by Terry Spear
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Ritka screamed, grabbing Lelandi’s arm.
Pain stabbed through Lelandi’s arm and chest. She swung her free arm and poked her fist into Ritka’s other eye, then everything faded to black.
Darien walked into Doc’s office and found Deputy Sheriff Smith, a tall, lean, uniformed man, sitting on the leather love seat, reshaping the brim of his Stetson. He quickly rose and crossed the floor to shake Darien’s hand.
He motioned for the deputy to take a seat, although Darien remained standing. “Tell me what you know.”
Smith explained how he’d run a trace on her, worried she might be in trouble. Being that she was a pretty red loner lupus garou, he was afraid someone might grab her. “Before I knew it, here comes this frantic request for any information on the missing girl. The pack leader said his name was Leidolf.”
Darien should have been pleased to hear that Leidolf was her pack leader and wanted her returned at once. So why the hell did Darien want to dismiss it as a case of mistaken identity?
“Did Deputy Peter Jorgenson tell you anything about what’s going on here with Larissa?”
Smith bowed his head once. “I understand one of her own people, or one of yours, might have shot the woman. The assistant mayor of Green Valley, Chester McKinley, was here at the time of the shootings and being that he is also a licensed P.I. and concerned for the lady’s welfare, he asked I keep this Just between you and me. By the way, the name the leader gave for her was Lelandi.”
Darien’s stomach clenched into knots, and he looked at the floor as the feelings of desolation swamped him again. “He doesn’t know she’s dead.”
“Apparently not. But I didn’t find a similar request for a girl who looked identical to her. Probably misplaced.”
“Where’s he from?”
“Portland. Oregon.”
In astonishment, Darien raised his brows. Why in the world had the two women come all the way to Colorado?
“Surprised me. too. I got the impression she was a local girl. I was trying to find out where she was from and started mentioning some of the wildflowers native to Colorado. She offered me the names of others she’d seen. I asked if she was from down South, but she said, ‘No, Denver.’ So when I got the notice some guy in Oregon is claiming she’s missing from his pack, I was pretty darned surprised. What do you want me to do?”
“Sit on it. I need to find out what’s going on before she goes home.” Darien couldn’t believe he said it. But something didn’t ring true about this Leidolf character. And Darien wasn’t letting her out of his sight until he found the shooter. “If you hear anything more, let me know.”
“Sure will,” The deputy gave him a sly smile. I wouldn’t let her go either, if I were in your shoes.”
Darien let the comment slide, figuring the deputy didn’t know the situation well enough to understand. As soon as Smith left, Darien called Peter in. “I know how difficult it is to locate packs or anything about them as secretive as we need to be, but I’ve got a lead. See if you can find a Leidolf out of Portland, Oregon. I want to know everything about him and his pack.”
“Yes, sir, will do.”
Intent on learning what Doc needed to speak to him about, Darien headed to the lounge where three of his cousins were talking to the doctor. As soon as his cousins spied him, everyone stopped speaking.
“Every time I walk into a room it gets awfully damned quiet. Someone planning a hostile takeover?” Darien only half-Joked. If enough of his members got fed up with his leadership, one of the bolder males might just feel the need to end his role.
Before anyone could respond, a petite blonde wearing a black business skirt and jacket leaned over the check- in counter and raised her voice. “Listen, Angelina, I’ve given you my résumé and I just want to talk to the doctor about a job.”
Angelina gave a snort. “Doc’s not the one you have to convince. Darien Silver’s the most important one on the hospital board, and he’s calling the shots.”
Now what? Darien sure as hell didn’t need to deal with this right now.
“Come into my office, Darien. You might want to sit down when I tell you the latest,” Doc said.
“Wait!” The blonde ran after Darien and Doc and stopped in front of them.
Holding out her hand, she gave them a broad smile. Totally faked. Human, pretty, with the biggest and clearest blue eyes Darien had ever seen.
