was an expert. They used the same technique she’d learned at Quantico, and she was willing to bet that the laptop on her shoulder was what they’d been looking for.
“This isn’t good,” she said, trying not to panic. “Whoever did this was one of us, or they used FBI techniques.”
“How can you tell?” he asked, his voice more appreciative than questioning whether or not she was right.
“We do it a certain way every time. It keeps you from making mistakes. This is a textbook FBI room tossing. Ty, I need to find out who came here this morning.”
She left the room, half-running to the front desk. The clerk looked up, her face pinched with worry. It was clear that the woman knew that one pair of agents wasn’t supposed to be there, but Senora guessed that she wasn’t sure which agents were the wrong ones. Senora had to play this gently or the woman was likely to go silent.
“Do you have access to the camera footage?”
“I don’t,” the woman said.
“Who does? Will you call them for me?”
“No one does.”
“I don’t understand.”
The woman sighed heavily.
“The cameras don’t work. They’ve never worked. Every time we put new cameras in, they overheat and the inner workings fry within a week or two. There’s something magnetic in the mountain that makes surveillance cameras useless.”
Senora was floored. She’d never heard anything like that before. Surely, this woman didn’t believe that?
“There’s not a single working camera in this hotel?”
“Nope,” the woman said.
“Great,” Senora said, turning when Ty came up behind them. “There are no cameras, Ty.”
“I’m not surprised. I’ve heard the mountains aren’t conducive to them.”
Senora rolled her eyes at Ty, her back turned to the clerk. There was no way that the explanation was scientifically sound. She was annoyed, but there was nothing she could do about everyone being hoodwinked by a ridiculous wife’s tale.
“What about the truck?” Ty asked, and Senora’s heart sank.
She had forgotten the truck.
Without another word to the clerk, they left and went out to the parking lot. The truck’s doors were slightly ajar, and Senora knew before she reached the vehicle that it was destroyed.
All the tires were slashed. But it wasn’t the tires that filled her with dismay. The door squeaked as she pulled it open, revealing the missing computer screen that had been forcefully removed from the dashboard, along with all the hardware beneath it. The truck was gutted and useless, every working part smashed in with a crowbar.
“They even sliced open the seats,” Ty said. “They wanted to make sure that no one used this truck.”
“I don’t think that’s all. I think that they wanted this laptop, and when they didn’t find it in the room, they were certain it would be in the truck. I wonder if the people who did this know that Kaden is dead.”
“There’s no telling,” Ty said. “But we need to get out of here. Right now, we’re just two nosey people on our way out of the hotel who happened upon the truck. If they’re watching and we linger, they’ll know it’s us.”
Senora nodded, resisting the urge to look around. Ty was right. They went straight to the rental and got in. Ty drove them out of the parking lot calmly and turned the corner, heading for highway 287 via highway 70.
“Do you have the address of the group home?” he asked.
“I do,” she said, typing it into the GPS on her phone and putting her phone on the holder on the dashboard. “Boise City is only five hours away. We can get there by three and be back late tonight.”
“We don’t have to come all the way back to Denver. Etienne’s parents moved to Pueblo after their daughter’s disappearance. They couldn’t stand to live in Denver anymore. Too many memories.”
“When did you find this out?”
“While you were sleeping. I made a few calls when I couldn’t sleep, then I got back into bed. You were sleeping like a rock.”
“I must have been.” She shook her head. “That cuts our drive time by two hours. So we’ll be there by lunch if we find Etienne where I expect her to be.”
“And if she remembers them and wants to see them. From what I read on her file that you have, she’s not cooperative and has a lot of anger issues.”
Senora turned and looked at him, her expression flat.
“Wouldn’t you?” she asked.
“I am not saying that I blame her for running. I just don’t know if she’s going to be ready to just leave. I just want you to be prepared for what could happen.”
“You’re right. We’ll play it by ear when we get there. I just want to pick her up and take her home and have everything be happily ever after. I know better than that. It rarely works out that easily.”
“Maybe this time will be better. When you were found, it was a happy ending, right?”
