It was four hours later when they finally pulled off the two-lane road that passed as a highway and turned into the hotel parking lot where the victim had last been seen. Senora was eager to get out of the truck and put some distance between herself and Ty after being enveloped in his manly scent for the entire drive. She was struggling to think, and every time he looked at her, he smiled in a way that made her pulse quicken and her head spin. She couldn’t work like this, and neither should he.
She had to set some boundaries, and now was as good a time as any.
“Could you do me a favor?” she asked, sitting in the truck with her hand on the door.
“Of course,” he said with a huge grin.
“Could you not do that werewolf thing while we’re here?”
“The werewolf thing? I have to admit, no one has ever broken it down quite so succinctly for me. Is there a specific werewolf thing I shouldn’t do, or just anything that makes me, me?”
“You know what I mean. This town is really small; there are more guns than people here. Everyone is armed, and I don’t want to have to explain to my superiors why you got shot.”
“Do you think they’re all packing silver bullets? Because that’s pretty much the only way to kill me.”
“Is it? Or is there a certain number of shots that will take you down no matter what type of bullet? Asking for a friend, of course.”
“Of course, you are,” Ty laughed.
They were still sitting in the truck, cool air blasting her in the face and doing nothing to prepare her for the horrendous heat that awaited her. Glen Rose had been warm enough, but they were in western Texas now, and the heat was higher, the humidity so low that she could already feel her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth from the safety of the truck’s cool environment.
She felt Ty’s hand on her cheek, and she tried to ignore it, closing her eyes against the memories of the two of them, tangled in his sheets and going at it like hormonal teenagers.
What had she been thinking?
“I thought it was going to be a one-time thing,” she said out loud.
“What?”
“Working with you. I thought it would be a one-time thing, so when the opportunity came up to sleep with you on my way out of town, I didn’t want to pass it up. I didn’t know we would be working together again.”
At some point during her monologue, he’d pulled his hand away. Senora sat rigid in her seat, not looking at him, just waiting for him to respond.
When he finally did, she felt the weight of his disappointment, and she felt like a complete ass.
“So, you only had sex with me because you thought you never had to see me again?”
“Yes and no. I had sex with you because I was attracted to you, and you were attracted to me, and there was so much tension, I just-”
“Had to scratch an itch? Or is it more like marking ‘sleeping with a werewolf’ off your list?”
“It’s not like that,” she said, this time looking at him and trying to make him understand what she meant. “Normally, I wouldn’t have slept with you no matter how bad I wanted it. Because we’re colleagues. But then, I thought about walking away and living with that regret, and I made an exception. Because we don’t actually work together so it wasn’t technically fraternization. It was just two adults who were interested in each other, enjoying the perfect night together. I never promised you anything else.”
Ty scoffed.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we were talking about the future right now. If it didn’t mean anything, why are we talking about it now?”
I don’t know.
“Because you were brushing my cheek, and it felt so familiar. I just don’t want any hurt feelings or misunderstandings to get in the way of our working relationship.”
“And you thought that this would keep things from getting weird?”
“I don’t know what I thought. I shouldn’t have brought it up now. Maybe when this case is over, we can talk about it again and figure out where we stand.”
Ty shook his head.
“I’ll pass, thanks. If it’s going to go anything like this, I’ll take ghosting over being chastised like a love-sick teen.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“You’re right; you shouldn’t have. Now, let’s get going. They’re waiting on us. I’ll try not to announce that I’m a werewolf when we shake hands with the local PD, but I’m a bumbling idiot, so I won’t make any promises.”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” she said. “I wish I could take it back.”
“I don’t. I wouldn’t want to be friendly with you, knowing that everything we’ve shared since I saved your life meant nothing more than a flight of fancy to you. It’s better to know where I stand.”
Before she could get another word out, he got out of the truck but left the engine running. She sat there for a moment, watching him walk away and feeling like she’d completely screwed up, but it was too late to take it back, and they had a case to work. Senora was going to have to just suck it up and deal. They would get through this, finish the job, and Senora would go home to D.C.
“That was the plan the first time,” she said, grumbling to herself as she got out of the car.
The heat blasted her in the face as if she’d opened an oven door. She was tempted to retreat back into the truck, but she would have to go out eventually, and she might as well get it over with.
Ty was standing with a group of men in tan uniforms and white cowboy hats a short distance away in the shade of a large tree that had obviously been planted in a foreign environment for the sole purpose of cooling down the concrete parking lot. Several trees were planted around the three-story hotel, and each tree had a green patch of overwatered grass beneath it, and a sprinkler head. The areas between each tree and sprinkler head were just dirt and gravel, a stark, desert-like contrast to the tiny oasis each tree provided.
Senora stopped and stood near Ty, taking in the front of the hotel and shaking her head.
