by Marc Daniel
“The dogs would have been thrown off by the wolf stench anyway,” answered Michael, before adding pensively, “I’ll have to go take a look for myself.” “Do you have something to drink?” he added as an afterthought.
“I have beer, water and that’s about it,” replied David apologetically.
“Water will do.”
David got up to go fetch Michael his drink as the other pulled out a small notepad and a pencil from his pocket. “Could you give me the names of all the officers assassinated execution-style?”
“I should be able to find those for you. I used to have them committed to memory but it’s been two years for some of them… I remember there was an Elaine Blent from Houston PD, and now Mark Sullivan and, of course, Steve.”
Michael jotted down the names on his notepad before showing it to David for spellchecking.
“I’ll have to get the other names from Lewis and Salazar. They have the files now,” added David.
An hour and three pizzas later, the two men had shared every potentially relevant piece of information in their possession and David was getting ready to unmute the game on TV when Michael’s cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID and, seeing Sheila’s name on the screen, decided to answer.
“I know, David just told me,” replied Michael to whatever revelation Sheila had just made before adding, “Ivanov? Are you sure?”
He listened intently for another couple minutes before turning to David. “Ivanov is dead. He was killed in his River Oaks mansion along with three of his bodyguards. They just found the bodies, but it looks like they’ve been dead for at least a couple days.”
Chapter 135
Michael rolled to a stop on a dirt road a mile from Clemens’ cabin shortly after midnight.
It was three days past the full moon, and in the forest’s cloudless sky the light dispensed by the lunar body was so bright that one could see almost as well as in broad daylight. Michael was not pleased with the eerie quality of the forest’s lighting; the cover of darkness would have suited his current enterprise far better.
Leaving his car parked under the trees a few yards from the road, Michael started heading across the woods straight for the cabin. Ten minutes later, the house was in sight and, keeping a respectable distance, he circled the impact-riddled building twice while constantly smelling the air. Satisfied no one was hiding inside or outside the house, he started removing his clothes, piling them into a disorganized stack at the foot of a tree. Once thoroughly naked, he gave a last circular look at his surroundings before morphing into his bear counterpart.
In his animal form, his nose was as sensitive as a grizzly’s, and therefore seven times more powerful than a bloodhound’s, the best canine tracker on the planet. And, unlike the police dogs that had searched the grounds a day earlier, Michael knew exactly what he was looking for. Olivia’s scent was as fresh in his olfactory memory as if the young woman had been standing right beside him. Now all he had to do was to ignore the hundreds of trails left by the pack and focus on Olivia’s unique aroma. Of course this was easier said than done as the wolves’ odors were so powerful they were nearly impossible to disregard.
Michael decided to start his search inside the house since it was the one location he knew for a fact Olivia had been. As soon as he passed the threshold, he picked up the woman’s scent. It was very faint and barely noticeable under the overwhelming stench of Clemens and his wife, but it was there nonetheless.
He started following her trail across the house, but as he reached the stairwell he realized the seriously damaged stairs would most likely not support his 800-pound body. In all likelihood, the cops would have probably found Olivia had she been detained somewhere on the second floor, so he decided not to bother.
Back outside, snout against the ground, Michael started tracking Olivia’s movements across the parking lot. Disappointingly, just like the immediate vicinity of the building and the garage, the parking lot did not appear to have any hidden trapdoor under which Olivia could have been kept. He was about to give up on the parking lot when suddenly he picked up a fresh trail, one that couldn’t have been older than a day or two. Olivia had been here and alive in the past forty-eight hours.
This discovery boosted Michael’s moral and motivation, and he resumed his search with renewed energy. The fresh trail did not seem to lead to the road, unless of course Olivia had been placed in a car, which would make a lot of sense if they were going to move her away from the original prison in which they had kept her… and that Michael had yet to find.
Starting from the parking lot, Michael slowly tracked Olivia’s fresh trail back to the woods. The olfactory path ended abruptly two hundred yards from the cabin, in a place that had nothing to distinguish it from the surrounding woods. Michael knew trails did not simply disappear into thin air. The trail ending in the parking lot made sense if Olivia had gotten into a car; the trail ending in the middle of the woods in a location no enclosed vehicle could have reached could only have one explanation: this was the location where Olivia had been held captive.
Michael started rummaging through the dead leaves covering the grounds, sending massive amounts of dust and grit flying through the air in the process. It only took him a minute to uncover the hidden trapdoor kept locked by a deadbolt, and not much longer to pry it open and confirm what he already suspected. This hole in the ground had indeed been Olivia’s holding cell, but it was now empty. It also smelled of werewolf.
Chapter 136
As a good investigative reporter, Sheila Wang had sources in most areas of society. The Houston PD was no exception. Working her magic with one of her informants, she had been able to obtain a copy of Jack Moore’s file. She did not need any excuse to justify her appropriation of the information contained in the document, but assuming she did, the fact the man had broken into her house to murder her in her sleep was justification enough.