“Until they disappeared. But the year before that was blissful.”
She recounted everything she could remember about their disappearance that she hadn’t already shared, along with all the leads she’d followed that had led nowhere. It was a lot more than she realized. Her story continued through the countryside and a quick stop in a drive-thru to get lunch. It was almost an hour after she finished her meal when she finally exhausted all the information that she had. She leaned back into the seat and sat for a moment, bogged down by the weight of it all and feeling more hopeless than she had in a long time. She had so much to go on, and still, her parents had never been found. With all the resources available to her, and her dogged determination, she should have found something by now. But she hadn’t even found their car.
Ty drove in silence, somehow anticipating her need to sit with her thoughts for a few minutes without having to talk. Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn’t cry. She was stronger than that, and crying had never gotten her very far. She just needed a few moments to collect herself, and she would be back to normal.
She was grateful for his ability to read her so easily, and his willingness to respect her silent boundaries. It was a nice change of pace from the few times she’d worked with other agents. If he worked in her office and a long-term partnership was an option, she wouldn’t be as opposed to the idea as she originally was. They were good together, and he brought out the best in her and pushed her to do her job even better than she already did. They were made to work together, and as much as being close to him was a struggle, she was going to enjoy working with him until J put a stop to it. The way J had thrust them together, she thought that there was a good chance that they would be working together for at least a few more months, if not a year.
Maybe J was trying to recruit Ty.
“When was the last time you searched for them?” Ty asked after giving her some time to sort out her feelings and regain her composure.
“It’s been a while, as much as I hate to admit it. I’m so bogged down with cases, and every time I feel like I have a little breathing room, J hands me a few more.”
“Have you asked to take vacation time to work on it?”
“I haven’t. I don’t have time to take a vacation. I get a few days in here and there, but I get called back in or there’s just too much to justify time off.”
Ty looked away from the road for an instant to look at her. She knew what he was going to say before he said it.
“You need to make a vacation priority. Even if it’s just a week. You have to have time to refresh. You’re going to burnout, and then you’ll be no good to anyone. J should know that. That’s one of the things that they make clear in high-stress jobs. How much vacation time do you have accrued?”
“Four months.”
Ty laughed, but the sound was almost humorless.
“That’s funny and not funny all at the same time.”
“I know. I just don’t have the time.”
“You need to make time.”
“And what about getting called back in?”
“If your phone isn’t with you, they’ll move onto the next agent. You’re not the only one in the entire FBI doing what you do.”
“I am in my office. I only pick up certain cases.”
“But you travel for work, and another agent could travel just as easily.” He paused, reaching out to grab her hand and giving it a squeeze. “We can spend this entire drive arguing over all the reasons why you can take a vacation, and I’ll win in the end. Because I’m right, and you know it. Why not cut to the chase and we can plan a vacation?”
Senora’s stomach lurched, and her heart started pounding in her chest. Was he proposing a vacation together? There was no way she was going to-
“Before you come up with a million reasons why we can’t take a vacation together, I’m not talking about a romantic one. You need to decompress and get away from all this craziness. I’m talking about a week in the wilderness. A nice cabin in the woods, two bedrooms if you want some space. A few neighbors but otherwise nothing but the sound of your own thoughts and our footfalls as we hike through the forests.”
“That sounds like heaven for you. I’m not sure that I’m okay with roughing it.”
“I think you can manage,” he teased. “I bet you’ll find out that you like the fresh air and the complete lack of wireless signal.”
“It’s tempting.”
“But?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then, say yes.”
She looked at him, then she looked away. They were passing another wooded area, the smell of the evergreen trees coming through the vents and swirling around her. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, imagining what it would be like to spend some time in the woods when her life wasn’t in danger, and they weren’t looking for a missing hotel clerk.
“Alright,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
“You mean it?” Ty asked.
“You sound giddy.”
“I am. I haven’t had a vacation in a long time, and there’s nothing like taking one with someone you admire. It will be nice to go adventuring on a level playing field.”
Senora laughed.
“I think that you’ll always have an unfair advantage no matter what,” she said, still laughing.
