Quinn Security

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Shane was done being that chump.

  But now he had to wonder…

  Was Delilah off someplace just being Delilah? Or had Whitney’s instinct on the matter been a stroke of authentic intuition?

  Had something happened to Delilah Dane?

  ***

  The following morning, the police station was quiet, thank God. Rick expected it would be given the hour and the fact that PO Rachel Clancy wasn’t due in today. It was her day off, and Rick prayed that would buy him a full twenty-four hours without the woman’s incessant, nagging interruptions. He would have some time to himself, in his office. This was a closed-door situation, the investigation that was troubling him. Technically, the Holly van Dyke, Leeanne Whitaker wolf-attack murders had been solved, thanks to his Whitney. She’d shot and killed the wolf-man, or as the case turned out to be, the wolf-woman, who just so happened to be Pamela Davenport. The town was no longer breathing down his neck to restore peace and safety.

  But that didn’t lessen the anxiety that was rattling around his large, barrel chest.

  How had Pamela Davenport become a werewolf? That was the real question. Had she been born a werewolf? Or had she been bitten by an infected wolf?

  Rick had managed to contact the hospital over in Jackson Hole to pull the full wealth of her medical history. Though it hadn’t been easy, the hospital had finally released those records. Rick had poured over them, taking painstaking measures to read and consider every single line. He had looked for any indication that Pamela had complained of wolfish ailments. What Rick would’ve really liked was to have come across an animal bite, one that a doctor would’ve stitched up and made notes on. But there was no such instance. In fact, Rick had to admit as he came to the end of his tenth pass-through of the file, there were no instances of any sicknesses or accidental injuries that would confirm some degree of a history of being a were-thing.

  He needed to hustle up that werewolf expert, get him on over here from Jackson Hole, finally get some insight that made a lick of sense. For all of his research, Rick—honest to God—couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it. Some books he’d checked out of the Devil’s Fist library insisted that werewolves, like wolves, belonged to packs with strict hierarchical orders. Other reference books he’d carefully skimmed, postulated that werewolves tended to be loners, stalking the earth reclusively and fighting the pull of the full moon whenever it drew near.

  Well, which was it?

  And were they born or bred? Could anyone become a werewolf if the conditions were right? Was every last resident in his precious town at risk? And if so, who was the werewolf who was endangering them all?

  Something in his gut told him that little miss Pamela Davenport could not have been the one and only wolf. When Rick had read about the lone-werewolf figure, it had conjured images of a cunning mastermind who knew how to survive, slipping in and out of shadows as it hunted. Pamela, on the other hand, struck him as a real bonehead.

  She might have been born a werewolf. Her parents were no longer around so there was no way to confirm it one way or the other. She also might have been “turned.” If she had been, if the latter had been the case, then who had turned her?

  And who else in the Fist had they also turned?

  Rick leaned back in his office chair and it gave out a little sigh under his weight. He rubbed his chin. He swiveled so that he could stare out the window.

  Goddamnit, Clancy! he thought, bucking right back up in his chair. He was searching through the mess of files on his desk, trying to locate the folder she’d shoved under his nose on more than one occasion.

  But it wasn’t there.

  Then he remembered. He’d tossed it into the trash. He rolled his chair up to the little waste bin next to his desk, but it was empty thanks to the cleaning ladies. Damn.

  He would have to ask Rachel about it as soon as she got in tomorrow morning, or if he couldn’t wait, he could swing by Libations and see if she wouldn’t mind coming downstairs into the bar from her apartment. Of course, he knew she wouldn’t mind. She’d be all too eager, and it already irked him that he would have to double-back like this and admit to her that the initiative she’d taken at the Gladstone unlawful imprisonment crime scene just might save them after all.

