by Dena Christy
He drove out to Nick’s place where he and Eric were going for a run. He and his brother were making a concerted effort to put their relationship back on better footing than it had been for the past six years. Rowan chalked up a lot of Eric’s willingness to meet him part way to Samara.
It didn’t take long to get to Nick’s place, and Eric was waiting for him there. His brother got up from the porch and walked over to him.
“Something I wanted to ask you. Why did you stop me from going to his house?”
Rowan didn’t need for his brother to fill in the blanks about who he was talking to.
“Nick was right. Killing him wouldn’t have accomplished anything. If I thought for a second that he was the only one who would come after her, and if killing him would keep her safe for the rest of her life, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But David is only a symptom of the bigger problem. David has a boss, and I don’t have the resources to find him. The Order does, so I say let them handle it. And I’ll concentrate on keeping Kate as safe as possible.”
Eric nodded. “Still it would have been satisfying to kick his ass, just a little.”
“It would, but I don’t think I could have stopped with a little ass kicking. And because of that, I really need this run, so why don’t we get to it.”
Rowan strode into the woods, not looking to see if Eric followed him. He stripped off his clothes and shifted into his wolf form. His brother padded up beside him, and then they both took off, burning off their restless energy as they raced through the woods. It had been so long since he and Eric had run by themselves, and for a moment Rowan was thrown back to when they’d first learned to turn. They’d spend hours running through the woods, catching rabbits and deer, with no cares at all.
Eric gave a short barking yip, and Rowan skidded to a stop. He turned to look to see what was wrong with his brother, and he saw Eric rooted to the spot, his nose high in the air. It was then that Rowan noticed the woods were completely silent and still. A light breeze rustled the leaves over head, and a familiar scent rode it. The hackles raised on the back of Rowan’s neck as he moved toward it. He swore he could smell David O’Connell, but there was something wrong with the scent. Almost as if it was corrupted by something. Eric moved beside him, and his brother’s eyes scanned the under brush as he crept forward. He pushed his nose in the bushes, and pulled it out quickly. Rowan watched, startled as his brother went through the change, back to his human form. He turned to Rowan.
“You better change back. You need to see this,” Eric said, his face grave. Rowan changed back into his human form as fast as he could.
“What is it?” he asked as he walked up to his brother. Eric pulled back the foliage, and for a moment Rowan had difficulty identifying what he was seeing. Until what it was became clear and he couldn’t wipe it from his vision. He knew now why he’d smelled a corrupted version of David O’Connell. Death had claimed David, and from the looks of him, it hadn’t been a pleasant one. At first glance, it looked like he’d been mauled by some sort of animal, but what kind he couldn’t tell. He turned away and looked at his brother.
“Fuck,” he said succinctly as he turned to make the trek back to his clothes and his phone.
“Fuck is right,” Eric said as he fell into step beside Rowan. “So as far as we know, this dude was alive at his house when we went there last night, right?”
“I assumed he was, but who knows. How did he get way the hell out here?”
“I don’t know, but I have a feeling that this is something the Order will want to handle. You want to phone Nick, or shall I?”
“I’ll phone him,” Rowan said as they entered the clearing where their clothes lay in a heap upon the ground. He pulled on his jeans, and fished his cell phone out of his pocket. He punched in his brother’s number and waited impatiently while it rang. Nick’s voice came on, and Rowan wasted no time. “Eric and I are out at your place, and you need to come home. David O’Connell is here and he’s dead.”
Rowan didn’t wait for his brother to answer, and pressed the end button on his phone. Nick would only waste time asking all sorts of questions. “He’s coming,” he told Eric as he put his phone back in his pocket. A troubled frown knotted his brow as he wondered what the implications of O’Connell’s death would be. It would make finding the person ultimately responsible for holding Kate against her will that much more difficult.
“You know he’s going to think we did it, don’t you?” Eric said, his voice shattering the quiet around them.
“I know,” Rowan said. “He’ll come to realize that we didn’t soon enough. Let’s just hope the Order doesn’t make the same assumption and take us out before we can explain.”
Chapter 13
The foliage rustled around them, and Nick burst into the clearing where Eric and Rowan stood. Rowan looked at his phone, and it appeared that his brother must have broken all speed limits to get here so fast.
“This better be some kind of joke,” Nick said with a deep scowl on his face. “What the fuck was that? Phoning me, telling me you’re here and David O’Connell is dead, and then you hang up the phone. Don’t you think I deserve some sort of explanation other than that?”
“It seemed to be the most efficient way to get you here. Sue me,” Rowan said as he tucked his phone away in his pocket. His brother’s frown deepened.
“Did you two kill him?” Nick said as he searched Rowan’s face. Rowan caught Eric’s knowing look.
“We are in no way responsible for that mess,” Eric said as he turned to lead the way to O’Connell’s body. “I think a few bits of him have been eaten, and I’m sure you’re aware that Rowan and I don’t have a taste for long pig.”
“And not to mention the fact that I gave my word to you,” Rowan said. The muscle in his jaw flexed as he turned away from Nick. Perhaps he was doomed to always be a suspect in Nick’s eyes. Eric’s hand came down on his shoulder, and when Rowan looked at him, Eric gave a slight shake of his head.
