by Rebecca York
Dark Moon
A Decorah Security Novel
By Rebecca York
Ruth Glick writing as Rebecca York
Published by Light Street Press
Copyright © 2011 by Ruth Glick
Cover design by Patricia Rosemoor
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PRAISE FOR REBECCA YORK
ABOUT REBECCA YORK
BOOKS BY REBECCA YORK
CHAPTER ONE
Her head was a little fuzzy, but that was okay. She didn’t have to work tomorrow. Really, she didn’t have to work at all, but she liked puttering around the little boutique on Charles Street that Daddy had bought her. It was fun having something of her own. Having employees and customers who liked the whimsical clothing and jewelry she brought back from New Delhi and Bangkok.
Tonight she only had to make it from the club to her apartment. She could have gone home with Craig, or one of the guys she’d flirted with on the dance floor. But she didn’t like him enough to fall into his bed.
The din inside Temptation faded as she wove her way to the parking lot. With a sigh of relief, she reached her Beemer and clicked the button to unlock.
Before she could open the door, someone grabbed her from behind and covered her mouth with his hand. When she tried to pull away, he caught a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back, almost snapping her neck.
“Careful, you idiot,” a rough voice cautioned. “She’s a valuable commodity.”
“Yeah.”
The pressure on her neck eased as someone shoved her into the backseat of the Beemer and lifted the key from her hand.
The second guy climbed behind the wheel while the first one held her in place.
“Please,” she whimpered as the car headed away from the club. “My father will pay to get me back.”
The guy up front laughed. “Yeah. We know, sweetheart.”
The kidnapper in back pressed something wet over her nose and mouth, and blackness closed in.
oOo
The phone jerked Emma Richards awake at 5:00 a.m.
The harsh voice on the other end of the line said, “We’ve got a priority job. I’m assembling a team. Get in here ASAP.”
It was her boss, Frank Decorah, a tough former Navy Seal who had worked for a couple of top security companies before going into business for himself.
Instantly alert, she climbed out of bed and headed for a quick shower, then gave her medium-length blond hair two minutes with the hair dryer. Good enough.
The jeans she’d discarded before her three-mile jog around the lake were lying over the arm of a chair where she’d tossed them. A white blouse hung in the closet along with a tweed blazer.
No time for makeup. Not when something urgent was going down. But she knew better than to ask about the assignment until she was inside the Beltsville headquarters of Decorah Security. It was in an unpretentious warehouse area off Route One, convenient to both DC and Baltimore.
She pulled into a parking space beside the windowless building and hurried through the bland reception area. Once she’d punched in her code and entered the back of the building, everything changed to high tech efficiency.
She’d been with the company for five years, ever since she’d turned down an offer from her dad’s security outfit in order to prove she could stand on her own two feet. So far she’d done pretty well, starting with routine surveillance assignments and graduating to sophisticated sting operations and hair-trigger search and rescue.
She’d been happy at Decorah, until Cole Marshall had come on board last year. Frank Decorah had been enthusiastic about getting him. Emma wasn’t quite so sure. There was something strange about the guy. Something she simply didn’t understand and didn’t trust. It wasn’t just that he never socialized with the rest of the Decorah team. She had sensed an invisible barrier around him, a barrier nobody dared step through except Frank.
None of that stopped her from being attracted to him—an attraction she’d fought because she’d sensed that if she got involved with this man, it would be a lot more than a casual affair. And that frightened her in ways she couldn’t explain.
She and Frank met in the hallway, his gait less steady than usual. Most days you wouldn’t know that one of his legs was artificial. This morning he looked like he was in pain.
“Thanks for getting here so fast,” he said. Another anomaly. It wasn’t like him to thank his staff for reporting to work, all of which made her think that he was on edge over the upcoming job.
The moment she followed him into the conference room, her own nerves started to jangle.
Cole Marshall was sitting on the other side of the polished rosewood table.
Dark hair. Dark eyes. Dark tee shirt. He always reminded her of a predator on the hunt, which was probably why he made her nervous. They’d partnered on a few assignments, and she’d wanted to tell Decorah no way in hell would she do it again. But she knew that the boss understood the strengths of his staff and put the best team together for every job. This morning, it appeared that the outside operatives would be her and Cole.
He gave her a tight nod, indicating that he wasn’t any happier to see her than she was to see him.
Teddy Granada came rushing in.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Decorah gave him a stern look but said nothing because they all knew they were lucky to have the computer geek.
Teddy’s name came from his appearance. He was six feet tall with the bulk of a grizzly. This morning he wore a wrinkled plaid shirt with a rip in the sleeve.
His cohort in the division, Stinger Henderson, rocked back and forth in his swivel chair like it was part of an amusement park ride. The polar opposite of Teddy, he looked like a refugee from a biker gang complete with leather jacket and boots. Under the jacket was an impressive set of tattoos, mostly of the horror movie variety.
