Flight of the White Wolf

by Terry Spear

  “Except for the pilot,” she reminded him.

  He smiled at her. “I’m glad you made it home safely and sent your dad and brother to rescue me.”

  “Me too. It says here she’s got tons of businesses to diversify her income.”

  “She’s on the move again.”

  This time, Eleanor stopped at a restaurant and used valet parking.

  Gavin dropped Amelia off at the front door so she could see where Eleanor got a seat while he parked the car. When he joined her, she’d asked for a booth on the other side of where Eleanor had been seated. The wall was topped with silk flowers and plants that divided them so they couldn’t be seen, but they could hear Eleanor if she joined anyone.

  “Will she recognize you if she sees you?” Amelia asked Gavin, her voice hushed.

  “No. We don’t have pictures on the website. Unless she was involved in this business all along and read the newspaper accounts about the cop who was taken hostage.”

  “Well, she doesn’t know me.”

  “I’m waiting for someone, thank you,” Eleanor said to the server.

  Gavin hadn’t officially taken the job Conrad offered him to see if Eleanor was having an affair. He needed to learn if she was involved in paying Heaton to sabotage the plane, and if so, why. If he learned she was also having an affair? He figured he wouldn’t charge Conrad for the information.

  “Are you all right, Gavin?”

  He knew she meant about his issue with shifting, but he’d shifted late last night and the day before, both times when he and Amelia were able to stay in their hotel room, safe from prying eyes. Both times, Amelia had shifted with him to be a wolf too, as if this was perfectly normal for her. For now, he was fine. “Yeah, honey. Doing great.”

  “You’re late, Cheryl,” Eleanor said to a woman.

  “I’m sorry. Traffic was horrendous, and your husband kept me late,” Cheryl said.

  “He didn’t suspect anything, did he?” Eleanor sounded worried.

  “No. Conrad’s clueless.”

  “Good. Take a seat.”

  “Mrs. Dylan.” Cheryl paused as a waitress came to take her drink order.

  “She’s not staying,” Eleanor told the waitress.

  Gavin shared a look with Amelia. He wondered if Eleanor believed Cheryl was having an affair with Conrad, and she was going to straighten her out.

  “Mrs. Dylan,” Cheryl said again, “you know I’ve tried to get him interested in me. That’s not working, and he said he’d fire me if I keep trying. And Lee even offered him a promotion, but he’s not biting.”

  What the hell? Eleanor was trying to force an affair on her husband?

  “Lee assured me that would do the trick,” Eleanor said. “I can’t believe that damn private investigator went to your campsite. He said he’d be discreet.”

  “He was discreet. Lee and I didn’t know you were using a PI to get proof of Conrad’s infidelity. Though we assumed it when he told us he was a PI who happened to be on the sabotaged plane and was helping the seaplane company to investigate it. But he began questioning us about who might have a reason for someone wanting them dead, and he asked if anyone was having an affair. I mean, no one else knew—Orwell, Theodore, Nina, Conrad—that he was there for more than determining who was involved in the plane crash. After the plane went down and Theodore got lost and Gavin went to help locate him, what can you expect?”

  “For him to be discreet, damn it. His job should have been his top priority. Nothing else mattered!” Eleanor growled.

  “Yes, but he wanted to know if anyone had a reason for someone wanting them dead. Gavin asked Conrad if he had a reason anyone would want to see him killed, but he said no.” But Cheryl had to be wondering if Eleanor had been behind the plane crash.

  “Go. Keep trying. If you get a commitment from him, let me know, and I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Of course. I’ll keep trying.” Cheryl got up and left.

  Gavin had never expected this turn of events.

  The server dropped off soup and a salad for Eleanor.

  Their own server returned, and Gavin and Amelia ordered shrimp scampi and iced tea. He thought of how enjoyable these stakeouts were with Amelia. She was a real go-getter. She was always looking for information while they were sitting in the car, waiting for something to happen. Even now, she was searching for information on Eleanor on her phone. “Omigod, guess who owns the greeting-card company that Lee is the CEO of.”