Nick followed them to David’s body. Eric pulled back the foliage, and Rowan watched his older brother blanch before turning away. “Jesus. I have to call this in.”
“We know,” Rowan said. “I’m assuming that Eric and I will have to go into headquarters for questioning? I’m sure the Cadric will immediately jump to the conclusion that we did this, just like you did.”
“Rowan, I don’t want to get into this with you. I had to ask the question. I do think it’s safe to assume that Cadric will want to see you. I gave him the address for O’Connell’s place, so he knows you two went there last night. He’ll want to know what you saw last night, and this morning.”
Rowan and Eric walked some distance from Nick as he made the necessary phone calls.
“So this is a bit of a clusterfuck,” Eric said as his mouth turned down into his usual scowl.
“I know. Hopefully Cadric is a reasonable person and will see that there is no way we did this. The question is, who the hell did do it, and why is it so important for them to point the finger at us?”
“Someone must have seen us go to his house, and whoever it was didn’t want us asking David a few pointed questions, and I’m betting that David being taken by the Order was definitely out of the question.”
A small frisson of alarm raced through Rowan, at the thought that someone else had been watching them. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone.
“What are you doing, bro?”
“I need to call Kate. I have to be sure she’s safe,” Rowan said while he scrolled through his contact list until he got to the number for the cell phone he’d recently given to Kate. Eric plucked the phone out of Rowan’s hand and tucked it into his pocket. “What are you doing? Give me my phone back.”
“Rowan,” Eric sighed. “She’s fine, she’s with Samara and Hadria at a crowded shopping mall. You can’t call her right now, because she’ll ask you why and she doesn’t need to know about this. Let her enjoy a day free of fear.”
Rowan’s lips tig
htened for a moment, but he relaxed a little when he saw the wisdom in Eric’s words. Kate had been so excited about the shopping trip when Samara had phoned to ask her, and he didn’t want to spoil that.
“Besides, if something happened to her, Samara or Hadria would call,” Nick said, interrupting Rowan’s thoughts as he came to stand beside him. “Cadric’s sending a clean up crew out here, and I have to wait for them. He wants both of you at headquarter’s immediately.”
“You told him you didn’t think it was us, right?” Eric asked.
“I tried, but he told me I wasn’t an objective party in this. You didn’t do it, and if you explain it to Cadric, I’m sure he will believe you. He is a reasonable person.”
Eric shared a look with Rowan that hinted he didn’t share Nick’s optimism. Rowan didn’t either, and he was sure he and Eric were in for a long afternoon. Rowan looked over at Nick, who raised an eyebrow in question. “Can you call Hadria and let her know that I might not be able to pick Kate up?”
“Sure,” Nick said as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll pick up everyone when they are finished and I’ll bring them out here.”
“Thanks,” Rowan said, turning away to walk back to his vehicle with Eric keeping pace beside him. Rowan looked over at him.
“From what I know about Cadric, when it comes to people he thinks have fucked things for the Order, he’s really not that reasonable.”
“I know. Hopefully today will be different.” Rowan turned away and got into his truck. He waited for his brother to get in his vehicle, and lead the way down the driveway. Tension knotted in his gut, and he hoped that Cadric was in a generous frame of mind. But somehow he doubted it.
* * *
Rowan pulled into the Order’s parking lot, and got out of his truck. He walked over to where Eric was standing waiting, and they approached the Tower House. Rowan pulled open the door and both men walked inside. Waiting for them were four guards, werewolves by the smell of them, and none of them were familiar to Rowan.
“We have orders to escort you to Cadric,” one of them spoke as he turned and nodded to two of the others. Those wolves walked forward with silver handcuffs in their gloved hands. Eric took a step back, a snarl curling his face. Rowan didn’t think the odds of taking on this crew successfully would be that great, so he put a restraining hand on his brother’s arm.
“My brother and I have every intention of cooperating. Are the cuffs really necessary?” Rowan asked reasonably as he looked at the leader. The other man appeared to consider for a moment.
“Put the cuffs away,” he said mildly to the two guards, and they obediently put the cuffs out of sight. “If you two will follow me.”
The head guard turned and led the way through the door to the tunnels, and Rowan and Eric followed.
“What was that all about? Since when do you go all reasonable when faced with a challenge,” Eric asked in a quiet undertone from his place beside Rowan.
“Have you ever stopped to consider that half the shit we get into could have been prevented if we hadn’t gone off half cocked? Fighting those guards would have accomplished nothing, except we would have ended up in cuffs. And right now, we aren’t.”
“You sound like Nick,” Eric muttered.
“Not necessarily a bad thing. I’m all for fighting Eric, I just think it’s time we grew up and got smarter about it.”
Rowan looked over at Eric, and Eric’s lips tightened and he briefly nodded his head. Whether what he said made an impression on his brother, he didn’t know. The same message had been hammered into him by Nick, and Rowan was finally taking his brother’s words to heart.
Once they got into the Penrose building, the guards whisked them into a room which only had a table and a couple of chairs.
