“Jake, that’s a really bad idea,” Ann said.
“Don’t think I care about the Hunter alpha position. I don’t give a rip about that anymore. I have bigger fish to fry. This Consortium is dangerous and I intend to see that it’s exposed.”
“What about your precious WARM?” Bruce’s tone was mild, but his eyes glittered with malice. “You not only had a sexual relationship with a human—you created a security breach in the process. If that gets out, WARM will be finished. Duncan MacDowell will dance on its grave.”
Jake longed to punch Bruce in the face, but the Were had him by the short hairs. They exchanged malevolent stares. “You’re a real bastard,” Jake said.
“And you’re a real traitor to the cause. Tell me, are you prepared for the entire Were community to know how you’ve betrayed them with Rachel Miller?”
Jake’s stomach churned. Duncan MacDowell would dance on WARM’s grave if that came out. All that Jake had worked for would be down the drain. Once he was branded a hypocrite, anyone on the fence probably would go over to MacDowell’s camp. At least Duncan stuck to his beliefs.
By giving in to his desire for Rachel, Jake had paved the way for others to do the same, assuming Bruce made good on his promise to reveal the relationship. But Bruce had something to lose, too. “You won’t expose me,” Jake said. “If I go down, that weakens your campaign to keep Weres and humans apart. We both lose.”
“I’m counting on your intelligence and dedication to the cause, Jake. Work with me. Work with the Consortium. WARM will be the public face of the movement and the Consortium will be the private enforcer.”
“Sounds like a bargain with the devil, to me.”
“Do you have a choice?”
Jake looked into his cold blue eyes. “Oh, yeah, I always have a choice.” He couldn’t work with Bruce. He knew that, and yet the alternative made him sick. He had to get out of here, away from these toxic Weres. “I’m going for a drive around the lake.”
“I’d advise you not to go over to Rachel’s,” Bruce said.
Jake gazed at him. “Yeah? Well, Bruce, you can take that advice and shove it where the sun don’t shine. One more visit to Rachel isn’t going to make this any worse than it already is, and she happens to help me think straight. Besides, I need to satisfy myself that she’s okay. Because something about your tone of voice makes me wonder.” Reaching into his pocket for his truck keys, he walked out the door.
All the way around the lake, he realized he was running to a human to help him solve what was essentially a werewolf problem. That wasn’t logical, and yet he trusted Rachel and wanted to make sure she was okay. He no longer trusted Ann and Bruce Hunter to guarantee that. And he definitely didn’t trust this Consortium they’d hooked up with.
He’d assured Rachel that the Hunters weren’t activists, and apparently they weren’t in the normal sense. They didn’t join organizations like WARM, or HOWL, the one Kate Stillman had founded as an acronym for Honoring Our Werewolf Legacy.
No, the Hunters had decided to go underground and create some shadow group that didn’t answer to anyone but itself. The concept made Jake shudder. He shouldn’t be surprised that the debate over human and Were interaction would spawn a fringe group like this. The climate was ripe for it.
And he’d fallen right into their hands. They’d probably been monitoring his movements for at least a year or more, soon after Rachel’s carvings became world-famous. Jake had known some Weres had suspicions about his potential involvement with Rachel, but he’d never dreamed that an ultraconservative group was spying on him to gather evidence of a breach.
If so, they had all the ammunition they needed to bring him to his knees. They’d probably recorded his nightly runs over to her cabin. They’d have the bear attack on tape, and once he’d entered her house as a wolf, the plan to remove him from Alaska must have begun.
He’d been naive enough to think that the Hunters’ request was simple—the pack needed a new alpha and he was a good candidate. He’d been flattered and unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth. But now he could see that hauling his ass all the way from Alaska was an extreme solution to their alpha issue. There had been more to it—much more.
When he pulled into the parking area beside the path to Rachel’s cabin, the presence of both Rachel’s and Lionel’s trucks calmed him. These were sincere, good people. Yes, Lionel had put a bullet in his shoulder, but he’d done it out of loyalty to Rachel. The kid would lay down his life for her, and Jake treasured that, even if it had caused him pain.
Because he expected them both to be working, he headed straight for the workshop. But instead of an atmosphere of creativity and good cheer, he found Lionel sitting alone on a stool, staring into space. Rachel was nowhere around. Maybe she’d gone to the cabin for a cup of coffee.
Lionel looked startled when Jake walked through the door. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to Rachel. There’s been a . . . problem. I wanted to talk to her about it.”
Lionel stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “She’s not with you?”
“No, of course not. We agreed that I’d go to Idaho to be with my . . . extended family, and she’d stay here.”
“That’s not what her note says.”
“What note?”
“This one.” Lionel picked it up from the workbench and handed it to Jake. “I’ve read it about a hundred times, and I still don’t believe it. She wouldn’t leave without seeing me.”
Jake scanned the note.
Dear Lionel,
I’ve decided to leave with Jake when he heads to Idaho to be with his family. I’m starting a new life there, so I’ve decided to be wild and crazy and leave everything here instead of going through the hassle of packing.
I know this will shock you, but I want to leave the house, the workshop, and all the tools to you. The sky’s the limit! Walk in my footsteps, dear friend.
