Wolf's Cut (The Nick Lupo Series Book 5)

by W. D. Gagliani

  Part of the problem was that she enjoyed causing trouble, and she truly enjoyed being a werewolf.

  The combination was lethal. He was sure she’d murdered a number of innocent people in her time.

  She pouted at him. He could understand why that pout on your television night after night raised temperatures and ratings. She would have gone far in that field, but he figured she’d been knocked off-track by the events since they’d met.

  For some reason he couldn’t feel any sympathy.

  He’d had a hard time adjusting to his condition, and yet he was able to keep himself from causing havoc for everyone he knew. Mostly.

  He sighed.

  Fuck.

  There was no getting rid of her. Maybe he didn’t really want to. The thought stung a little.

  He sank into his own guest chair.

  “What do you want, Heather? Why are you here?”

  She held up a hand with something in it. Her fingernails were long and violet, her trademark. The item was a flash drive.

  “Long story short, Nick. I need to take a look at what’s on here. Somebody—a fucking team of commandos or something—just tried to kill me to get it back. Well, actually they killed the guy who gave it to me. Other people were collateral damage and I would have been, too, if I hadn’t…”

  He sat up. “Where? When did this happen?”

  “Madison. Check your wire—is that what they call it still?”

  She told him what had happened in reporter’s verbal shorthand, and he bet she left out some parts. Whenever she went out of her way to paint herself innocent, he’d learned, she was covering up something.

  “Why did you meet this guy? What’s it about?” He made a face. Not very likely he would get the entire story, but he had to try. There was no one around the squad room at the time, everyone most likely busy on the bus shooting. Ryeland was pulling out all the stops.

  She told him about the book she had started writing, about Wolfpaw and their crimes.

  “It’s gold, you know. A true crime book with government and military conspiracies, money misspent, innocents killed and tortured. It can’t lose. Best seller for sure. This guy Wineacre had inside info from his time overseas. He convinced me he knew stuff no one else alive knows.”

  “You can’t say anything about…I mean, the wolves…”

  She chuckled from down in her throat. “Well, of course not, silly. No one would believe me. Except other wolves, anyway. No, Wolfpaw was involved in enough mayhem even without the lycanthropy that the book will have no lack of exciting, stimulating—”

  “Look,” Lupo said, cutting off her sales pitch, “I don’t care what you do, can’t you just leave me out of it?” He felt anger rising up like an acid tide. Hoping he could control himself.

  “Aren’t you the least bit curious why a team of fucking hitters would want to kill a guy who had inside knowledge of Wolfpaw? Nick, they were like Rangers. Reminded me of those Alpha teams of Schlosser’s.”

  “Werewolves?”

  She thought about it. “I don’t think so. I think they were human, maybe because Wineacre was human. Or maybe they didn’t think they needed to wolf out…”

  “And maybe because there are no Alpha teams left.”

  Heather nodded uncertainly. “So we thought. But you know, we never hunted them all down. When Wolfpaw went up in flames it was the board and Schlosser and some of the major players, but the rank and file, they just faded away. Who knows where they went, what they’re up to.”

  “You just said you didn’t think they were wolves.”

  “Right, I don’t. But then we’ve got both, right? The wolves who disappeared, and now a team of killers. Middle of Madison, Nick. A hail of gunfire like at the OK Corral. You’re gonna hear about it any minute.”

  He sighed.

  Why did she always bring trouble with her?

  “Give me the drive.” He sighed as she handed it to him, her fingers brushing his longer than they needed to.

  A lot longer.

  Chapter Twenty

  Colgrave

  After Lupo left her office, she sat staring at her computer monitor, as if an answer would pop up there if she just waited long enough.

  With a sigh, she rubbed her eyes.

  How often would this kind of off-the-books shit land on her lap?

  She’d risked her career once, for Rich Brant and his niece, and though that had ended well for them, she’d suffered for it.

  But she was an empath, she’d decided, and she couldn’t stay out of other people’s quests. For justice, rescue, a good pizza. Whatever. It was who she was, and she knew she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t help someone with a crisis and when the crap blew up in the person’s face.

  Sometimes too much empathy gets you in trouble.

  She reached into the locked bottom drawer of her desk, where she kept some things not completely endorsed by the department. She had a safe at home for such gear, but occasionally needed one of them here at work, and in short order.

  She plucked out one of a half-dozen burners, pre-paid cell phones that made tracing the owner highly unlikely. Always a terrorist’s best friend, they could also be useful to a cop who sometimes skirted the tight line of the law. She sometimes wondered why the pit bull Killian hadn’t come after her, certain she would come up on his radar someday. The fact that he had mysteriously disappeared hadn’t bothered her all that much—the guy was hated by just about everyone.

  Had to wonder about that, though.

  Maybe the guy had run back to New York for a woman.

  Yeah, right.

  The flip phone was a low-end LG and she powered it up, then scrolled through the several contacts that made it useful to have the untraceable phone in the first place.

  She dialed one of the numbers and got nothing but a leave-the-message beep without the message.

  You know what to do and when to do it, as they said.

