When the Wolf Prowls

by Vanessa Prelatte

  He didn’t remember the next few minutes. Next thing he knew, Hannah was lying at his feet, her face unrecognizable, a puddle of blood spreading out beneath her head.

  He gave himself a little shake and dismissed the incident from his consciousness. He resolved not to think any longer about Hannah or the other woman – the one whose rejection of the name he had bestowed upon her had started the whole ugly incident. They were nothing to him now. He would trouble his mind with them no further.

  Chapter 33

  The murderer might have dismissed his victims from his mind, but they were very much in Dawn Cimarron’s thoughts as she sat at the desk in her hotel room, absentmindedly nibbling on a sandwich and updating her case notes. When she had finished with both tasks, she shoved the desk chair back and got up. Strolling over to the mini-fridge, she removed a bottle of water she had put inside to chill earlier. She took a few sips from the water bottle and then walked across the room to draw back the curtains at the window. Flattening one hand against the glass, she looked out at the lights of Pueblo while she tried to compose her thoughts. She had shoved the tension that presently lurked around the edges of her marriage into the back of her mind all day, but now that she had time to relax, it had moved to the forefront again.

  She needed to talk. Under any other circumstance, she could call her Aunt Mattie for support. But not in this situation. She and Ty had agreed not to discuss any marital problems with family. So that left out her aunt, as well as her mother-in -law, who was usually one of her most trusted sounding boards.

  She couldn’t call Lee either. Same reasoning. Besides, Lee and Will were away. It was Spring Break for them, and they had flown off for a much-needed vacation.

  Friends. Normally she’d talk to Desiree, who was unquestionably her best friend. But Desiree’s new baby had a bad case of colic. The last thing Dez needed right now was for Dawn to call her late at night to discuss her marital problems.

  Other friends? Suddenly she wanted to talk to Rafe, quite desperately. But there was no talking to Rafe tonight either, she reminded herself. He was probably long asleep in his hospital bed, and he needed his rest. She’d have to tough it out alone.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on her door. She took another sip from her water bottle, capped it, and placed it back in the mini-fridge before moving to the door. She opened the door, but planted her feet wide and blocked the entrance into her room.

  Rick was standing in the doorway.

  “Hey, Cimarron.” He flashed her a grin. “Sure you don’t want to change your mind about sharing a room tonight?”

  “Positive, Rick. Go away.”

  Instead of listening to her, he propped himself against the door frame, murmuring, “We were always good together, D.C. Loosen up a little. Let’s have some fun.”

  “Like the sort of fun you and your ex were having when I caught the two of you together?”

  “I already explained that. It just happened. It didn’t mean anything.”

  “It meant something to me, Rick. And it didn’t ‘just happen’. You lied to me about how it all went down.”

  Rick straightened up and shot her an uneasy look.

  “What do you mean by that? It happened just like I told you it did.”

  “Uh-uh. No way.”

  “What makes you so sure about that?”

  “One car, Rick. There was only one car in the garage. I checked before I went upstairs. That means that you two met somewhere else. You made a conscious choice to bring her back to your place and go to bed with her. So it does mean something, Rick. It means that you not only cheated on me, you lied to me as well. On top of that, you insulted my intelligence by expecting me to believe your bullshit story. Now go away. We need to work together, and rehashing old history isn’t good for a working relationship.”

  She shut the door in his face.

  Resolutely putting Rick out of her thoughts, Dawn went through her nightly routine, changing into her nightgown, washing her face, and brushing her teeth. Then she settled herself into the king-sized bed. Reaching over to the nightstand, she turned off the lamp and closed her eyes.

  Just as she thought she might be able to drift off to sleep, there was a second knock on her door. Without opening her eyes, she raised her voice and said through gritted teeth, “I already told you to go away once, Rick. What part of the word no don’t you understand? Go away.”

  “Wrong guy, Dawn. Open up.”

  At the sound of Ty’s voice, Dawn flew out of bed and rushed to the door. Flinging it open, she saw him standing there, the smile that never failed to melt her heart on his face.

