Dark Moon Falls: Volume 2

by Bella Roccaforte

  Still, the B&B blowing up had also given him a moment to consider that perhaps she herself was her own worst enemy. Could she have brought the people who were after her directly to Dark Moon Falls?

  She had to be bugged. That much was undeniable. How else would they have found her in order to hack his comms with Frankie? Too many dots weren’t connecting as far as he was concerned.

  He shook his head as he folded his arms. “I owe you an apology.”

  “Whatever for?” she asked tartly as she looked up at a waitress who was delivering her order of coffee and cake.

  The girl looked at Ciaran and grinned. “Want the same?”

  He nodded and she left quickly. He’d already forgotten she was there as he focused again on Leira, the archeologist. He had to play this well to be careful. He cleared his throat. “I apologize for what I said at the diner. It was uncalled for.” When she didn’t reply he swallowed and said, “I wasn’t as prepared for the meeting with you as I should have been.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “I was of the understanding that you were a professional. Surely you’d have been prepared when you accepted my case.”

  Ciaran smiled. “Thing is, I wasn’t. I didn’t accept your case.”

  She stiffened, sitting straight up and staring at him. Fear flickered in her eyes and she looked ready to bolt. “What do you mean you didn’t accept? Aren’t you DarkSecure2k?”

  He nodded. “I am. This may sound weird to you but the ops specialist I work with put you onto me. I had no idea I was meeting a client. I actually only found out when you arrived.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she studied his face. “You do know how that sounds, right? You expect me to believe that someone accepted a case for you, didn’t tell you what it was, then arranged for you to meet me at the diner like it was some dumb blind date?”

  He shrugged. “That’s the truth. I honestly only had the briefest of information. Frankie thinks he’s won this round though. He’s got another think coming.”

  She leaned closer, her eyes glittering and for a second he thought he saw flames. Her voice was a low growl as she said, “You think this is all a game? My life is on the line here. Either tell me what you plan to do to keep me safe or leave. I don’t have time for bullshit.”

  She sat back hard, then plunged a fork into the chocolate cake before stuffing a piece into her mouth. Ciaran swallowed hard then leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I’ve reviewed the case details and now that I know exactly what you require, I’m happy to accept the job.”

  “Even if I’m a spoiled rich socialite?” she asked, her tone cool.

  He was about to say no, then thought better of it. “I’m in no position to judge. I work for you now.”

  She stared at his face for a few moments then reached for her coffee. After taking a sip, she said, “Fine. When do you start? I don’t have a place yet to stay but perhaps we can talk about the plan going forward?”

  He nodded then glanced at the case he’d left on the floor beside him. “If you can finish up quick then freshen up, I’ll meet you outside.”

  She opened her mouth, but he shook his head. “Why were you crying? The truth this time.”

  She took a deep breath. Then she shook her head as though a part of her didn’t want her to speak. But she got over the hesitation. “I received a message on my phone. It was meant to be secure but someone managed to get in.”

  Ciaran stiffened. “Explain.”

  She poked at the cake. “I have this intelligence guy who’s a friend. He got me to a safe place, made me get a new phone with a disposable sim. He cleared both my laptop and phone and confirmed they were both secure. But I just got a message on my phone which confirmed that whatever he did, he failed. He’s not going to like it when I update him.”

  Ciaran shook his head. “Mind if I see?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing to see. It was a message to my email, and I read it in the preview when I swiped down. But now there’s no email in my inbox. I checked.”

  She sounded so despondent that Ciaran felt like more of an asshole. The woman was terrified and he’d treated her abominably. Still, he had to take every precaution. “How often have you received such messages?”

  “A few times since I ran. As soon as I told Ivan he helped me to get secure. Before that, this guy who’s after me, he even managed to hack my laptop while I was on that secure chat room where I posted the job.”

  Ciaran’s blood ran cold. Aldrich hired only the best. His reputation preceded him especially when it came to how he handled disappointment when his people failed him. He could only imagine what the asshole planned to do with Leira when he got his hands on her.

  Ciaran shook his head. “It’s not foolproof, those chat rooms. Any hacker brilliant enough can get in. It’s a risk we take every time we use it which is why we usually have a number of different layers of security to prevent them from tracking us down at least physically.”

  Leira sighed, her shoulders bowing. “Yeah. Guess I know that now. I’m not sure why I even expected it to be safe.”

  “Look, don’t beat yourself up. If you’re not used to this type of thing it’s easy to fall foul of hackers and the tech nerds. For now, let’s get you moving. It’s not all that safe for you to be hanging about in broad daylight.”

  She frowned. “I thought this place was safe. Ivan said this was like the edge of nowhere. He said it was the safest place he could think of.”

  Ciaran laughed. “I’m pretty sure this Ivan guy knows all too well that nowhere is safe. But he does have a point. Dark Moon Falls has ways of keeping the people who live here, and who pass through here, as safe as is possible.”

  The smile she gave him was weak but at least her fear had somewhat abated. Something he didn’t want if he expected to get her to move and do it fast. “Look. Let’s finish up. I’ll get the food take out and you meet me outside.” He gave the black bag a glance again and then gave her a deliberate look.