“Hi. You might not know me, but Doctor Oliver set my broken leg when I was ten after a whitewater rafting accident and after that, I always wanted to be a nurse. I earned a nursing degree in Denver, and here I am.”
Hoping to nip this in the bud from the outset, Darien didn’t shake her hand. She quickly dropped hers to her side, her smile fading. “I’m not new at this. I trained well before I returned home.” Her voice had taken on a tinge of annoyance. “My parents still live here. Dad’s a carpenter. Mom has a home business and sells pottery crafts. I’ve never wanted to work anywhere else, but the lady at the front desk won’t give my résumé to the doctor.” The blonde shoved her résumé at Darien. “I’m Carol Wood, by the way.”
Darien didn’t take the résumé. “Check with the school. They can use a nurse. Just tell them I sent you.”
The perky woman’s face fell to the floor. “But...”
“The staff’s full here. We don’t need anyone else.”
She folded her arms. “I’ve heard there’s been a lot of trouble. Gunshot victims. More people moving in. You’ll need more staff. At least, try me.”
“Apply at the school. If someone quits here…” Darien shrugged. “You might get lucky.”
She glanced at Doc, but he confirmed Darien’s decision. “Mr. Silver is right. We don’t need any more nurses for the time being.” He motioned for Darien to follow him.
“See the school principal, Miss Wood.” Darien headed with the doctor down the hall.
The woman’s blood pulsed at a quickened pace, and she wasn’t happy with his decision. He highly suspected that wasn’t the last he’d hear of it either.
Doc led Darien into his office and shut the door.
The lingering aroma of chocolate donuts filled the air and a paper plate with remnants of chocolate glaze sat in the middle of his otherwise neat oak desk, everything in its place as usual, the heavyweight brass caduceus sitting on a stack of medical notes he’d transcribe later.
“Carol Wood sent me letters before she finished nursing school. I didn’t mention it to you before because so many of the students drop out before they finish their programs. She’s persistent, if nothing else.”
“We can’t have a human working in the hospital. Not when our people heal so fast.”
Doc sat down at his desk. “What about assigning her to human cases only?”
“Too much of a nightmare to keep up with. What if she checked on a Iupus garou patient like Larissa because the rest of the staff was busy? Can you imagine what she’d think if she saw the injuries, then Larissa leaves the hospital so soon after? If Larissa had been human, she would have died from the massive injuries she’d sustained.” Darien shook his head and looked out the window at the majestic mountains. “Having one of their kind on the hospital staff isn’t feasible.” He took a deep breath and switched topics. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Because of her injuries, I ran tests to see if she was pregnant. She wasn’t. Then I examined her to see if she was a virgin.”
Knowing damn well why he was checking, Darien scowled at him. He wasn’t mating with the red.
“She is a virgin. Which means she doesn’t have a mate.” Although he fought feeling anything about the situation one way or another, Darien felt relieved. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to have to deal with her irate mate if he came looking for her.
Doc leaned back in his leather chair. “The other news is someone tried to strangle Larissa after she’d been shot.”
Darien felt he’d b
een kick-dropped off a cliff. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this before?”
“She needs rest more than anything—not a lot of questioning. I’ve already asked her if she saw who did it. But she was probably unconscious or nearly so and didn’t remember anything. She said a snake strangled her, then slithered away when she heard voices. Yours and Jake’s.”
“A snake? We don’t have anacondas or boa constrictors here.”
“Her barely conscious imagination. He left bruises on her throat. Since she was wearing a turtleneck, you wouldn’t have seen the marks. She was so battered from her fall, you might not have noticed now that she’s wearing a hospital gown. Either he thought he had finished her or he heard you and Jake approaching and vanished.”
“Hell. Doc, I need the area we found her in combed for evidence. I thought only Jake and I had been there with her. If we can find other footprints, size of shoe, scent, anything...”
“I asked your uncle to investigate, but not to tell you until I had a chance to discuss this with you.”
