Wolf Shield Investigations: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  His wolf only wanted revenge for nearly having its life taken. The thirst for vengeance wasn’t going to go away anytime soon, no matter what anybody warned him about. The very same people who warned him were the ones who knew best how impossible it was to ignore the wolf when he was determined to get his point across.

  Only then did he realize the danger Aimee was in thanks to what Marnie had just revealed. He was off the bed in an instant, taking the stairs two at a time.

  And he just happened to intercept Sledge—a very angry, very red-faced Sledge—at the foot of the stairs. “Hold it,” he grunted, a hand on his friend’s chest.

  “Let me go,” Sledge warned in a dangerous growl. The assassin in the basement had come close to murdering his mate before they’d even met. His wolf howled loud enough for even Zane to hear it, howls of sheer, bloodthirsty fury.

  “You know how important she is,” Zane reminded him, staring him in the eyes—eyes that seemed to widen and darken as the shift threatened to take over.

  “Since when do you care how important she is?” Sledge snapped. “You said it yourself. She’s not worth anything to us, not if she won’t talk. She isn’t giving us anything, so why are we bothering to keep her alive? She’s worthless, useless, and she almost killed Marnie.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Zane asked. Since when had he become the one to protect that pathetic excuse for a human being? The tables had turned so quickly he could barely keep his thoughts straight.

  Sledge growled. “You expect me to stay up here? You expect me to let her live?”

  “Yes. I do because deep down, you know how important it is that we leave her alive. She’s the only link we have to these people. We need to keep her alive. That’s all there is to it.”

  He lowered his voice so only the two of them could hear. “I feel what you’re going through. I know how hard this is. We always knew there was a chance that she was the one behind the wheel. This doesn’t change anything. It just confirms what we suspected.”

  Sledge let out a frustrated sigh as he backed away, slamming his hand against the banister. Marnie winced but didn’t say anything, arms wrapped around herself. Her eyes were swollen from crying, her face red.

  Aimee did that.

  No. The people who told her what to do were the ones responsible.

  It was all so mixed up and so easy to blame her because she was the one in front of them. She put a face on what was otherwise faceless. She was a living, breathing enemy instead of a theory, a concept.

  “Since when do you stick up for her?” Sledge asked once he was able to speak clearly again.

  Zane decided to ignore the edge of resentment in his friend’s voice. “I’m not sticking up for her. I’m only saying the sort of things you all have been saying to me for the past two days.”

  “And did you hate it as much as I hate it?”

  “Maybe more,” Zane snickered, and Sledge managed a trace of a smile in reply.

  He turned his attention to Marnie. “How did the two of you start talking about this, anyway? I thought you were going to play it cool. I should’ve known better—”

  She shook her head, wiping her cheeks with trembling hands. “No, it’s not what you’re thinking. She wasn’t trying to get into my head or anything like that. She warned me, said I should talk to you guys, that it would be better for her to be separated from me, that I’m in more danger when she’s nearby. She said something about the floodlights too,” she added with a meaningful look to Sledge.

  “What did she say?”

  “She asked when they were installed. I told you she didn’t know they were there. Somebody decided not to tell her. Maybe they just didn’t tell anybody. They were set up to be discovered, whoever came here next. These are some cold, cold people we’re talking about.”

  “You didn’t have to tell us that,” Zane muttered, glancing toward the basement door. Without another word to either of them, he went to it, opening it before jogging down the stairs.

  And there she was, waiting for him. If it wasn’t for the rope wrapped around her, he would’ve thought she was a hostess greeting a guest. The smile she granted him was almost serene. “Did you have a good rest?”

  He chose to ignore this, asking instead, “What’s your game? What do you hope to gain by separating yourself from Marnie? What? Do you think that’ll save you? That when they come for her, they’ll miss you because you’re not here?”

  She took this well, not even bothering to react with indignation. Like she expected it. “No. I expect them to come for me first. They’ll want to shut me up, won’t they? Compared to the little bit of information Marnie might have picked up in the work she was doing, I’m a goldmine. I’m way more valuable to them right now which is why I need to get away from her.”

  He listened to his wolf since the wolf’s instinct was never off. Was she right? Was she telling the truth? Or was this all some scheme to throw him off-balance? He listened, waiting for guidance, expecting it.

  The wolf was surprisingly sedate. While Zane couldn’t exactly see the animal pacing in his brain—it was more of a presence in his head rather than a physical manifestation, something he saw with his mind’s eye—he knew the wolf was calming down. There was no rising up and railing against this approach she came up with. If anything, it sounded reasonable.

  And now that the roads were easier to navigate, something which had been confirmed by Logan earlier in the day, there was really no reason to keep Aimee at Marnie’s house.

  “What else did you say to her?” he asked. Not exactly the most important matter at hand, but it was a shrewd psychological tactic. He had to tear her down in any way possible, to reach out to whatever part of her cared enough about Marnie to spare her life. The human side of her, in other words.

