Desert Bound

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “Talk to me,” Alex said as Ted walked around.

  He had no luggage. Not even a backpack. But there was a plastic grocery bag on the small dresser, a bottle of Black Velvet peeking from the top. Ted walked over and opened the top drawer.

  “Ted, you can’t—”

  “You called us, Joe,” she said.

  Just as she suspected, the top drawer held a bag of weed and a few pills she couldn’t see well enough to identify. She slid it shut with a bang.

  “What the hell have you done to yourself?”

  “Ted—”

  “You had a home. A family. Kids who love you. A pretty wife who cooked you dinner every night. And you threw that all away?”

  Alex stepped over and took her hand, squeezing it before he looked back at Joe, who’d gone deathly pale.

  “Ted,” he said softly.

  “Done.” She threw up her hands, disgusted. Angry that they had to talk to the scumbag because he might know something about Marcus’s death.

  Alex stepped forward and said, “Joe, you need anything? Have you eaten lately?”

  He jerked his head in a nod. “I’m cool. I just… I heard you were looking for me. And I figured, as long as you didn’t bring the bear, I could talk to you.”

  “What did you want to tell us?”

  “I need to warn you. About Avery.”

  “He killed Marcus.”

  Joe winced, as if he was in physical pain. “Now… I don’t know that. I mean, he might have. But I didn’t see it or anything. I know Marcus was pissed at him. So maybe…”

  “He did it, Joe. Why are you covering for him?”

  “Hey.” Joe stepped back and raised his hands. “No. Uh uh. I ain’t covering for that bastard. Just saying I don’t know that he’s the one that killed Marcus, you know? Marcus didn’t get on with his family, either.”

  “The Quinns did not kill Marcus,” Ted said.

  “How do you know?” he asked. “They do all kinds of shit to each other. They’re mean.”

  “Old Quinn was grooming Marcus to take over the clan, Joe.”

  Joe looked at Alex, then said, “Oh. I guess they probably wouldn’t then.”

  “Tell us more about Chris Avery.”

  Joe started shaking his head, looking down at the floor. “He seems cool, but… he is not. Avery knows. About us. About us shifters, Alex. He knows about the kids. All our animals. Doesn’t like it.”

  “What does he know?”

  “I don’t know, man!” Joe threw up his hands. “He was asking about the water and shit, but I didn’t tell him anything more. Not after I figured out…” The scruffy man stepped back, guilt written all over his face.

  “You told him.” Ted stepped forward, lip curled up. She wanted to shift and leap on him. Sink her teeth into the spineless waste of a human who trembled before her. She could smell the blood under his skin.

  “Joe, what the hell?”

  “He already suspected something!” Joe was up against the wall again, hands raised. “He asked these questions. Made me think Marcus had already clued him in, you know?”

  “So you told him more?”

  “I was drinking! Needed money from him. Thought we were friends and all. Hell, he was family, why wouldn’t Marcus had told him the truth?”

  Ted shouted, “I don’t know, because he’s an asshole?”

  “I know that now! I didn’t know it when… you know.”

  Alex said, “When you were drunk, probably high, and needed money from him.”

  Ted asked, “When did you give him the pills?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Joe!”

  “I don’t!” He was blinking rapidly. “It was a while ago. A week. Maybe two, before Marcus was killed.”

  Ted asked, “Why did he kill Marcus?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. I thought they were tight. Maybe… I know he didn’t want Marcus’s wife and kids moving to the Springs. He mentioned that. When he was asking about the water and springs and stuff.”

  Alex narrowed his eyes. “He ask a lot of questions about that?”

  “Yeah. I guess.” He looked at Ted. “Teddy, my kids okay?”

  “You don’t get to call me that. You don’t get to ask me that anymore.”

  “I just want to know they’re doing okay.” His voice broke a little.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have left them, Joe. Maybe even when you decided you didn’t want to be a husband, you should have stepped up and been a fucking man to be a father to your kids.”

