He only hoped that Simon would, one of these days, have an opportunity to listen to the messages and empty it. And return the calls to him.
Shoving his phone back into his pocket, he once more started the engine. He wouldn’t wait for Drew to get back to him.
He needed to find Kristine. Right away.
* * *
“What is all that?” Kristine stammered. There were wolfen creatures of all sizes. Most looked real, as if they’d been killed, then stuffed by a very skilled taxidermist.
There were also some heads hanging on the wall. They didn’t look quite so real. Were they actual wolves or were they masks?
There were also facsimiles of wolflike legs, with horrendously sharp claws at their ends. They hung beside the fake heads—and appeared damned dangerous.
The one thing she didn’t dare ask herself, didn’t want to face, was whether some of the creatures who appeared to be real canines were actual wolves...or whether they were werewolves who’d been killed while in wolfen form and hadn’t returned to their human shapes.
She shuddered. At least none of these could be Quinn. Olivante couldn’t possibly have had time to kill him and get him stuffed. Besides, as smart as Quinn was, he would never be captured while in wolf form and harmed this way.
But was what Olivante had said about him true—that he had conspired with his brother and sister-in-law to make Alpha Force look bad? To bring it down?
And could any of these be Grace or Simon?
“I thought you’d appreciate this,” Olivante said, “thanks to your affiliation with Alpha Force. You said you were making no claims to being a shapeshifter, right?” He stood sideways, arm outstretched as if he were a game show host showing off the latest prizes.
Kristine would have to move around his prominent gut to go farther into the room. She just stood there, gaping. “You know I can’t talk—”
“Yes, I know. But my interests diverge from yours and your Alpha Force’s. I’m mostly charged with doing what’s right for our country. So here we are. This is my Alpha Force display.”
Kristine took a deep breath.
“Interesting,” she said. “But you said you had proof of a conspiracy in which Quinn was involved. Something harmful to Alpha Force. What does this stuff have to do with it?”
“If you only knew,” Mel called from behind her.
She had moved through the doorway far enough that Olivante’s brother was now at her back. She was trapped as well as stunned.
“The ironic thing, though,” Olivante said, then stopped. He approached Kristine, his smug gaze making her shudder inside, even as she fought to maintain a cool expression. “Do you actually believe in werewolves, Kristine?”
What was the right answer here? The truth? A lie? “I’m a member of Alpha Force,” she said. “I’m paid to believe in them.”
“Very tactful. So tell me this. Is your partner Quinn one?”
“Does it matter?” she countered. “You’ve said that his brother and sister-in-law got together and killed those tourists and that cop, and that he was involved. I don’t care whether they were shapeshifted demons or people with fake claws like these.” She gestured around the room. “I want to know how and why you think they did it.”
His smile looked rueful, as if she had given the wrong answer. “Come here and look at these, Kristine,” he said. “They’re evidence. I’ve collected them, brought them here. Mel has kept them safe.”
Which made Kristine’s heart plummet. Were these wolf-related things actual evidence about who attacked those tourists and cops? They could have been used to create the gouges and wounds that had appeared as if a wolf had mutilated them. She had seen some of the photos on the news that had been censored but still appeared gory. And the saliva found on the victims? Olivante could have collected that from dogs, or even real wolves.
Or not.
“These are genuine wolves, Kristine,” Olivante continued. “At least a few are. Some of the body parts are fakes meant to look like them. When you’ve gotten your fill of observing them, let’s adjourn back to the living room. I’ll answer some of your questions—then ask you a few of my own. And don’t worry. I won’t report you to anyone. And if anyone should suspect that you’ve cooperated with me, I’ll be able, with my position, to protect you. All right?”
What else could she say? “Of course. I’m really looking forward to learning the truth.”
* * *
“Got anything?” Quinn had answered the call from Drew Connell without saying hello. Without slowing down. Not many people on this road anyway, and he was driving in near darkness.
“Well, first thing you should know is that the local Bar Harbor cops are really pushing the feds to find Simon and Grace. No indication of what evidence they think they have, but the cops are sure that our missing couple was at the site where the cops were attacked.”
“In what form?”
“Unknown,” Drew said. “Presumably human, since they wouldn’t know how to check for shifters who’d changed—or that’s what we think. Meantime, here’s something else for you. We’re still looking into hotel records for Olivante, and so far nothing. But we also had our guys check out local real estate agents, and one transaction showed promise.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing under the name Olivante, but there was one deal under Oliver. Mel Oliver. And our DSPA team leader just happens to have a brother named Mel.”
“That’s a stretch, isn’t it?”
“No guarantees, but the property that was leased is on Ocean View, a small street that runs off Upland Road.”
Definitely worth checking out. Without slowing down, he carefully grabbed a receipt and pen from his shirt pocket to jot down the address.
“One more thing. I don’t know if it strengthens or weakens the possibilities, but the property was leased out to Mr. Mel Oliver the week before Simon and Grace got married.”