Sheila had begun retracing the steps of Detectives Salazar and Lewis, starting with a visit to Brenda Pennington, Jack’s ex-girlfriend, but had learned nothing more than what had been in the file.
She was going through the police reports when she noticed that, strangely enough, the cops had not yet gone to the car shop where the would-be killer had been working as a mechanic. A rather large oversight, she thought, marveling not for the first time at the fact the police ever succeeded in apprehending criminals. An instant later, she was in her car on her way to the shop.
Judging by its size, the place looked like a small family-owned business. Sheila was mentally rehearsing her made-up story about the Mini’s erratic behavior above fifty miles per hour as she pushed open the door of the front office. She started describing her car’s invented issues to the middle-aged woman wearing a baggy floral blouse sitting behind the counter, but she didn’t get a chance to finish her tale before the woman interrupted her. “Do I know you from somewhere, doll? You see, I never forget a face… and you look reaaal familiar. You’ve come here before?” The woman’s southern drawl was as thick as it got.
Under the woman’s intent gaze, Sheila started denying having ever set foot in the premises in the past, but the woman looked utterly unconvinced. Before Sheila could pronounce another word the woman recognized her. “You’re that journalist, the one he tried to kill!” she said excitedly.
Taken aback, Sheila stood there uneasily as the woman started frantically searching for something apparently misplaced under piles of invoices. The broken car story was clearly not going to hold the water…
The woman eventually pulled out an abused press clipping from under a pile and handed it to the journalist with a triumphant, “That’s you, ain’t it?”
The clipping, an article written by one of Sheila’s colleagues while she was still in the hospital, featured pictures of Jack Moore, Vadim and Sheila herself.
Overcome by the undeniable piece of evidence, Sheila confessed to her prosecutor, “Yes, Ma’am, it’s me.”
The triumphant grin that illuminate
d the woman’s face was hard to ignore.
“I knew it! As soon as you walked through the door I said to myself: ‘I know this face!’”
Sheila shot an uncomfortable smile back at the woman. She needed to figure out a way to turn the situation to her advantage now that her original plan had taken on water.
“How can I help you, doll? Are you really having car troubles?” asked the woman suspiciously.
“To tell you the truth… I was wondering if you would be so kind as to answer a few questions for me about Jack.”
The woman contemplated the request for a moment before answering, “Well, after what he did to you, I suppose that’s the least I can do.”
“Thank you so much.” Sheila flashed her most appreciative smile. “You see, I’m trying to make my peace with what happened, and I believe this will help me a lot.”
The woman’s face adopted a benevolent, if slightly boastful expression. “What would you like to know?”
“First of all, what sort of a man was he?” asked Sheila to test the water.
It took the woman twenty minutes to confirm what Sheila had already heard from Brenda Pennington’s mouth. Jack had been a kindhearted man, but things had taken a turn for the worse and no one really knew why. He had become an ass, apparently out of the blue. An ass with a short fuse and a really bad temper…
“Did Jack have any friends among the mechanics?” enquired Sheila.
“We’re a small business, you know. We typically run with two or three mechanics including the owner. And at the time Jack worked for us, the owner was the only other mechanic in the shop.”
“And do you think the owner would agree to answer a few questions?” asked Sheila in a hopeful voice.
“He’s off today and he’s usually real busy…” answered the woman. Sheila could tell by her face as well as by her tone that she was reluctant to share her moment of glory.
“Well, I suppose you can answer any questions as well as he would,” Sheila added quickly, in an attempt to appease her.
The woman took the bait. “I’ll do my best, dear.”
“Was Jack friendly with the customers?”
After a minute of reflection the woman answered, “No… not particularly. But he wasn’t rude either.”
“I thought maybe he could have befriended the wrong guy, and if Jack was the impressionable type, maybe the guy’s bad influence could have rubbed off on him,” explained Sheila.
“Now that I think of it,” started the woman, “he did befriend one of our customers.”
“Do you remember the man’s name?” asked Sheila expectantly.
“I don’t,” answered the lady, looking distraught. “Never been good with names. Not like faces... His face I remember, that’s for sure. Came to the shop several times for car troubles, but I can’t remember what his car looked like for the life of me either. But I don’t think this guy was a bad influence on Jack. He looked like a nice enough guy… He was even a cop if I remember correct.”
Chapter 137
“It looks like they’re talking about David’s girlfriend again,” said Sheila from the treadmill where she was running at a quick pace. Ever since her assault at Memorial Park, the journalist had traded her outdoor jogging routine for indoor exercising.
Michael, who was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, turned his gaze towards the muted TV screen mounted in a corner of the bedroom they had converted into Sheila’s new exercise room.
“Nothing they haven’t said a thousand times before, I’m sure,” he commented.
Katia Olveda’s face had been all over the news ever since John Macfly had been gunned down in the middle of the street in broad daylight. With Macfly gone, Katia was the most logical choice to replace the soon to retire district attorney who had announced he wouldn’t be seeking reelection.