Warmly,
Rachel
Jake reread the note as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on. “But she’s not going to Idaho,” he said. “That was never the plan.”
“But it’s her handwriting,” Lionel said. “I’ve seen it a bunch of times, and she wrote that. I’d swear to it.”
“All I can tell you, Lionel, is that she wasn’t planning to go to Idaho with me. And it’s not like she showed up over at my place and announced she was doing that. She wouldn’t have. Not considering everything.”
“You know that better than I do, Mr. Hunter. But she’s not here.”
“So you’ve been all through the house?” In his desperation, Jake prayed that she was still inside her cabin, maybe in the bathroom. Lionel wouldn’t have opened that door to check on her.
“I’ve searched everywhere,” Lionel said. “Even the bathroom.”
That killed Jake’s hope that she was in there.
“It’s like she said.” Lionel gestured around the shop. “She left without taking anything.” He turned to something lying in a heap on the workbench. “She left dirty dishes in the sink, and this draped over a chair.” He held up Jake’s wolf T-shirt.
A sense of dread settled in the pit of Jake’s stomach. “Something’s very wrong about this.”
“Well, duh, I know that. But what about her note? Why did she write something like that?”
Jake studied the note. After three years of looking at Rachel’s thank-you note to him, he knew her handwriting well. At first glance, this looked exactly like it. But there were subtle differences. The loops weren’t quite as open, and the pressure on the paper wasn’t quite as deliberate. Rachel wrote with an artist’s flourish, and this handwriting was more controlled, more tentative.
The longer Jake looked at this note, the more he became certain that someone, probably whoever had swiped her note out of his coffee-table book, had forged her handwriting. His money was on the Hunters, or someone connected to this Consortium they’d hooked up with.
He gazed a
t Lionel. “This note makes no sense because she didn’t write it. The handwriting’s slightly different, and besides, she signed it Rachel. If she’d written it, she would have signed it Miss M.”
“You’re right!” Lionel sucked in a breath. “Then who did write it?”
“The same creeps who have made her disappear.”
“Oh, God. You think she’s been kidnapped? Or . . .”
“Kidnapped.” Jake wouldn’t let himself think of the alternative. Although his heart pounded frantically, he had to keep his mind clear, for Rachel’s sake. “Yes, I think she’s been kidnapped.”
“Then I’m calling the cops.” Lionel pulled out his cell phone.
“Wait.” Jake had a good idea who had taken her, and calling the human police might do no good whatsoever. He laid a hand on Lionel’s arm. “Let me try something else first.”
“What?”
“Don’t laugh, but Rachel and I have a psychic connection.”
“I’m not laughing. I believe in psychic connections, Mr. Hunter. Can you tune her in?”
“I’m going to try.” Dear God, please let it work. Then he remembered how the connection between them had seemed to go dead about an hour ago and his blood ran cold. If anything had happened to her, he would have no reason to live. No, that wasn’t true. He’d have a reason—finding those who’d harmed her and making them pay.
“If you get a bead on her, we’re going after her,” Lionel said. “You and me.”
“Absolutely, Lionel.” Panic clawed at Jake’s insides, but he refused to give in to it. She was alive. She had to be. And her fate could well depend on his ability to handle this.
He briefly thought of going back and forcing the Hunters to tell him what they knew. But they might not have details of the plan and he’d only waste valuable time trying to get the information out of them.
Connecting directly to Rachel would be faster. If he couldn’t do that, then he’d confront Ann and Bruce. But either way, he would find her. She was everything to him, and he finally knew that.
Chapter 24
Rachel tried to fight free of the dreamlike fog that enveloped her so she could think. She had an urgent need to think, but she wasn’t sure why that was, and her brain wasn’t working right.
“She’s coming out of it.”
Rachel didn’t recognize the voice. Was she in a hospital? Had she crashed on the road between Jake’s cabin and hers? No, she remembered arriving at her place, parking her truck, and walking into the house.
“Should we put her under again?” A different voice, although both were male.
“Nah, that’ll just make hauling her around tougher.”
“Good point.”
Rachel listened to the conversation with growing alarm. These men, whoever they were, didn’t have her best interests at heart if they referred to her as a piece of luggage. Hauling her around. Good grief. Gradually she figured out she was in the backseat of a vehicle, some sort of SUV.
Her captors, and she was reasonably sure that was the right term for the two men in front, were taking her somewhere, but why? For ransom? She supposed that her parents would pay to get her back, but her net worth was greater than theirs. A smart person would kidnap her parents and make her pay up.
Maybe she was in the hands of idiots, never a good thing. Well, it could be a good thing. If she could outsmart them, she could get away.
She went back over the events that had led to this situation to try to make sense of it. She’d left Jake’s cabin in quite an emotional state. Then, as she’d walked down the path to her place, she’d felt that psychic connection with him. They’d reaffirmed their love for each other. So far, so good.
On the way into her house, she’d decided to go straight out to the workshop and use her art to soothe her raw emotions. But she hadn’t done that because someone—one of these two thugs in the front, no doubt—had grabbed her and knocked her out with a nasty-smelling hankie. While she was unconscious, they’d put her in this vehicle and driven away from her cabin.
