Prey

by Rachel Vincent

  “Seriously?” My heart thumped painfully as I dropped my bag on the bare living room floor, and Carver’s eyebrows shot up as he listened in on my call.

  “Yeah. I’m sending it now. Go check Marc’s e-mail.”

  “I’m on it.” I rushed down the hall, pausing to bang on the bathroom door to hurry Jace up, then plopped into Marc’s rolling desk chair and punched the power button on his computer. “It’ll take a while to boot up, though, so fill me in while I wait.”

  My father’s desk chair squealed over the line, and I pictured my oldest brother leaning back, his hands crossed over his stomach as he demonstrated his own brilliance. “Basically, Ben Feldman was right. This kind of technology isn’t commercially available in the U.S. yet, though the military evidently has something similar in the works. The microchips come from a security company in Mexico that started out designing GPS systems to track down stolen cars. But now they’re into some truly next-level shit.”

  “So I gathered.” With Marc’s desktop loaded, I opened his browser, then cringed when the crappy phone modem dialed and squealed repeatedly, struggling to connect to the Internet. Each page took at least half a minute to load, but evidently there was no better connection available in Middle-of-Nowhere, Mississippi.

  No wonder it took him so long to reply to my e-mails.

  The irony of that did not escape me. How odd was it that Marc’s sidekick had been implanted with a microchip capable of tracking him all over the world and transmitting a remote signal, while Marc’s computer could barely access the Internet?

  When the screen prompted me, I typed in Marc’s e-mail password. It was my first name: Katherine. Not exactly secure, but definitely flattering. “So these chips were actually designed to track humans? Not find lost pets?”

  “Yeah. Originally they were supposed to help find millionaires kidnapped for ransom.”

  “Won’t Feldman be thrilled to find out he actually has more in common with Bill Gates than Benji?” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm, but Michael didn’t notice. He was on a roll, as excited as if he’d invented the microchips, rather than merely researching them online.

  “You pay a small fortune up front for installation and service, then, if you’re snatched off the street a few years later, the cops can find you with no trouble. In theory. But the battery is only guaranteed for five years. I have no idea what Mitchell—it’s his name on the invoice—was planning to do after that. Maybe he plans to have eliminated all the strays by then.”

  “I doubt he was thinking about the long term.” I clicked the in-box tab, and Marc’s messages began filling the screen. On top was the e-mail Michael had sent from our father’s account. “I can’t even stomach the thought…” I clicked to open Michael’s e-mail, and there it was: an electronic invoice from the Seguridad Corporation, based in Mexico City, with Milo Mitchell listed as the buyer. The dumbass was stupid enough to use his real name.

  But Calvin Malone’s name did not appear on the invoice. If he was involved—and I found it hard to believe he wasn’t—he hadn’t been dumb enough to leave evidence. He’d probably conned Mitchell into getting his paws sticky by promising him favors once Malone took over the council.

  Of course, that wasn’t going to happen, and the invoice on Marc’s screen would help make sure of that.

  Down the hall, the bathroom door creaked open, and I rose. But then footsteps clomped on the recently restored hardwood, and the door slammed shut. Scowling, I dropped into the chair again, and moments later Jace appeared in Marc’s bedroom doorway—a truly odd place to see him—smelling of hand soap and the Coke he’d had on the drive.

  I waved him in, and Jace sat on the only remaining chair in the room, an old orange wing-back badly in need of new upholstery. “So, how far does the signal carry?”

  “Nearly a hundred miles,” Michael said, then slurped a drink of something, right in my ear.

  “How do you track the signal?” Jace asked, and my brother heard him easily in spite of his distance from the phone.

  “There’s a handheld receiver with a small display. You type in the serial number from whichever chip you want to track, and it’ll locate the chip and give the location either with a street address, or longitude and latitude coordinates. It even shows a map.”

  “Wow,” Dan said, and I glanced up to find him watching me from the doorway. “Too bad Marc was never implanted. If he hadda been, we could probably find him with no problem, huh?”