“But as humans go, you’re a tough one. You’re going to love it. I promise.”
“As long as it’s just as friends.”
“I’m up for whatever you are,” he said, squeezing her hand one more time before he let her go. “I think the time will pass quicker than you think.”
“You do? Based on what?”
He pointed to the sign, and she was surprised to see that they’d talked their way through Colorado, and they were only twenty minutes from Boise City.
“Did you call ahead?” he asked.
“No.”
“Good plan.”
“If anything is going on there that I need to know about, I don’t want to give them a head’s up. They won’t deny me taking Etienne. From the sound of the report, they’ll probably push her out the door with her things.”
“That’s really sad.”
“It is, but at least we won’t have to jump through the normal hoops to get her. And she’s nearly aged out of the system. Her situation isn’t ideal, but it will help us get in and out quickly.”
Ty nodded, guiding the car off the highway and following the prompts from the GPS. Senora watched the street ahead, eager to get to Etienne and take her back to her home.
They turned down a peaceful, tree-lined street, and the GPS announced that their destination was on the right at the end of the road. Senora didn’t need to be told; she could already see the quiet, unassuming house that served as a children’s home and the upheaval that was taking place as Senora and Ty made their way down the block.
In the middle of the road stood a girl, barefoot and defiant, her body rigid as she faced off with the caretakers that had come out of the house to corral her. Her long, blonde hair reached her waist, falling in tight ringlets of gold that shone in the Oklahoma sun. Senora knew without seeing the girl from the front that this was Etienne.
And she was angry.
“Let me out here,” Senora said, opening the door before Ty could stop all the way.
He did as she asked, and Senora hit the ground running, flashing her badge at the caretakers and waving them back.
“Go inside!” she shouted at them.
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with,” one woman said, her face smug. “You can’t handle this child alone.”
“She doesn’t need to be handled,” Senora said, slowing down a few yards from Etienne. “She needs you to go inside and let me handle it.”
The caretakers looked at one another, and the first woman shrugged, her expression so haughty that Senora itched to slap her.
They left, leaving Senora in the street with Etienne, who was still standing with her back to Senora. A dozen tiny little faces were pressed to the windows in the front of the house, and Senora was not surprised to see the faces of the caretakers join them. They would be watching her every move and mentally patting themselves on the back for being better than Senora.
Senora ignored them. She was focused on the girl and the slim shoulders that were set so rigidly, her feet spread wide and planted on the hot asphalt as if the heat didn’t faze her.
“I know who you are,” she said quietly. “I know what you are. I know when you get angry that your body changes in ways that you can’t control. And I know that you can’t remember where you’ve been or how you got out. It’s amazing that you remembered your own name. I didn’t remember mine. I still don’t.”
The girl’s shoulders moved, and Senora knew she’d gotten over the first hurdle. Etienne didn’t turn, but raised her voice instead so that Senora could hear her.
“You were taken?”
“I was.”
“Did you ever find your parents?”
“No. I got new ones, and they loved me like I was their own.”
“No one wants me,” the girl said, the pain of that declaration so heavy in her voice that Senora had to fight back her own tears.
Her heart ached for this young woman who had been victimized twice in her short life. Once when she was kidnapped, and once when she was convinced by people that didn’t understand her that she wasn’t worthy of a new home and a loving family. When she was done reuniting Etienne with her family, she was going to have a long talk with the social worker in charge of this group home.
“I know of two people who want you very much. They never gave up hope, and they never stopped believing that you would come home.”
Etienne did turn this time, her pretty face streaked with tears, bright green eyes shining in the afternoon sunlight.
“You found my parents?” she asked.
“They were never lost,” Senora said. “We found you, and we want to take you out of here and back to your home where you’re safe and loved.”
Etienne looked up at Ty, then back to Senora as if the mere sight of the large, muscle bound man terrified her.
“Is he a cop? I don’t want to go to jail.”
Senora closed her eyes, trying to keep it together as her heart broke a little more with each question. What had happened to this teen since she’d been found was almost as bad as what had happened before. It was all Senora could do not to shoot angry glares at the caretakers who had failed this young woman so thoroughly. Was this how Addie had ended up so troubled?
