Wolf Shield Investigations: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “I guess they thought they were doing a good thing,” she shrugged.

  “I guess they did, and if it had worked the way they theorized it would, this could’ve been one of the greatest medical discoveries in history. There would be no reason to lose so many of the soldiers we lose, so many civilians. Just a little shifter blood and you’re on your way like nothing ever happened to you. Of course, it wasn’t that easy.”

  “Because it turned you into a shifter,” she whispered.

  “It did. Not right away—we all needed more than one infusion, thanks to the severity of our wounds. I know a few of the test subjects died anyway. There was only so much that could be done for them; their organs were destroyed. The rest of us healed up just the way the doctors and scientists thought we would, but then it all went wrong. We started shifting. They hadn’t accounted for that, hadn’t even imagined it would happen. I guess they figured shifters were only born, not created. Needless to say, none of us knew to do with ourselves. I wanted to die at first—for a long time, in fact. I told myself it would’ve been better if they’d just let me die there in that market where the explosion took place. But no. I think at least one of them started getting ideas, convinced they’d discovered a way to create a super army, practically indestructible. Unless we were literally blown to pieces, we would heal. Still, the entire project was top-secret, and I guess the rest of the people involved had a little more sense than that guy did. They knew that if word got out about us, the fallout would be endless.”

  “They wanted to destroy you. Is that right?”

  “Like I said, that mind of yours is going to get you in trouble one day.” But he winked too. “That’s exactly right. They wanted to erase all history of us, all history of the project. When we figured out what was coming, we escaped. I don’t know what happened to them. They probably assume we’re dead somewhere. If they’ve looked for us, they haven’t been successful yet. We try to fly under the radar, if you know what I mean. That’s why we work pretty much in secret. It wouldn’t do us any favors for the world to find out about us because then people might start talking, and the wrong ears might hear them.”

  “Maybe Logan should’ve chosen a better name than Wolf Shield, then,” she winced. “I mean, it’s right there.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, Logan’s always had a flair for the dramatic. Don’t let him know I said that.”

  “I won’t,” she grinned.

  Just like he had on the beach, he tilted his head and studied her. “You’re not scared? You’re not disgusted by me?”

  He deserved honesty, and he deserved for her to really give thought to his question before she answered because it would’ve been nice and easy to give him a quick response and be done with it, to say no, she wasn’t scared at all, why would he even ask such a thing?

  No, he deserved better than that. He’d taken a chance and come clean with her, so the least she could do was come clean with him.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m a little freaked out, sure, but I’m not afraid of you. The only reason I was afraid on the beach was because, duh, you’re a wolf. Anybody would be afraid if a wolf just appeared out of nowhere. They’re not exactly warm, fuzzy creatures. It’s not like finding a kitten or a puppy.”

  It looked like he was trying to hold back a grin. “Fair enough.”

  So many images flashed through her head at once. The way he’d beaten up that guy in the garage. The way he held her close when she cried. His kiss, his touch, the crazy attraction that pulled her to him again and again even when she thought she didn’t want anything to do with him. This uncontrollable, undeniable thing between them, whatever it was.

  So much of it made sense now, but every answered question only led to more questions.

  “Does anybody else know?” she asked, still struggling to make sense of how she felt.

  “Not really. Val isn’t one of us either. Neither is Hawk. They’re all still human, having escaped with us before they’d been infused with enough shifter blood. Val says she overheard them talking one time about forcing us to mate with her, seeing if the baby would be a shifter.”

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered, horrified.

  “I know. Believe me, none of us is under any illusions. We know that if our survival ever came to light, we would all be done for. The only way we can stay safe is to stay quiet and to stick together. You see, we protect each other just as much as we protect the people whose lives we save. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “Of course. You’re a pack.”

  His smile was wide, warm, genuine, and it gratified her in a way nothing else ever had. “That’s probably the best way I’ve ever heard it put,” he grinned. “We’re a pack. That’s exactly right.”

  “Your secret is safe with me. I mean that. I wouldn’t dream of telling anybody what you just told me. I can only thank you for trusting me enough with something this important.” She got choked up all of a sudden and knew she would burst into tears if she kept talking. She pressed her lips together hard, willing the tears away and looking down at the water rather than meeting his gaze.

  “What is it? You can tell me. Come on, don’t hold back on me now.”

  At first, she shook her head. It was too much. How could she possibly put to words what his trust meant to her? In light of everything else that had happened, his trust was the greatest gift he could give. To think he believed in her. He had faith in her. It could mean his life, but he’d come clean with her.

  “It just means a lot,” she whispered, still looking away. If she looked at him, she would start crying. She knew it. “Besides, I know how to keep a secret.”

  “What’s that mean?” he asked, and she got the sense that he wanted to change the subject if possible. She was willing to go along with that so long as it meant he felt more comfortable.

  “You know. Keeping quiet about things for the sake of the family image.” She rolled her eyes. “What a joke. The more I find out, the angrier I am with myself for ever letting him twist me around the way he did.”

