Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Lone Enforcer
Wolf Enforcers, Volume 2
Jessica Aspen
Published by Abracadabra Publishing, 2018.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
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Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
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BLOOD ENFORCER | By Jessica Aspen
Dedication
Dedication:
This book is dedicated to my daughters. I love you and I couldn’t do any of this without you. From the cover design, to the memes and game designing that you undertake, it all is amazing. But the most important thing of all to me is the unquestioning faith that you have in me. It’s humbling and I love you for it. Hugs and kisses!
And of course, thank you to my husband, Jeff. I don’t know what I would have done without you this year. It’s been so crazy, but you’re always there with exactly what I need. Love you.
Love,
Jessica (and Mom!)
Copyright Information
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person living or dead, or any events and occurrences is purely coincidental. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Original Copyright 2017 by Jessica Aspen
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. Please purchase only authorized editions.
Cover Designer: Ivy Tail Designs
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Chapter One
Natalie pushed her aching thighs faster as she hiked up the side of the mountain, following the trail that the Colorado State Park map called, “High-ho”. The day was hot. The afternoon sun was bright. And even though she was at a much higher altitude than Denver and the breeze should be cooling her off, her temper and the climb had her sweating.
Her head of steam hadn’t dissipated one bit since her noon-time trip to the local police of Wolf’s Peak, Colorado, population just over two thousand.
“Stupid sheriff. Thinks he knows everything. Thinks I don’t know he’s hiding something. Thinks that, just because I’m not important, or a local, he can blow me off. Well I’ll show him!”
She was used to the authorities not listening to her and trying to ignore her. She was used to having to speak louder to be heard. She was even used to spending hours working to get what she wanted—no one who had grown up in the foster system left it without learning a few skills.
But what she wasn’t used to was the absolute shut-down that had happened at this podunk police department, where the police officer receptionist was also the head coffee brewer and dispatcher, and because she wasn’t a local, everyone had stared at her as if she had two heads.
The trail she was following paralleled a barbed wire fence nearly littered with NO TRESPASSING signs, but neither the trail or the fence were important. They were only a ways to a means. No, the important things were the GPS coordinates that Yvette had sent her in her very last text.
Yvette.
Tears clouded Natalie’s eyes and she stopped, pulled off her backpack and dug out her water bottle from her pack.
She and Yvette had found each other in that last foster home, the Clarks. It wasn’t bad, for a foster home. Sally Clark was decent, she tried. But her husband, Ned, was a grabber. The girls had kept an eye out for each other, and from the very first day Natalie had known—Yvette was going to be her friend for life.
But now here she stood, only twenty-two years old, the hot July sun beating down on top of her head, her tears making the water hard to swallow. All because Yvette was gone.
Dead or kidnapped, no one knew.
But what she did know was that no one cared about a girl with no money and no connections. No one but her. And every instinct she had—honed from years of avoiding grabbers like Ned, and surviving much worse foster homes than the Clark’s—told her that the sheriff of Wolf’s Peak was hiding something.
Why the disappearance of one young woman was worth covering up, Natalie had no idea, but it wasn’t just anyone who had disappeared over a month ago—it was Yvette. Her best friend and soul sister. And Natalie wasn’t going to let one red neck sheriff with an attitude, or a little red tape stop her.
She’d sworn she’d find out the truth—even if it took her the rest of her life.
She wiped her tears on the skinny shoulder of her tank top and put the water bottle back, pulling out her phone and checking her location on the geocaching app.
About the only thing the Clarks had given her and Yvette, besides good instincts, was a love for rock-climbing and geocaching. With no money to spare and too many foster kids, taking a GPS and a picnic to the mountains for a day was cheap entertainment. They’d hike for hours, knowing that once they reached the coordinates there would be some kind of prize hidden away in a small pile of rocks.
Sometimes someone had gotten there first and the plastic box would be empty. But then Sally Clark would pull out stickers or candy, and they’d sit around and chow down on Jolly Ranchers and Skittles and fill a baggie with some treats for the next person.
It had been fun.
And one of the first things both she and Yvette had sprung for, once they were out on their own and sharing their tiny Denver apartment, was a good phone and the free app that helped them discover their buried treasures.
Natalie checked her location. She was too far north. Close, but definitely heading in the wrong direction. She pulled out the map she’d picked up at the ranger’s station and looked at the trail.
“Shit.” “High-ho” didn’t go north at all from here. In fact it meandered south-west back into the park well away from Yvette’s last GPS coordinates.
Natalie stared at the vicious barbed wire fence and the grass-covered slope beyond. “Damn it, Yvette. What the hell were you into?” She thumbed back to Yvette’s last series of texts.