“He’s a special kind of cop. He’s like you, but he knows how to control the changes and he doesn’t have to hide who he is.”
“He’s a dragon?” she whispered, looking around as if the mere mention of the words terrified her.
“He’s a wolf,” Senora confirmed. “Look, we can leave here right now, and you never have to see this place again. Your parents are three hours from here. You can be home tonight if you’re ready to see them. If you’re not, we can-”
“I want to see them. I want to see them now.”
Senora nodded.
“Then, get in the car, and I’ll have Ty get your things and-”
“Those aren’t my things. They can have everything that I had in my backpack. I don’t want anything from them.”
“What about your shoes?”
“I don’t want anything they gave me.”
“Fair enough,” Senora said.
She held out her hand to the girl, and Etienne eyed the offer with some suspicion.
“I’m not going to make you go anywhere or do anything you don’t want to do,” Senora said.
“You promise?” her voice trembled.
“I promise.”
Her soft hand slipped into Senora’s then, and the two of them walked hand in hand to the car. The head caretaker came out and hollered in their direction, but Senora couldn’t make out the words, and she didn’t care. They had failed Etienne big time; they could deal with the mess of paperwork that would come with explaining where the girl had gone. Or they could claim she’d run away and wash their hands of it. Either way, Senora didn’t care.
They got into the car, Senora climbing into the back with Etienne and opening her arms to her when the girl leaned against her, her thin body shaking like a leaf.
“You’re not even going to sign paperwork?” Ty asked, sounding more than a little amused.
“I’ll call it in on Monday,” she said. “Right now, I only have one job.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ty said, turning around and heading back the way they came. “Where to next, Boss.”
“Eighteen hundred and three Main Street, Pueblo,” Senora said. “Let’s take Etienne home.”
*
Senora and Ty quietly let themselves out of the two-story house, their hearts filled from the hours they’d spent with Etienne’s family. After making sure that Etienne was ready to be reunited with her family, Senora had placed a call to the shocked parents, letting them know that they were a little over two hours away. By the time Senora and Ty showed up, the house was filled with family members and the smell of dinner cooking in the kitchen.
Senora had been worried that it would all be too overwhelming for Etienne, but to her delight, the family stayed in one side of the house, letting Etienne and her parents have a quiet, tear-filled reunion for almost an hour before the siblings were brought in. She could tell from the look on Etienne’s face that she was remembering some things, but many of her memories were still a blur. What Etienne did remember was how home and family felt, and she fell into sync with these people so quickly that Senora was left in awe of her resilience. She expected it to take far longer for Etienne to feel at home, but she guessed that anything was better than the place she’d been in this afternoon.
The door opened quietly behind them, and Etienne’s father, Francis, stood on the stoop for a moment, then raced down the stairs to where they were.
“I didn’t get a chance to thank you,” he said, standing in front of them with tears in his eyes and the same smile he’d had plastered to his face since he’d first laid eyes on Etienne. “My little girl is practically a woman now; I thought I would never see her again. I have you to thank.”
Senora held out her hand to shake his, but he pulled her in and hugged her tight, kissing her chastely on the cheek before letting her go.
“I’ve never met a human like you, but I’m glad I did. If you need anything at all, ever, you let me know. My wife and I will owe you a debt of gratitude for the rest of our lives.”
“I’m just doing my job,” Senora said, but Francis was already shaking his head in vehement opposition.
“Don’t diminish what you did. You are an angel on earth, and you have mended our broken hearts. We will never forget you.”
Senora thanked him, then hugged him once more before leaving.
“Our door is always open,” he called out as Ty drove away, and Senora waved.
Ty drove down the street and around the corner then pulled over and put the car in park. Senora looked at him and burst into tears, embarrassed by the flood of emotions that always overtook her at the end of a case like this.
Ty unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled her into his lap, holding her tight as she fell apart. The last week had been so hard on her. Finding Addie dead, then rescuing Hannah and her friends before taking off for Denver to rescue the people she thought were the enemy had taken a toll on her. She was overwhelmed, and the happiness at seeing Etienne so happy had proved to be her breaking point.
