Waking Hearts

by Elizabeth Hunter

  Ohhhh. Of course. He was smart. Of course he’d think of that.

  Not a hotel. A resort. One Joe had never stayed at but one with which he was still familiar. Allie sat up and grabbed for her phone on the bedside table.

  “Allie?”

  She held up a hand as she dialed Alex.

  “Allie?” he answered. “What’s—”

  “Ten months ago,” she interrupted. “Around the time of the poker game. What were you guys working on at the building site?”

  Alex sighed. “Uh… let me think. We’d started pouring foundations on the bungalows, because the main building was pretty much finished. They’d already done the finish work on the first story and were finishing up the drywall on the second. All the grading for the gardens had been done, but we hadn’t started on the pool—”

  “The main building—the one that was almost done—what’s in that section?”

  “The gift shop. Front desk and reception. Bell closet. Kitchen—”

  “The kitchen,” Ollie said, obviously catching on to her train of thought. He reached over and put Alex on speakerphone. “You guys install anything yet?”

  “No. Just the walls and the counters. I wanted Jena to have a say in what appliances she worked with, so I waited until—”

  “They haven’t cut into the walls,” Allie said. “But they will. He’d know where they’d install the vents. The microwaves. The lamps.”

  Ollie nodded. “And it’s Jena’s kitchen. And Alex’s. Anything they found…”

  “They’d know,” Allie said. “He’d have written a note or something, but Joe knew they’d get it to me.”

  Alex said, “What are you guys—”

  “Joe mentioned a hotel,” Ollie said. “A hotel, Alex. Think about it.”

  “You think Joe’s money is at the building site? Don’t you think we would have found it by now?”

  “Not yet,” Ollie said, “But you would once you started installing the appliances in the kitchen. He would have wanted you to find it.”

  Allie sat up on her knees. “He was an electrician. He did installs like that all the time. He’d know where to put it so you’d find it and give it to me.”

  “Damn,” Alex said. “I didn’t give the man enough credit.”

  “We’ll meet you at the resort in half an hour,” Ollie said, already flipping back the covers and swinging his legs out of bed. “Bring a drill and a drywall saw. We can apologize to Jena later.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  WHEREVER JOE HAD HIDDEN the money he’d won, he’d hidden it thoroughly. Two hours after they started searching the kitchen, they still hadn’t found it. Allie, Sean, and Alex were all there, tapping on walls and behind cupboards, trying to find the cache. They’d had a few false alarms, lots and lots of trash from the crew, but nothing real so far. Not even a hint of it.

  Allie hopped up on an empty counter. “Maybe I was wrong.”

  “Maybe,” Sean said. “But I agree with you. This makes sense for him.”

  Ollie agreed with Sean. The more he thought about it, the more Joe hiding money at the resort made perfect sense. Joe would have hidden the money if he knew he was being tracked, especially if he’d somehow found out Lobo and his men were shifters. Even if he came back for it later, there was no place safer than the Springs. That much had been drilled into every shifter kid since childhood. And he also knew that Alex McCann kept the place guarded twenty-four seven ever since one of his employees had been killed on site.

  It was here. It had to be.

  He carefully tapped down another foot-wide section of wall where one of the refrigerators would go.

  Nothing.

  He started back at the top. It was a slow process, one that Jena didn’t have the patience for. She’d taken one look at a wall where Sean had already cut several holes, covered her eyes, and walked right back out again with Alex trailing behind her, murmuring reassurances.

  A dull thud met his fingertips, and everyone turned. Ollie leaned closer to the wall, reaching for the drywall saw, only to pull back.

  “Sorry. Think I’m just hearing a patch.”

  Allie said, “Darn.”

  Sean turned back to his wall.

  Ollie, however, leaned closer. A section had been cut out at chest height, right between two studs. It might have been nothing. Hell, a hammer could have been swung wrong or a piece could have cracked.

  But maybe…

  He kept staring at the section, trying to figure out why he was stuck on it. Allie stepped closer.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sean looked over his shoulder. “The taping is different.”