  Which brought to mind how he ought to spend his morning…

  Reece Gladstone-now-Quinn had ultimately shutdown, refusing to talk any further than she already had about how it came to pass that she’d gotten out on the old Halsey land and into that hidden cave. It was no secret that Angel Mercer had been involved, but Rick had failed several times now to thoroughly question the bombshell diner owner. Last time, Angel had effectively dodged his questions by flirting with him, and it had more than worked. Rick wouldn’t go soft this time, he determined, and Angel wouldn’t be so easily let off the hook.

  In Rick’s mind, she was a suspicious character in the tapestry of strange events and odd occurrences that had been happening all over the Fist. Until he knew everything that she did, Rick had every intention of staying on Angel and grilling her darker than a double-quarter pounder at a summertime barbeque.

  He gave his desk phone a little punch, popping the receiver up from its cradle. He grabbed it with a fast swipe of his hand, then dialed up Angel’s Food just to be sure he wasn’t about to walk across Main Street for no reason.

  Good thing he’d given the diner a ring, he thought as he listened to Lucy Cooper on the other end of the line. Angel wasn’t planning on getting in until the afternoon. She was still at her house.

  Rick hung up after thanking her and rose from his desk. He’d drive on out to her quaint little home and ask her, once and for all, every last damn burning question on his sharp mind.

  But the hardest part, which he knew without a shadow of a doubt, was going to be keeping his little girl off his brain while he proceeded.

  He had not liked it one bit that Shane Quinn had been inside his Whitney’s cabin last night.

  If something’s starting up between them…

  Rick shuddered, revolted at the thought as he made his way through the precinct.

  ***

  Angel looked more beautiful than ever, Jack thought to himself as he sipped coffee from the island stool in the kitchen, as morning sunlight poured in through the windows, brightening the room in warm, golden light.

  Angel was in a white nightgown that looked more like a housedress, she’d always been classy even while hanging around the house and flitting around the kitchen in her effort to make mushroom and gouda omelets. Butter was sizzling in a pan. She cracked open an egg, one-handed, and dropped the innards into a bowl of yolks and whites. All the while, she kept one foot propping the refrigerator open since she had yet to grab and crumble the cheese.

  Jack could’ve easily watched her do something as simple as cooking eggs all day. In fact, that was essentially what he did whenever he sat in one of the red vinyl booths at the back of the diner. Watched and admired her as she tended to her customers, taking orders and delivering their meals.

  It made his blood boil—full on boil up with jaw-clenching, rageful frustration—that this woman who he loved, who loved him, who he was building a life with, wasn’t his.

  There had to be a way to make Angel his one true mate and bond with her for all of eternity. There just had to be! There had to be a way to unite them that didn’t include Troy Quinn.

  Troy was being too slow and disinterested about it, and Jack had certainly had enough.

  Unless and until Angel was united officially to Jack, then the bond that Dante had on her would remain in place. Didn’t Troy and the other Royals understand that that put Angel at great risk? Dante could come back to town and faster than the snap of his fingers, he could be controlling Angel all over again. Why was Jack the only one who was concerned about any of this?

  “We could go through the ritual?” he proposed, having set his now-empty mug of coffee on the island counter.

  Angel had fit the first fluff
y omelet onto a plate, which she set in front of Jack. Swapping eggs for coffee, she took his mug and refilled it before adding a splash of half-and-half from the refrigerator, just the way he liked it.

  “We could,” she allowed, as she returned his mug and poured the remainder of the whipped eggs into the sizzling pan on the stove. “But haven’t we mated in both forms countless times?”

  They had. Jack and Angel had been together in the most intimate of senses while in their wolf forms in addition to their human ones. But that wasn’t what he was referring to. That was the aspect of the ritual that would hopefully seal the deal.

  “We have,” he agreed, “but we’ve never formally mixed blood. We could try it?”

  Angel sighed and studied his determined face with her sympathetic eyes. He could barely stand it when she looked at him like that, like she wanted to agree but knew he was wrong, desperate and wrong.

  “If it was so simple, Jack, wouldn’t Troy have suggested that?”