  I had to admit that my bladder was screaming in that moment, and I was already on my feet, ready to kick Dr. Carver out of the restroom. But before I’d even tossed the phone to Jace, so he could continue the conversation in my absence, I froze as what Dan had said sank in.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “What?” Dan’s forehead furrowed, and he arched his eyebrows expectantly.

  “Marc does have a chip! We’re all a bunch of idiots!” I sank back into the desk chair and swiveled to face them both, the phone still pressed to my ear.

  “Speak for yourself,” Michael said, following another gulp of whatever he was drinking. “I had no idea Marc was implanted.”

  “He wasn’t.” I glanced at Jace to see if he was following, and he was right there with me.

  “Marc has Eckard’s chip,” he said, a smile turning up both sides of his mouth. And finally his dimples peeked out at me for the first time during the longest, most hellish day of my life.

  “Hell, I forgot about that,” Dan said, as Michael groaned over the phone. We’d all forgotten about that.

  “So, if we had one of those signal readers, we could track him?” Dr. Carver asked, edging past Dan and into the room.

  “Or anyone else with a functioning chip,” Michael said.

  Jace stood, looking almost as excited as I was. “Assuming Marc didn’t destroy it.”

  “He didn’t.” There was no doubt in my mind. “He’s trying to bring it to us as evidence, so he’d keep it intact.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Michael said into my ear, and over the line springs squealed as he rose from the desk chair. “And I hope you know where to get your hands on a handheld tracker. Because they cost eight thousand dollars, and require six to eight weeks for shipping.”

  I frowned, but Jace only grinned. “Surely Kevin Mitchell has one. If he’s the one implanting strays for his father, he’d need to be able to test the chips to make sure they’re working.”

  “Let’s hope.” I spun around to face the desk again and powered on Marc’s printer, then poked the Print Screen button on the keyboard. The printer hummed to life, then scrolled a blank sheet of paper through the slot. “Thanks for the invoice, Michael. Hopefully it’ll be enough to make Ben Feldman talk. And I’m willing to bet he’s going to want a few words with the tom responsible for the illegal body-tapping.” I paused, already heading for the hall, and the bathroom. “Can you fill Daddy in? Tell him I’ll report after we talk to Feldman.”

  Michael agreed, and I flipped my phone closed, then shoved it into my pocket.

  “Jace, give Vic a call and catch him up. We’re leaving in five minutes.” With that, I jogged into the bathroom and kicked the door shut at my back.

  “Well, I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.” Ben Feldman watched me through his screen door, his gaze flicking only momentarily to Jace and Dan over my shoulder. Dr. Carver had stayed behind to get everything set up to treat Marc, now that his return looked more probable.

  I smiled and did my best to look affable. Which wasn’t hard, considering the miraculous lead we’d just stumbled upon. “What can I say? I’m stubborn.”

  “As am I.” Feldman scowled. “My answer hasn’t changed. I won’t hand Kevin Mitchell over to you without proof he’s involved in the microchips.”

  My smile widened as I pulled a folded piece of paper from my back pocket. I unfolded it patiently, then pinned it to the upper glass half of his storm door with my entire palm. “Look at the name of the buyer.”

>   “Milo Mitchell…” Feldman read, then leaned to one side to meet my gaze around the paper. “I assume this Milo is somehow related to Kevin?”

  “His father.” I folded the invoice again and slid it back into my pocket. “And Alpha of the northwest territory.”

  Feldman’s eyes closed briefly, and the muscles of his jaw bulged. Then he met my gaze again and nodded. And opened his door.

  “Thank you.” I stepped into the warm living room, but the guys had to edge past him carefully, because the stray refused to back up to give them more room—an Alpha move if I’d ever seen one. I couldn’t help smiling. Feldman was a good tom to have on our side.

  When he closed the front door behind us, after a quick glance and sniff outside to be sure we were alone, I gestured to Jace with one hand. “Ben Feldman, this is Jace Hammond, one of my fellow enforcers, and another friend of Marc’s.”

  Feldman nodded curtly at Jace, then waved a hand at the couch. I claimed the same cushion I’d occupied last time, and Jace sat next to me, while Dan perched on the arm of the couch. I opened my mouth to speak, but Feldman cut me off.