  “I’m a piece of shit!” he yelled, his voice breaking as a fist pounded on the other side of the wall. Tears were sliding down his face and his nose was running. “I know that. They’re better without me. They’ll forget me. I just want to know how they are.”

  Ted couldn’t answer, so disgusted with what Allie’s husband had allowed himself to become.

  “You were never good enough for her,” Ted whispered, leaning toward him. “You stole something that shouldn’t ever have been yours.”

  “I know.”

  “Your children will be fine because they have a good mother. And they have people around them who love them. And hopefully, they’ll forget you ever existed.”

  Ted saw his eyes empty out, the life draining away in a blink. She’d seen it happen before, just not on anyone who wasn’t dying.

  “Joe.” Alex stepped forward and pulled her behind him. “I need you to pull yourself together. We need to go to the police. You need to give a statement about giving Chris Avery those pills.”

  Joe shook his head.

  “We’ll go to Caleb. He’ll know how to write the report so we can get a warrant. Get Avery in jail for what he did.”

  “Can’t, Alex.”

  “You have to.”

  Joe looked up, eyes bouncing between Alex and Ted. Then to the door. Then back to the bottle sitting on the dresser. “Can I take my whiskey?”

  Ted let out a disgusted breath.

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “You sit in back, you can take your whiskey.”

  “Okay then.”

  He walked over, grabbed the back and headed toward the door. But as soon as he opened it, he swung back, clocking Alex on the temple with the glass bottle. He fell back into Ted, who was walking behind him, and they both tumbled to the floor. Joe darted out the door, but by the time they were up and running, all they saw was the last of his shredded clothes in a small pile on the edge of the parking lot.

  The phone rang just as the sun was peeking through the window. This time, Alex was sprawled out, dead to the world, and it was Ted who tagged the phone.

  “Yeah?” she whispered.

  “Ted?” It was Sean. “Is Alex there?”

  “Sleeping. We had to drive to Barstow last night. Can he call you back?”

  “I need you both to get out to Josie Quinn’s place.”

  She sat up, goosebumps prickling over her skin. “Why?”

  “Her kids are gone, Ted.”

  She gave a strangled cry that had Alex bolting up in bed.

  “Someone took her kids.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  This did not happen.

  The thought kept circling his mind as he strode up the walkway to Josie Quinn’s house. The wolves were already circling. Some shifted. Some walking. Jeremy and Alex’s father stood at the center of a clutch of muttering, dark-eyed men.

  This did not happen.

  He felt Ted at his back. Felt her fingers reach out to grab his as the door opened and Josie Quinn rushed out. Her hair was pulled up in a knot at the top of her head. Her face was streaked with tears. She threw herself at Alex.

  “This town! This fucking town!” Her fists pounded down on Alex’s chest.

  Alex ignored the pain on his still healing shoulder and wrapped her tightly in his arms.

  “Josie.”

  “You find my babies, Alex McCann!”

  “I’ll find your babies, Josie.”

  The
sobs wracked her body. Terror. That’s what he held in his arms. Pure, undiluted terror.

  “You hear me?” he asked, one hand cradling her head. “I will find them.”

  “I can’t lose them.” She shook. “I can’t lose them, too. Not my babies. Not my babies, Alex.”

  He felt hands pulling her away, then Sean Quinn took her, pulling her into his strong arms and back to the porch where Old Quinn stood. He looked at Alex, his mouth in a hard line.

  “This does not happen,” the old man said.

  “You have people underground already?”

  Alex and Old Quinn were standing a little ways from the porch where Sean sat with Josie, who was still barely holding on.

  “A few. Most didn’t know the kids. No scent. Came here to get it” he said, “then they’re gone.”

  “They’ll have first scent.”

  “No one takes Quinn children from their home, McCann.” All his natural humor had fled, and looking in the old man’s eyes, Alex knew the Quinns were after blood.

  “We can’t kill him, Quinn.”

  “People get snake-bites all the time, wolf.” His grey mustache twitched. “Weird shit happens in the desert.”