  “What?”

  “I’m no construction expert, but…” He nudged Ollie out of the way. “The taping here. It’s a little different. Not as smooth. And the plaster’s a little thicker.”

  “Might have been a new guy.”

  “A new guy repairing walls?” Sean shook his head. “Hand me the knife.”

  Sean tapped around the repaired site until he got the rough dimensions. Then he took the knife and slid it in. It caught on something almost immediately.

  Ollie shoved him to the side. “Give me that. We need to go wider.”

  He carefully inserted the knife an inch to the left and pulled down.

  It caught again.

  “Another couple of inches,” Allie said, her voice humming with excitement.

  They moved the knife two more times until the seam was clear. Then they sawed across and down, an equal number of inches from the original patch, which Ollie could now see was a messier job.

  Come on, Joe. Our girl needs a break.

  He cut two notches in the top of the section, which ended up being about eighteen inches wide and just as many from top to bottom. Then Ollie and Sean pulled.

  A dusty section of white drywall pulled away, revealing…

  “Oh.” Allie’s shoulders slumped. “More trash.”

  It was a black garbage bag, but not the thick kind used at construction sites. No, this was the kind everyone with a yard had. The kind sold by the roll at the hardware store.

  Sean glanced at him from the corner of his eye and Ollie knew he’d noticed the difference too.

  “I think this is something,” Ollie said.

  “But…” Allie pulled on it. “It’s just a trash bag.”

  As she pulled it out of the wall, a Post-it note fluttered down to the ground.

  Sean picked it up and read; then he held it out for them to see.

  Allison Smith.

  Allie picked up the bag and held it up, but the black plastic was obviously empty. “It’s gone? They found it already? But the wall—”

  “The wall was patched months ago,” Ollie said, wiping the dust from his palm. “Someone found this, took the money, and repatched the wall.”

  “But who would have guessed anything was hidden here?” Allie asked. “Who would have even known to look? Nobody knew Joe had any money.”

  Ollie glanced at Sean, but the snake had already come to the same conclusion Ollie had.

  Sean stormed out of the kitchen, yanking the plastic bag from Allie and taking it with him. “My fucking sister!”

  BY the time Ollie and Allie made it up the hill and found Maggie Quinn’s trailer, the two siblings were already fighting. But this wasn’t the frustration or irritation that Ollie had witnessed before. No, this time Sean Quinn was in a full rage.

  Unfortunately, his sister lived her life pissed off and was almost as skilled at changing animals as Sean was.

  The two reptiles were a tornado; they changed so quickly Ollie could barely keep up. Maggie shifted to a cobra and so did Sean. Then he was a rattler, striking with lightning speed, only to have his target disappear and reemerge from the weeds as a venomous Gila monster. Sean shifted to an iguana, hissing and puffing his chest as he raced toward her. But Maggie melted into a puff adder and the iguana was forced to retreat.

  The
scales flew, but they kept returning to their natural snake forms, especially as the fight wore them down.

  Ollie was tempted to shift and step on them, but he knew he’d probably take Sean out by mistake. Grizzlies weren’t known for their delicate footwork.

  Allie started, “Should I—”

  “No.”

  “Probably not a good idea to get in the middle of them,” she murmured.

  Foxes ate snakes, but they weren’t honey badgers. They could die from venom. So he gripped Allie’s hand and stood back to watch the fight.

  It was ironic, in a way. Sean, one of the friendliest and most well-adjusted people in his clan, wore the natural form of a diamondback rattler, a viper who struck quickly and with deadly venom. While Maggie, who was hell on wheels as a human, shifted to a rosy boa, a sociable reptile that was often kept as a pet.

  Yeah, the universe missed the mark sometimes.

  The boa was tiring, so Maggie did the next best thing. She shifted human and started to run.

  Sean, as always, was right behind her. He tackled his sister to the ground and shoved her face in the gravel surrounding her trailer.

  “You bitch!” he yelled. “What did he give you?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Stop lying, Maggie.”

