He returned for Mariah, whose coughing and choking sounded convincingly real. Putting an arm around her, he led her slowly toward the door. He opened it, pushing it into the bedroom in front of him, and let her go inside first. And then, as Carrie stepped up behind him, the gun at his back, he let himself appear to trip—and fell backward, pushing Carrie away. He grabbed the door and slammed it shut behind him.
Would it lock?
No, but Mariah was already sliding a bulky, heavy easy chair toward him. He helped her use it to prop the door closed.
“What are you doing?” Carrie screamed. “Come out of there.” Patrick half expected her to start firing through the closed door, but she didn’t. Not yet.
He juggled the chair against the door. It should do the job and ensure the door stayed shut for now.
“There isn’t another door out of there,” DeLisio yelled, “and we’ll be watching the windows.”
Which presented another problem. Patrick could maneuver much better in wolf form, had a lot more options for both escaping and attacking, but not if he remained trapped in here.
Quickly, he looked around. There were two windows in this room, and one of frosted glass in the tiny adjoining bathroom.
“If you two don’t come out of there soon, I’ll use one of my sweet little explosives on this place with you in it. Or maybe I’ll just burn it down and not waste anything I can use more productively. Oh, and for the short time you remain alive, you’ll have Jeremy’s and Emil’s deaths on your consciences, too. I won’t want them getting in my way.”
“What are you talking about?” Carrie’s voice was even shriller now. “You can’t kill my dad. And I’ll simply divorce Jeremy so we can be together. I never wanted him hurt.”
“Keep your mouth shut, babe. You know we’re a team, and we’ll stay that way as long as you play the game on my terms.”
“Now’s our chance,” Patrick whispered. “While they’re arguing, they’ll be more distracted. I’ll change now, get out one of the windows while they’re not looking, and circle back to take them down. They’ll be watching for a man, not a wolf.” The plan sounded good. Now, if only it would work.
Mariah didn’t waste any time arguing about the big picture with him. She dug into his bag and brought out the large bottle of elixir. “Drink some while I get the light.” Her eyes were on his, her expression fully confident and even admiring. “Wish I could join you.”
“You’ll have my back,” he assured her. “And I’ll have yours.”
Quickly, she gave him a brief, hot kiss. “Go to it, wolfman.”
“You got it. And you’ll get more later.” He refused to even think about what else could happen. He opened the container and, without measuring, took a swig even as Mariah pulled out the battery-powered light from the backpack. While he stripped off his human clothing, she switched on the light and held it toward him.
And took in a good, healthy look at his naked body. Too bad they couldn’t do anything with it now.
In moments, he felt the change begin—the pulling and stretching of some bones and muscles and internal organs, the shrinking of others.
He felt Mariah’s hand on his morphing shoulder. “Patrick…” she said tentatively.
“I’m…fine…” he said before the structure of his mouth elongated and he could speak no more.
Mariah watched Patrick’s shifting this time with both anticipation and worry. Of course she appreciated his fine masculine body while he was all man.
She had also come to love his transition, and he had sworn that, despite some discomfort, he relished the change, too.
But was it the right thing for him to do now? What could his wolf form do that his human form could not?
At least he was doing the unexpected. These people couldn’t know who Patrick really was, and that his purpose here was as part of the covert military organization known as Alpha Force.
He moaned again, the sound now eerily inhuman. His limbs were no longer straight and strong human arms and legs, but the irregular, furred appendages of a canine. A silver husky-like pelt was erupting all over his skin, and tall, alert ears appeared on the upper sides of his head.
But now what?
“What the hell is he doing?” The shout came from outside the cabin, and Mariah looked up to see Austin DeLisio staring in from the farthest window. “How the hell did Worley— Where is Worley? That dog… What the hell is going on?”
He aimed the gun at the still-closed window and Mariah shrank back against the nearest wall.
“Patrick, get out of his line of sight,” she commanded. But would the wolf obey?