  “Arg,” he grunted in angered frustration as he shoved off the stool and paced with his hands on his hips. “I have no idea. To be honest, I wouldn’t put it past him to completely overlook a simple solution. I wish I didn’t think that, Angel, but hell, that’s what I think at this point. There could be a very easy, straightforward solution to our problem, and Troy just isn’t in the right frame of mind to realize it and let us know.”

  He took a breath and stared at her for a long moment, and finally she offered him a worrisome smile and said, “Okay, then. Let’s try it. What harm could it do?”

  Jack took a moment to think about it, just to dot his I’s and cross his T’s.

  He was the last werewolf in the pack to go against the king. There was a reason he’d exercised so much patience up until this point. Hierarchy meant everything. If a single werewolf broke it, the entire structure could fall and chaos could ensue.

  “Tonight,” he suggested. “That’ll give me time to check in with Troy. All I need from him is a yes or a no. It shouldn’t be too much for him to give me that.”

  Angel nodded and he saw a sparkling flicker of fresh excitement fill her big, blue eyes.

  “Let’s hope he gives the a-okay,” she breathed through a big smile. “Now, eat your breakfast,” she ordered. “I don’t want it getting cold.”

  He was more than happy to do just that.

  But as Angel turned to flip the fluffy omelet she’d made for herself, there came a bold knock at the front door.

  She cut her curious eyes to Jack and they stared at one another for a beat.

  “I’m not expecting anyone, are you?” she asked him as she dried her hands on a hand towel and made her way to the front door.

  Jack was at her heels by the time she opened the door.

  Sheriff Rick Abernathy was standing on the other side.

  “Sheriff,” she greeted him with surprise.

  As Rick pulled his sheriff’s hat off his head, he announced, “I’m going to have to ask you some questions about that cave we found Reece in, out on the old Halsey land. Is now a good time?”

  Jack edged around Angel and confronted his longtime friend. “It most certainly is not, Rick—”

  “I’ll thank you to refer to me as Sheriff,” he interrupted to take Jack down a notch.

  But it didn’t work. “We’re in the middle of breakfast. You’ve come unannounced. And Angel has already answered all the questions she’s going to answer on that subject. This is unacceptable.”

  Rick’s expression shifted from friendly annoyance to downright fury. He straightened his spine, coming into his full height and inflating his barrel chest, as he stared down his authoritative nose at Jack.

  “It’s a good time if I say it’s a good time, an’ it’s a good time,” he asserted, his tone having plummeted an octave.

  Appalled, Jack was about to cut in with more objections, but when he heard Angel’s melodic voice pipe up from behind him, he turned.

  “Sheriff, I think everyone here knows what you’re really interested in.”

  Her voice was cool and it held an edge of warning that Jack didn’t fully understand at first.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Mercer, but the only thing I’m interested in is—”

  “Me,” she interrupted. The single word was all subtext.

  Rick tried to play it off as though she was right about that and there was nothing inappropriate about it. He stammered, “Of course I’m interested in talking to you. That’s why I’m here.”

  But Angel maintained, “This is inappropriate, Sheriff. These sexual advances of yours—”

  “What?!” he blurted, shocked, but Angel had him firmly where she wanted him.

  “You’ve been angling for a date for weeks now—”

  “I’ve been angling to conduct a proper interview—”

  But he couldn’t get his point in edgewise.

  “A proper interview,” she laughed. “You’ve had more than enough conversations with me, Sheriff, and all we’ve managed to talk about is your spotty workout schedule and your favorite kind of pie.”

  “That’s—”

  But Angel was already closing the door in his face, warning, “Don’t come here again!”

  ***

  Shane had dressed in his usual fatigues—camouflage army pants, a black tank top, combat boots, jangling army tags around his neck—but had gone light on the weaponry. He’d forgone his holstered handgun in favor of sticking to his Ka-Bar knives that were snugged securely around a leg strap, and climbed into his pickup truck as the brilliant, Wyoming sun blazed down from a cloudless sky.