  Cautiously, she said, “I don’t remember giving you the name of the hotel or my room number. How did you get that information? Are those two goons from Lewellen Security still following me around? Because if so, the next conversation I have with Sloan is going to be epic in proportion.”

  Ty strolled past her into the room and set his overnight bag down. “Don’t worry. Nobody followed you here. I pinged your cell phone.”

  “What? I don’t have tracking enabled … Oh, wait a minute. Brody,” she said darkly.

  “Figured it out right away. Hey, you must be a detective.”

  She tried to think up a good retort, but nothing came to her. She gave up and contented herself with glowering at him.

  “I like it when you get that look on your face, Dawn. You look all hot and steamy.”

  He glanced around. “So, what are the sleeping arrangements going to be? Are you still mad at me? If so, I’d offer to take the couch, but oh – wait a minute. There isn’t one.”

  Something hard and tight simply dissolved in her. She sank down into the room’s one chair and confessed, “I’m only sorta mad now. And just a little confused, okay?”

  “Only ‘sorta mad’ and confused? That we can deal with. But how about we do it later?” He reached down, drew her to her feet, and then swung her effortlessly into his arms.

  She put her arms around his neck and looked up at him.

  “You’re awfully sure of yourself, mister.”

  He stopped at the edge of the bed. “Dawn? Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?”

  She angled her head. “Maybe you should do something about that.”

  He bent his head and took her mouth in a long, drugging kiss. She barely even felt it when he lowered her onto the bed.

  Chapter 34

  When the knock sounded on the door the next morning, Dawn started to sit up, only to find her way blocked by an arm like a steel bar across her chest.

  “Stay right there,” Ty growled. “I’ll get it.”

  He got out of bed, tugged his pants on, crossed the room, and opened the door. The look of astonishment on the face of the man standing there was extremely gratifying, he decided.

  “You must be Agent Rikovsky,” he said. “I’m Tyrell Lewellen.”

  He had opened the door wide enough that it allowed a limited view into the room, and he saw the other man take in the sight of Dawn, still in bed, and apparently still sleeping. Ty moved his body slightly, blocking the view.

  Rick recovered quickly. “Yes, I’m Adam Rikovsky,” he confirmed. “Your wife and I are temporary partners on this case. I just came by to see if she wanted to join me for breakfast. That was before I realized that you had joined her. She didn’t mention it to me.”

  “Why should she? And as for breakfast, we were planning on having breakfast in bed.”

  Rick raised his eyebrows. “There’s no room service in this hotel. Just a buffet down in the lobby.”

  “Yeah, but the restaurant down the street delivers. We’ll have breakfast in here, and Dawn can join you right afterward. What time are you scheduled to get on the road this morning?”

  “Eight o’clock”

  “Right. Dawn will be there. See you later.”

  He reached for the door again. Rick got the message and stepped back, just in time to avoid having the door closed in his face.r />
  Ty sauntered back over to the bed, commenting, “You can take your face out of the pillow now.”

  The pillow had been necessary to stifle Dawn’s giggles at the encounter between Ty and Rick. Sitting up and tossing the pillow aside, she began waving her hand in front of her face.

  Ty’s eyebrows scrunched together.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Trying to clear away the testosterone vapors. The air is reeking from the fumes. And by the way, you’re going to have trouble finding a restaurant that delivers breakfast.”

  “Nope. Not for what I’m going to offer to pay them.”

  Ty got on the phone, called the restaurant, and placed the order. Hanging up, he commented, “Thirty minutes. And what’s up with that great big grin on your face?”

  “It was the way you behaved with Rick,” Dawn replied cheerfully. “It was so over-the-top possessive that I almost expected to see you drop your trousers and start peeing on the furniture to mark your territory.”

  “I’m perfectly willing to drop my trousers, Dawn. But I prefer to mark my territory in a different way. He was on top of her in the blink of an eye, grabbing her hands and pinning them over her head. “Want me to demonstrate?” he said.