* * *
The three of them returned to the living room with its minimal furniture but big-screen TV. Olivante waved Kristine to an end of a once elegant but now worn red sofa and she took a seat, placing her purse on the floor beside her. He sat at its other end while Mel took a seat on a less comfortable-looking wooden chair with torn cushions.
“Before I tell you more about your partner Quinn,” Olivante said, “I want you to tell me all you know about him. We need to cooperate to make sure justice is done here.”
She would feel more like cooperating if she felt she could trust this man.
“I really don’t know him very well,” she said. Which was true—except for in the carnal sense. “I was assigned as an aide to Lt. Grace Andreas-Parran, now. Quinn was a new recruit into Alpha Force, like his brother Simon. When Simon and Grace got married and went off on their honeymoon, no one had been assigned as Quinn’s aide, so I was given that job temporarily.”
“Simon and Quinn—they’re both lieutenants, too?”
She nodded. That, at least, would be in regular military records.
“What do you do as an assistant to one of those officers?”
This could present a problem. She wasn’t about to tell the actual truth.
She glanced at Mel—and found he was leaning forward in his chair, his hands clasped and his expression as expectant as if he believed she would tell all, and that it would be both lurid and disgusting. His face was not as round as his brother’s, just like his body was thinner. But his cheeks still puffed out beneath his crafty, small eyes.
“I still feel uncomfortable talking about this,” she said.
“I’ll use my position within the Department to protect you,” Olivante reminded her. But did she want that kind of protection?
More important, did she want this guy to know the truth? His brother?
No way.
“Okay,” she finally said with a sigh. “I can’t really get into what within Alpha Force is real and what is just intentionally directed rumors.” Boy, did that obfusca
te reality. “But whatever the officer I report to says or does, I back it up. I appear at their meetings, take notes, do what’s necessary on the computer or in person to make sure it’s memorialized and followed up on. And then I start the follow-up, make sure it’s completed. That kind of thing.” Not to mention watching their backs when they shifted—her main job.
“I don’t follow that.”
“Well,” she said, grasping a bit at the idea, “when I was on an assignment recently with Grace at a hospital out West, I worked with her and her therapy dog. She’s a doctor as well as a member of Alpha Force. Since I’m a nurse, I was able to use those skills to be there to help out, too. Alpha Force was assigned to look into some alleged terrorist threats there, and I acted as Grace’s backup in her investigation. I’m sure that the Alpha Force records show we were successful.”
But not necessarily how they succeeded. That involved both Grace and Simon, who was also a doctor, already on staff at that hospital.
Plus, they were both shapeshifters. Grace and he bonded well, in many ways. Grace recruited Simon—and Quinn—into Alpha Force.
That should have been the end of the story.
“Interesting,” Olivante said. “But I want to hear more about the shapeshifter end of things. In case you think I’m going to use what you say to ridicule Alpha Force, to the contrary. As I said, I believe in shifters. Know why?”
“No,” Kristine said, actually interested in the answer.
“Would you like to tell her, Mel?”
“Why not?”
Kristine looked at the man still staring at her. He was leaning back in the chair now. She couldn’t quite read the expression on his face, but it appeared studiedly blank. As if whatever he was about to say was so upsetting that he erased any indication from his demeanor. She waited with interest.
“Darren and I, we’re brothers,” Mel said unnecessarily. “We had another brother, too. He was Darren’s twin, in fact.”
Kristine darted a glance at Olivante and saw that his expression, too, was empty. All except for his eyes, and they looked furious, but only for a second, as if he suddenly got them under control.
“He’s dead now—Daniel. He was killed when we were all teenagers, back in Montana.”
Kristine suddenly stiffened. She thought she knew where this was going, at least one of two ways. Either Daniel had been mistaken somehow for a shapeshifter, or—
“He was attacked on a night of a full moon by a werewolf that slashed his throat with some really horrible, sharp fangs. He died from those wounds.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Kristine said. “But in Montana, real wolves sometimes prowl.” She didn’t think they attacked people without provocation, but of course she hadn’t heard the entire story. “Couldn’t it have been a real wolf that attacked your brother?”
“No,” Olivante said. “Because I saw the attack, but I wasn’t close enough to stop it. When I got there, though, I shot the damned wolf. It was too late to help my brother. And the creature that I shot?”
Kristine knew exactly what he was about to say. “It was—”
“It was a dead human being, or at least that’s the way it looked a few minutes after I shot it, draped over the body of our poor, dead brother.”
Chapter 22
Kristine’s mind was racing. She had continued to ask questions of Olivante, ones intended to sound understanding, as if she didn’t blame him for what he had done.
But the guy had just admitted to killing someone. A person, even though he had allegedly been in wolf form when he was shot on the night of a full moon.
Yes, the dead man had supposedly first killed their brother. Olivante might be vindicated in a court of law because of that, or perhaps even on a self-defense theory. Plus, he’d been a minor.
Had he been tried for homicide? Had he gotten off under the combination of circumstances?
True or not, this definitely explained his apparent hatred of the idea of shapeshifters. And it also explained why he was sure they existed.
