Wolf Unleashed

by Paige Tyler

  Chapter 16

  Lacey and Alex found DeYoung a lot more easily than she anticipated. They simply went to the research facility where he worked and waited in the parking lot until he came out and got into a lime-green Honda Accord. She practically bounced in her seat when they pulled onto the road and followed him, sure he was going to lead them straight to Kelsey and the other girls, but all he did was pick up paperwork from one research facility, then drive across town to deliver it to another.

  As the adrenaline rush she’d gotten at the possibility of finding Kelsey began to fade, Lacey found herself thinking about the conversation she’d had with Jayna. If someone had told her a month ago that she’d meet a guy and fall in love with him in two weeks, she would have said they were off their meds. Then again, if someone had told her a month ago that guy and practically all his friends were werewolves, she would have said they were off their meds too.

  So much for meds.

  As crazy as it seemed, Jayna’s words made sense. Alex made Lacey feel things she’d never felt with another man. Things she’d never imagined feeling with any man. But could she really be in love with him?

  Lacey always thought she’d never fall in love because she was broken when it came to that most basic of human emotions. Part of her wanted to stop thinking and simply go with it, to believe in the fairy-tale magic and accept that she and Alex were meant to be together. But there was another part—a bigger, pragmatic part—that warned her to slow down, take a step back, and consider that what she probably felt for Alex was nothing more than extreme gratitude. After all, the guy was risking his career to help find her sister. This thing with Kelsey had her caught up in a storm that was threatening to tear her apart. It wasn’t too much of a leap to think that maybe she was simply grabbing hold of the only stable thing she could find to keep her grounded. Kind of like wrapping your arms around an oak tree in the middle of a tornado.

  She glanced at Alex as he drove, wishing she could simply talk to him about how she felt so she could get some idea of what he was thinking. But how the heck did you start a conversation like that?

  Hey, Alex. It seems that I’m The One for you and vice versa. Care to discuss your thoughts on the subject?

  But before she could say anything, his phone rang.

  Alex pulled it out of his pocket and thumbed the green button. “You’re on speaker, Becker. Go ahead.”

  “Hey, guys. I dug up some more stuff on DeYoung. Considering he was making meth, it’s not surprising that he was a chemistry major before transferring over to premed. After getting involved with McDonald, he did his internship at a research center that specializes in drug addiction and recovery. And get this—his intern project focused on the addictive effects of newer synthetic opiates.”

  “He could definitely be the guy making fireball, then,” Alex said.

  “It gets better—or worse—depending on your POV,” Becker said. “The guy also volunteers at the clinic where Kelsey and the other missing girls got their birth control pills. He helps out Dr. Pettine.”

  Alex glanced at Lacey. “Now we have our link between the missing girls, Pettine, the drugs, and McDonald.” He started to say something else, but his phone beeped. “Hold on a second, Becker. The ME is calling. Stand by.” He thumbed a button. “This is Trevino.”

  “It’s Samantha Mills at the medical examiner’s. We got the toxicology report back. While there wasn’t any heroin in Nicole Arend’s system, there was a cocktail of other drugs, the most significant ones being propofol and hyoscyamine.”

  Alex asked the medical examiner what they were, but Lacey barely heard him. She was too busy hyperventilating. Propofol was a general anesthetic. There was only one reason to give those to a person.

  “Despite what the killer did to try to disguise it, Nicole Arend’s kidneys and heart were surgically removed,” the ME was telling Alex, even though Lacey was doing everything short of slapping her hands over her ears to keep from hearing. “All the other damage was done postmortem to cover that up. This was an organ harvest, pure and simple. The only surprise is that you found the girl’s body to begin with. Typically, bodies of victims like this are never seen again.”

  Alex cursed under his breath. “Thanks, Doc. I owe you one.” Thumbing a button on the phone, he quickly brought Becker up to speed, then disconnected the call.