  “Don’t tell me. Eleanor.”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Another quarter of an hour passed, and someone else approached Eleanor’s table.

  “Red, what are you doing here?” Eleanor asked, setting her empty salad dish aside.

  “Red?” Amelia whispered. She chanced peeking through the plants. “It’s him,” she told Gavin. “The guy who wouldn’t fly with me. The one who was involved in the jewelry-store heist.”

  And that had Gavin thinking back to what had happened between him and Eleanor—her insistence he be the PI to take on the mission. No other. Lee had arrived early with her team, so they flew to their destination before the timer went off on the plane. Not even Heaton had accounted for Eleanor’s treachery.

  The waitress brought Gavin’s and Amelia’s shrimp scampis and iced tea.

  Red took a seat at Eleanor’s booth, even though Eleanor hadn’t offered one. At least verbally.

  “I imagine they’re business associates. Not lovers,” Gavin said. “Or he works for her.”

  “I can’t imagine with the wealth she has that she would hire a thief for any reason. To hit her jewelry store?”

  “She probably makes claims against the insurance company and sells the stolen jewelry. She pays the thieves their cut after they’ve delivered the goods, or they’d take off with them.”

  “So he’s here for another job?” Amelia asked.

  “Maybe. I need to check with a couple of buddies still at the police department to see what Red’s been doing for the last few years.”

  “What are you doing here?” Eleanor asked Red.

  “Asher Michaels said he wants in on the new job. He said something he was working on didn’t pan out, so he wants the job.”

  So neither Red nor Eleanor knew Asher had been arrested for killing Heaton.

  “You still think he’s reliable?” she asked Red.

  “He’s got a good track record for making money. The only one of us who got away clean the last time after that bitch crashed the plane. And he turned over his share of the loot to you for a tidy sum. So yeah.”

  “Some was missing.”

  “That was Clayton’s score. He buried it. No one ever discovered where.”

  “No criminal record for anything since then?”

  “Just minor. I sent you the details. Hell, you didn’t tell me Conrad was joining you for lunch.”

  “He wasn’t. Go. Now. Before he sees you.”

  Red hurried out of the restaurant as Gavin and Amelia stared through the foliage in disbelief.

  “So Asher was the other thief, the one who got away. Conrad can’t be involved in this whole business, can he?” Amelia asked Gavin.

  “I hope not. I was beginning to like the guy.”

  “Why, Conrad, how did you know I would be here for lunch?” Eleanor asked in a coy way.

  “Your secretary said she made a reservation for you here. I had a stopping point in my work and thought I’d join you because Lisa said you weren’t meeting anyone.”

  “Well, how nice. It’s not like you to want to join me. What made you decide to do so?”

  “The truth is I’m quitting my job.”

  Gavin and Amelia exchanged glances. That was a shock, and Gavin suspected it would be a shock to Eleanor.

  A
fter a moment, Eleanor said, “What? You can’t!”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t be living off you. I’ve taken a much-better-paying job in Manhattan. Better promotional opportunities. I can’t work for Lee any longer. You wouldn’t believe how she sexually harasses me on the job. I’ll give her notice when I return to work. I’ll start the new job in two weeks.”

  “What…what about us?”

  “That’s up to you. Well, I have to get back to work. I’ll be home later than usual tonight. Don’t wait up for me.” Conrad left.

  Eleanor got up and stalked out of the restaurant.

  “It feels like one of those celebratory moments to me.” Gavin motioned to the server and asked for the dessert menu. “What would you like?”

  Amelia smiled. “Carrot cake and a cup of coffee.”

  “All right.” He told the server, “One carrot cake and one slice of cheesecake.”

  When she left to get their dessert, Amelia asked Gavin, “Why would Red meet Eleanor in such a public place?” To her way of thinking, the woman was playing with fire. Then again, she had seemed above suspicion all along.