She couldn’t tell. The wolf who was Patrick stood on all four legs, shook himself, then looked at Mariah. His head then turned until he faced the other window in the room.
The message was obvious, but what would happen if she could get that window open before DeLisio broke the other one? She made her way there quickly, her back still against the wall, and threw the window open.
There was a sharp gun retort and the shattering of glass from across the room as Patrick soared gracefully out the window.
He was free!
Yet not free. There was work to be done. A human to subdue…before he could hurt anyone.
Before he could hurt Mariah.
It was dark outside, but the human—DeLisio—was trying to get back in, to Mariah, through the broken window.
He could not allow that.
Crouching, he stalked his prey swiftly. And then he growled.
DeLisio was partway through the opening. He looked down. And cried out, “What are you?” He aimed the gun he held at Patrick.
And fired.
The shot went through him. Pain…yes.
But no real harm done.
And then Patrick sprang.
Austin had disappeared from the window.
Mariah heard a growl outside, the sound of a fight.
She started toward the window to look out—but then saw that the large chair holding the door closed was moving. The door was opening.
She hurried that way, ready to push the chair again and wedge the door shut. Too late.
Carrie’s arm was already inside the room, brandishing another gun—possibly Patrick’s, the one they had removed from his backpack. She shot indiscriminately. Fortunately, it missed Mariah.
With no hesitation, Mariah continued forward and closed the door on Carrie’s hand. The woman screamed, and Mariah kept increasing the pressure until Carrie dropped the gun.
Lifting the weapon herself, Mariah threw open the door, aiming the gun toward the woman who had wanted to use it on her.
“Stay back, Carrie,” she insisted. She glared at Emil, but the older man hadn’t moved from the far side of the room where he had been as Patrick and she escaped. And Jeremy remained on the floor.
“Okay, now, you all can just stay here. I’m leaving.” She hoped. She wasn’t certain what was happening outside, but if all was going as they had planned, Patrick should have Austin under his control. Better yet, unconscious. She would attempt to go out, retrieve his gun and leave—then call the cops to come and clean up. She would let Patrick escape into the woods until he could change again.
Only Carrie clearly didn’t intend to cooperate with that. “You bitch!” she screamed. “Where’s Austin? Where’s Patrick?”
“I think they’re having a little altercation outside,” Mariah replied—just as Carrie rushed her. Mariah aimed the gun toward her but couldn’t bring herself to shoot it.
“You’re mine to deal with,” Carrie said. “Austin can take care of your damned musher.”
Mariah doubted it, but she didn’t contradict Carrie, who suddenly grabbed her by the throat. Mariah attempted to hit her with the gun, but that only infuriated the woman even more.
“Carrie, stop it.” Emil rushed forward from his position at the far side of the room. But as Mariah let herself go limp to get the pressure off her throat, Carrie grabbed her gun hand.
The gun went off—and Emil fell to the floor.
“Dad! No! You killed him, you bitch!”
“We’ve got to help him,” Mariah shouted, then rammed her head into Carrie’s gut. The other woman toppled over, but she still held Mariah’s hand. The gun wavered in the air. Instead of helping her father, Carrie kept trying to wrest the gun from Mariah.
“Let go, let go, let go,” she shouted—until the outer door opened, and she called, “Austin, help me!”
It wasn’t Austin DeLisio who appeared there, but a large, silver wolf, who growled and leaped across the floor toward the fray.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Carrie shouted. Only then did her husband, Jeremy, begin to moan and stir on the floor across the room.
The canine sprang at Carrie, and his teeth were around her wrist. Only when Mariah had taken the gun and scooted several feet away did Patrick let go.
“Thanks,” Mariah said to him in relief. “I’ll steal back my cell phone, call 9-1-1 and see if we can get some help for Emil. If you can stay just long enough for me to tie Carrie up, that would be great.”