“I’m almost afraid to ask what happened,” she said after they’d made their introductions. “It looks like someone drove a semi-truck through the front.”
“It was a fortified truck, and we know who did that,” the officer said nonchalantly.
“Officer Spring-”
“Lucian,” the officer corrected.
“Lucian, if you know who took her, why are we here?”
“Oh, the man in the truck didn’t take her,” Lucian said.
Senora waited, hoping whatever Lucian said next would clear up the confusion. So far, the more he talked, the more confused she was.
She looked over and saw Ty duck his head to hide a smile behind his hat. She nearly rolled her eyes but changed her mind. She was an outsider; even though she had shown up with Ty, it was obvious she was the only non-Texan in the bunch. She couldn’t risk further alienating herself from the group if they were going to work together to solve this. And if this case was connected to the human trafficking ring they had just broken up in Glen Rose, then she needed these men to think she was on their side. She was in no way expecting another corrupt town like the one they had just left, but she had seen stranger things.
“I guess I need you to start over and catch me up on the situation if you would be so kind,” she said with a warm smile.
Lucian tipped his hat at her and stepped back so he could point out what was going on as he explained.
“Late last night, a man checked into the last room of this hotel. His name is Ethan Smith, and his credit card was a cloned one, so there’s no leads there. Sometime just before two a.m., a bounty hunter named Kaden Greene showed up, and for some reason, he rammed his truck into the building to gain access.”
“Why didn’t he just go through the front door?” Senora asked.
“It locks automatically at midnight, but it also locks when there’s no more vacancy. Since Ethan got the last room, the doors were switched to keycard access only, which meant that Kaden could only talk to the hotel clerk through the bulletproof glass on the side of the building.”
Senora nodded to let him know that she was still following, and Lucian continued laying things out for her.
“Apparently, the clerk refused to open the door for Kaden, which didn’t sit well with him. He has one of those trucks that the tornado chasers use, so it’s like a battering ram on wheels. He rammed into the hotel, but Ethan got away before he could get into the building. He left shortly after, chasing Ethan out of town and disappearing into the night.”
“Did anyone put out an APB for his truck?” Senora asked.
“No. The hotel’s insurance has his information and will go after him for payment. We’re not looking for him; we’re looking for Ethan, and that’s going to be a little harder.”
She heard Ty chortle, but she ignored it. She was missing some key information, and it seemed like everyone was dancing around it.
“What do we know about our victim?”
“Carla Rios. Hispanic. Brown hair and green eyes. She’s about your height, maybe a little taller. Twenty-two and working at the hotel while she completes her degree online. She doesn’t work regular shifts, so I’m not sure that she was the intended target, but just a convenient one.”
He handed Senora a picture, and she looked at the woman smiling at the camera. She was beautiful, and while she wasn’t the typical target of traffickers, she might have been grabbed simply because she looked closer to seventeen. Plus, her deep green eyes were stunning, and her hair could easily be dyed to disguise her. She could be a victim of a trafficker or just a kidnapping victim, but there was something that just wasn’t adding up, and the Sheriff still hadn’t mentioned why he thought the victim was taken.
He hadn’t even gotten to the part where she was taken.
“And where does our victim fit in?”
“She’s with Ethan.”
Now, things are starting to make sense.
“So, is this bounty hunter guy going after Ethan because he’s a known human trafficker?”
“Not exactly,” Lucian said.
Why did Ty still look amused?
“I guess I’m just wondering why I was called onto this job? Human trafficking and high-risk kidnapping victims are my specialty, but I’m not hearing anything that falls into that. And if you know the perp’s name, I’m wondering why you don’t just track his registered vehicle or follow the bounty hunter. As far as kidnappings go, this seems like a pretty simple case.”
“We didn’t call for your expertise,” Lucian said. “Though I think you’ll be an invaluable part of the team with your background. We called Ty out to consult, and he said he was bringing a colleague.” Lucian smiled at her apologetically. “So, I guess, Miss Edwards, you’re not the only one confused about why you’re here if you don’t even know.”
“Maybe this Ethan character is the key. Is there something special about him?”
“You mean, you don’t know about Ethan?” Lucian asked, arching his eyebrow.
Senora was getting frustrated. It seemed that everyone knew what was going on, and no one was sharing with her. She’d encountered this a lot when working in such a male-dominated field, but it still pissed her off. She didn’t like playing games, especially when she was the only one who didn’t know the rules.
“No, I don’t know a thing about Ethan, but it seems like everyone else does. The suspense is killing me, and I think we owe it to Carla to get moving on the case instead of playing twenty questions. So, enlighten me or don’t, but I’m not doing this anymore.”
Lucian looked at Ty and laughed, then turned back to Senora.
“Well, you see, Miss Edwards, our suspect, Ethan, is more than just a kidnapper. He’s a WereDragon, and he’s wanted for murder.”