“Cadric will be in to speak with you,” the head guard said as he left the room and closed the door behind him. Rowan could seem him standing guard through the window in the door.
“So what do you think our chances are? Do you think Nick’s right about him being reasonable?” Eric asked.
“Well my first dealings with Cadric involved him sending your woman out to kill me, so I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that. We know we didn’t kill David O’Connell, and we just have to prove it to him.” Rowan looked over at his brother. “You might want to get your feet off the table and sit properly in the chair. I don’t think now is the time for your usual attitude.”
“Now you really sound like Nick,” Eric said. He took his feet off the table and the front legs of his chair came down to the floor.
Rowan sat in the chair beside him and folded his hands together on top of the table.
“So are you in love with her?” Eric’s voice pierced the silence and startled Rowan for a moment.
“I’m pretty sure I am, yeah.”
“Hold on to her. She’s good for you. I’m glad she’s managed to get you out of that depressing fog you’ve been living in.”
Rowan turned to his brother with a feeling of resentment building inside him. “I was grieving for my dead wife and child. I think I’m entitled to do that.”
“Never said you weren’t. All I’m trying to say is I’m glad that you appear to be moving forward with your life. You can’t live in the past brother, trust me. Until I met Samara, I carried my past around like a bad case of herpes. I used it to keep myself away from people, to keep myself away from you.”
Rowan shifted in his chair, not looking at Eric. This was the first time his brother had made a real attempt to broach the subject of their estrangement. Rowan opened his mouth to reply, when the door opened and Cadric strode in.
“Eric and Rowan,” he said as he took the seat directly across from them. “Nick tells me that David O’Connell’s been found on his property. And this morning he told me that you found where David was staying. Nick says that you two couldn’t have done it, but do you want to tell me in your own words why I should believe him?”
“It’s true that Eric and I found O’Connell’s residence. I had reason to believe that he was following Kate, and I wanted to know where he was. But we didn’t kill him.”
“And yet he’s dead, and his body was dumped on your brother’s property,” Cadric said mildly. His face was inscrutable, and Rowan couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“We don’t shit where we eat,” Eric growled and Rowan kicked him in the ankle under the table. Eric turned to glare at him and Rowan inclined his head toward Cadric, trying to signal his idiot brother that he should keep his mouth shut. Eric had always been more hot headed than Rowan, and in this situation a cooler approach would get them a lot farther.
“And what does that mean?” Cadric asked as he looked directly at Eric.
“It means that if Rowan and I are going to kill someone, we aren’t going to dump the body in our brother’s backyard, and conveniently find it the next morning.” Eric’s tone was cooler than it had been, and Rowan felt a moment of relief that Eric wasn’t going to run his mouth and get them into deeper shit than they were in already.
“One might say that you did exactly that to make it look like you didn’t do it.”
“For fuck’s sake—” Eric’s words were cut off when Rowan delivered another sharp kick to his leg. Eric turned in his chair, and he and Rowan glared at each other. “Would you stop doing that?”
“I will when you start keeping your mouth shut. You are not helping here,” Rowan said through gritted teeth.
“Neither of you are helping at the moment,” Cadric interjected, in a tone that suggested he was reaching the limits of his patience. Rowan looked over at him.
“I swear that as far as I know, David O’Connell was alive when we checked out his house, but I can’t be sure since we never went inside. Maybe you should ask Lee Cavanaugh what he knows, since he appeared to be quite chummy with O’Connell when Kate saw them talking yesterday.”
“What are you talking about? Are you trying to suggest that a member of my organization had
dealings with O’Connell?” Cadric’s features hardened, and Rowan realized that Nick had forgotten to talk to his boss about Kate seeing Lee and O’Connell talking yesterday.
“Wouldn’t be the first time a member of your organization stabbed you in the back,” Eric said matter of factly. “From what I’ve seen in the past few months it seems to be a disturbing trend. Perhaps you should be looking inside for your killer, instead of trying to pin it on us.”
A dull flush crept onto Cadric’s cheeks, but it was his only reaction. He stood, his chair scraping against the floor as he stood. He went over to the door, and spoke to the guard outside.
“Do you really think antagonizing him is the way to go?” Rowan asked his brother while he waited for Cadric to come back.
“Seems to be working. At least it’s given him somewhere else to point a finger,” Eric said as he clasped his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. Rowan wished he could be as cavalier as his brother, but he knew first hand what the Order was capable of.
Cadric came back to the table. “Lee will be joining us in a moment. We are going to get to the bottom of this today.”
“Look, how many times do we have to tell you that we didn’t kill O’Connell. Think about it, why would we do him in at Nick’s place? We might as well have put up a neon sign that says we did it.” Eric blew out a disgusted breath.
“He wasn’t killed at your brother’s. He was killed in the house he was staying in. I sent a team out there shortly before you called Nick to tell him you found O’Connell’s body. Whoever killed him didn’t bother cleaning up after themselves, and I have the team combing the place for evidence.”
“They won’t find anything to link Eric and I to the house. We were outside it, but never went in.”
Cadric made a noncommittal sound, and the door opened. Lee stood on the threshold.