  “Get the fuck off me, Sean!”

  Ollie walked over and nudged Sean aside, calmly yanking Maggie up by her hair. She squealed the whole way to the truck. Allie grabbed a sheet off the line and threw it over the naked woman while Sean went to find his pants.

  “I’ve had it,” he said, buttoning up the Levi’s that were brown with dust. “The old man wants me to take over this crazy family? Well, I’m making my first decision. You’re gone.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  Ollie shoved her against her trailer and glared. “If you have any survival instincts, don’t move.”

  Sean walked over and put a hand around Maggie’s throat when she began to shimmer again.

  “You better not.”

  “Get your hands off me.”

  “Where’s the money, Maggie?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Sean’s grip tightened. “Stop lying. Where is it?”

  Allie walked over, her arms crossed and her eyes cold. “You were working with Simon Ashford the whole time, weren’t you?”

  “You three,” Maggie spit out, “have no idea how dangerous that man is. I was doing what I had to.”

  “By betraying one of our own?”

  “He knows about us! I had to give him something.”

  “He is one of us, you idiot!” Sean yelled back. “Or did you not figure that out?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “He is not.”

  “Yeah, he is.” Sean kept his hand on her throat. “Did you tell him where Allie’s house was?”

  “He found it on his own. I only told him when she left town.”

  Ollie stepped forward, his hand fisting at his sides.

  “I was trying to keep her safe, Campbell. She wasn’t home when they broke in.”

  Sean shook his head. “You backstabbing bitch.”

  “It’s real easy to say that, isn’t it?” Maggie shoved his hand away. “High-and-mighty Sean Quinn! Famous photographer. Favorite son. Deserter.”

  “I’m back now.”

  “And who’s gonna step in when you run away again, huh? Who’s gonna keep the kids fed when the old man kicks off? You? Please.”

  “Don’t pretend you’re thinking about anyone but yourself.”

  Maggie screamed, “You have no idea what’s going on!”

  Sean took a step back. “So tell me.”

  “He found me months ago. He beat my name out of Pinky, then he tracked me down to try to get the money back.”

  “For Lobo?”

  “For himself. He threatened our family, Sean. He knew about us. He told me he’d killed Joe. What was I supposed to tell him? Fuck off? Not likely.”

  “You knew he’d killed Joe,” Allie said, “and you didn’t say anything?”

  “What was I going to tell you, Suzy Sunshine? Hey, Allie, your ex used to chat up skanks in Indio and run up credit card debt at the casinos. But don’t worry, he’s dead now!” Maggie choked. “After a game I booked him in. Yeah, that would have gone over well.”

  “At least I would have known where he was.”

  Maggie sneered. “No, you wouldn’t. No one did. He was dead. I thought he’d stay buried. Then Ashford came around—the cold bastard—looking for the money. Threatening to expose us. He thought I had it. Didn’t believe me when I told him Joe took off.”

  “So you knew he’d won?” Ollie said. “You were lying through your teeth even after you’d found the cash.”

  “Hey”—she shrugged—“a girl’s got to have a few talents. Ashford wanted the money. Said he’d give me back my stake and he’d take the rest. Leave us alone. Leave Allie and the kids alone. Leave the town alone. I just pretended I believed him.”

  “So this was all for the good of the Springs?” Sean asked. “Yeah, I’m buying that.”

  “I needed the money too.”

  “And that’s what you were thinking of,” Sean spat out. “Just don’t pretend otherwise. You disgust me.”

  “How did you find it?” Ollie asked.

  “’Cause I used my brain. You should try it sometime. Joe was an electrician. He was smart, whether you guys saw it or not. There was only one construction project going on in town. I looked all over that site for months, but I finally found it.”

  “But you didn’t give it to Ashford.”

  “And cave to his blackmail? He’d only come back for more.”

  “So what was your great plan, Maggie?” Sean asked. “What was your endgame? You don’t do anything without an endgame in sight.”

  Her eye twitched.