  Lacey clenched her hands together in her lap in an effort to keep from going insane with panic. Kelsey and the other girls had been kidnapped to harvest their organs. It was like something out of a horror movie, only real. All Lacey could do was sit there and think about that mutilated girl. Was that going to be her baby sister too? Had it already happened?

  Alex reached over and placed his big hand on both of hers. “We’re going to find Kelsey, I promise. Just hold it together a little while longer.”

  * * *

  Alex was so furious that his claws dug into the steering wheel as they followed DeYoung off the I-20 belt loop and headed south on Interstate 45. He had no idea where the asshole was heading, but if he didn’t get there soon, Alex was going to ram him from the road and start tearing off important body parts until the man told him what he wanted to know. He probably would have done it already if DeYoung hadn’t abruptly changed his routine at the last small lab facility where he’d stopped, loading the backseat of his Honda with five big cardboard boxes instead of the normal folders he’d been ferrying back and forth all over the city.

  Alex had no idea what was in those boxes, but the furtive look that came over DeYoung’s face as the man loaded his car convinced him the son of a bitch was definitely up to something. As they drove farther away from the center of the city, Alex hoped that maybe they were going to the place the girls were being held.

  “It’s getting dark,” Lacey said nervously. “Shouldn’t you get closer so you don’t lose him?”

  Alex glanced at her. She was still pale, but at least she wasn’t shaking as much as she’d been earlier. “I won’t lose him. I can see in the dark.”

  Lacey nodded but didn’t say anything.

  A few minutes later, the Honda turned off the highway and onto a narrow two-lane road. Alex slowed down and let the other car get farther ahead of him. There weren’t many people on this road, and he didn’t want DeYoung figuring out he was being followed.

  Up ahead, DeYoung pulled into a gravel driveway that led to a large metal building with tall roll-up doors—like the kind of place big trucks were taken for maintenance work. Alex continued past the driveway, then did a U-turn when he was out of sight. Flipping off his lights, he crept back the way he’d come until he could just make out the front of the building. Then he pulled into the trees at the side of the road. Besides DeYoung’s Honda, there were three other cars and more than a dozen motorcycles. In the distance, Alex could hear dogs barking.

  DeYoung had already gotten out of the car and was dragging the first box from the backseat as the door of the building opened and a man came out. It was impossible not to recognize the unusual white skin and pale blond hair.

  Beside Alex, Lacey gasped. “Pendergraff!”

  Alex threw her a surprised look. “You know him?”

  She nodded, her gaze intent on the scene in front of them. “He’s Bensen’s head of security. Wendy and I found evidence of a dogfighting ring at one of Bensen’s other properties, so when you and I found all those dead dogs and the girl, I was sure Pendergraff was the one who’d done it. That’s why I snuck into that junkyard where you found me. I was hoping to find evidence I could turn over to Wendy so she could arrest Pendergraff and Bensen.”

  Alex stared. All this time, he’d been so focused on Kelsey and everything that was going wrong between him and Lacey, he’d never once thought to delve into exactly why she’d snuck into Bensen’s place. More important, why the heck hadn’t the drug task force known about Bensen’s supposed involvement in dogfighting? Didn�
��t anybody in the DPD talk to each other?

  He had about a million questions to ask Lacey, but he didn’t get a chance to ask a single one, because just then, the cardboard box DeYoung held ripped open, spilling plastic baggies all over the ground. Pendergraff cursed and shouted at him to pick them up.

  “What is that stuff?” Lacey asked in a whisper.

  “Fireball—and a lot of it. I’m guessing DeYoung makes the junk at McDonald’s research labs, then Bensen and his people distribute it.”

  “Why would McDonald be involved in drugs?” Lacey asked. “He’s already rich.”

  Alex snorted. “Yeah, well, in my experience, people with money always want more of it. He damn sure isn’t harvesting organs for free.”

  Lacey chewed on her bottom lip. “Do you think Kelsey and the other girls are in that building?”