  “It’s Colgrave,” she said, speaking softly into the voice mail. “That favor I did for you last year? I need payment on it.” She paused, wondering how to phrase the question without giving too much away. Should have thought of that earlier. “Got two names. Some kind of muscle. I just need to know who they work for and what they do for him. Johnny and Marty. That’s all I’ve got, and I don’t know anything else. Consider us square after this.”

  She shut down the phone and popped it into her pocket so she could catch the voice mail or text.

  Then she went to work on some outstanding files that needed updating, the whole time thinking of Nick Lupo hanging over her desk. He had that Italian tragic look she’d seen before. His dark look wasn’t just the hair, the eyes, and the complexion—he himself was dark. She wondered how deep it went.

  It wasn’t that she was interested in him, exactly. Only that he was…intriguing.

  Secrets.

  She could sense them clinging to him like phantoms in an Old World cautionary tale.

  Of course, she had some of her own.

  Around here, it seemed everybody did.

  Lupo

  The damn flash drive was full of things to give them all nightmares.

  Folders upon folders of photographs obviously taken on the sly, documents stolen from God knew whose offices, most marked with official stamps of this government agency and that. Wineacre, whoever the hell he’d been, had done an incredible amount of digging, most of it dangerous. He’d stolen the files, but many of them had to have been stolen from someone even before that.

  Specifically, Wineacre had identified a small group of generals who had been part of the Wolfpaw plot to infiltrate the services with werewolves, who could then be used to execute a future coup from the inside. Wineacre’s material was explosive. But completely impossible to corroborate.

  Lupo had assumed that when Wolfpaw went down in flames, mostly on their own criminal activities, their plans had crashed too. But he hadn’t figured they had already infiltrated at the higher ranks.
>
  The Pentagon was lousy with werewolves.

  He could kick himself. He should have figured.

  “We should’ve thought they wouldn’t just be looking to get werewolves into uniform,” he said now, as he stretched back in his chair. “Why work bottom up when you can work top down? Looks like they’ve had wolves in place for decades, slowly working their way up the ladder of command. All Wolfpaw was doing was spreading more wolves across the ranks.”

  “And most of these fuckers trace their roots all the way back to the Nazis, so you know they’re not patriots in the usual sense of the word.”

  “Whenever anyone talks to me about patriotism,” Lupo said, “I always want to remind them that Nazis were patriots too. Usually takes some wind out of their sails. Nothing is simple, no matter how much people want it to be. You can be a patriot and be wrong, goddamnit.”

  They scrolled through folders full of photographs, many of which they couldn’t show anyone. Who would believe? Other than people already in the know, there was hardly a chance someone being hit with this stuff cold would just tap themselves on the head and say, Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Werewolves!

  “There’s too much here to look at in a week, let alone one night.” Lupo yawned. “What do you think is their endgame? I mean, Wolfpaw wanted to infiltrate the services. Who knows how far they got in terms of the rank and file. According to this information your friend Wineacre was able to steal, collect and collate, it looks as though they’ve already succeeded. But it takes more than a few generals and even a couple brigades or battalions of werewolves to create a coup.”

  “Does it?” Heather’s rather lovely right eyebrow arched upward. “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The fact that no one would believe they were facing monsters would make it harder to help them, wouldn’t it? Unless you could manufacture silver ammunition in bulk and somehow substitute it for their regular rounds. So it might not take more than a few of each. And you’ve seen the folder with the tech specs—these guys have been developing technology on their own, funneling money from Pentagon appropriations like they were mobsters skimming from a casino…”

  “Funny you should say that,” Lupo said, laughing without humor.

  “Why?”

  In a few bold strokes, he mentioned what Jessie had told him. He knew Heather wouldn’t care much about Jessie’s stake or any danger she might be in, but he was right that the information caught her ear.

  “Wow, you’ve got your hands full, don’t you? This bus crap, and now the Mafia wants to horn in on the casino? What’s next, the hellmouth opens up under the precinct?”

  “Hmm,” he said. People already figured the hellmouth was wherever Heather Wilson happened to be.

  “So should we go on reading? We have to figure out what to do, don’t we? I mean, there’s nobody else standing between these assholes and a free country, is there?”

  Lupo squinted at her. Whatever the lighting, Heather was a sight to behold. Even bedraggled and half shot-up, nails chipped, makeup smeared, she looked great. But…

  “What’s in it for you, Heather? You mentioned patriotism, but you’ve never struck me as much of a patriot.”

  There it was. A challenge.

  She smiled and once again he could see why men fell in love with their televisions whenever she was on the screen.

  “There are different types of patriots, Lupo.” She paused, thinking. “I’m not a flag-waver, but I like to have the option. These Wolfpaw bastards want to take away our options. I’ll never be for that. I’ll never agree to it.”

  A nice speech, Lupo thought, concise and believable. But he knew damn well that Heather would always be out for herself first, and if some good came of it, that was fine too.

  “What about your book?”

  Her eyes flared in sudden anger. “So what? Sure, this will all make a killer book. Doesn’t mean I want their plot to succeed. It’ll be great to be able to write that a small group of true patriots crushed the fake ones, won’t it? Don’t we like to see the little guy and gal win?”