  “He does love you. You know that.”

  “Yeah, I know he does. He’s just… misguided. I’m trying to be as nice as I can,” she confessed with a soft laugh.

  “You’re doing a good job of it,” he reminded her. “I don’t know if I could be as forgiving as you are right now.”

  “Oh, I never said I forgave him. Don’t get me wrong. It’s gonna take me a long time to get over this—if I ever do, which who knows? I might never. I want to, but that doesn’t mean anything. He might have gone too far. If he knew all this time that somebody was willing to run him off a road, he should’ve told somebody. Maybe he could’ve stopped these people from the other things they’ve done over the years if he had only spoken out against them. He wouldn’t even have had to do it publicly. He could’ve gone to the authorities, the CIA or something. I don’t know! That’s where things get dicey. That’s where I don’t know what to think about all of this. He had opportunities to make things right, and he didn’t.”

  “You make a good point,” he murmured. “And I, for one, would like to hear his defense.”

  “Oh, come on. You know what his defense is. He was covering his ass. Bottom line. He didn’t want to give up his office. There. There’s his defense.” She rubbed her hands together like she was washing them. “Case closed.”

  “Spoken like a pre-law major.”

  “I keep forgetting you know so much about me.”

  “I know a lot about you,” he assured her. “Maybe more than you think I do.”

  “Careful,” she warned. “Don’t get too comfortable. I’ve been known to surprise people just when they think they know me best.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” He stood, never taking his eyes from her. “And now, before the rest of the team wonders what I’m doing out here dressed in nothing but a towel, I’m gonna go in. Unless there’s something else you wanted to talk about right away.”

  “No, that’s okay. I
should come in, too. Check on Mom.” She stood, though her heart sank when she did it because there was one more thing she wished they could’ve talked about, but she wouldn’t have known how to start.

  And once she’d started, she wouldn’t know how to keep going.

  Or whether he’d want her to.

  Could there ever be a future for people as different as they were? Did he want there to be?

  She was starting to think she did. Very much.

  Chapter Thirty

  Jace sprung up to a sitting position as soon as his phone rang. He hadn’t been sleeping very deeply—then again, he almost never did, especially not when his entire world was in turmoil.

  It was barely morning, the sky only just starting to lighten outside the window. He fumbled for the phone and was unsurprised to find Doc’s name on the ID.

  “That was fast,” he murmured, yawning. “Did you find anything?”

  “I can’t begin to tell you how the lab techs failed to appreciate working overnight,” Doc informed him.

  “It’s not like they don’t get paid overtime,” Jace muttered. “Come on. What did they find?”

  “I’m afraid it won’t make you very happy, and it might be best to get together with anyone on the team who happens to be there. It should be Sledge and Zane, right? Logan and Braxton are here with me.”

  “Sure.” Jace sprang up from the bed and hurried from the guestroom. They were taking turns, sleeping in shifts, and he knew he could find them down in the control room in front of the security monitors.

  “What’s up?” Zane asked when he entered the room, but Jace only shook his head and closed the door behind him, giving the three of them some measure of privacy before switching on the phone’s speaker function. “Okay. We’re all together. What’s up?”

  It was Logan who spoke, his voice more like a bark. “They ran DNA tests of the hair in the mask. It matches Kara Collins’s DNA.”

  Jace reeled from this. “Wait a second. How would you even know that? What, is her DNA in some database?”

  “You could say that,” Doc replied.

  “Braxton brought a few hairs from her brush when Doc asked him to,” Logan explained.

  “What? Why would you do that? That’s a ridiculous invasion.”

  “We had to be sure,” Doc explained. “There were faint traces of DNA on the back of that photo. The one originally left at the house. A few skin cells, not much more than that, but it was enough. That DNA matches this DNA, which matches the DNA extracted from Kara’s hairbrush.”

  “None of this is making any sense,” Jace muttered. He felt like his head was going to fall off, there was so much happening in there at once. “I don’t know what any of it means. Why would she threaten her own life?”

  “Attention?” Logan suggested in a flat voice. “To get a rise out of her father? To create drama?”

  “Absolutely not. No way!” It was a struggle to keep his voice in check, to keep from screaming and waking Laura and Kara even though they were all the way on the other side of the house and one floor up.

  He took a deep breath in a desperate attempt to calm himself. “No, no. You saw her reaction to that picture. You saw what happened to her. She wasn’t pretending. The wolf would know if she was lying, wouldn’t he?”

  Logan snorted. “It seems to me that your wolf has made a lot of decisions for you lately. Just because our instincts are sharp doesn’t mean they’re always on the money, especially when other things are involved.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean? What, are you telling me I can’t trust myself because of her? Because of what she’s doing to my head? That she’s got some kind of weird power over me? That’s pathetic. I’m just as well-trained as any of you. I’m just as smart and just as good a judge of character. I also know the difference between a person pretending to go into shock and somebody who truly faints because of a shock to their system. She folded. She was a mess.”