But why had they told her this story—to garner her sympathy? To prove it was humans against shapeshifters?
Or simply because they intended to kill her, so it didn’t matter what she knew?
“I’m so sorry all of this happened to you, Darren,” she said. “You, too, Mel.” She looked at the brother in the chair across from her whose usually sardonic expression was now blank.
She actually was sorry. She was also full of those additional questions but unsure how to ask them in a tactful enough way not to raise their ire.
She wasn’t a cop, nor did she want to be one, or even a P.I. This interrogation thing would be much better for Quinn to do.
But she suspected that he wouldn’t act as sympathetic as she was pretending to be. She’d seen on TV and in the movies that interrogators often acted like buddies to get those they were questioning to confess. True? She wasn’t sure.
“What happened then?” she probed. “With two dead bodies like that—was there an investigation into how your brother had died?” Or your shooting of his killer?
“Of course,” Mel said. “Good thing it was a small town. People knew one another. But they figured Darren here had gone nuts when he started talking about the werewolf attacking Daniel.”
Kristine kept her gaze on Darren. “That must have hurt even more, to have people think you were crazy.” But didn’t the evidence of bites or whatever help to convince them? And did it get you out of a murder charge?
“It might have if I hadn’t known the truth. And—well, I had help afterward, so all of it, including what I said and did, was hushed up for my protection.”
“Really? What—?” But Kristine heard a noise from somewhere in the house. She caught the look that passed between the brothers.
“Excuse me for a minute,” Mel said. He glanced at his watch. “Time got away from me.”
“Know what?” Olivante said. “I think it’s time that Kristine learns more about what’s going on here.”
She didn’t like the sound of that—particularly because of his falsely jovial tone.
“You know,” she said, “I really think it’s time instead for me to head back to Bar Harbor. I’ve enjoyed talking with you both, but—”
“Don’t you get it yet?” Olivante growled. “You’ve seen and heard too much. You surely understand that you’re not just heading back to your supposed husband for more fun and games on behalf of that miserable excuse for a military unit. Military unit? Shapeshifters? Hell, our country deserves a lot better than that mockery of our military system.”
Was that the basis of his actions against Alpha Force? He hated shapeshifters, presumably loved his country and didn’t like to see the type of people he despised have any degree of success?
Kristine would have loved to ask—but not now. He had answered her questions about why he had told her so much. He had also said she couldn’t go back to Quinn.
He would learn otherwise.
But what if they wanted to use her for some kind of leverage? To lure Quinn in?
She wouldn’t allow that.
“Sorry you feel that way,” she said icily. “But if you had kept an open mind, you’d recognize how much good Alpha Force does in helping our country out of unusual situations.”
“I know more than you’re aware of. But—”
The noise sounded again. Mel remained standing in the doorway, observing them with apparent interest.
“Go take care of that!” Olivante exploded.
“It might help convince Kristine about how things are around here if I took her to see our guests.”
Guests? Kristine knew who he must be talking about. Her hands on her hips to prevent herself from lashing out in fury, she began, “Do you—?”
“You’re right.” Olivante grabbed her by the arm and started dragging her toward the door.
Mel had started down the musty hall. He opened a door at the end and disappeared, his feet clomping on a flight o
f wooden steps.
Olivante propelled Kristine that way, too. She didn’t fight him. Not when she wanted to see what was at the bottom of that precarious-looking stairway. But she did toss the strap of her purse over her shoulder.
And was shocked, as she neared the stairway entrance, to see a face in the window at the far end of the hall. Only for a moment. She blinked, and it was gone.
Warmth flooded through her, but she forced it to dissipate just as quickly. Had she conjured up his image in her mind, or was Quinn really there?
She’d texted him info to find the place, but had he located it this soon? And if so, was it a good thing? After what Olivante had told her...
Was Quinn involved with the killings? Of course not.
But his coming here, following her—ready to protect her?—had probably put him in danger.
As if reading her thoughts, Olivante, behind her, gave her a brief shove. Fortunately, he must not have seen Quinn.
Assuming Kristine hadn’t just imagined seeing him.
But Olivante surely would have reacted in some other way—like rage? Or...smugness?
Kristine hurried down the steps and stopped at the bottom.
The light was dim, but not too low for her to see the bars of two cages along the far side of the moderate-size room. One was occupied.
“Kristine!” shouted Grace’s voice. The woman who peered from between the bars didn’t look much like the alert, well-dressed military lieutenant who had been Kristine’s superior officer. She was dressed in a torn white T-shirt and ratty jeans, and sagged as she held on to the metal cage, as if she had no energy anywhere in her emaciated body. “Run!”
“You bastards.” Simon Parran stood in the same cage as Grace, looking equally shabby and gaunt.
The couple held hands, though, as if giving each other strength...and reassuring each other of their love.
Sweet. And inspirational.
Kristine would get them all out of this, somehow. Seeing them there made it clear to her that Olivante had been playing them all. Quinn needed to get inside here, to see this.
He needed to help her get his family freed and safe.
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