They stayed like that for the longest time, Ty quietly reassuring her that her feelings were normal and healthy, and that he wasn’t going anywhere until she let it all out. His fingertips brushed her hair out of her face and smoothed down her cheek, a gesture that had become all too familiar. She thought briefly about giving into the urges that had been plaguing her, but she knew that she couldn’t jump into bed with him every time her feelings were too big to manage. It was a bad habit to get into, and she was already trying to convince her heart that she didn’t have feelings for him beyond what was professional.
And her heart was having a hard time believing her lies.
As long as Ty believed her, she would survive.
She nuzzled her cheek into his shirt, and his arms tightened around her. There was no place as safe as Ty’s arms; of this, she was certain. His large hand rubbed her back, and his soft, continuous stream of comforting words soothed her down to her soul. She could breathe again, and soon, the tears had dried to her face and she was feeling like herself again.
She had just sat up when her phone rang, the ringtone shrill in the quiet, confined space.
“That’s J,” she said. “I have to take that.”
He nodded, and she slipped off his lap and back into her seat. She cleared her throat and answered the phone, pulling out a pen and notepad from the glove compartment just in case.
“This is Agent Edwards,” she said, though she knew it was J.
“You need to pack your bags and head home,” J said, the computerized voice somehow curt and short as if he was mad at her.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re coming home.”
“I thought I was working with Ty until-”
“Until further notice,” J said. “This is further notice. Your flight from Pueblo leaves in an hour. I trust you’re still close enough to the airport.”
Senora’s stomach sank, and she knew that this was it. She didn’t know why, but it wasn’t her place to argue, and she knew that she would be going back to her old life and her old office someday. She just didn’t think it was going to be so soon.
J had been so adamant that this would be a longer partnership, and she didn’t know why things had changed.
“I’m close enough,” she said, switching her voice to the cordial yet no nonsense tone she used at work. “I’m already packed.”
“Good. I expect you in the office on Monday. That will give you some time to relax before you have to get back into your normal routine. Oh, and Senora?”
“Yes, J?”
“Excellent work. Better than expected.”’
“Thank you, Sir,” she said, but he’d already hung up.
“Is something wrong?” Ty asked.
“I’m going back to D.C.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He said I did an excellent job, but something about the way he said it didn’t sound right. I hope I’m not in trouble for taking Etienne like that.”
“There’s no way it got back to him that fast. I’m sure they just need you on the cases you normally work.”
“I guess. My flight leaves in an hour.”
“From Denver? We’ll never make it.”
“From Pueblo. I guess he’s tracking my cellphone. It is a bureau phone, but I still feel a little like I got caught doing something wrong.”
“So what now?”
Senora shrugged.
“I guess you take me to the airport, and we say goodbye.”
The car was dark, and his face was in shadows, but Senora knew that Ty was upset, maybe even angry. She scooted the rest of the way into her own chair and clicked her seatbelt as he turned around in the middle of the street and headed for the airport.
They rode in silence while Senora struggled to find the words to say that would fix everything. But she knew that Ty wasn’t upset with her, and he knew that she had no control over this.
When the bright lights of the airport appeared on the horizon, Senora groaned out loud.
“I don’t want to leave,” she said, not sure what else she could say. “I wish I knew what was going on.”
Ty didn’t take his eyes of the road, and his voice was flat when he responded.
“They have their best agent out in the field working on other cases. Maybe they had a few more come in that fit your normal criteria.”
“Except I’m not leaving from here to the next assignment, and J doesn’t expect me in until Monday. I don’t know about you, but to me, that doesn’t scream ‘new case.’”
“What do you think it means?”
“We screwed up somewhere. Maybe not you, because you don’t work for the FBI. But somewhere, we stepped on someone’s toes. Maybe Kaden was being followed, and the agents who ransacked his room were really working for the FBI and not former agents gone rogue.”
“That’s a possibility. It would fit the timeline better than assuming that the group home in Boise City had already caused issues. I’m sure you’re right about it being related to Kaden.”