  “From the sound of it, she was surprised to see him. It appeared that she’d only meant to meet with Cheryl. In any event, Eleanor probably didn’t believe anybody would be watching her. Maybe Red doesn’t trust her to meet somewhere less…private.”

  The server returned with their cakes and refilled their drinks, then left.

  “They must not know Asher killed Heaton and is currently incarcerated.” Amelia sliced into her cake. “Okay, so she hires you, tells you which plane service Conrad used, then you’re supposed to learn if her husband is unfaithful. She pays off—or promises to pay off—Cheryl and Conrad’s boss to create a scene to make it appear he’s having an affair. He won’t take the bait. Why would the thief be there, making us fly the sabotaged plane?”

  Gavin cut off a piece of his cheesecake. “It all goes back to the heist. It’s been seven and a half years. I’ve been thinking about that. Lee got her people there an hour early, so we took the plane. What if this was all orchestrated by Eleanor? Lee was working for her, Cheryl too, and Red.”

  “So you were the intended victim.”

  “Or both of us.”

  “It was over seven years ago, but you and your friends were turned since then. You’ve been moving, no real office for a while, right?”

  “You’re right. We didn’t open a brick-and-mortar until a few months ago.”

  “And it could have taken her that long to figure out I had been dating Clayton and that I was a pilot and where I’d ended up. He might not have ever mentioned my name to the other men. We moved back to Alaska right after that, so if they were searching for a female pilot in Seattle, they wouldn’t have located me. Somehow, they must have figured it out.”

  “And Eleanor set up this trip for Lee’s company. She had me investigating her husband. Red, another employee of hers, made you fly the other plane. Heaton was hired to tamper with it. And we were supposed to crash. Not the company’s people. Heaton thought he was taking your dad down, not you. I’m sure that much is true.”

  “And Asher had paid Heaton to crash the plane when the company’s people were onboard to get rid of his wife and Orwell. Which means Heaton had intended to do that too. Take my dad out and the company’s people. Eleanor was working behind the scenes, having Red and Lee mess that up. She thought she could get out of a divorce settlement to Conrad because Cheryl and Lee were both going to be there on the camping trip and trying to seduce him. But then she would have needed you, the PI, to document it. You were supposed to be dead.”

  “Maybe she intended to have everyone there witness his infidelity and have them testify to that. Only it didn’t work out the way Eleanor planned,” Gavin said.

  “That sounds like it. Except now we need to get proof to turn this over to the police.”

  After they finished their dessert, they headed over to the police department.

  Gavin met with his friends, and one of them, Harvey Smith, said, “Yeah, Red, he got out of prison two weeks ago. Don’t tell me he’s looking to do another job already.”

  “That’s what we’re trying to learn.”

  “He’s been in prison since the heist?” Amelia asked.

  “Yep. The whole time.”

  “And the others?” Gavin asked.

  “Still in.”

  After speaking with the officers, Amelia and Gavin returned to the hotel.

  “I was thinking about giving some swimming lessons in a nice heated pool,” Gavin said.

  Before Amelia could agree, Gavin got a call from Conrad. “Hey, don’t worry about investigating my wife. I’ve got a new job in New York, and I’ll be leaving in two weeks.”

  “Separation? Divorce?”

  “Separation for sure. Divorce after that. If she doesn’t trust me enough to be faithful, that’s her problem.”

  “If she finds fault with you?”

  “I’m not doing anything wrong, so she can make up whatever story she wants. After the incident with the plane?”

  “We think that might have more to do with me and Amelia than you.”

  “Oh?” Conrad sounded really surprised to hear that.

  “Yeah. Do you know anything about your wife’s jewelry store?”

  “She has six of them in the Seattle area alone.”

  “The one I’m thinking about was robbed seven years ago.”

  “Wait a minute. Gavin Summerfield. You’re…the former cop who was taken hostage. Yeah, I remember. What would that have to do with the sabotage of the plane in Minnesota?”