  She frowned but then nodded, picking up on his unspoken request. She got to her feet and bent to grab her rucksack, at the same time slipping her hand around the handle of the black case. Then she headed out to the back of the cafe to the restrooms, her back stiff with tension.

  He’d succeed in amping up her fear and he didn’t regret doing it one bit. The only way he was going to convince her to move and do it fast was to have her continue to look over her shoulder, continue to be afraid that Aldrich would find her.

  And Ciaran had no intention of telling her exactly how much he knew about her case. She’d only posted limited information on the ad and him knowing this much without having her tell him would make her suspicious—which he couldn’t afford.

  She had to trust him.

  11

  Leira

  Leira set the rucksack and the black case onto the counter beside the washbasin. For some weird reason she felt like she needed to have eyes on the bag every second. She stared at herself in the mirror. What had she gotten herself into? How deep was she already in this trouble that had found her when she hadn’t even been looking?

  She shook the thoughts from her head and studied the black case. Then she inhaled sharply and muttered, “What the hell. If it explodes and kills me then at least this will all be over. I may not even feel it when I die.”

  She smirked at the dumb thoughts and then flicked the locks on the case. Inside was a piece of paper with instructions to place her electronic devices including smart watch if she had one, inside a solid box which was found inside the case as well as a set of clothing and a disguise to change her appearance.

  Eyebrows raised, Leira rifled through the contents of the case, so focused on the wig and makeup and clothing that she was almost too late when she heard voices grow louder as someone approached the restroom.

  Faster than she could have thought possible, she grabbed her backpack and case and scrambled into the nearest stall. She’d barely made it inside the stall in time to close the door before two women ent
ered the restroom, chuckling and teasing each other about some hot guy had been looking at.

  Leira shut their voices out and scanned the toilet stall walls and floor. She juggled the rucksack and settled the black case down first before using her free hand to channel a blast of searing heat onto the tiled floor.

  She wasn’t the most pedantic when it came to public toilets probably because she usually didn’t have a backpack filled with everything she owned whenever she visited a restroom.

  But now she was almost OCD when it came to visiting toilets especially when she was doing more than just her business and leaving at top speed. She wanted to make sure that the floor and wall where she set her rucksack down was sterilized. Just for her own safety. And the safety of the contents of that rucksack.

  Okay, maybe she was actually being OCD about it.

  She stretched her palm open and hovered it along the floor and wall, siphoned heat onto the area until she was satisfied. Then she moved the rucksack and settled it carefully on the sterilized space.

  She squatted and inspected the case again. Beneath the clothing was a second case which would keep her electronics safe. Her stomach roiled with nerves as she fished her laptop and phones out of her bag and deposited them into the case before snapping the locks shut. She didn’t have a smart phone and she had to think hard for anything else she may have on her person that could send off a signal.

  Then she stilled. Could the chip in her access card be hacked? She had no clue so she had to assume it was possible. Within moments, she’d thrown her access cards along with any of the other cards in her wallet which contained chips of any sort. Guess DarkSecure2k was going to have to pay for her coffees then.

  Done with the electronics, she deposited the case into her rucksack and began to change out of her jeans and tee and into the black fleece-lined pants and merino wool sweater. Pulling on the thick jumper she had to wonder where exactly she was headed. From the clothing, it looked a lot like she was headed to Alaska. To be honest, she didn’t particularly care. As long as she got away from Aldrich, she was happy.

  She dragged her fingers through her hair and slipped the wig over her head then settled the piece into place, tucking errant red strands away carefully. A pair of glasses was included in the bag and she slipped them on.

  Another smaller bag contained a few more items that thoroughly surprised her. A mouthpiece that changed the shaped of her mouth and jaw and makeup that would take her olive tone three shades paler.

  He’d thought of everything. There was even a compact with a mirror for her to apply the makeup with ease.

  Once she’d completed her look, she studied her rucksack. She’d managed to hide herself but what about the backpack. Anyone watching would recognize it in a second.

  Then she smiled as she spotted something else inside the black case. She withdrew a navy-blue rain cover, the universal type that could be zipped around a rucksack of various sizes. She also found a smaller lightweight backpack. She supposed he meant for her to redistribute the contents of her single oversized bag.

  More smartness. Looked like the guy knew what he was doing after all.

  Leira rearranged her rucksack, moving the secure case with her laptop to the smaller backpack. Then she tightened the straps to make the large bag two thirds the size that it had been when she’d entered the cafe.

  She’d also tucked the relic inside the smaller pack with the secure case then slipped the bag over her shoulders first before getting to her feet. The note inside the case had said to leave it inside the trashcan in the restroom, which of course she couldn’t do until the two women left.

  They were still chittering away about rumors they’d heard about there being wolf shifters in the town, and Leira had to roll her eyes. Humans were still treating the paranormals like they were anomalies, something to be marveled. Then you had the men and women who wanted to boast about having slept with a shifter, amassing a collection of notches on their belt that they could show off proudly to their friends.