Ty pulled off the freeway and pulled into a deserted parking lot more than a mile from the airport’s entrance. He put the car in park and looked at her.
“Do you think that they’re after his laptop?” he asked her.
“I was thinking that. But why wouldn’t J just ask for it?”
“Maybe they don’t want me to know?”
“Or maybe they didn’t tell J what they were after. There’s a lot of posturing between departments, which could explain why he was so terse with me.”
“How do you even know he’s terse? Doesn’t he use the voice over software all the time?”
“He does, but there’s something about the way he was typing that made the sentences seem shorter and a little angry. I’m sure it’s subconscious, and he didn’t even notice he’d done it. But no matter what, he’s upset, and something I did or was involved in is the reason. What if he doesn’t want me to come in until Monday because he’s going to fire me?”
The thought, once voiced, terrified her. Her job was everything, and she couldn’t see herself doing anything else.
“He’s not going to fire you,” Ty said. “But I do think that you’re in danger if you take that laptop on the plane with you. I’m not sure why, but I have a feeling that you won’t even make it to the office with it if you try to take it with you.”
She looked at him, his face still in the shadows, the eerie green glow from the dashboard making his words seem even more ominous.
“What makes you think that?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a hunch, but I feel it in my very soul. Please, don’t take the laptop with you.”
“What if something happens to you?”
“Then, you’ll know it was the laptop.”
“I can’t ask you to put yourself in danger like that.”
“You’re not asking me,” he countered. His gaze was fierce, his resolve unwavering. “Please, leave it with me. At least for now.”
She held her breath, a million scenarios running through her head before she finally nodded and let out a heavy sigh.
“I think you’re right. I don’t know why, but something just feels wrong.”
She didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath, waiting for her answer, until he let out a huge sigh.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t thank me yet. This might be the worst decision you ever made.”
She got out of the car and went to the trunk, grabbing her overnight bag and coming back to the passenger seat. She rummaged around, digging out her own laptop from the protected compartment in her carryon and putting it in the laptop bag in place of Kaden’s. Aware that any of the buildings could have video surveillance, she carefully slid Kaden’s laptop under her seat, all with her body hunched over the bag, preventing any outside camera from seeing what she was doing.
“What are you doing?”
“If I get out of your car without a laptop bag, you may be followed. This way, it looks like I have it, and you can leave to Silver City and get your truck.”
“I’m supposed to leave this car at the rental place at the Denver Airport.”
“I wouldn’t do it. Silver City is less than eight hours from here. I would go straight there, get in your truck and leave the car at the Silver City Airport. They’ll find it eventually and go get it.”
“What about your laptop?”
“It’s a work laptop. Every time I power down, I encrypt the day’s work, put it on a flash drive and upload it to the secure server. If anyone takes my laptop and tries to open it with the wrong password, the hard drive is instantly wiped clean. I’ll have a secure laptop on my desk Monday morning.”
“You’re cute when you’re paranoid,” he said, leaning over and kissing her quickly on the mouth before putting the car in gear and heading for the airport.
“You know I’m right,” she said. “If I’m not right, at least I’m right to be worried. Something isn’t right, and I want to get to the bottom of it before I let my guard down.”
“Smart move. I’m going to let you out at the curb and drive off. I don’t want to draw too much attention to us. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and they’ll think I’m a hired driver.”
“We can dream, but I wouldn’t count on it.” She squeezed his hand. “Keep your eyes open. I’ll try to call when I can.”
“You watch your back, too,” he said. “I won’t be there to protect you.”
“And I won’t be there to protect you,” she teased.
He slowed down, and she gathered her bag and the laptop bag, kicking beneath the seat to make sure that Kaden’s laptop stayed where it was.
“I’ll be in touch,” Ty said, reaching out to touch her shoulder one last time before he pulled to a complete stop and she opened the door.
“Thank you for everything,” she said and closed the door, turning quickly and getting her bearings.