Teddy and Stinger would be working from headquarters. While she and Cole would be doing what?
“What have we got?” Stinger asked as he bit at a hangnail.
Frank Decorah passed out folders with photos and background information. The photos showed a young woman with striking strawberry-colored hair and blue eyes.
Emma gasped when she saw the picture. “It’s Karen Hopewell.”
“You know her?” Frank asked sharply.
“We both went to Carlton Academy. She was a few years behind me. What happened to her?”
She failed to come home last night, and her dad is worried sick. Her mom died last year, and she’s all he’s got.”
“Maybe she bunked with a friend,” Teddy said.
“Possible, but unlikely. Considering that the father got a ransom demand early this morning.”
Emma’s stomach was churning as she took in the information. Someone she knew. Kidnapped.
Frank went on to give a few particulars. “She’s the daughter of Morton Hopewell. Twenty-two years old. Dad set her up with a
boutique on Charles Street after she graduated from the University of Maryland—with a major in partying.”
He paused. “You can get more background from the briefing folders. The main point is that the kidnappers want five million dollars. If they don’t get it in the next few days, Karen’s life as she knew it ends, and they’ve said that if Hopewell contacts the cops, he’ll be sorry.”
Stinger’s feet hit the floor as he abruptly stopped rocking. “They’re going to off her?” he asked in his flat, matter-of-fact voice.
“The implication is that she’ll wish she were dead,” Frank answered in a voice that could have turned water to ice.
Emma winced, her imagination running wild as she thought about what the wrong kind of men could do to a twenty-two-year-old female.
“Take a couple minutes to look through the folders,” their boss said as he reached into his pocket and took out the gold and black eagle coin that he always carried. While they read the material, he used his thumb and finger to turn it over in his hand.
He gave them ten minutes with the folders, then began speaking again, making assignments. “I’ll interview Hopewell. Arriving in a plumber’s truck, in case someone’s watching the house. Teddy and Stinger will work the computers. Emma and Cole will go to her apartment, like they’re friends dropping by. See if you can get any clues about where she was last night.”
Emma glanced at Cole, thinking he probably didn’t look like a friend of a millionaire’s daughter. Neither did she, for that matter. She and Karen hadn’t had much in common back in prep school. Karen had run with the in crowd. Emma had had a few friends, all of them outsiders.
“Stop by makeup and wardrobe and get some war paint—and something a little sexier to wear,” Decorah told her. To Cole he said, “The jeans are okay but a polo shirt would look better.”
They both nodded.
“Make it fast. We’re working on a tight deadline. Hopewell told the kidnappers it would take him three days to get the money. Maybe he can stretch it to four, but that’s pushing her safety.”
Stinger and Teddy rushed off to do what they did best—get the scoop on Karen and her father.
Emma headed down the hall to make herself look a little more like a frivolous rich chick. The rich part was true. She’d never lacked for anything material growing up. But her household had never been frivolous. She’d resented her father’s strict discipline, but she’d also been raised with solid values that had put her squarely on the side of people in harm’s way. She’d wanted to do something important with her life, not just live off Daddy’s money.
When she emerged from the prop department wearing a hot pink sweater so tight that she knew her nipples showed through the knit fabric, Cole was waiting for her. He’d exchanged the tee shirt for a baby blue polo that looked all wrong on him. But she liked the brand-new sparkling white Adidas.
Because she didn’t want him to give her the once-over, she breezed past and headed straight for the Lexus pulled up at the back entrance.
He’d follow. And he’d better not make any comments.
CHAPTER TWO
Cole clenched his teeth, his gaze fixed on Emma’s nicely rounded ass as he strode after her to the Lexus. She was the last person he wanted to partner with on this assignment. On any assignment, to be truthful. He had good reasons to avoid intimate contact with her.
Werewolf reasons.
He was too close to the age of bonding to be comfortable with her. Soon he’d be forced to pick a lifemate. Not because he wanted to, but because that was what his genetic heritage dictated—ever since his long-ago ancestor had dared to ask the ancient Druid gods for special powers.
He’d gotten them—for himself and the generations to follow. Dooming them to a savage life that ran parallel to ordinary men.
But they’d learned to adapt, roll with the punches, and take advantage of the modern world. In fact, Cole’s current lifestyle suited him just fine. The last thing he wanted was a wife and a family, which was why he was fighting his attraction to Emma Richards, tooth and claw.
He bit back a laugh. He’d never given her any clue to his real nature, but maybe when they were alone in Karen Hopewell’s apartment he could change to wolf form. That should send her running in the other direction.
Or would it?