Darien would not have this insubordination! No one withheld information from him that was this important! He opened his mouth to say so when Ritka shrieked from the direction of Larissa’s hospital room.
Chapter 9
SILVA AND RITKA FOUGHT WITH EACH OTHER NEXT TO Lelandi’s bed, as she tried to ignore the yelling. Jake leaned against the doorframe, shaking his head.
Until Darien and the doctor stalked into the room and Darien shouted. “Enough! What the hell happened?” He appeared somewhat rattled, his face slightly drained of color, and he studied Lelandi a little too closely. Her neck actually.
She took a deep, settling breath. Good, peace and quiet now that the boss man has arrived.
“She hit me!” Ritka screamed.
Yeah, and if they hadn’t restrained me, I’d do it again!
“We can see,” Darien said calmly. “I want to know why.”
Lelandi fought to find the words, but the IV was hooked up to her arm again, and she figured heavier duty drugs were pouring into her veins because she could barely concentrate on what was being said, let alone keep her eyes open.
“She ripped out the IV and when I tried to stop her, the bitch hit me.”
“You grabbed her sore arm and yanked her back so hard, pain filled her face. That’s why she hit you.” Silva scolded. “Haven’t you ever heard of a good bedside manner?”
“Yeah,” Lelandi said, slurring her word.
Without taking his eyes off Lelandi, Darien said to Ritka. “What did you say to her?”
Ritka shrugged. “Nothing of consequence.”
“I just bet.” Darien glowered at her like she was next on the head-chopping block. “Why isn’t she any better, Doc?”
“Low-grade fever. She needs to stay until tonight at least. I’ll see then how she’s doing.” The doctor motioned for Ritka to leave.
She glared at Lelandi, then stomped out of the room.
“Did Larissa say anything to you, Jake?” Darien asked.
“Not a word.”
“Talked... ‘bout... you... an ... me.” Lelandi tried to scowl at Jake.
Darien shifted his attention to his brother, whose ears immediately tinged crimson. “You and I’ll speak later. Did she say anything to you, Silva?”
“Nope. And whatever Ritka said to her happened before I arrived. She looks pretty glassy-eyed, Darien. Don’t think she’s really with it.”
“What did she say to you?” Darien reached his hand out to touch Lelandi’s, but then he seemed to think better of it and shoved his hands in his pocket.
“About... green... dep’ty.”
Darien’s eyes rounded. “She told you about the deputy sheriff from Green Valley?”
She managed a slow nod.
“Shit.” He looked back at her neck and shook his head. “A snake, huh?”
Lelandi closed her eyes and hoped she’d be able to keep her mouth shut until they took her off the pain medication. Otherwise, she’d have to make up wild stories to mix in with whatever else she said.
Then she remembered her damned donut and lifted her finger at the wastepaper basket. Donut, she mumbled.
After she fell asleep, Darien motioned to Jake to come with him. I” want to know what the hell you said to Larissa.”
Jake shook his head. “She’s a wildcat. Where Lelandi was too much of an angel, this one has the devil in her.”
They walked into Doc’s empty office to talk.
Jake shut the door. “But I really don’t think she should go to our home.”
“It’s the safest place for her for the time being. But that’s not what I want to talk about. What did you say to her?”
Looking defiant, Jake shoved his hands in his pockets. “I told her you’ve already been through hell with her sister. You don’t need to have to deal with her, too. As for taking her to the house, you know how the rumors will fly.”
“I’m not interested in having her for a mate, but it’s my business, not yours. I’ll deal with her as I see fit. Understand?”
‘Yeah,” Jake said grudgingly. “So what’s the deal with this deputy sheriff from Green Valley and snakes?”
Darien explained everything, and how their uncle was Investigating the crime scene where they’d found Larissa. “Did you see or smell anything when we were with her?”
Jake shook his head. “I was concentrating on alerting the rest of our pack that we’d found the lady, and then we learned Sam had been shot.”