  Jena came out the door holding sheets as pale as her face. Little trucks on one. Spaceships on the other. Willow came behind her, holding a set of with butterflies, and he felt Ted squeeze his hand again.

  “Dad’s already in the air,” Jena said. “We have anything we’re looking for yet?”

  “Chris Avery drives a white GMC pickup.”

  Willow’s eyes got sharp. “We sure it’s him?”

  Ted was the one who answered. “We caught up with Joe last night in Barstow. Sounds like Avery killed Marcus, though Joe didn’t know for sure. Said he knew about the Springs. Didn’t like it. Didn’t like Josie and the kids moving here.”

  Chris Avery didn’t like shifters. Didn’t like his sister being married to one.

  Now, the man had three shifter children in his possession. What was he capable of?

  “Alex?” Jeremy was waving him over.

  “What’s up? You catch a scent?”

  “It’s definitely Avery. His scent’s all over the house.”

  “He’s Josie’s brother. Spent a lot of time here.”

  “It’s recent in the kids bedrooms. No reason he’d be in there, according to Josie. She says he hasn’t been to the house in days.”

  Old Quinn overhead them. “Avery’s a dead man.”

  Alex turned. “Joe—”

  The old man threw up a hand. “It’s done, boy. He’s a dead man walking.”

  Jena’s face was still pale, and she was clutching the children’s sheets in her hands.

  “Alex, do you think he’d hurt the kids? He’s their uncle.”

  “I don’t know. We need to find them before he has the chance.” He nodded toward the sheets. “Get those spread out so the trackers can get their scent. We don’t want to delay any longer.”

  The sun was barely over the horizon when Jena and Willow spread out Kasey, Mark, and Trevor Quinn’s sheets on the cool grass in front of Josie Quinn’s house. As soon as he did, Jeremy stepped forward, his shirt already off. Alex held out a hand.

  “Quinns first.”

  No one saw them shift, but as soon as the sheets were out, dozens of snakes started circling them, split-tongues out, tasting the air. They circled and twisted around each other, then, in a blink, they were gone, and only Sean and Old Quinn remained.

  The old man walked to Josie and put his arms around her.

  “We’ll find your babies, girl. Our people travel places others can’t.”

  Then he looked over his shoulder to Alex.

  “Let your pack go.”

  Alex nodded to Jeremy, then one by one, the pack shifted and circled the sheets as the snakes had. There were barks and a pants. A few lifted their heads and let out a mournful howl. Then they started breaking into groups, heading out in groups of two or three.

  Jeremy said, “We’ll focus our efforts along the highway and the back roads. He’ll be in a vehicle.”

  “He’s got hours on us.”

  “He may be already gone, but we have to check. Caleb’s on the phone with Vegas PD. It’s likely Avery will head up there, since that’s what he knows.”

  “Go. You’re in charge of the search around here. Call in when you can. Keep me updated.”

  “Who are you calling?” Alex asked Ted after the pack had dispersed.

  Sean had taken Josie inside to sit with Old Quinn and Allie. Sean was pacing on the porch. Caleb was still on the phone with the sheriff’s department and Devin was in his car, driving to the Springs. Jena had her eyes to the sky, waiting for more of her people to gather.

  “I’m calling Frank Di Stefano.”

  “Ted—”

  “I don’t care if he’s a criminal. You think he’s going to have any problems looking for someone who kidnaps children?”

  She’d read Frank well. Cam’s dad would go ballistic.

  Alex shook his head. “Jena?”

  The hawk-eyed woman turned to him.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you get your dad a message about Avery’s truck?”

  “Shirleen!” Jena called, and a sleek black crow landed in front of her. “Get a message to dad and the others. Chris Avery has a white GMC pickup. He’s probably heading up to Vegas. Anyone sees him, they get to a phone as fast as they can and call the house here. You have the number?”

  The bird cawed once, then flew into the air.

  Sean said. “If we’re done here, I’m going to go look.”

  Jena clenched her jaw and rubbed a hand over her swollen belly. “I want to shift. So bad.”