  “She already told you. I could hear it. She was crying loud enough.” Aimee turned her head away, staring at the wall.

  “Are you proud of yourself?” he challenged in a soft voice.

  All he got at first was a soft snicker. “Do you like picking at scabs? Because that’s all this brings to mind.”

  “No, I’ve never particularly enjoyed that. I just want you to know that trying to help her now doesn’t make up for what you did, and it isn’t currying any favor with any of so you can drop that, too. Don’t get your hopes up is all I’m trying to say.”

  “Trust me. I wouldn’t dream of it,” she muttered.

  “How do we know your team or whoever isn’t already at the safe house waiting for us to show up? How do we know you are leading us into a trap?”

  “I guess you’ll just have to take a chance, won’t you?” she replied, shrugging as best she could, tied up the way she was. “If you’re worried, let me be the one to go to the house. That way, if anybody is lying in wait, I’ll be the one they kill. Easy peasy, right?”

  “Do you have a death wish? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  She snorted, derisive, her face turned away. “What if I did? That’s not the point now either. Getting me away from her is. You can either trust that nobody will be there at the safe house when you take her, or you can take me there, instead. Whatever. So long as we aren’t together.”

  “But they know where she lives,” he mused out loud. “This is actually the most dangerous place for her to be. Right?”

  “Probably,” she admitted. “Then maybe she should be taken someplace else. Now that there’s been time to clear the roads and whatnot, it’ll be easier for somebody to get here, to get to her.”

  He had to take a step back, mentally and physically. Being around her made rational thinking practically impossible. “Don’t go anywhere,” he warned, turning toward the stairs.

  “Wow. Beauty, brawn, and a sense of humor,” Aimee sighed. “Is the whole point to make me die from laughing?”

  He was shaking his head as he jogged up the stairs, fishing the phone from his jeans so he could call Logan. He already knew what he’d hear—that they shouldn’t
put too much faith in the promises of somebody like her. There was too much at stake.

  But his wolf had other ideas. His wolf sensed her sincerity—he had to, or else he would’ve howled loud enough to drown out every word she spoke. There was a core of truth in what she said and good sense to back it up.

  “Logan?” he muttered into the phone when the call was answered. “I think it’s time to move the package.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “You’re sure about this?”

  Zane chuckled in the front seat, behind the wheel. “What? You’re starting to doubt yourself now?”

  “I never doubt myself,” Aimee informed him.

  “So you doubt me?”

  “Let’s just say I’m curious as to why there’s only one of you with me.”

  She watched him in the rearview mirror, the way his eyes traveled over the road. There was nothing in his expression or in his voice to give away what he was thinking or feeling. He was just a random person careening down the road in the middle of the night—practically morning, actually, the dashboard clock closing in on five.

  “Trust me,” he muttered, “I didn’t exactly win the lottery. This isn’t my idea of a good time.”

  “I never said it was.”

  “The reason I’m the only one with you is because you made a good point earlier. These people know where Marnie lives. Until we can come up with another place to hold her for the time being, since another client is already at our other safe house location, she has to stay there. Besides, we might flush somebody out, cause them to come looking for her.”

  “So the more people you can have there, at the house, the better.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Because she’s the important one in all this.”

  “Hey, you said it. Not me.” Still, he glanced in the mirror, catching her eye. “It’s important that we keep her safe. I thought you agreed with that.”

  “I do. This is my idea.” Even so, nobody wanted to hear that they were unimportant. Just why she should care what this idiot thought of her was anybody’s guess. Maybe it was the fact that he was an idiot, someone she could barely stand the sight of, that made his reaction enough to leave her skin crawling.

  It would be one thing for someone she respected to loathe her. But someone she hated? Somebody who thought brawn and might were the only way to get through to someone? It was like a red-hot knife twisting in her gut.

  “Is it true that you’re the only one who knows where this is? The house, I mean?”

  She nodded, gazing out the window. So many normal people living out there in those homes flashing past the car—or rather, standing in place while the car flashed past them. People still sleeping or just waking up to get in an early workout or to care for their children or to do a little reading or writing before the day really kicked in.

  There was a curious tightening in her chest when she thought of this, when she thought of the sort of person she never had the chance to be. She didn’t even know if she wanted to be that sort of person—it wasn’t something she’d never taken the time to consider, not for very long. It wasn’t the kind of thing she pondered over.

  Still. She would’ve liked the chance to decide for herself.

  Zane’s voice pulled her back to the present. “You really didn’t tell anybody?”

  “How many times do I have to explain myself? Listen, if anybody knows about the location of your safe house, they didn’t learn it for me. I installed a tracking device on the laptop with only one purpose in mind: to track her myself. That was it.”

  The sound of his snickering was plain. He didn’t even have the good sense to hide his disdain. “Tell me another good one,” he chuckled.

  “You know, if you don’t believe me, you can turn the car around right now. You can kick me out of it, leave me at the side of the road, and drive on. I honestly don’t care anymore. Whatever you do, just make sure I never have to hear your snide mouth again.”

