by Laura Ryles
“Okay, now how do you suggest we get in?” Drew asked, once they had reached the back side of the house.
“I figured we’d try the doors and windows first, and if we can’t find one that’s open, we’ll make it look like something fell and busted one.” They both walked to opposite ends of the back of the house and started trying windows. When they met back in the middle at the back door, Tala tried the knob. Drew looked at her like she was crazy for even trying. Tala shrugged in response and stepped back to look at the windows up above them and there on the second floor was a small, open window.
“Look,” Tala exclaimed and pointed toward the window. Drew looked up and saw it as well.
“How are we going to get up there?”
“Well, only one of us has to get up there and get in, then they can unlock the door for the other,” Tala said looking at Drew suggestively.
“Nope. No way, you’re smaller, I might not be able to fit. You’ll have to climb in up there and let me in, not the other way around. Plus, this was your idea.”
“Fine,” Tala said, taking charge. She started looking around for a way to get up there. There was a picnic table on the other side of the house. “Help me get this table over here.” Drew followed her to the table, and they hefted it up from the ground just enough to scuttle it back over to where the window was. Tala climbed on top of it. She still wasn’t high enough. “I think you’re going to have to climb on top of the table with me and let me climb on your shoulders,” she told Drew. Drew did as he was told and climbed on the table, then put his hands together to give her a boost up to his shoulders. Once she had her knees on his shoulders, she braced herself on the side of the house and stood up. “I can reach the bottom of the windowsill. Do you think you could put your hands under my feet and push me up a little more, I think I could get it then.”
“Seriously? Who do you think I am? Regular old human down here, remember? No super wolf strength.”
“Just try,” Tala retorted. Drew gingerly placed his hands under both of her feet on his shoulders and pushed with all his might. Tala got her elbows over the bottom of the tiny window and pulled herself up and into the house. She was in a huge bathroom. It must be the master bath, she thought because there was make-up on the counter, and it smelled like Orin’s aftershave. She hurried to find the backdoor of the house and let Drew in.
“Okay, let’s find this office,” Tala said as Drew walked in with his mouth open at the richness of the house. Five minutes later, Tala opened the right door and called out, “I think I found it.” Drew came over to peer through the doorway with her. There was a desk with a computer, a filing cabinet, and stacks of envelopes and files. “Do you think you can get into the computer?” Tala asked Drew.
“I can try,” he answered. While he headed over to sit down in front of the computer, Tala started flipping through files. There was nothing on his desk that meant anything to her, so she moved over to the filing cabinet and opened it up drawer by drawer.
“Dude,” Drew said as he looked over at Tala.
“What?” Tala asked.
“It’s not even password protected. This guy’s dumber than a bag of bricks.”
“Well, do you see anything we can use?” Tala questioned.
“Still looking. You?”
“Same.” They both went back to digging. Tala flipped through file after file, until she came to one marked Broadview LLC Statements. She pulled out the file and opened it up. It was bank statements showing large amounts of cash being deposited from Pipton Real Estate into the Broadview LLC accounts over the last year and a half, and large transfers of money from Broadview LLC into Grant Co. She placed the file on top of the cabinet and kept looking. Behind that file was another labelled Pipton Real Estate Statements. She took it out and opened it. More of the same, only the Pipton account had received large deposits from Groshung Properties and made large transfers into Broadview LLC. Tala shook her head in disbelief. She put that file with the other on top of the cabinet. The next file in the cabinet was Groshung Properties Statements. She took it out and opened it. Groshung properties had been making payments to Pipton Real Estate. She flipped through the papers in the file, the payments dated all the way back to February 2018, the month that they acquired the land. She added that file to the growing stack on top of the cabinet.
“Hey, I’m in his email account. There’s an email here from him to that guy on the bill of sale, George Marsville.”
“What’s it say?”
“It says,
Mr. Marsville,
I am flying to Georgia tomorrow to secure the deed. I have no doubt that this matter will be resolved by tomorrow evening. One way or another, I will have the bill of sale signed and, pending your own signature, the land and all of its properties will belong to Groshung Properties. At that time you may begin making payments into the Pipton account. Please remember, though I am a shareholder of Groshung Properties, my dealings in this matter and all other matters concerning Groshung must remain anonymous.
Thank you,
Orin Grant, Grant Co. Inc.”
Drew looked up at Tala, who was staring back at him with the same look of incredulity on her own face.
“Can you print that out?” Tala asked.
“Yeah, I think so. There’s a printer.”
“Print it,” Tala replied. She turned around to grab the files on the cabinet. Just then they heard a car door slam.
Chapter 12
“Someone’s here,” Drew whispered. He grabbed the page he had just printed and exited out of everything on the computer. They heard the front door open. Tala looked at Drew.
“Here, take these.” She handed Drew the files.
“What are you going to do?” He asked.
“I’m going to distract them while you climb out of the window and get those papers to somebody that can help.”
“You’re a wolf, you can tear this guy apart. I don’t need to run.”