  “I can hardly wait.”

  *****

  “Now that we’ve made up,” Ty began.

  “We have not made up,” Dawn retorted.

  “We just had make-up sex,” he pointed out.

  “That wasn’t make-up sex,” she countered.

  “Sure felt like it to me. If it wasn’t make-up sex, what was it?”

  “That was ‘I love you even though I’m still sort of mad at you’ sex.”

  “Ah. Good to know. So tell me, how do we proceed to really making up, and – more importantly – to actual make-up sex?”

  “We have to talk about what happened.”

  “Ready, willing, and able to do that. Have been from the start, by the way.”

  “You’re mad at me because I walked out and wouldn’t talk to you.”

  “Oh yeah. Freezing me out, giving me the silent treatment – I hate that, Dawn. We’ve talked about it before.”

  “I know. I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. It’s just, when you told me that ‘stuff like that doesn’t matter’, it pushed my buttons, Ty.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s what he said. Rick. When I caught him cheating on me.”

  “I’m not Rick. I’d never cheat on you, Dawn. I thought you knew that.”

  “I did. I do. It just took a while for my mind and my emotions to catch up to what my heart already knew.”

  They were interrupted by another knock on the door.

  “Breakfast,” Ty announced. He went to the door and accepted the order. After paying off the delivery man, he placed the food on the desk. Then he went back to the bed and held out a hand to Dawn. “C’mon, get up. I’m starving.”

  “I thought you said we were going to have breakfast in bed?”

  “Nah – not without bed trays. Too uncomfortable. I just said that to get your old boyfriend’s goat.”

  Dawn allowed him to pull her out of the bed and proceeded to pull a robe on.

  “Maybe I’ll take a shower first,” she said.

  “No, have breakfast with me first. Then we can take a shower together and get ready for the day. You have a killer to catch, and Brody and I have to get back to Mountpelier. I still have a business to run, after all.”

  “Brody’s with you?”

  “Yes. He came with me in lieu of Lewellen Security. He got a room just down the hall.”

  As they ate breakfast, Dawn inquired, “What’s your plan for this morning?”

  “I’ll deliver you downstairs at eight o’clock,” Ty replied. “Then Brody and I will hop into our rental car and head for Pueblo International. It won’t take us long to get to the airport, board the jet we flew in on yesterday, and get airborne. After that, the flight to Mountpelier takes under an hour.”

  He polished off the rest of his breakfast, rose and stretched.

  “You finished?” he inquired.

  “Just about.”

  “Come on, then. I’ll race you to the shower.”

  “You’re such a child sometimes, Ty.”

  “Keep that up, and you may force me to prove my manliness to you one more time while we’re in the shower.”

  “Is that supposed to be a threat? Because if so, I’m shaking in my shoes.”

  “Flash bulletin for you, Dawn – you’re not wearing any shoes to shake in.”

  *****

  Rick was outside in the car by 7:55, waiting for Dawn. If she was even one minute late … But only a minute or two later, he saw her walk out with that big-shot husband of hers. An unwelcome stab of jealousy sliced through Rick as he watched Tyrell Lewellen kiss Dawn goodbye in a proprietary way. She then sauntered over to the car, opened the door, and got in.

  “How was breakfast?” he asked, striving to attain a normal tone.

  “Great,” she answered briefly.

  “Guess you got over it.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Your intimacy problems. From what I saw this morning, they seem to have disappeared.”

  “You’re making me uncomfortable, Rick. I have no intentions of discussing my husband, or my marriage, or any so-called intimacy issues with you.”

  She turned around to wave goodbye to Ty, who waved back. As he did so, the door to the hotel swung open, and Brody strode out to join Ty.

  “You ready to take off?” Ty said.

  Brody opened his mouth to respond, but shut it again when his cell phone signaled an incoming text. A look of consternation crossed his face.

  “What’s going on?” Ty asked.

  “It’s a text from Griff. He’s run into some trouble.”