The gorgeous golden wolf eyes met hers, and Mariah felt her heart soar.
She had always loved wild animals—and there were none wilder, or more beloved, than the one across the room who had helped to save her life.
Chapter 16
When Mariah heard a car pull up outside only a minute later, she was amazed that help had arrived so fast. But it wasn’t EMTs or local law enforcement who came to the front of the cabin and knocked on the door.
The man who stood there was in a military uniform—pale green camouflage fatigues. He was moderate in height, with a nearly shaved head and intense brown eyes.
“Ma’am, I’m Staff Sergeant Jonathon Duvale. I’m looking for a civilian, name of Patrick Worley.”
Mariah felt herself begin to relax, if only a little. This could be the person Patrick was told to expect here by his superior officer, an aide being sent from his home base of Ft. Lukman, according to his phone call with Major Drew Connell while they were in the car. If so, this soldier would know who Patrick was. He could be of tremendous assistance right now.
If not—well, she had to find out.
She walked outside and shut the door behind her. From the headlights she could see that the vehicle she’d heard was a military jeep, and there were a couple of other soldiers in it. “Patrick isn’t available at the moment, Sergeant. I’m a friend of his, Mariah Garver.”
His eyes lit momentarily in apparent recognition of her name. “Then you might know the particulars of my mission here, Ms. Garver…?”
“Could be. Are you a member of Alpha Force?”
“Sure am. Although…”
“I get it.” He didn’t have to say any more. Mariah figured, from his hesitation, that he was one of the backup guys, and not a shapeshifter like Patrick. “Please call me Mariah. I’m really glad you’re here.” She gave him a quick rundown on what had happened. “I haven’t gone around back,” she said quietly, “but my assumption is that Austin DeLisio’s body is there. I doubt that he’s still alive, and if he’s gone, his death could cause a lot of questions—bite marks and all.”
“We’ll handle it, Mariah.” He looked across the yard toward the dock area where the small submarine was mounted on the pontoon boat. “I suspect that when his body is found in the bay in a few days it’ll be hard to tell what happened to him.”
“I see,” Mariah said.
“And Patrick? He’s not here at the moment, is he?”
“No, he…went to get help.”
“I figured. Okay, we’d better get busy before the local guys arrive. See you around one of these days, Mariah.”
She went back inside, not wanting to watch what these soldiers were up to. In a minute, she heard their vehicle drive away—and not at all too soon, since the local cops got there only a few minutes later.
She hoped that Patrick was far enough away to be safe, but close enough to be aware that help had arrived.
Three days later, Mariah sat in the business center at her B and B going over all her wildlife photographs, after uploading them onto Alaskan Nature Magazine’s employee website.
She had some wonderful pictures, definitely enough for an interesting article on the animals in and around Tagoga. Her story wouldn’t contain some big revelation about how the decimation of the local glaciers affected the creatures’ populations, but that was fine with her. It would be centered more around the kinds of animals she had seen while on the glaciers, primarily on dogsled rides—animals that appeared to thrive on the cold and ice.
She had complimented the Great Glaciers Dogsled Ranch, which she knew would please Toby Dawes. He had hinted at the possibility earlier, when she had initially asked to hire a sled.
She’d also included Tagoga Bay sea life. Not fish killed by the glacier decimation, though. Only the few whales she had actually seen, and dolphins, otters and sea lions.
On the other hand, she was also writing another article that her editor, Harold, would adore—assuming she got the approval to finish it. And she wouldn’t finish it, or allow it to be published, without Patrick’s, and his superior officers’, okay.
Mariah was surprised that what had happened in Emil Charteris’s cabin, and the effects on the people there, had quickly taken a different twist from what she had discussed with Sergeant Duvale.
The local media had only gotten snippets of what had allegedly occurred, so there was a lot of buzz around but no real explanation.