“You know us journalists... Once we have a story, we milk it for all it’s worth, or at least until something juicier comes along,” replied Sheila with a smirk, as she wiped beads of sweat off her forehead.
The black skintight body suit she was wearing wouldn’t have left Michael indifferent under other circumstances, but he was currently too busy beating himself up to notice Sheila’s revealing outfit. If only he had been smarter, if only he had searched the grounds around Clemens’ house earlier… He had missed Olivia by a mere forty-eight hours, but now she was gone and he had no leads to follow.
Michael had learned from David that with the pack’s lair all but destroyed, Clemens had temporarily moved in with Karl Wilson. Wilson lived in suburbia, however, and it was very doubtful they would have taken the chance of hiding Olivia in his backyard.
“We are getting close, I can feel it,” said Sheila more cheerfully than she really felt. “The Russian mob is out of the equation—”
“We don’t even know if they were ever in the equation,” interrupted Michael.
“True… But now they’re definitely out. That can’t be a bad thing, can it? We need a positive attitude here, Michael.”
The treadmill timer’s chimed, indicating Sheila had been running for forty-five minutes. She grabbed the towel and mopped her face and then her neck. She went to sit by Michael on the carpet and took his paddle of a hand in hers.
“You’re sure the lady at the mechanics’ yesterday didn’t say anything else?” he asked, knowing perfectly well that Sheila was smart enough to recognize useful information.
“Nothing I haven’t already told you. Jack’s mysterious friend was apparently a cop, but we aren’t even sure it is the same friend that his ex-girlfriend mentioned. Assuming it is the same guy, the garage lady seemed to think he was a nice guy, but I would rather put my money on the girlfriend as far as being a good judge of character.”
“Did she tell you what kind of a cop he was?”
“She didn’t know. He could have been FBI for all she knew, but I find it doubtful. If someone’s a fed, that’s usually what they say, they don’t typically introduce themselves as cops…”
Michael contemplated Sheila’s last statement for an instant before answering, “That still leaves plenty of agencies to fish from. He could be Houston PD, belong to the Sheriff’s department of one of the twelve thousand counties around the city, or be a state trooper…”
“Yes, he could be all that. But that still narrows it down!” she retorted.
“At any rate, solving this case is no longer a priority. We need to find out where the pack is keeping Olivia before we do anything else.”
Chapter 138
From her drug-induced coma, Olivia heard what appeared to be something heavy sliding on a rail, quickly followed by the more easily identifiable sound of a car engine. A car door was opened and shut, but Olivia had fallen back into a deep sleep before she could register the familiar noise.
Peter Clemens did not bother locking up his car—nobody was going to steal it inside the building—and walked straight to the staircase leading to the part of the warehouse which had been converted into a 2000-square-foot loft.
The warehouse, located in an industrial zone on the west side of town, had been purchased by Karl Wilson under an assumed name years earlier. It was to provide an emergency shelter for the pack in case of need; until very recently, it had seen little use.
The loft’s furnishing resembled the second-floor meeting room of Clemens’ destroyed cabin. Now, however, with only a handful of wolves left alive, the large open floor looked gloomily empty.
On the warehouse’s ground level, a few feet from the pack’s improvised parking garage, lay an unconscious Olivia. Face resting on the concrete floor, she was handcuffed to a four-inch-wide metal beam, which rose all the way to the building’s high ceiling. She was so sedated that the cuffs were probably superfluous, but one could never be too cautious. The pack had enough problems as it were without adding a berserk pup to their headaches. A newly turned wolf needed to be handled very carefully the first few weeks, and none of them had found the time to try taming
Olivia. Under different circumstances, Clemens would probably have executed the woman already rather than burdening himself with an additional liability. Now that three-quarters of his pack had been annihilated, however, he couldn’t afford to kill a potential recruit. Turning a human into a werewolf was a lot harder than Hollywood made it look. Of course, there was still the minor issue of Olivia having shot him repeatedly, in all likelihood to kill him… but she could maybe come around to him. After all, he had done nothing to her.
Without a word to his wolves, Clemens crossed half the room to go sit, eyes shut, in a reclining sofa in the center of the loft. He looked weary and in a foul mood, but he had been looking that way ever since Isabella’s death. He opened his eyes five minutes later, and the others took this as their cue to gather around the Alpha.
“This isn’t our finest day,” he said after they all took their seats, “but we’ll survive this. If we stay united, no one will be able to take us down.”
“What about Biörn?” interrupted Rachel, who was now the pack’s only female. “I hear he’s back in town.”
Clemens looked at her straight in the eyes, and she had to look away, unable to resist the Alpha’s stare.
“So he is,” he replied unperturbed. “And he’s looking for that one,” he said, pointing a finger in Olivia’s general direction.
“Isn’t it dangerous to keep her with us then?” asked Axel Thompkins. “If he finds out where we are, he’ll come for her, and he won’t be happy.”
“He won’t be happy but he won’t risk harming her either. In the worst case scenario, she is our best bargaining chip, and in the best, she can help us take him down once she is one of us.”