  “Was that guilt, Mags?” Sean asked. “Don’t make me laugh. What was the plan?”

  “I didn’t have one until the body showed up. I was stalling Ashford, telling him I was still looking. Then after Joe’s body was found… I knew the bear would go after them once they broke into Allie’s house. He takes out Ashford, leaves me the money. Everyone’s happy and no one needs to know.”

  “You sent them to my house,” Allie said. “Those men tore up my children’s mattresses, you bitch.”

  “And you were gone when it happened! Be grateful you never had to make a call like that, Allie Smith. Keep living your happy, shiny life and always do the right thing. Pretend there isn’t a wolf just outside the door. Pretend that it’s all going to be fine.” Maggie lifted her chin. “Not all of us have that luxury.”

  Ollie shook his head. “You’re so full of shit, Maggie.”

  “Fuck off, bear.”

  Sean grabbed her hair. “Watch your mouth.”

  “You’re full of shit,” Ollie said. “Because yeah, there is a wolf at the door. There’s a bear too. And we may not like you much, but if you had come to any of us, we would have helped. Maybe then this wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand. Now one of Lobo’s guys is dead—probably both the guys who searched Allie’s house are toast—and we’ve got a snake shifter and a bobcat roaming around who have four kids in their sights because they think they’re leverage for finding a cache you’ve had the whole time.”

  Her eye twitched again.

  “But you didn’t tell any of us,” Ollie continued. “Because you wanted the money for yourself. Wanted to have other people sort out your problems. Even when you end up hiding shit that could have gotten us all killed.”

  “How do you know Ashford’s a shifter?”

  “Because Alex fucking saw him shift!” Sean yelled. “He’s a snake, but he’s got wicked nasty venom, and this whole town is in his sights. Where is that money?”

  “Let me get dressed,” she muttered. “You can have it. But I want my fifty grand.”

  Allie said, “You’re lucky I don’t rip your throat out for putting my kids in danger.�
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  Maggie leaned toward her. “Try it. It’s not really a surprise, I guess. You precious McCann pups have always been more valuable than the kids on this hill. Just a bunch of dirty Quinns, right? Nothing but trouble. Who cares if the outsider threatens them, huh? If the Quinns lose a few, they’ll only breed more.”

  “If you believe I’d think that way, you don’t know me at all,” Allie said.

  Sean followed Maggie into the trailer just as Alex and Ted pulled up.

  “Anyone injured?” Ted asked, stepping out of the Jeep.

  “Not yet,” Ollie said. “Give it a few minutes. Maggie and Sean are alone.”

  “What happened at the resort?” Alex asked. “You found something. I saw the hole in the wall. Might have been nice to check your phones.”

  “Maggie found Joe’s money months ago,” Allie said. “Simon Ashford was looking for it. Found her. Threatened the kids up here. Threatened to expose the town. She was stalling until Joe’s body was found. She figured you and Ollie would take care of Ashford and she’d be free and clear with the cash.”

  Ted nodded slowly. “That sounds like a solid Maggie scheme.”

  Alex asked, “She didn’t know Ashford was a shifter?”

  Ollie shrugged. “You didn’t spot it on him. Neither did I.”

  “You’re right.”

  Allie said, “It’s the scent. They smell different, but not like us.”

  Ollie could agree with that. There had been a sharp, sour smell in the old service station after Ashford had shifted and bitten his guard. Ollie had blamed it on the human at the time—panic held multiple layers of scents—but perhaps that pungent smell had been Ashford.

  Maggie and Sean walked out of the trailer a few minutes later.

  “Great,” she said. “The wolves and the cats are here too.”

  Nothing else passed between them as Maggie turned to go. She walked back into the rocks behind her trailer, crouching down when she got to one shaped like a diamond at the base of a spreading Joshua tree. She rolled the rock to the side and pointed at the disturbed ground beneath.

  “There. I didn’t bring a shovel.”

  Ollie bent down and cupped his massive hands, digging into the loose dirt. Just a few inches down, he felt the cool smoothness of metal against his fingertips.