  “Your wife just met with one of the bank robbers involved in that heist at Charlie’s Seafood and Steakhouse.”

  “You can’t be serious. Wait…you were at the restaurant?”

  “Yeah. We overheard you telling Eleanor you had a new job and were leaving. Not only that, but Eleanor met with Cheryl before you arrived.”

  “Cheryl? For God’s sake. Don’t tell me Eleanor read her the riot act, thinking Cheryl is having an affair with me.”

  “No. Apparently, she and Lee have been trying to seduce you, without success, both at the behest of your wife. They’re on her payroll. So is the bank robber,” Gavin said.

  Conrad didn’t say anything for a moment, and then he laughed. “Well, hell, am I glad I found a new job. Tell me what I owe you, and I’ll send you a payment. You’re off the hook.”

  “No charge. I think I’ll stick around. Did you know she owns the company you work for?”

  Conrad was silent for several seconds. “Hell.”

  “I need to prove she’s the mastermind behind the jewelry heist.”

  “I can help you with that, if I can get her to confess on camera. We have security cameras everywhere. I don’t know if it would work, but we could give it a shot. If she doesn’t get wise to it, the video would be admissible in court. I’ll wear a wire even. The wire wouldn’t be admissible in court, but you can hear the truth at the same time. And just in case she tries to shoot me? You can come in and rescue me. Who knows what she’s capable of. I never thought she would have done anything like this.” Conrad sounded eager to help.

  Gavin smiled. “I have some police friends who would be glad to help.”

  Chapter 19

  Before the big show, Gavin slipped off to the hotel with Amelia to have some wolf time with her. The full moon was now waning, but he was still feeling its pull. He sure as hell didn’t want to be sitting in a police van with two officers and fighting the urge to shift. Sometimes, he could shift like this, and the need wouldn’t occur again until hours later. Not in the beginning after he’d been turned though. Back then? If he had to shift, it was fast, and he could be stuck like that for hours. No anticipating it. No control over it at all. So he was getting much better at this.

&
nbsp; He smiled at Amelia as she turned on a show for them, then shifted and joined him to watch the movie as a wolf. She definitely was the one in charge of the TV controller during these times.

  Then it was the real showtime.

  * * *

  That night, Conrad went home earlier than planned. The police and Gavin had given him tips on what to say to try to get his wife to confess to the burglary and the sabotage of the plane.

  The two policemen, Gavin, and Amelia were listening from a van near the house. They’d wired Conrad and shown him a picture of Red. Since Red had met with Eleanor at the restaurant and Conrad had shown up after that, he was going to use that as his lead-in.

  “I thought you were going to stay out real late tonight,” Eleanor said, sounding highly aggravated when Conrad entered the home earlier than expected.

  “If you’re mad I’m home, sorry. I thought I’d have to stay late at the office, but once I told Lee I was leaving in two weeks, she didn’t bother to ask me to stay late like she usually does. I should have done this a long time ago. Do we have anything to eat?”

  “Who is she?”

  “Who is who? Are you having an affair? Because I sure as hell am not. When I went to meet you at the restaurant, I saw a redheaded guy sitting with you at your table. Surprised the hell out of me. So who is he?”

  “Someone who’s done some work for me.”

  “Ah, okay. I wouldn’t think you, of all people, would meet an employee at a restaurant. Then again, I wouldn’t think you’d be consorting with criminals either.”

  “What?”

  “Why do you look so surprised that I know what’s going on? The guy was involved in the theft at your jewelry store. I remember seeing his mug in the paper. Either he’s giving you the missing jewelry back after having found it wherever they stashed it—which I highly doubt—or you’ve got another job for him.”

  Frowning, one of the police officers leaned back in his chair in the surveillance van and folded his arms.

  Amelia thought that meant this wasn’t going the way they thought it should. Conrad was doing all the talking, and Eleanor wasn’t incriminating herself.