Ever since he’d been at Decorah Security, he’d known Emma Richards was an extraordinary woman. She was trained in the martial arts. She was an expert on the gun range. And she’d taken a job as an entry-level operative with Frank Decorah, when she could have been a vice president in her dad’s firm. He didn’t know what she did for fun when she was off duty, but he couldn’t help wondering if seeing him transform would turn her on.
Yeah sure.
He climbed behind the wheel of the luxury car, looking straight ahead. Yet he couldn’t ignore her sexy pink sweater as she slid in next to him and buckled her seat belt. Had she chosen it on purpose to make him crazy? Or was she only following Decorah’s directions?
The confined interior of the car was instantly filled with her tantalizing scent. Soap and woman. No perfume, thank God, because that would have overloaded his werewolf senses.
Not that he wasn’t already on the edge of doing something he’d be sorry about.
He tightened his hands on the wheel and peeled out of the parking lot, headed for the Camden condo where Karen Hopewell lived.
Emma moved in her seat, drawing the sweater tighter across her breasts.
For a while neither he nor Emma spoke until he broke the silence. “So you knew her?”
“Not well. We didn’t have the same interests.” She swallowed hard. But I wouldn’t like to be her right now. She’s probably scared out of her mind.”
“If she isn’t drugged senseless.”
Emma winced. “There’s that.” She cleared her throat. “You think sexual abuse is part of the scenario?”
“No way to know.”
“No matter how this comes out, she’s never going to be the same again,”
Cole heard the conviction in her voice. “Are you speaking from personal experience?”
“No. Thank God. I’ve studied cases where women have been seriously abused. I’m just putting myself in her place.”
“Hopefully, they won’t have her for long.”
“If we can find out who’s got her—and where.”
They reached Karen’s apartment in twenty-five minutes. It was on the second floor of a low-rise condominium complex in a Baltimore waterfront neighborhood that had undergone considerable urban renewal.
After finding a parking space around the corner, they walked back. The building’s entrance was along an interior walkway, which gave them cover from the street.
Emma stood guard while Cole got out his picks and worked on the lock. They were inside so quickly that he thought Karen could have easily been taken hostage in her own home.
After making sure no one was inside, he checked escape routes. There was a sliding glass door and a balcony in the bedroom where they could exit if anyone else came nosing around
“You take the bedroom. I’ll take the front of the apartment,” he said to Emma, relieved that it made sense to split up.
She strode toward the back, obviously just as glad to get out of his way. Alone, he surveyed the living room. It was sleek and modern, all leather and chrome, like Karen had gone to a designer store and bought everything new. None of it looked particularly comfortable.
After glancing over his shoulder to make sure he was alone, he opened the small closet in the front hall, riffling through the coats, pulling one against his face and breathing deeply, taking in the scent of Karen Hopewell. It was young and feminine and sexy, but had nowhere near the effect on him as the fragrance of Emma Richards. However, if he picked up Karen’s trail, he’d be able to follow it. That was one of his werewolf advantages—his sense of smell. It was strongest in wolf form, but even now it was far more acute than that of any human.
He had sta
rted on the kitchen, checking to see if anything was hidden in a canister of sugar, when Emma called out from the bedroom.
“Found her stash.”
He put down the sugar and wiped his hands, then strode into the bedroom. A drawer was open, and Emma held up a bag of marijuana leaves.
“Want to smell it?”
He shook his head and took a quick step back. Picking up the scent of people was useful. Chemicals were another matter. Drugs played hell with a werewolf’s nervous system. Even coffee and caffeinated tea were too much, which could be inconvenient in social circumstances.
“You okay.”
“Of course!” he snapped, turning toward the bedside table, where he found some packets of condoms. At least she wasn’t going to let her partners use the excuse that they weren’t prepared. “I don’t suppose you have any idea where she was snatched from?”
“I haven’t spoken to her in years. And I feel weird poking through her stuff.”
“Yeah.”
On the dresser, he spotted a crystal bowl where Karen had thrown various odds and ends. Hard candies, a double A battery, a tube of hotel body lotion, coins, ballpoint pens. As he poked through the jumble, he found a coaster from a Baltimore club—Temptation.
“Maybe we have a clue,” he said.
Emma had just put the plastic bag back under a pile of tee shirts in the drawer when the knob on the front door turned, and they both froze.
Under ordinary circumstances, Cole might have confronted the intruder, but their orders were to stay out of sight. If the kidnappers knew that Karen’s father had disobeyed their instructions, they might kill the daughter.
When Emma gave him a panicked look, he took her hand and headed for the sliding glass door onto the balcony. Once they were outside, he closed the panel behind them and looked around. They could make it to the ground without too much trouble, but if they climbed down now, they might be seen. Crossing to the door at the side of the balcony, he turned the knob, and it opened.