Wolf Shield Investigations: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Would it be this way for the long haul? Would she always be connected with him this way? Would that connection deepen? She assumed so—it only made sense that they would grow closer, more in-tune with each other.

  All she needed to know was whether he was as fully into the idea as she was. He had sure seemed into it back in the suite, on the couch together, but that was one thing.

  An entire lifetime of emotional connection was another.

  It was enough to make her resent the man in the backseat more than she already did, just by virtue of him being who he was. The fly in the ointment, just one more thing keeping them from being together.

  “Can we stop off someplace? I’ve gotta go,” Red whined after being on the road for a couple of mostly silent hours.

  She rolled her eyes, glancing at Logan. He caught Red’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “No. You can hold it.”

  “But I really gotta go.”

  “Then you can really hold it. We’re not making any stops so you can give us the slip. Just put that idea to rest right now, okay? Don’t even waste your time.” He shut down then, almost like sliding a partition between himself and his captive. Red settled into sullen silence, occasionally grumbling to himself.

  “It won’t be much longer,” Jenna offered, spotting the sign for Scranton up ahead.

  Her stomach clenched in the most sickening way. Would this be it? Was this the end of the road? Their final opponent, the final threat.

  Her phone vibrated, drawing her eye. The texts are coming from a location in Scranton, Val confirmed. Jenna’s breath caught in her throat, her eyes sliding shut for a moment. She tilted the phone Logan’s way so he could read the message, and his grunt told her he understood.

  They might be walking into a trap.

  If only Red wasn’t there, they might be able to talk about strategy. How to maneuver in this situation. Once again, Jenna knew she was completely out of her depth.

  Peter George would know they were coming for him, which was why he’d sent Red after them. He would be on the alert. There was no telling what he would do.

  Though if the guy had even an ounce of courage, he would’ve done all of this himself instead of hiring somebody to do it for him. No, he would’ve faced up to what he’d done, what he’d caused, without trying to kill anybody over it.

  She looked to Logan, sitting straight and tall behind the steering wheel. If there was anybody in the world she had faith in, it was him. No matter what happened, he would protect her. She was sure of it.

  Still, that didn’t seem to be enough to calm the nervous flutter in her stomach as they rolled to a stop across the street from the George home. In terms of size, it was roughly the same as Jack Douglas’s, with security cameras plainly mounted on either side of the gate barring visitors from entering the driveway.

  Logan reached for Red’s phone. “What are you doing?” Red asked as Logan began typing something out.

  “You’ll see.” Jenna could just make out the message. We’re outside, and we have him with us. Open the gate, and don’t even think about trying anything funny. There’s enough evidence on this phone to put you away for a long time, and my team has already traced these messages back to you.

  He sent the message, then leaned back in his seat and watched the gate. “Let’s see how he handles this.” Jenna waited with her heart in her throat, watching. Time seemed to stretch on infinitely, like taffy that wouldn’t snap. On and on it stretched, endless moments that otherwise might have gone by in the blink of an eye.

  There was a clicking noise, and the gate slowly swung open. Logan grinned in triumph before pulling through, taking them the rest of the way up to the house. There was a long driveway, but eventually, it opened up into a roundabout in front of the entrance.

  Where a man stood at the foot of the steps, holding a shotgun.

  “Holy crap,” Jenna whispered, nails digging into her palms.

  “You should wait in here,” Logan advised. He looked to her, eyes flashing. There was no mistaking how serious he was. “Slide behind the wheel when I get out, and keep the car running. If things go south, get the hell out of here. Crash the gate if you have to. Just get yourself far away.”

  She could barely breathe. “And leave you? How am I supposed to do that?” she croaked, her eyes darting back and forth from Peter to Logan.

  “You just have to. That’s it. Leave me if you have to, but get out of here.”

  “Can we get this over with?” Red asked from the backseat, scorn dripping from his voice.

  “I don’t remember asking you to say anything!” Logan shouted. He put the car in park, the engine still running, and held up his hands to show Peter he had no intention of pulling a weapon. “Get the pistol out of my waistband,” he murmured, never taking his eyes from the man with the shotgun.

  “Please be careful.” It was all she dared say, the only thing she could manage to whisper without bursting into tears. The last thing he needed was for her to break down when they were so close to the end of their journey.

  “Don’t worry about me.” He surprised her by winking, taking one last look at her before opening the truck and stepping down.

  She slid over to the driver’s seat, her hands around the wheel in a death grip as Logan unloaded their captive. Peter George kept the shotgun trained on Logan as he led Red to him.

  Sweat rolled down the back of her neck, slicking her palms. She held the wheel tighter than ever until her hands ached. Maybe she should have taken a pill, after all, since her wolf was in full-blown panic mode.

  No. If Logan could control himself, so could she. Watching him being strong gave her strength, proved to her the wolf could be managed. She didn’t have to give in to panic. If he could do this, so could she. Maybe he would even be proud of her the way she was of him.

  Logan was unflinching as he led Red to the mastermind behind all the agony, all the fear and pain. So many wasted years for all of them. “Here he is. Sorry, he couldn’t take us out before he reached you.”