  Alex studied the place, taking in the greasy smears around the roll-up doors, the old truck tires stacked along the side of the building, and the large number of motorcycles. It didn’t strike him as a good location to stash girls they were planning to harvest body parts from. They’d want to keep them someplace cleaner and closer to the city, not to mention near medical facilities like the kind McDonald owned. Still, it would be easy enough to find out.

  “Stay here,” he told Lacey. “I’m going to sniff around. Don’t get out of the truck.”

  Lacey opened her mouth to protest, but he didn’t give her a chance. He jumped out of the truck, then took off at a sprint, hitting the woods that encircled the big metal-sided building. He moved around the back, wanting to avoid running into DeYoung or Pendergraff.

  It was dark as hell behind the building, but he didn’t have any problem seeing as he maneuvered among the truck parts and chain-link dog runs. The pit bulls and Rottweilers there barked when they saw him, but once they got a good sniff, they quickly calmed down.

  “I’ll get you guys out of here too,” he told them. “Just sit tight.”

  Alex worked his way over to a dirty window and peeked in. There were a few big trucks and a car inside, along with toolboxes, spare parts, and tables loaded with fireball and weapons. Twenty guys gathered around the tables, repackaging the drugs into smaller plastic bags.

  There wasn’t any sign of Lacey’s sister or the other girls, and he definitely didn’t pick up Kelsey’s scent. He turned to head back to his truck when he heard Lacey calling out to him in a sound just above a whisper.

  “Alex, if you can hear me, hurry up! DeYoung and Pendergraff are leaving.”

  Shit.

  Alex ran back to the truck and yanked the door open so fast that Lacey let out a gasp. She recovered quickly, though.

  “Pendergraff came outside to talk to someone on his cell phone,” she said. “Whoever was on the line said something that got his attention, because he jumped in his car and took off. DeYoung was right behind him.”

  Alex pulled out onto the road and floored it, wishing for once he had Gage’s Charger instead of a pickup truck. But he caught up with the green Honda just before it turned onto I-45 heading north. Alex tucked in a hundred yards behind him and slowed down.

  “If DeYoung doesn’t lead us to the girls this time, I’m grabbing DeYoung—and he will talk,” Alex vowed.

  * * *

  Lacey’s heart thudded in her chest as she listened in on Alex’s phone call with Gage. He’d called his boss a few minutes after they got on I-45 to tell him about what they’d seen at the big metal building.

  “They’ve got five huge boxes of fireball and probably some other drugs too, so tell narcotics to hurry up and get their asses over there before everything’s gone,” Alex said. “There are also about twenty men armed with automatic weapons, so make sure you guys watch your backs in there.”

  Lacey grabbed Alex’s arm. “Tell him about the dogs.”

  Alex nodded. “Gage, there are also fifteen dogs locked up in back of the building, so watch your crossfire. Anything coming out the rear of the place is likely to hit those dogs.”

  After Alex hung up, they both sat there tensely as he followed both Pendergraff and DeYoung back into the city. Twenty minutes later, the men pulled into the parking lot of a research facility DeYoung had visited earlier. Alex pulled into the parking lot of an office building a few blocks down that gave them a good view of the research facility. He chuckled softly.

  “What is it?” Lacey asked. Nothing about this was even remotely funny.

  He gestured at the two vehicles parked in the darkest corner of the lot. “That’s Remy’s Mustang and Brooks’s truck.”

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Remy and Max jogged over to meet them.

  “What are you guys doing here?” Alex asked.

  “We followed Pettine here about thirty minutes ago,” Remy said. “McDonald showed up ten minutes ago with Brooks right behind him. Brooks is out sniffing around now.”

  Alex was in the middle of filling in Remy and Max on DeYoung and Pendergraff when his phone rang. It was Brooks.

  “McDonald and Pettine just left,” the man’s deep voice said over the speakerphone. “I let them go, because I caught a whiff of Kelsey’s scent. She’s definitely in the building somewhere.”

  Lacey’s heart beat faster.