“Could the guy who strangled her be the same one who shot the gunman? Distance-wise, do you think he could have made it up there in time?”
“We don’t know when he left her.”
Darien frowned in thought. “Probably when we were drawing close. He heard our voices.”
“Then there must be two of them.”
“Great.” Darien ran his hands through his hair. “Now that I recall, I distinctively smelled the odor of decomposing leaves, but no smell of any lupus garou in human form, just that god-awful perfume Larissa was wearing. Do you think the perpetrator was wearing human’s hunter spray to disguise his scent?”
“I’ll have Uncle Sheridan check out the location and see if rotting leaves were in the vicinity. Now that you mention it. I smelled it also. But remember the red I got a whiff of?”
“He was in wolf form and couldn’t have strangled her.”
“True. What about this Leidolf? Are you sure we shouldn’t contact him?”
“We don’t know who he is really. Peter is looking into it. What I want to know is did she have a bag and if so, was it stolen?”
Jake stared out the window at the mountain view where clouds perched on top in a mist, coating the peaks like whipped topping. “Trevor questioned Mrs. Hastings who said her grandkids were visiting when Larissa checked In, so she was distracted and didn’t see if Larissa had a bag or not. She paid in cash and—”
“What name did she register under?”
“Melanie Weber.”
His eyes narrowed, Darien thought about the name. “The name sounds familiar.” He rubbed his chin as he thought back to her earlier comments. “She kept asking to see a Doctor Weber. He’s got to be real.” Darien glanced at Doc’s medical degrees and other certificates displayed across the wall, updated periodically over the decades to make it appear Doc wasn’t as old as he was. “I want you to find anybody by that name in the state who’s a practicing physician.”
“But Leidolf says she’s from Portland.”
“Deputy Smith said he was sure she was from Colorado. Another thing, Larissa said she received a letter from Lelandi before she died. It wasn’t in her purse. If it was in her bag, it’s gone. Apparently, a lupus was blackmailing Lelandi.”
Jake swore under his breath, “One of ours?”
If it led to her death, whoever had been blackmailing Darien’s mate was a dead lupus garou. “The letter didn’t say.”
“Larissa told you this when she was out of i
t?”
“She seemed pretty lucid, but she might not have been. Hell. I don’t know.”
“Where else could the letter be?” Jake asked.
“Maybe she burned it in the fireplace, or hid it somewhere else at the B&B. Mrs. Hastings mentioned Larissa was holding a letter in her lap in the loft and a teenaged guest said Larissa had been crying. It must have been the letter.”
The answer struck them at once. “Her clothes,” they said simultaneously.
They hastened back to her room where Larissa was still sound asleep, and Darien jerked open the metal locker. Empty.
“I’ll find out what happened to them,” Jake said.
Apparently eavesdropping from the hallway, Silva walked into the room. “I took them home to wash.”
Silva,” Darien said, annoyed.
She smiled. “Sorry, bad habit of mine. Used to overhearing conversations in the bar. Guess because my life is dull at times.”
“Her clothes?”
“They were bloody so I took them home to wash. Cleaned her jeans. With the bullet holes in it, the shirt was a total loss. She’ll need a new peach lace bra to match her panties, if anyone’s interested.” Silva paused for effect.
Darien could have wrung her neck, although she got the result she wanted. The image of Larissa’s lace bra and the creamy mounds they had confined came to mind. He knew damn well what she’d looked like beneath the turtleneck, and he didn’t want to be reminded.
“I cleaned the lining of her leather jacket, too, but it’ll need some patchwork. Oh, and I washed your shirt, too.”
“The letter?” he asked, too angrily.
Smiling, Silva pulled an envelope from her pocket. “I had to soak up the blood, so the letter’s a little hard to read in spots. Found it in a hidden pocket inside her leather Jacket. It crinkled when I was mopping up the blood on the lining, otherwise I probably would have missed it.”
“Why didn’t you mention it before?” He stretched his hand out for the envelope.