  “Just because his father’s name is on that invoice doesn’t mean that Kevin has anything to do with the microchips.”

  I nodded. “Especially if you believe in massive coincidences. But I don’t. Let me give you a little background on Kevin Mitchell. He was a member of our Pride for nearly a decade after losing a job as an enforcer to Marc. Then, a few months ago, he was exiled for breaking a very serious Pride law. He applied to be readmitted to his birth Pride, but his father—Milo Mitchell—was humiliated by his son’s disgrace, and refused to take Kevin back. So Kevin’s been here—exiled and humiliated—ever since. And I think he’d do anything to regain his place in Pride society. Especially if that anything included bringing misery to Marc, whom he’s hated for the better part of ten years.”

  “Circumstantial…” Feldman said, but I could tell he was listening.

  “Yes,” I agreed, elbowing Jace gently when it looked like he might interject. He had built no rapport with Feldman, and would better be used as silent backup until he had. “But enough to warrant a little investigation, don’t you think?”

  Feldman nodded hesitantly. “What do you have in mind?”

  “A joint effort for solid proof. If Kevin’s involved, there will be evidence in his house.”

  “And if he’s not?”

  I grinned, but my pulse raced. “Then we owe you a huge apology. And as a gesture of our good intent, we’ll give you everything we’ve found out about the company that manufactures these chips.”

  “But by then you’ll already have gotten what you wanted—Kevin—even if you were wrong.”

  I nodded, momentarily at a loss for how to reply. Fortunately, Dan was not.

  “We’re not wrong, Ben.” He held Feldman’s gaze, and I was impressed with his nerve. “There was one o’those chips in my back, too. And think what you want about Marc—he’d never do that to me, even if he was gonna do it to everyone else. He’s saved my ass a bunch a times. Why bother, if he was just gonna hand me over to the Prides anyway?”

  Feldman studied his fellow stray for a moment, taking in his every movement, and likely his scent, as he judged Dan’s honesty. Finally, he was satisfied. “Fine. Tomorrow we’ll go to his house together. But if there’s no evidence that Kevin is involved, I don’t ever want to hear from you people again.”

  “Fine. I promise.” I nodded eagerly. “Except for one thing. We have to go tonight.”

  “Why?” Feldman frowned at me in suspicion. “What’s your hurry?”

  I glanced at Dan and Jace in turn, seeking their opinions, and when they both nodded, I sighed and met our host’s gaze again. “Mr. Feldman, there’s part of this whole thing we haven’t told you yet.”

  Feldman nodded, with no hint of surprise on his strong, dark features. “I gathered….”

  I hesitated, then plunged forward, as if the words burned my tongue. “Adam Eckard didn’t kill Marc. It happened the other way around.”

  Feldman went stiff in his chair. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  I inhaled deeply, then continued. “Remember me saying we’d found a scar like yours on another stray’s back? Well, that stray was Adam Eckard. We found his body in the woods. Marc wasn’t dead when Eckard took him, and we’re not entirely sure how it happened, but Marc killed Eckard and it looks like when he took Eckard’s clothes for warmth, he found the scar, which he’d already seen on Dan. He put the pieces together and dug the chip out of Eckard’s back with his own pocketknife.”

  Feldman blinked slowly. “Adam Eckard is dead?” I nodded, and he continued. “And Marc Ramos is alive, carrying Eckard’s microchip.”

  “Yes.” I nodded again. “And we need Kevin’s GPS tracker thing to find Marc.”

  “And once we have, Marc can tell you exactly what really happened,” Jace said.

  Feldman’s eyes went hard, and for a moment I thought he’d kick us out without another word. Instead, he stood, digging his keys from his front pocket. “Let’s go. I’m driving.”

  Twenty-Four

  We wound up taking two cars—Jace’s and Feldman’s—because Jace and I did not know Feldman well enough to close ourselves into such a small space with him, and he felt the same way about us. Which was perfectly understandable, considering his general distrust of Pride cats. And the fact that he’d probably already heard what we’d—okay, I’d—done to Pete Yarnell by then.