  “Temper, temper,” he murmured, clicking his tongue and shaking his head.

  “Screw you.”

  “Charming.”

  “Look who’s talking! The king of the charmers. Here I am, trying to tell you the truth—because you’ve been begging me for the truth all this time—and what do you do? You don’t even bother pretending to listen.”

  “Maybe because I don’t know what’s the truth and what’s fiction, spun up to throw us off track.”

  “Maybe you just have to trust me.”

  “Maybe I just have to cut off my arm while I’m at it.”

  She pressed her lips together as hard as she could, holding back a frustrated sigh. This was going nowhere, and she had endless amounts of time to look forward to spending with him. How long would be his last?

  It was like he read her mind, the most unnerving thing. “You know, this could all come to a head pretty quickly if you would just tell everything you know.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you there isn’t much I actually know?” she sighed. “Remember, we left my phone behind. That was done on purpose so they couldn’t track me using it. If I so much as had turned it on to give you the phone numbers they used to contact me, they would’ve known exactly where I was. I’m sure of it.”

  “You have a good point,” he muttered. He didn’t sound like he liked it very much, but at least he was acknowledging the truth of what she said.

  “Besides, I never used actual names with them. Yes, they knew my name, but I never knew theirs. And that’s the truth.”

  “How did you get mixed up with them? A Help Wanted ad in the newspaper? Maybe a posting online?”

  She felt herself closing off, shutting down. He was asking too much. She considered making up a lie, but what good would that do? He’d only trust her even less when he figured out she was lying—and at the rate she was going, he would know right away.

  She had to be slipping. It was from being thrust into a new situation with the stakes always changing. That had to be why she couldn’t get ahold of herself, why she couldn’t get ahead of him. He always seemed to know where she was going like he read her thoughts before she’d even fully formed them.

  “Well?” he demanded, turning off the main road and into a wooded area.

  “I don’t have to tell you that,” she decided, turning her head so she could meet his eyes in the mirror. “It’s not relevant.”

  “Since when do you get to decide what’s relevant and what isn’t?”

  “Since I know how I got mixed up with them, and I’m telling you it can possibly have anything to do with this situation.”

  “How long did you serve?”

  It was like he dropped a bucket of ice water over her head. She went cold all at once, nauseatingly cold, her stomach churning. She had no choice but to rest her head against the seat—a show of weakness. She hated to show weakness, but her body was calling the shots.

  “What?” he teased. “You didn’t think we knew about that? Granted, we haven’t found anything in the way of records yet, but we will. There’s no getting past our researcher—believe me. If there’s anything to be known about you, she’ll find it.”

  That gave her hope, anyway. She chuckled, her eyes sliding closed. “Good luck to them. Whoever they are. I hope they don’t mind going on a wild goose chase.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.

  “Only that the people I worked for wouldn’t leave my personal information out there for just anybody to find,” she murmured. The nausea was still there, still threatening to wrap itself around her stomach and squeeze tight until she had no choice but to retch in the backseat of the car. How had he guessed? How the hell had he guessed? It was enough to make her doubt everything she thought she knew about her skills.

  “We’re not just anybody. Trust me, our researcher isn’t some thirteen-year-old with a fast connection working out of their mom’s basement. She knows what she’s doing. She could find the proverbial needle in a haystack. S
he could probably find where they buried Jimmy Hoffa if she put her mind to it.”

  Aimee snickered. “That I would like to see. I’ve always wondered where they put him.”

  “So, she’ll find you. Don’t worry about that.”

  So their researcher was a girl. Good for her. How she managed to put up with these lugheads was anybody’s guess. Maybe they didn’t see each other very often, just like the supposed team Aimee had worked with. They’d all known of the others’ existence though they’d never really spent time together in person unless the job took more than one of them to complete.

  “Who’s worried?” she whispered, squeezing her eyes tighter than before. They wouldn’t find anything about her, would they? They couldn’t. All that stuff had been wiped out, what little of it might have been recorded. Her mother had seen to that. It was one of the last things she’d seen to before…

  The truck turned onto the familiar street. There was nothing surprising about the lights in all of these houses being out—they would’ve been even if they’d been inhabited, which she knew they weren’t. A quick search on the addresses had pulled up the names of various companies, not individuals, who’d bought them during the height of the housing crisis. They were empty, nothing but a show.

  “You know, it was this safe house—or safe street, rather—that convinced me you guys were the real deal.”

  He snorted. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it would take a pretty serious organization to put something like this together. Your boss or CEO or whatever, he owns all of these through various company names. He set all of this up to give you guys a place to keep your people safe. Right? That’s the whole idea.” He didn’t answer right away, so she continued. “It would take a pretty decent amount of money and a good head for planning to come up with something like this.”

  “We do what we can,” he admitted.

  “So, I knew she was in good hands, and I knew if I needed help, you were the ones to go to. You were professionals, not some fly-by-night wannabes. I could trust you to get the job done.”