Although she wasn’t happy with her next conclusion, she admitted this probably had something to do with werewolves who didn’t trust her as much as Jake did. Shit. If that was the case, she needed to gather information before they threw her in the grimy dungeon she’d imagined.
Anyone who’d watched movies that featured dungeons knew that once the iron door slammed, you got zero information. Your keepers were sadistic cretins who spoke in monosyllables and enjoyed watching you suffer. Your only friend would be the tiny spider in the corner of your cell.
Sitting up a little straighter in the seat, she noted that they had not belted her in. She rectified that oversight. Her throat was dry, but she worked up enough spit to talk without sounding like Golem. “Where are you taking me?” That was the classic kidnap victim question from all the B movies, but she really wanted to know.
“It doesn’t matter,” said the brown-haired, beefy fellow in the passenger seat.
“Because you’re going to kill me?” She didn’t think so, but it didn’t hurt to ask. If they’d wanted to kill her, she’d be dead by now and her body would be in an unmarked grave.
“Oh, no,” said the driver, who was equally muscular but had reddish hair. “You’ve got it made. You’re headed for a penthouse in a Vancouver high-rise.”
“Vancouver, BC? Are we driving all that way?”
“Yes, ma’am, we are.” The driver glanced in the rearview mirror. His shades made him look quite forbidding. “Karl and I will be trading off so we don’t have to stop along the way.”
“That’s insane. It’s a really long way.”
The driver shrugged. “It’s not so bad.” He checked the time on his cell phone, tucked in a holder on the dash. “We’ve already logged in almost an hour. With no complications, we could make it in late tomorrow night or early the next morning.”
Rachel wasn’t about to spend two days with these goons, who were most certainly werewolves if they were cool with driving straight through to Vancouver. Nobody did that. But they’d have to let her get out of the car to use public restrooms during this marathon trip, and that’s when she’d get away.
“Oh, and so you don’t waste time dreaming up your escape,” the brown-haired one named Karl said, “you’ll only be allowed to leave this car for one reason, and we brought a little camping potty along for that purpose. Mitch and I would catch hell if you climbed out a bathroom window and got away.”
Damn. So she hadn’t been captured by idiots, after all. That would make escape more difficult, but she’d be watching for every opportunity.
In the meantime, she’d pretend that she’d accepted her fate, so they might relax their vigilance. “So what happens once you deliver me to this penthouse?”
“You live in the lap of luxury—that’s what,” Karl said. “Great view, terrific food, luxurious surroundings.”
“What’s the catch?”
“The usual thing. You can never leave.”
Panic threatened to close her throat and make her choke. She couldn’t be confined like that. Maybe someone, a Howard Hughes type, would be thrilled with such a setup. But for her, it would be like being dead.
As a prisoner in a penthouse, she wouldn’t be able to work. She’d be cut off from her family and friends. She’d have life, but nothing worth living for. Considering that, she might as well be in a dungeon where she was fed maggot-infested bread.
But she wouldn’t end up in this penthouse. By now, Lionel would have come over and found her missing. He’d sound the alarm. Maybe not right away, because he might think she was over at Jake’s, but eventually he’d try to find out where she was.
She cleared her throat. “You realize that people will come looking for me. I have friends and family. I have wealthy clients. They’ll try to find me.” And that wasn’t counting Jake. But before she tried to summon him telepathically, she wanted more info. “This isn’t going to work the way you think it will.”
“Yeah, it will,” said Mitch, the driver. “It seems you left a note saying you were headed off to Idaho and a new life with Jake Hunter. You turned your place and your workshop over to Lionel.”
“What note? I didn’t write a note!”
“No, but the note is in your handwriting,” Karl said.
Mitch glanced at his traveling companion. “I’m not sure you should be telling her all that. Especially after the phone call we got a little while ago regarding you know who.”
“Look, the note bought us time. All we needed was a chance to get the hell out of Dodge.”
“I guess.”
“We have a head start. You and I are the only ones who were told the ultimate destination, so we’re golden.” Karl turned toward the backseat. “Your future is in Vancouver, sweetheart. Just accept that and move on.”
Rachel wasn’t accepting a damned thing, but fighting with Karl and Mitch would waste precious energy. She was beginning to get the picture now. The Hunters were more than emissaries who wanted to recruit Jake as their new alpha. That might have been one of their goals, but the other was getting her out of the way.
The sample of her handwriting had probably been her original note to Jake. The Hunters had gotten hold of it somehow. Then she had a horrible thought, the worst one yet.
Had Jake known about this plan? No, surely not. She couldn’t believe that he would have agreed to it. If he’d betrayed her so completely, then . . . He wouldn’t have. She refused to think he was capable of such treachery.
And if he hadn’t known about this, then it was time she told him. Naturally the werewolves had taken away her cell phone, but she had a secret weapon, one they wouldn’t even know she was using.
• • •
“You might think I’ve gone off the deep end,” Jake said to Lionel. “But I’m going to—”
“Listen, if you have to take your clothes off for this, then okay, but I’ll have to leave while you do that.”
“No, I’m not planning to get naked.”
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