  “Where are you?” Alex asked Brooks.

  “There are some azaleas along the front of the building. I’m right behind them.”

  “Best way in?” Alex wanted to know.

  “The front doors,” Brooks said. “There are some private security types in there, so we’ll need to neutralize them.”

  The muscle in Alex’s jaw flexed. “Standby. I’m calling Gage.”

  Lacey held her breath as Alex got his Pack alpha on the line and told him where they were and what they were up against.

  “I can’t get anyone there to back you up,” Gage said, frustration clear in his voice. “Deputy Chief Mason had me empty the shop to support the raid on the drug location on I-45 that you told me about. Can you wait?”

  Alex didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  “Then the four of you are going to have to do this on your own,” Gage said. “Hit them fast, and don’t hold back. I’ll get backup to you as soon as I can.”

  Alex thumbed the red button on his phone, then called Brooks back. “We’re on our own. I’ll be there in two minutes.” He hung up, then looked over at Remy and Max. “If we go in there and Brooks is wrong, we’re hitting the unemployment line.”

  Remy and Max only shrugged.

  Alex looked at Lacey. “This is all going to be over soon. We’ll get Kelsey out of there safely. I promise.”

  Lacey grabbed his arm as he started to get out of the truck. Then she leaned over and kissed him. It was just one quick touch of the lips, but she prayed it said everything she hadn’t been able to say to him before.

  “Be careful,” she whispered.

  Alex nodded, then was gone, racing with Remy and Max toward the building so fast, they were a blur.

  Chapter 17

  Alex didn’t pause to have a long, drawn-out conversation with Brooks when they met up with him in front of the building. He told his teammates what he intended to do, and that was it. Brooks eyed him thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded.

  “It’s Lacey’s sister in there,” he said. “I’ll follow your lead.”

  Giving them a nod, Alex led the way to the front door of Central Texas Medical R&D. He jerked open the door so hard it partially tore the hinges away from the frame, but he didn’t care. Kelsey was in here, and he wasn’t leaving until he got her out. Her scent hit him the moment he stepped inside the building, making his claws and fangs extend on their own.

  The security guard at the desk jumped to his feet and rushed around in front of it, one hand out in front of him in a step-back gesture, the other on his holstered weapon.

  “This is
private property,” he said. “You can’t come in here.”

  “Dallas SWAT,” Alex announced. “And yes, we can.”

  Alex didn’t give the security guard a chance to reply or pull his weapon but simply strode over and punched the guy in the face. Despite being fired up, Alex forced himself to hold back. If he hadn’t, the guy would be dead, and since he didn’t know how involved the security guards were in this scheme, he didn’t want that on his conscience. As it was, the man still flew backward a good ten feet before hitting the floor and sliding another ten.

  Alex glanced over his shoulder at his teammates. “Try not to kill anyone if you can help it, but don’t let them slow you down.”

  He pulled his weapon and headed straight down the main corridor, following Kelsey’s scent. Remy fell in beside him. They didn’t get more than twenty feet when Alex picked up the smell of four men coming their way.

  “We’ve got company,” he whispered.

  He and Remy stepped out into the crossing of two main corridors just in time to catch a pair of men in white lab coats coming toward them from the left. A third doctor, this one accompanied by another security guard, came from the right. Unlike the guard at the front door, this one wasn’t in the mood to talk. Instead, he drew his weapon and started shooting. The doctor beside the security guard froze, but the other two immediately turned and hauled ass down the hallway.

  The guy wasn’t a great shot, so he didn’t hit Alex or Remy, but soon enough, he’d get lucky. Alex hadn’t wanted to harm any of the security guards until he knew exactly how they were involved, but it looked like he wasn’t going to have a choice. He lifted his weapon, ready to put a bullet through a part of the guard that wouldn’t kill the man, but just then, the remaining doctor turned and shoved his way through a door, giving Alex a quick glimpse of a set of stairs and a fresh burst of Kelsey’s scent.