  “I think we’re forgetting something important,” Sledge reminded everyone. “She wasn’t there when Sal was murdered. If that ski mask was worn by the person who did it, someone who found their way onto the beach without being noticed, it wasn’t her. She was at the office.”

  “Even if the mask was there for some other reason, if she wore it at some point and it found its way to the beach—I can’t imagine why that would happen, but let me play along with you—” Logan added, “that still doesn’t explain why her DNA was found in that envelope, on the back of that photo. She never touched it, at least not while I was there at the house, and I took it to the lab myself. That night. She was never alone with it. So how do you explain that?”

  “I can explain it.” There was Val, always the voice of reason. “I bet you guys could, too, if you get your heads out of your butts long enough to look at the big picture. Can you honestly tell me none of you is quick enough to pick up what might really be happening?”

  “Out with it,” Logan growled. “We can discuss our shortcomings later if it makes you feel better.”

  “Don’t think I won’t hold you to that, either,” she retorted. “It’s simple. Twins have the same DNA.”

  Silence.

  “Wait a second.” Jace shook his head, unwilling to believe this final atrocity. “That can’t be.”

  “Laura Collins never did see Krista’s body, did she?” Braxton mused.

  “That’s true. She said the same thing to me,” Jace admitted. “But no. No! If that were true, it would mean—”

  “It would mean Senator Collins probably knew all along that his daughter wasn’t dead. They took her. Whoever caused that accident, whether it was the Foundation or some other party, they took her that night.”

  “I can’t believe I actually want to defend that man,” Jace admitted.

  “You can’t help it. I don’t think any of us wants to believe that a father could allow something like that to happen.” Logan sounded disgusted but not half as disgusted as Jace felt.

  “Maybe they threatened her life,” Zane suggested, looking up at Jace. “Maybe they threatened to kill her right then and there. Maybe she’s always been their insurance policy.”

  “Of course,” Sledge agreed. “You wondered why Collins never went to the FBI? Why he never told his wife and daughter about the threat against them? That’s as good a reason as any. Maybe it wasn’t so he could protect his image and his career. Maybe he thought he was protecting everybody, Krista included.”

  “This is all speculation,” Logan reminded everyone. “All we know for certain is that the hair matches Kara’s, which means it could belong to either her or to Krista.”

  What if Kara had been right all along? What if her sister really was alive? He was the only person out of all of them who knew why Kara had been through so many years of therapy. He’d kept her secret knowing how much it meant to her that nobody else know the reason she’d been sent to so many doctors. He knew how she felt, being told time and again how wrong she was. He’d wanted to save her the embarrassment of knowing that even more people knew her history.

  Of course, that would mean her father knew all along, that he’d allowed his daughter to continue on, telling her she was wrong, that she needed help from a doctor. All along, he knew she was right.

  But telling her the truth would mean putting everyone in danger.

  Jace had always known there was no such thing as a black-or-white situation. Even the vilest, most reprehensible people could have their side of the story. Sometimes they thought they were doing the right thing. Terrorists believed their actions would advance a bigger, better cause, that they were behaving as saviors of the oppressed.

  Just one example.

  He was watching such a situation unfold in front of him. Here was a father and husband currently staying at a hotel because he’d done his best with a shitty situation. Granted, it was a situation he’d gotten himself into. He’d walked into it with his eyes wide open, allowed domestic terrorists to gain access to him under the g
uise of a campaign donation.

  All these years, he’d worked to hide his mistakes while possibly keeping both of his daughters alive.

  At what cost?

  The FBI might’ve been able to save Krista. The CIA. Somebody. But no, he’d taken it on his shoulders, and that was where his pride and his ambition came into play.

  Maybe. They still didn’t know for sure.

  But that didn’t mean Jace couldn’t spin a number of possible theories to life in his head, just the same.

  “What are we going to do with this?” Doc asked, bringing everybody back to the topic at hand.

  “I’m gonna talk to Laura,” Jace decided. “Immediately.”

  “About what?” Logan asked.

  “About exhuming Krista’s grave.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Logan muttered. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Are you gonna try to stop me?” he countered.

  “No. I know it’s pointless. I could tell Zane and Sledge to tie you up, but that would be useless. I just hope you know what you’re doing. There are delicate situations, and then there’s the idea of asking a mother for permission to dig up her daughter’s grave.”

  “It’s the only way we’ll know for sure.”

  “Val,” Logan said, “work up a profile along with Doc. What’s Krista’s life been like, if it’s really her behind this? What is she thinking?”

  “See if Hawk can locate any photos taken of known members of this foundation,” Jace suggested. “If she’s with them, she might appear in photos. We have to know if she’s acting alone or in conjunction with them. Somebody called Collins’s cell yesterday. Who was it? He didn’t sound happy to hear from them.”

  “I’m on it,” she assured them.

  “Me, too,” Jace muttered, leaving the room without taking his phone.

  “Jace!” Zane followed him at a jog. “Hang on. It’s so early. Why not let the woman sleep?”