She heard the car pull away from the curb, and she felt her heart clench. This wasn’t how she’d expected to say goodbye to him, and the suddenness was almost too much. She pulled out her phone and tried to distract herself with her flight information. As expected, J had texted her flight number and boarding pass, along with the gate number.
Situating the laptop on her shoulder, she grabbed her overnight bag and headed to the gate, head held high, keeping her steps even and her expression calm.
Everyone she walked by seemed suspicious. From the man standing with a newspaper held up in front of his face to the woman with a bundle held against her chest that didn’t look big enough to be a real baby. She felt like she was being watched, even if she couldn’t pinpoint who was doing the watching.
The TSA whisked her through the security line, bypassing the long line of travelers that waited to go through the machines. That earned her some grumpy looks from the passengers that had been waiting a while, but she couldn’t stand in the line and wait or she would miss her flight.
She made it to her gate in time to pre-board, settling into her seat and closing her eyes. She had her overnight bag and the laptop bag stuffed under the seat, though they barely fit. She wasn’t surprised when a member of the flight crew showed up to inform her that one of her bags would have to be stowed in the overhead compartment. She pretended to argue a little bit, though not enough to get kicked off the plane. After a few minutes going back and forth and brandishing her badge, she begrudgingly let the stewardess put the laptop in an overhead compartment a short distance away since the compartment above Senora’s seat contained the fire extinguisher and defibrillator. Senora was sure that her seating assignment had not been an accident.
When they landed a few hours later, Senora watched with cool indifference as the airplane’s aisle filled up, obstructing her view of her laptop across the aisle and several rows closer to the front. She watched in the small gaps between the other passengers, keeping an eye on the laptop bag as much as she could and almost smiling when the crowd moved and it was gone. The man beside her still sat in his chair, insisting that there was no point in getting up until the plane was empty. Senora had met people like him, but she knew that he was one of them, placed beside her to keep her from getting to the laptop before someone could sneak it off the plane.
They were going to be furious when they discovered that they had the wrong computer, but by then, she would be long gone.
A text message came through as she was disembarking, and she responded to her best friend, letting her know she would be outside in a few moments. She hurried past baggage claim and out the door, going straight for the Dodge Charger that was parked at the curb.
“Hey, girl,” Jen said as Senora hopped in and put her carryon on the floor between her feet.
Senora buckled herself in, looked her friend dead in the face and smiled.
“I know what that look means,” Jen said, revving the engine and all but peeling out when she left the curb. “Where to?”
“Your house will be fine,” Senora said. “I have a feeling that I shouldn’t go home for a while.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jen said, laughing and punching down the accelerator, heading out of the city and toward the countryside where Jen lived.
They were almost there when Senora’s phone rang.
“Agent Edwards,” she answered.
“Senora,” J said, the typing in the background faster than normal. “Did you happen to bring an extra laptop home with you?”
“No,” she said innocently.
Jen’s smirked but remained silent.
“It seems that there was a laptop taken from the hotel in Denver. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”
“A couple of agents ransacked the room before I could get in there to look around,” she said truthfully. “The front desk told me that they showed FBI credentials, and I assumed that they were legit. Is there an issue?”
“No,” J said. “They thought maybe you had the laptop with you.”
Senora shook her head, not even surprised that J didn’t try to hide the fact that he’d sent agents to steal her laptop. What in the world was going on?
“I didn’t take anything from the room,” she said, once more being completely honest.
“I believe you, Senora,” J said. “I’ll be in touch on Monday.”
“See you Monday,” she said, but he’d already hung up.
She’d be there on Monday, but she’d be watching her back closely from now on. She didn’t know how J factored into this mess, but there was something shady going on, and if she wasn’t careful, she was going to find herself swept up in it. There was no one she could trust but herself, Jen and Ty from this point on.
And she was willing to bet her life on it.
* * *
Ready for the final part of the story?
Dear Reader,
I want to personally thank you for taking your time to read “The Wolf Code Reloaded” I really hope you enjoyed it and the good news is there is MORE to come!
“The Wolf Code Forever” is available now so click the below link and keep reading the series!
See you in the next book :)
Angela Foxxe x x