  The air was rich and crisp with the forestry scents breezing through from Yellowstone, a revitalizing mix of cool evergreens and hemlocks commingling with sun-stirred vegetation around his cabin. He loved it out here, this side of the Fist, but he had to admit that Whitney’s end of things was just as nice, at least at night, what with the old Halsey land right there pumping out the freshest oxygen this side of Jackson Hole.

  Whitney was definitely on the brain, as he drove along the bumpy, dirt end of Berry Road, heading into the heart of Devil’s Fist.

  Had she been unusually jumpy last night? She’d seemed on edge, as though she’d been functioning in a heightened sense of nervousness that had consumed her long before Shane had shown up. And she’d been convinced that someone had been stalking around her cabin. Had someone been? Or had she been hearing only the echo of the sheriff stomping up to her front door?

  Shane had been tempted, several times, to give Whitney a call to see if Delilah Dane had ever shown up last night.

  If he did call Whitney, however, the subject of Delilah would only be an excuse. He knew she hadn’t shown up there last night after he’d left. He knew Delilah well enough to rely on the law of averages, and when it came to Delilah Dane, if she’d only recently disappeared, then the odds were not in anyone’s favor to find her easily. The longer she remained gone, however, the law of averages would rise, putting crossing paths with her more and more in their favor. Regardless, Shane was getting a hankering to hear Whitney’s voice over the phone.

  But maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Things felt messy already, if he was being honest with himself. Very messy. They were obviously attracted to one another. They would have never managed to flirt to the extent that they had in Libations if that weren’t the case. But she’d turned on a dime, having discovered Kaleb was undoubtedly a werewolf. Messy indeed. It was the contradicting mix of her interest and disgust that had sucked him right in last night. And, Christ, she’d felt good on his lap. The soft weight of her had felt like heaven. He wouldn’t mind getting into the throes of that position, and others, with her in the very near future.

  But calling her about Delilah wasn’t the way to go, not right now at least. If he wanted to spend time with Whitney, he’d find a better excuse.

  Delilah Dane lived above a souvenir shop called Devil’s Advocate, which was located just west of the police station on Main Street. Rather than
pull onto Main Street, Shane eased his truck to the side of Bison Road, which he’d been traveling south on from Berry. There wasn’t much of a curb on the west side of Bison as he came to the intersection, but he pulled off to a rolling stop, and was sure to park clear out of the flow of traffic.

  He’d never set foot in Delilah’s apartment above the souvenir shop, but he did happen to know that the owner of Devil’s Advocate was the one who rented the apartment out. He also happened to know, thanks to Delilah and her habit of mentioning details that Shane would never plan to use, that the way to get to her apartment was through a rear, employees-only door located at the back of the store.

  There were a picturesque number of pedestrians strolling about along Main Street, and a steady influx of customers drifting in and out of Angel’s Food across the street, as Shane left his parked pickup truck and crossed Bison Road to get to Main.

  The souvenir shop was cool and quiet, an AC unit humming softly somewhere.

  He headed straight on through, passing a couple who looked like they were about ready to head on over to Yellowstone for a day hike. The couple were perusing a rotating display filled with postcards. Shane completely dodged the young, bored-looking salesgirl who was staring at the hikers from behind the front counter and tapping her nails, impatient to ring them up or at least help with something.

  As he rounded through to the very back of the store, he saw the employees-only door. It was closed but he discovered it was not locked when he turned the handle. He checked carefully over his shoulder—no one was looking—before slipping through and soundlessly closing the door behind him.

  There was a cramped, little breakroom of sorts replete with a folding table, a few folding chairs that looked far too uncomfortable to actually want to take a break in, and a humming vending machine. He passed through, his heart in his throat that he might encounter other sales personnel back here or the owner, but he reached another door, this one unmarked, never having been stopped or accosted.

  The doorknob didn’t budge. The door was locked. Damn.