  Were her eyes playing tricks on her? It seemed the barrel of the shotgun trembled a little, like the man holding it wasn’t quite sure what to do. She guessed it shouldn’t come as a surprise since there had to be a reason why he always hired people to do his dirty work for him. Aside from hunting, this could have been the only time he’d ever held a gun.

  “What’s this all about?” he demanded. Even his voice held a note of fear. Good, maybe he knew what it was like to be afraid now. The way he’d made so many other people afraid for so long. She relished this, taking more pleasure from it than she knew she should have. She deserved this little triumph.

  “What do you think? We found you. We tracked you down. You can’t get away with what you’ve done any longer. It’s time to bring an end to all of this. We just want to live in peace.” Logan shoved Red forward. “We don’t want any part of this anymore.”

  “You think you’re the only one who doesn’t want any part of this?” Peter laughed, high-pitched, the laughter of a man far out of balance. No big surprise—he was capable of ordering murders, so there was no telling what else happened to his brain while he spun his webs, how obsessed and off-balance he’d become. “I wish I never got involved with that damn project. I wish I never heard of the great General Nicholas Martin.”

  Jenna jumped a little in recognition of her father’s name and noted the absolute loathing with which Peter spoke it. She wanted to demand he tell the truth. Was he the one who’d ordered the hit on her father’s life? Of course, it had to be him—he was the mastermind.

  “So this is your way of repairing the damage you did? Sending an assassin after the people you used to work with? Trying to hide what you did? Did you think you could kill all of us? That nobody would stop you?” By the time he finished speaking, Logan was practically growling. He sounded much more like a wolf than a human. Maybe he wasn’t as much in control of himself as she’d given him credit for.

  For a second, part of her
wanted to see him shift. She wanted to see him become what they’d created, to strike fear in the hearts of the men standing with him. They would find out the power of the wolf, but by then it would be too late for them.

  “I only did as I was told! That’s all I ever did. Do you know what this is like? I had to send my family away so they would be safe. I’ve been sitting here waiting, knowing somebody was coming for me.”

  “I feel so terribly sorry for you,” Logan snickered, shaking his head. “But if you’re looking for sympathy, you have come to the wrong place. I could tell you some stories about the sacrifices I’ve had to make to protect my life and the lives of those important to me—not because of any choices I made. I didn’t choose to be taken to that lab. I didn’t choose to inject myself with vial after vial of shifter blood. I don’t treat people like science experiments. And I sure as hell would have the balls to stand up and admit when I made a mistake rather than wiping out human lives to save my own ass.”

  “None of us wanted it to go this way.” The shotgun was definitely shaking now, moving back and forth between the two men. Jenna clenched her teeth, panting. She was either going to hyperventilate or destroy the inside of the truck by shifting. If her heart didn’t give out on her first, anyway.

  “Gee, that’s really good to know. So what do you intend on doing with that shotgun? Do you think you’re going to kill me? You of all people should know that’s not an easy thing to do.” Logan looked down at Red then, smirking. “You probably want to get rid of him too. Can’t leave any loose ends out there. He was pretty sloppy—his work made the news twice. I haven’t heard anything about our deceased friend in Bryn Mawr, but still. That’s two out of three. Not a good look for you.”

  Peter looked to Red, his eyes narrowing. He didn’t look like a well man—sallow skin, his eyes sunken into his face. His clothes hung on him like he hadn’t had a decent meal in ages. “I don’t know what to do now,” he muttered, half to himself.

  “Wow, that’s new for you. You usually seem so on top of things.” Logan snarled, baring his teeth.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Peter fretted. A sweat stain began to spread over the front of his T-shirt. The man looked and sounded like he was on the verge of collapse.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Logan demanded. “This is over. We know who you are. We know what you’ve done.”

  “But it wasn’t me!” It came out sounding like something a child would say, the way a child would say it. Hopefully, desperate, broken. “I’m not the one who made this happen! I wasn’t the one calling the shots!”

  Everyone froze, including Jenna. Was he lying? Who wouldn’t lie in a situation like this when everything was about to come to an end? Clearly, the man had to know he wasn’t going to make it out of this alive. He would probably say anything still, all in the hopes of saving his life.

  “Wow, really? That’s the story you’re going with? When we have proof you were the one sending the messages to this guy, telling him who to kill? Sending money to his bank account? Come on.” Logan shook his head, snickering.

  “But he told me to do it!” Peter’s chin quivered. “I swear! I’m not the one who made this happen!”

  “Then who did?” Logan asked, and there wasn’t quite so much disbelief in his voice now. Like something about what the man said or how he said it had begun to sink in, enough to make Logan wonder if Peter was telling the truth.

  It was certainly enough to make Jenna wonder, anyway.

  It all happened so fast.

  Red had been silent up to that point and immobile. Yet he must’ve believed he’d found his moment, the chance of escape. He ran straight at Peter, his head bent low like he wanted to ram headfirst into him.

  His plan might’ve worked too if Peter didn’t pull the trigger.