“Drew, these aren’t wolf matters. Even if I turn and fight him, it won’t do anything other than win me a fight. These papers prove something. These are very legal, very human matters. I need you to take these papers to someone who can do something to fight it, legally. Get out that window now!” Drew did as Tala said and climbed out the window. He turned around one last time before running off through the woods. Tala was standing ready when Kale came through the office doorway.
“Kale?” Tala flustered. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s exactly what I should be asking you. I patrol around Orin’s house when he’s not home. Now, what are you doing here?” Kale looked around the room and noted the dishevelled papers. “Snooping, huh? Find anything.”
“No. Nothing.”
“Where’s your little friend? I can smell him, you know.”
“He left. It was my idea to come here and I didn’t want him to get hurt, so I told him to go and that I would handle whoever was here.”
“Oh, you’ll handle me, will you?”
“If I have to,” Tala answered.
“Oh, this will be fun.” Kale transformed into a large gray wolf before her eyes. Tala could feel her body heating up. This was it. She was going to transform; she had no control over it. The bag she had dropped to the floor and she gave in to her body. Finally, she stood facing Kale in her broad, tawny-colored wolf form. This body was strong, she could feel the power coursing through her. She had missed being a wolf. This was only the second time she had changed, and she wasn’t able to control it yet, but it felt so right. Her phone began to ring in her bag. No time to answer it now, she thought.
“Oh, you are a big girl, aren’t you?” Kale’s comment bounced off of the walls in her mind. She could hear him inside her own head. He lunged at her. Diving out of the way, she let him hit the desk, knocking the computer over. Stretching forward, she took advantage of his unstable position, and bit at his haunches. He growled and stood back up.
“You don’t know who you’re mes
sing with, little girl.” The wolf in front of her bared its teeth and growled in a low territorial growl.
“No, I don’t think you do,” Tala growled back at him. He jumped forward too fast for her to evade him and he grabbed her front leg. When she pulled it back from him, she could feel the flesh being torn into and the muscle being shredded. When she got away, she limped over to the corner of the office to distance herself from him. He laughed at her inside of her head. He started coming towards her in long stealthy strides like he was positioning himself to pounce on her again. Tala looked over at the filing cabinet. He was about to walk right past it. She lunged over and shoved the cabinet down on top of him. It knocked him to the floor, but it didn’t subdue him long. He started to wiggle his way out from under it.
“You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that,” he said with malice in his voice. Tala jumped over the cabinet and Kale and landed on the other side of him. She winced at the pain in her foot. Just before he got to his paws again, she grabbed hold of his neck with her jaw and shoved him back down. She held him down for about five minutes as he fought and struggled against her hold. Tala could tell the fight was over. She had beaten Kale more quickly than she thought she was capable of.
“Let me go! No. No, you can’t beat me, you’re just a girl,” he yelled. He finally quit fighting and lay still.
“Do you submit?” Tala asked him in her mind.
“I submit,” he answered.
“If I let you go, you’re going to let me walk out of here, right?”
“Yes,” Kale answered. Tala let go and limped backwards away from him.
“I have to get dressed. Look the other way,” she ordered Kale. He did as she said and turned his wolf body in the other direction so that he couldn’t see her. Tala thought of her human body, and how it felt to walk on two legs and what her skin felt like. Before she knew it, she had returned to her human self. Running over to her drawstring bag, she picked it up and pulled out her extra clothes. Carrying an extra set of clothes around with her had proved to be a very good idea. When she reached for it, she noticed the deep cuts on her forearm from the bite Kale had given her. She examined it. It was deep, but it had mostly stopped bleeding. She’d be okay. She pulled her clothes out. Once she was dressed, she looked for her phone in her bag. She checked the caller ID. It was Lark who had called. She pressed the redial button.
“Hello, Tala?”
“Lark, I…” before she could finish the sentence, the phone was snatched from her hand. She whirled around to see who had taken it and found herself face to chest with Orin. He smiled down at her as he threw the phone to the other side of his office.
“What have we here? I knew something was up when Lark started giving me free drinks,” he said, smiling that awful, evil smile of his. “I was hoping that you’d go and do something stupid like this. And you just did not disappoint. First, you break into my home, and into my office, then you attack and beat an officer of the law.”
“She didn’t attack me, I attacked her.” Kale said from the floor across the room. He had changed back into human form but was still sitting on the floor.
“Shut-up, you worthless mutt,” Orin said in reply to Kale’s attempt to tell the truth. “You’re going to jail, girl. First, you’ll be charged with assaulting an officer and breaking and entering.”
“I didn’t break anything. The window was open,” Tala interjected. Orin grinned at her new fearlessness.
“Do you really think it matters? First, I’m going to take you to jail, and then you’ll have to answer to the pack for attacking my Beta, in my house! Wolves are very territorial; in case you didn’t know. Breaking into someone’s home is a good way to get killed. You’re lucky I don’t do it right now. I could get away with it, you know. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Well, why don’t you then?” Tala asked.