  Leira’s smirk turned from amusement to disgust as the women made a deal that whoever got the hot guy to talk to her first would have dibs on taking him to bed. They were probably talking about DarkSecure2k and for some reason she felt a rise of irritation, something that felt almost like jealousy. But she had no right to be jealous or possessive. Other than making sure that he had his head focused on the job she was hiring him for rather than ogling a piece of ass.

  Tightening her jaw, she counted the seconds until the two women left the restroom before she scrambled out and removed the trashcan lid to drop the case inside.

  It clanged against the metal of the can and Leira winced, praying nobody came racing inside to check what had happened. A few seconds passed and nobody entered, and she heaved a sigh of relief rolling her eyes at her reflection.

  The woman staring back at her wasn’t someone she knew. The dark brown hair, the scraggly fringe, the librarian glasses, all worked to make her invisible, unrecognizable. Leira nodded, satisfied with her disguise.

  Then she lugged her rucksack, now considerably lighter, over one shoulder and left the restroom. Outside, she didn’t miss a step when she spotted the table where she’d sat with her security guy moments before now empty. Her stomach tightened with anxiety at his absence even though she knew he’d said to meet her outside.

  What was wrong with her? She was never this needy for any man’s company. Then she shook her head. This was probably all to do with the fact that there were people looking for her, people who probably wanted her dead. And this guy was the only option she had for being safe.

  So far, he’d done everything perfectly well. Other than fobbing her off the moment they’d first met. But she supposed she could forgive him for that now that he’d apologized.

  He had a plan and he was going to help get her to safety.

  12

  Leira

  She left the cozy security of the coffee shop and entered the warm sunny sidewalk, immediately scanning the street up and down. How was she supposed to find the guy without him waving her down? This part of the pretense seemed hard to her, now that she felt like she’d been left on her own.

  She frowned then studied the street again. The guy couldn’t be that hard to identify. Then she spotted a truck with its hood up, a man bent over, fiddling inside the shadows.

  The man’s rear was presented quite nicely for her viewing and she had to hold back a smirk. How was she supposed to have known that she’d have to be on the lookout for the guy’s ass rather than his face?

  Not that she was complaining about the view.

  Stop that, she scolded herself, reminding her stupid brain that she couldn’t afford to get distracted. Not until she was safe.

  But was it even possible to be safe with Aldrich on her tail?

  Leira shrugged the backpack higher up her shoulder and walked toward the truck. She was closing in when he said, “Keep walking until you get to the diner. I’ll offer you a lift along the street. If someone else slows down just pretend you didn’t see them.”

  Without missing a beat, she kept walking, intrigued with the man’s methods. He’d clearly wanted to make sure that anyone watching wouldn’t be able to instantly make the connection between the two of them.

  She felt more certain now when it came to this specialist she’d hired. And in that moment, she realized she still didn’t know his actual name. Though, would he give her that name in the first place? She’d assume not.

  Leira took a deep breath. This kind of crazy existence, living with suspicion of everyone she crossed paths with, wasn’t the sort of thing she enjoyed. She already had her own pile of secrets and lies to guard. She didn’t need more.

  The sun beat down on her head as she walked in the direction of the diner. She passed the little Mazda, aware now that the intention was to abandon it where it sat. It would most likely be towed, which was fine with her.

  When she passed Delights Diner, she glanced over her shoulder t
o check the traffic, then stuck her thumb out hesitantly before holding onto the strap of the backpack again. To an onlooker she’d appear to be a hitchhiker who was a little hesitant or preoccupied as she hoped for a ride from some kind soul.

  She didn’t need to wait long as the truck came rumbling down the street toward her. She flagged him down as he rolled his window open and propped an elbow out as he said, “Where you going?”

  She blinked and stepped closer, no clue how to answer. Thankfully he murmured the name of a motel a few miles away and she simply repeated it though with forced enthusiasm. She tried to keep her smile wide and engaging but her nerves were getting the better of her.

  “Come on, I’ll give you a ride. You’re on my way.”

  She thanked him loudly then circled the truck and threw her knapsack inside before jumping in after it. She kept grinning, rolling down the window as she said, “Thanks. Not sure how long I was going to wait.” As she spoke a couple walked past, the man nodding and smiling at her as-yet-unnamed security guy who returned the smile and guided the truck out into the traffic.

  Leira took a few slow breathes trying to calm her heartrate. She could already feel the waves of heat coming off her body and knew she’d be dangerous soon if she didn’t get a hold of herself.

  For the briefest moment, she felt like she was going to cry and she must have sobbed aloud or something because her bodyguard grunted and said, “It’s okay. We’re good for now.”

  Leira snorted then blinked back her tears. “That’s not at all comforting.”

  He glanced over at her, scowling. “What do you mean? What did I say wrong?”

  “For now,” she replied, arching an eyebrow. “For now doesn’t provide much reassurance of safety.”

  He sighed. “Sorry. But I have issues with lying. I tell it straight which often gets me in trouble.”

  She chuckled. “Remind me never to ask you if my butt looks big in anything.” Then she almost choked. What the hell was wrong with her. Did she have no control of her mouth?