  “Sounds like a country song in the making…”

  “Yeah, right, that’s one area I’m not looking to make inroads into.”

  They went back to reading. Lupo selected documents and photos to print, making a kind of “hits” version he could show someone else. He was already thinking about having to take care of this off the books. Soon he had a thick paper file that was still only a fraction of the complete picture.

  “Not for Ryeland,” he explained as the printer spit out sheet after sheet. “But maybe for DiSanto.”

  “Your cute little partner?” She beamed.

  “You stay away from him, Heather! Dee’s married. Got kids. He’s a straight-up guy. I had to share the wolf thing with him, I had no choice, and that makes him special. Hell, he hasn’t yet put a silver bullet up my ass, but I’m sure he’s thought about it.” He stared at her, his forehead furrowed with seriousness. “Leave him alone. No sex games.”

  That was asking a lot. Heather was all about sex games.

  “I promise,” she said, but she was smiling that damned smile of hers, and he wasn’t at all sure he could trust her.

  “Listen, I have to get some sleep. Lots to do in the morning. We’ll be doing the task force thing. Reports will be starting to flow. I need sleep.”

  She turned doe eyes on him. “Where will I go?”

  “Shit, there’s plenty of motels. You got GPS, find one.” Cruel perhaps, he thought, but she really had caused him a lot of trouble in the past.

  “I was hoping to bunk in with you,” she said, pouting.

  “What? Are you crazy?” He looked away. Or the pout would get him.

  She leaned forward, all intensity. “Didn’t you hear what I said? I was in a fucking random motel and they found me—they found me without even knowing who I was or what car I was driving. Doesn’t that make you wonder?”

  “Maybe they’re tracking the flash drive?”

  “Doubt it. Wouldn’t they have taken out Wineacre before he could hand it to me? No, they’re using their technology, and what it is…is buried in there, somewhere. I’d bet my wolfiness on it. And you know how much I love my wolf side…”

  “Well, fuck, Heather, if you’re right, then aren’t you dragging me into their sights too?” Lupo was worried about Jessie, and here was the sexiest woman he knew offering to throw herself—and possibly a hit squad or two—at him, when all he wanted was some sleep.

  She batted her eyelashes at him until he couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Christ, you’re a piece of work.”

  “Yes, but can I come over? I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

  “I’m gonna regret this,” he said. “I just know it.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Grab your stuff. And the drive. I’ll show that file to Dee tomorrow. Let’s go.” He clicked off the light in his cubicle.

  As they left, the squad room was starting to fill up with the night shift and those who were already working on the bus case. And Lupo thought he saw a shadow behind the shades in Colgrave’s office.

  Lupo shrugged. There was a time you could get to be too damn paranoid.

  Couldn’t you?

  DiSanto

  He ran into Lupo and his friend Heather Wilson outside the precinct. He was going in to prepare some paperwork, some copies, for the task force. He’d work about an hour, then head home to tell Louise she should probably not expect him home for the next few days.

  On the other hand, running the task force was like a promotion and she’d sure like that. He’d be able to parlay it into some kind of better karma at home, too, where his stock had decidedly fallen since Lupo and Jessie had shared Lupo’s secret with him.

  His secret identity.

  That was how DiSanto sometimes thought about the whole werewolf thing, unbelievable as it was. Like a superpower.

  Now running into Lupo and
that Amazonian warrior, Heather, the same chick who’d given him secret boners when watching the news from Wausau. He never explained why he liked to watch those newscasts, but he figured his wife had figured it out. Why the fuck else?

  Anyway, they were leaving and Lupo gave him a bullshit story about some research they needed to do. Hell, he didn’t think Heather was welcome to come back. Not as far as Jessie Hawkins was concerned, anyway.

  Lupo waved a file folder between them. “Dee, I’ve got some stuff to show you, but it’s gonna require a long backstory. And it’s dangerous, and we’ll be in it up to our necks. And it’ll be off the books…”

  “What?” DiSanto’s smile was pasted on. Not at all sure he wanted to hear this. He had a task force to run, he didn’t have time to mess around with Lupo’s secret life.

  Christ!

  Lupo reiterated briefly, and DiSanto nodded dutifully. When they walked away he couldn’t help wondering where they were heading together.

  It all added up to a bad scene coming.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lupo

  He wasn’t sure how it had come about, but they were in her hotel room.

  It was one of those residence-type motels, better than average, with a room-wide window overlooking one of the airport’s newer runways. There was an arched nook with a cherry wood desk and dresser at one side, and a sofa/armchair conversation pod arranged around a flat television at the other. In the center, a king-sized bed piled high with pillows.

  Neither of them were availing themselves of the furniture now.

  Heather’s long, lean model’s body leaned against the window.

  Her blouse was unbuttoned and her black lace brassiere was visible, but as she slowly slipped her arms out of the material the blouse slid to the carpet. She kicked it away. Her breasts heaved against the sheer lace, the nipples thrusting through it. His fingers brushed her there, one side and then the other, and she sighed, shivering.

  He took a nipple between thumb and index finger and twirled it like a marble, feeling it stiffen at his touch.