“I don’t want to listen to the elders whine about it. I’ll take you before the pack and let them call for your head. Then there’s nothing the elders can say. Pack law.” Orin grabbed her by the arm that had been wounded earlier and pulled her closer to him. She gasped at the pain as blood started to flow from her arm again. He turned her around and put her in handcuffs. He leaned over her shoulder. He was so close to her that she could feel his body heat.
“Don’t you want to know who else I killed?” He whispered into her ear so that only she would hear.
“I’m pretty sure I already know.”
Orin gave a small chuckle in her ear and then sniffed at her hair. The same way he had done at the Sheriff’s Office this morning. He grabbed her arm and jerked her towards the door. Walking through to the front of the house, he marched her outside and put her into his squad car. A tall red-headed woman was standing beside the car.
Chapter 13
“Who the hell is she?” Cindy asked Orin as he circled the car to get in the driver’s seat.
“Cindy, don’t even start. This is Clay’s daughter, honey. She’s nobody.”
“Well, apparently she was enough of a somebody to cause you to run out on me at Red’s and cancel our date night.”
“Cindy, I’m taking her to jail, for breaking into my house. I’m not cheating on you with her.”
“Oh, you say it like I’m the crazy one. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve caught you with someone else.” Orin walked back around the car to the woman and put his arms around her.
“You know you’re my number one, honey,” he said and then they grabbed each other and ran their hands all over one another as they kissed the slimiest kiss Tala had ever seen. Ugh, she thought, that’s disgusting. She almost gagged before she could avert her eyes. They finally let go of one another and Orin walked back around to the driver’s side and hopped in. He let down his window and yelled at Cindy who was now making her way up the stairs into the house.
“I’m going to the station for a while, but I’ll be back, Baby!” She waved and blew him a kiss. As they pulled out of the driveway and headed for town, Tala noticed that Drew’s car was still sitting on the side of the road. Why is his car still there, she wondered? Has something happened to him? Now she was a little more worried.
When they reached the Sheriff’s Office, Orin took her out of the backseat and brought her in through a side door. He walked her straight to a cell and put her inside of it.
“Aren’t you supposed to book me or something?” Tala asked.
“What’s the point? You won't be here long.”
“I thought you were arresting me?”
“First, I want to know what you found in my office before you and Kale tore it apart.”
“Like I told Kale, we found nothing.”
“We? Oh, yes, your little human pet. I thought I caught a whiff of him. What happened? He run off and leave you to fend for yourself? Isn’t that just like a human?” Orin smiled at her through the bars. “So that’s it then. You just looked but couldn’t find anything?”
“Nope, not a thing,” Tala said sarcastically.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re lying to me?” Orin growled. “You’re becoming as big a problem as your father. I don’t like it when people get in my way.”
“Maybe you should go a different way, then,” Tala rebutted. Orin slammed his hand against the bars and Tala took a step back.
“Maybe you need to understand exactly the type of wolf you’re dealing with.”
“And what type is that?” Tala asked, not backing down.
“The type that will end you just like I ended your father.” Tala stood there in shock for a moment. She hadn’t expected him to just come right out and say it to her.
She needed to get him to say more. “What do you mean you ended my father? You said that he was a gambler and must have run his car off the road on purpose out of shame.”
“That is what I said, isn’t it? Truth is, he got in my way.”
“How?” Tala already knew the answer, but she wanted him to say it.
At that
exact moment, there was a loud ruckus outside the Sheriff’s Office. Orin pushed himself off the bars and walked toward the front to see what was going on. The next thing Tala knew, Oakley and Lark, Liam, Dawn and Reed, and Terra were all standing in front of her cell demanding that Orin set her free. Orin was arguing as loudly as he could to be heard over the uproar that she had broken the law and was under arrest.
“You let her out of that cell right this minute, Orin,” Oakley demanded.
“You know that we don’t handle our problems like humans. You let her out and face her like a real wolf,” Liam said.
“Now, listen, you bunch of old crazies, she broke the law, the human law, and she is under arrest. Now, I can’t just let her go. She attacked Kale, too. That’s a serious offense. It’s out of my hands.”
“If she deserves to be in there, then you should be in there right beside her.” A familiar voice rang out from the back of the small group that was gathered there. Drew made his way through the middle of all the elders. In his hand, which he held above his head, were the files that Tala had asked him to take. Everyone was staring at him with wide eyes, amazed that a human would interpose between an Alpha and another wolf, even for his friend. “I have proof right here in my hand, that you forged Clay Woods’ signature on the bill of sale for the pack’s land, and proof that you then made a deal with Groshung Properties, a company in which you are the majority shareholder, and proof that you then proceeded to bounce money through two other companies from the sale of that property to make you the beneficiary of the deal without anyone knowing.”
“What?” Liam said. Many of the elders echoed his question. They gathered around Drew to look at the papers he was holding out.
“Oh, Orin. What did you do?” Ms. Dawn looked at the papers as though she was about to cry on them.
“It’s lies. They made it up. He’s just trying to get her out of jail.” Orin said.