  So I rode with Jace in his Pathfinder, following Dan and Feldman in a white, late-nineties-model Camry across two small, neighboring towns. It was ten-thirty by the time we pulled onto Kevin’s street, and for the most part, his neighborhood already seemed to be sleeping.

  Dan called from his cell when we turned onto Kevin’s street, to give us the address, and both vehicles made a slow, quiet first pass, taking everything in.

  Except for the house number flaking off the curb on the right side of his short, cracked driveway, Kevin’s house was virtually indistinguishable from its neighbors. White clapboard with black shutters. Four foot square concrete porch, with no rail and no plants. Small windows, tiny lawn, neat but bare. There was no garage, and the carport was empty. Two cars were parked on the street across from the house, but neither was the car I’d last seen Kevin driving four months earlier.

  “I don’t think he’s home,” Feldman said over Dan’s open phone line, flicking his right blinker on as he came to a four-way stop a block past the house. “Wanna get a closer look?”

  “Absolutely.” We drove around until we found a neighborhood playground two streets over, where we parked both vehicles side by side beneath the lone streetlight. Then we headed down the walking trail in the direction of Kevin’s street. If anyone stopped us—and that wasn’t looking likely; the whole town seemed to be sleeping peacefully—we’d say we were out for a little late-night exercise.

  We snuck between two houses, then crossed the road quickly, as far as possible from the nearest streetlight. After tiptoeing past a sleeping cat in a fenced-in rear lawn, we could see the back of Kevin’s house, two lots down. Trees provided excellent cover in the dark, and we stepped carefully into Kevin’s backyard less than ten minutes after we’d parked at the playground.

  All manner of normal family racket came from the house to the east: television violence, loud country music, the soft hum of a dishwasher. Kevin’s house was silent—a very good sign—but we went carefully anyway.

  Jace and I went right and Dan and Feldman went left, checking each window. Most of them were covered by miniblinds, but all of those blinds were at least a decade old and had gaps through which we could easily see. There were two bedrooms, a living/dining combo, and a kitchen. I assumed there was also a bathroom, but that one had no window.

  “Well?” I whispered when we met again beneath a tree in the backyard.

  “Nothing.” Feldman shrugged, and when he stopped moving and talking, he faded so thoro
ughly into the shadows I could easily have overlooked him. “He’s not here.”

  I agreed. “Let’s go in.”

  “Will the lock be a problem?” Dan asked, and I shook my head. It was just a knob twist-lock—typical security for werecats. We had little reason to fear intruders, because even if the potential thief had a gun, chances were good that a werecat could disarm him before it went off. Humans are slow and noisy.

  Of course, in Marc’s case, that theory had backfired….

  I hesitated briefly, well aware that if we were caught, we’d get arrested. It was the possible consequence that gave me pause, not the moral dilemma of the act itself. I was sure Kevin was working with his father—and possibly Calvin Malone—on the microchip conspiracy, which was more than enough to justify a little breaking and entering. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  Jace popped the lock on the back door with one quick twist of the knob. The screen door wasn’t even locked. We were inside in under two seconds. While most werecat characteristics carry over in human form to some extent, on two feet, our eyesight is our weakest sense. Fortunately, Kevin had left several lights on, so we could see pretty well without having to flip any more switches.

  Obviously, Kevin would know we’d been there the moment he got home, from the broken doorknob and our scents lingering on everything we touched. Though by the time he got home, a little B and E would be the least of his worries. But at least this way no curious neighbors would cut our little snoop-fest short. Or call the police.

  “What a slob!” Jace whispered, eyeing the sticky countertop and sink full of dishes.

  “Like you’re one to talk.” The guys could sterilize an entire house from carpet to ceiling in less than an hour. But they rarely put forth so much effort unless it was truly necessary. Not that I could blame them.

  We snooped quickly, opening drawers and reading mail, pawing through Kevin’s fridge, his trash, and his one file cabinet as carefully and as quietly as possible.

  The first bedroom held a bed, dresser, and a chest of drawers with a twenty-four-inch television on top. The bathroom was…too gross for words. But the room off the hall, the one that should have been the extra bedroom, held a computer desk and chair, with all the usual complements: printer/scanner/fax combo, telephone, external hard drive, etc….