That would be up to her—despite lots of irritated contacts from Flynn Shulster, who reminded her that he’d wanted to interview her on his TV show even before she’d had her confrontation with Emil and his family and figured out what really was causing the glacier destruction. He’d offered to pay her well. And give her great publicity for her articles, her boss’s publications, whatever.
She had declined as graciously, and firmly, as she could.
Not that she declined all publicity, but what she wanted to do was to write about it in a way that was okay with Patrick and his people.
On Patrick’s request, she had already sent a story draft to be approved by the officer in charge of Alpha Force, General Greg Yarrow. Once he okayed it, it would become the definitive explanation. And Mariah would have the scoop. Which years ago would have made her gloriously happy. Should even have made her pretty excited now, but she couldn’t quite get up the appropriate enthusiasm.
At least it contained the government spin on what allegedly had been happening regarding both the mines in the lower forty-eight and the disappearing glaciers here.
The official story? The now-deceased business mogul Austin DeLisio was involved in both situations. Unfortunately, he would not be able to answer for his alleged misdeeds because he had been killed in Tagoga Bay when the explosives he was about to set—from the submersible his friend Emil Charteris had inadvertently rented for his nefarious schemes—went off on their own.
He had supposedly been out on a glacier at the time, and his body had been found a day later.
Interesting that Thea Fiske’s superstition had apparently come true. There had been a second death, after the second silence in Fiske’s Hangout.
“Hello, Mariah.”
The door to the business center had opened while her mind wandered, so she hadn’t even seen Patrick come in. But now her vision was filled with the wonderful sight of him. His dog, Duke, trotted in at his feet.
“Patrick!” She stood and hurried toward him and into his arms. They hadn’t seen much of each other over the past couple of days—although she had confirmed, when he had returned to town a few hours after leaving the cabin, that she had seen the sergeant from Alpha Force. Apparently, Patrick had already been in contact with him and they had coordinated their stories about what had happened to Austin DeLisio.
Mariah reveled in the feel of being held tightly against Patrick. His mouth captured hers in an exqu
isitely delightful kiss. But thereafter, he broke away.
“Any word from the general about your story?” He was all business again. Just as well. Mariah had already started the process of mentally leaving him, since the physical separation would start much too soon.
“Not yet. Have the cops told you anything about their investigation of DeLisio’s ‘accident’?”
She sat back down at the computer and began absently to stroke Duke’s head.
Both Patrick and she had been debriefed almost immediately by the local authorities, the same ones who had investigated Shaun Bethune’s death, including the cop named Pilke, and Detective Gray.
Mariah had truthfully related that Austin DeLisio had admitted killing Shaun because of his expertise in computer research. Shaun had apparently connected the nerdy Fiske’s Hangout piano player with the powerful mining magnate and was asking enough questions to make DeLisio nervous. DeLisio had broken into the mushers’ building at the Great Glaciers Dogsled Ranch and murdered Shaun.
And then he had collaborated with Carrie Thaxton to get Mariah and Patrick to Emil Charteris’s camp to ensure that they wouldn’t reveal the truth about him, assuming they knew it. He had left them there, with Carrie holding a gun on them, when he went outside the cabin and presumably departed the site. Fortunately, they’d been able to subdue Carrie.
Jeremy Thaxton was still in the hospital, but was expected to be okay. Emil’s wounds were fairly significant, but he, too, would probably survive.
As would Carrie. But she was under sedation and psychological evaluation. She had admitted to being Austin’s lover, to conspiring with him to conduct his dangerous mining operations that had threatened the entire ecological balance here in Tagoga.
All of that had apparently made sense to the local authorities, and to the FBI guys who had also come to debrief her about DeLisio and his operations.
The thing was, she kept raving about werewolves attacking Austin. Coming inside to have conversations with Mariah. Carrie claimed it had something to do with Patrick Worley, but Patrick had been completely accessible to the authorities and cooperated fully in answering their questions. Shapeshifting? Not that Carrie had actually seen anything like that.
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