  “Relax and focus.” Alex put a hand on Jena’s arm. “But get some more of your people over here. I want a few ready if we hear anything. Sean’s here. And the birds are the fastest.”

  Jena glanced at Sean. “Are you thinking—”

  “Who’s the fastest? Other than you?”

  “My cousin Harper. Her natural form is a golden eagle.”

  “She in the Springs?”

  “Coachella.”

  “Call her.”

  Jena nodded and turned back to Josie’s house. Sean glared at Alex.

  “No.”

  “The birds can get anywhere quicker than the cops. And an eagle can carry you.”

  “And drop me.”

  Alex gritted his teeth. “This isn’t up for debate.”

  “You’re not my alpha.”

  “Marcus’s kids are missing, Sean!”

  “Shit,” Sean muttered. “Fine.”

  “She won’t drop you,” Jena said as she walked out of the house. “As long as you don’t bite.”

  “Snakes were not meant to fly,” Sean said.

  Ted closed her phone and walked back to them. “Frank Di Stefano was not pleased. He says he’ll get men out looking right now.”

  An old Ford Bronco pulled up to the curb. Ollie and Rafael Flores, one of Ted’s cousins, hopped out. Rafael shifted into a big black cat that no one had ever managed to identify. Probably because no one ever got close enough. He was an anomaly in the cat clan. An unapologeticaly dominant male who showed no interest toward any of the female cats in his clan. Rafael kept to himself.

  “Alex,” Ollie called, “what are we doing?”

  “Ollie. Rafa. Appreciate it. You have the town covered?”

  Ollie said, “No unknowns that we’ve spotted. One of my guys is watching the main road. Caleb says we’ll be getting Sheriff’s officers in?”

  “Probably within the hour. Escort them to Caleb’s office and he’ll take it from there. Rafa, anything back in the hills?”

  “Lena sent them out as soon as she got the call. We’ve had people looking in the canyon and the hills, but so far nothing. One of the women did catch a trail that smells like the children, but we don’t know how old it is.”

  “It’s not likely he’d go on foot, but w
e have to check.”

  “We’ll keep some people back there. Keep looking.”

  “Good.” He took a breath, wishing he had something more to do. Something to break up the unrelenting worry eating his gut.

  Three children. Out there with the man who killed their father. The boys might not have any idea they were in danger, but Kasey would know by now. The little girl would be terrified.

  “Alex.”

  He heard Ted calling his name, but his eyes were locked on Josie, sitting on the porch again with Old Quinn, staring out into the desert with hollow eyes. The old man was talking, but she was miles away.

  “Alex.”

  “Yeah?”

  Ted held up her phone with a grim smile. “Organized crime is efficient this morning. Frank says Avery was spotted at a motel in Henderson. No sign of the kids. Wants to know if he should call Vegas PD.”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “Avery knows about us. God knows what he’d tell the cops if they found him, but we don’t need the extra attention. A murder and a kidnapping is bad enough. We’ll take care of this, but it needs to be quiet.”

  Ted let out a deep breath and stepped closer so only Alex could hear. “Are you sure?”

  “No,” he said, equally quiet. “But we need to get the kids first. Then we’ll figure out what to do with Avery. Whatever we do needs to be quiet.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you sure?” He didn’t want another weight on her conscience.

  “Yeah.

  Alex turned to his friends. Jena and Sean were standing silently with an enormous golden eagle who hadn’t shifted. “Jena, send Harper with Sean.” He looked at the eagle, who stared back, head cocked to the side with a golden brown eye trained on him. “Avery is at a hotel in Henderson. Look for the children first. He may have them at the hotel and whoever spotted Avery missed them. Kids are the priority.”

  Ted crouched down and held out a small map on her phone. The eagle chirped and hopped away. A few seconds later, a stunning woman with chestnut brown hair stood naked before them.

  “Sorry. I can’t see computer screens like that in my natural form.” Ted stepped forward and showed her the image. Harper nodded. “I know the road.” She glanced at Sean. “You ready?”