  Ty knew that Griff, an old military friend of both his and Brody’s, had been driving cross-county with the intention of staying with Brody for a few days once he hit Colorado. Concerned, he asked, “Is he hurt?”

  “No, he’s not hurt.”

  “Then what’s got you looking like a deer in headlights?” Ty asked curiously. He held out his hand and wiggled his fingers. “Let me see the text.”

  He nipped the cell phone out of Brody’s hand before Brody had a chance to move it out of reach. Brody lunged for him, but Ty held him off just long enough to read:

  Fabia, sweetheart – I’m going to be delayed for a few days. It’s not my fault. I’m actually in jail in a small town called Germonde, Louisiana – waiting on a magistrate to hear my case regarding what should be considered a minor traffic violation. Hope to see you soon, Love Griff.

  A look of unholy amusement lit up Ty’s face.

  “’Fabia, sweetheart?’” he quoted. “Is there something you need to tell me, Brody?”

  Chapter 35

  It did not take Dawn and Rick very long to make their way to the headquarters of the Pueblo Police Department, as traffic was surprisingly light that morning. When they arrived and greeted their counterparts there, they discovered that teams of police officers had already been formed and were fanning out to show the photo of Marc Foxe throughout the circumference of the search area.

  While Rick coordinated the search efforts between the Pueblo Police, the various county sheriffs, and the Colorado State Patrol, Dawn tried to reach Marc Foxe’s adoptive parents, Barnabas and Zenith Weatherbee. Her efforts were fruitless, however. The Weatherbees were not answering their landline, and she discovered, to her astonishment, that neither of them owned a cell phone.

  After attempting to contact them via email but receiving no response, Dawn switched the focus of her efforts and placed a call to Detective Ralph Sokoto in Mountpelier.

  Sokoto picked up the call immediately.

  “Hey, D.C. I was getting ready to call you. Prentiss and I just now finished interviewing Marty Shallenburger, Jed Foxe’s old cell mate.”

 
“Interesting,” Dawn said. “What have you got for me, Sok?”

  “A pain in the ass, D.C.”

  “Ha ha. Sorry – I already have one of those. He’s a CBI agent.”

  “Hey, I’d rather deal with a CBI agent than with Marty the Muck. What a piece of work! From the very beginning, Prentiss and I could tell he was full of himself and wanted to tell his story, but first he wanted to mess with the cops and leverage the information he had for some extra privileges. He said that he’d never snitched before, so we had to make it worthwhile.”

  “Let me guess. You and Prentiss then proceeded to do good cop/bad cop routine on him. And you played bad cop.”

  “Yeah. Prentiss wanted to, but I have rank on him, and I pointed out that I looked more the part. He was wearing a brand new suit that his latest girlfriend had picked out for him, so he had to agree.”

  “Wait a minute – Prentiss has a new girlfriend? How come I haven’t heard about this? Tell me all about … no, it’ll have to wait until I get back. Continue with your story about the pain in the ass, Sok.”

  “Well, after going a few rounds with Marty and getting the warden to agree to the new privileges, we finally got the guy to spill the beans on his old pal.”

  “And?” Dawn prompted.

  “According to Marty, Jed Foxe spent most of his time spouting off about his political beliefs. The only other subject he talked about was his son. How smart he was. How he was destined for greatness. Foxe apparently wrote to his son regularly, begging him to visit, but Marc didn’t show up until just after his father was diagnosed with cancer. He visited his father regularly after that, right up to the time Jed died a few months later.”

  “Yes, the CBI recently established that Jed and Marc had contact at that time. That was a detail they missed during their original investigation into the Hartingen case.”

  “Well, that’s an aspect of the case they should have paid more attention to. According to Marty, just before Foxe died, he bragged that he’d have his revenge on his step-daughter. Foxe told Marty that he had given Marc a two-fold mission: make Samantha Hartingen pay for destroying the Colony, then go to Mexico and take his rightful place as leader of the remnants of the group.”