  Jenna screamed, covering her ears with her hands, watching in horror as Red fell against Peter, knocking him flat on his back. The shotgun fell to the ground, which Logan was quick to kick further away.

  Jenna scrambled from the truck, ignoring Logan’s orders for her to get back inside. She saw the full truth of what happened before Logan understood.

  When Red fell, taking Peter with him, he caused Peter to strike the back of his head against the brick steps leading up to the front door of the house. There hadn’t been a way for him to catch himself while falling, still holding onto the shotgun. Between the momentum and the added weight behind the fall, the impact had been enough to kill him.

  Peter’s eyes were wide open, staring blankly up at the sky as blood pooled beneath his head. Red, meanwhile, had a hole blown clean through his midsection.

  “Oh, my God, my God.” Jenna held her head in her hands, looking to Logan for some clue of what they should do next.

  It was then that she noticed the blood spreading over his shirt, up by his shoulder. “You’ve been hit!” she gasped.

  He looked down at the wound, scowling. “Must’ve passed through him and hit me,” he muttered like it was nothing more important than a bug bite. He moved quickly, untying Red’s hands. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here. Somebody could’ve heard that and they’ll come on the run.”

  “But your wound!”

  “It will heal. You must know that.” Yes, but what if it had struck him in the heart? He couldn’t have survived that. Not even they could survive something like that. The world started to go gray, fuzzy around the edges, and she knew she was about to faint.

  But she couldn’t do that. Logan needed her. “I’m driving,” she announced, going back to the truck. He needed to rest.

  Within moments, they were speeding down the driveway, leaving the carnage behind. Logan called Doc, grunting orders. “I need Hawk to get into the security feed for the house and wipe it. There can’t be any evidence of us being there.”

  “Done,” Doc replied. “You sound hurt.”

  “I am, just a shoulder wound. No big deal.” He even managed to smile a little.

  Jenna wasn’t smiling. Yes, she had never been so relieved as she was to know Logan had survived.

  If only Peter had the chance to explain what he meant. Was he telling the truth when he said someone else gave him instructions?

  Would this nightmare ever end?

  Chapter Thirty

  “How are you feeling?” Jenna looked up at him from where she wrapped bandages around his wounded shoulder. They’d stopped at the first drugstore they could find—while he would heal and in fact could feel himself healing, he was making a real mess of the truck.

  “Pissed off, more than anything else,” he admitted. “What the hell was he thinking?”

  “Red?”

  “Who else? Throwing himself at a man holding a loaded shotgun.”

  “Maybe he figured he was bluffing, that it wasn’t loaded or that he didn’t have the stones to pull the trigger.”

  “He didn’t need the stones. It was reflex. He was petrified.” He sighed, more lost than ever. “Not exactly the person I imagined us finding there.”

  She straightened up, nodding. “I agree. He didn’t seem like he was in control of anything. He was just as scared as anybody else. If he was in control, why did he send his family away? What was he thinking? He looked really sick.”

  “I know. I was thinking the same thing as I stood in front of him. Sweat was soaking through his clothes. That’s not what you expect from somebody who’s ordered murders, the person pulling the strings the whole time.”

  She put the trash in the shopping bag and tossed it into the wastebasket she’d pulled up beside. They were in a rest stop parking lot, far from the building and any cars parked in front. It was as close as they could come to privacy. “When is this is going to end?”

  His chest ached at the sound of pain in her voice. He could relate to that pain, that confusion, that bitter frustration. “You never know. He couldn’t have been telling the truth.”

  “We both know that’s not so.” She looked downright angry when their ey
es met. “He was telling the truth. He was scared out of his mind, and he was telling the truth. There’s still another person behind this, and we don’t have the first clue who they are. I didn’t find any other names. There’s no other proof of communication. And it’s not like we had the time to look around and find Peter’s phone so we can look through his recent messages. It’s over. We lost.”

  He reached out, taking her arms in his hands. “It’s not over. We haven’t lost. There has to be a way to find this last person. We’ll find them. I’m sure of it.”

  On a hunch, he called Val. He would’ve asked Jenna about this, but she wasn’t in a solid mental state and had treated his wound. The girl was beside herself.

  “Are you okay?” Val practically shouted on answering.

  “You know I am,” he assured her, trying to sound like he was on top of things. “Let me ask you something. If it was Peter George’s phone you managed to track down, is there a way to then get into that phone remotely and see who’s been sending messages to him?”

  “Sure—it’ll take a little time, depending on any security measures taken, but Hawk should be able to manage it.”

  “Great. Get to work on that for me. It seems like there’s one more person we need to take care of before this ends.”

  “I’ll keep you posted.”

  He turned to Jenna. “See? Hawk will figure this out. He’ll tell us where to go.”

  She tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace. “I just want to go home,” she whispered.

  “I know. So do I.” He planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Come on. We’ll go up to the cabin, see your father. We can lie low there for a couple of days if we need to. There’s more than enough room, and it might give you a little time to relax, clear your head.” He sensed the doubt in her, the certainty that she would never be able to relax until this was over, and he could relate. Still, he had to try to keep her spirits up.