Hey cutie pie! I met someone. I’m calling him, Mr. Mysterious. Gotta keep you guessing! It’s your punishment for letting me come up here by myself. He’s way too old for me, but he’s totally hot!
And
guess what? MM is into treasure too. :) We’re heading out tomorrow and I’ll let you know what we dig up. Oh, and just in case your mean old boss let’s you go, here’s the loco.
Most geocaches were left close to public trails, but this one was apparently on the other side of the fence that every few hundred feet read NO TRESPASSING.
Well, there was no choice. Yvette was missing and the text she’d sent had been clear, this was the way to go.
Natalie pushed the backpack through the barbed wire and made sure her wild curly hair was safely tucked away in its band. Her brown curls were like Velcro—if there was something to stick to, she’d be stuck.
Then she pinched the middle strand of wire to the top one, placed her sneaker on the bottom wire, and slithered through, careful not to get scraped. She’d had all her shots when she was under the government’s careful eye, but since leaving the system she hadn’t done much more than the basic yearly visit for birth control. She was sure she was due for a tetanus shot.
Once through the fence, she put the pack back on and headed north. A few feet in she crossed another trail that ran inside the fence, but it didn’t head north, and north was where she had to go. She broke away from the trail and headed out across the rough terrain, side stepping on the hill as she hiked through tufts of summer dried grass and sharp strands of yucca.
This time she left the phone out.
She was close, so close to the coordinates she could almost see Yvette, black eyes sparkling saying, “Come on, girl!” Black braids piled high on her head, nails sparkling with tiny embedded crystals, hot pink lipstick curved up in a grin as she worked her way across the steep slope.
Yvette had always loved a challenge and she’d pushed Natalie to love one too. A study in opposites, that was her soul sister, cruising on over the rugged terrain in her PINK t-shirt and booty-call cut-offs.
They’d compete over who was the fastest on the rock wall at the rec, and who could kiss the most boys at a party. They’d competed and celebrated and laughed their way through the last seven years and now—Natalie wiped back more tears—now this was the last challenge.
Her phone beeped, making the happy sounds of geocaching discovery. She was here.
The slope flattened out a bit, running north to a steep edge that dropped down twenty feet to a grassy creek bed. She put a hand up to block the sun and scanned the area. The cairn of rocks had to be up here but she didn’t see it, just grass, the occasional scrubby tree, and some bushes where it might be hiding. Time to get to work.
She crisscrossed the area from the edge of the ravine, out about forty feet, and back. Each sweep had her stomach clenching tighter and tighter until she was sure she was going to throw up.
There was no cairn. No rocks. No treasure. Just a scraped section of grass where the color of the dirt was a darker, patchy shade of reddish brown that reminded her of dried blood and made her stomach churn.
She wasn’t an expert, but the grass in the Rocky Mountains took a long time to grow back, and this area right next to the steep edge of the drop-off, had been definitely disturbed.
This had been a crime scene, she was sure of it. And someone had cleaned it up, down to the blood-soaked earth. That sheriff had definitely lied. This had to be it—the place where Yvette had disappeared.
She went to the ravine and peered over the edge. Would there be something to find down there? Had Yvette gone over? Had someone pushed her? Had it been Mr. Mysterious, or had someone else found them on the private land and taken care of both of them?
The bright mid-afternoon sun lit up the side of the drop-off. Natalie stared at a tiny winking light almost hidden under a bush. Something was down there. Something bright and flashing and calling to her, just as if it were Yvette sending her a message in Morse code. She had to get down there.
A sense of urgency propelled her to walk the edge of the ravine in both directions, but there was no spot to descend any better than the one she’d been at. She came back and stared at the drop. The sun had moved overhead and the brush at the base of the cliff, where she’d seen the sparkle, was almost in shadow.
The reflection would be gone soon. And harder to find. If she went to town and tried to find someone to come up here and spot her, she’d be wasting time. She was on her own here, no spotting partner. She’d have to find some guy in one of the rock climber bars, flirt with him and get him excited over what she might give him, then talk him into coming up here onto private property.
Her churning stomach gave an extra twist.
That was almost exactly what had happened to Yvette with Mr. Mysterious.
This was Friday. She only had the weekend before she had to drive back to Denver or her boss would be livid. She was supposed to have come up here with Yvette last month. Supposed to be here, chasing treasure troves through the state park. But instead her sucky boss had given her extra hours and she’d had to stay and work. And Yvette had come up here alone.
Where she’d met some guy who also had a love for finding treasure. And who had enticed her up here and done…what? Something that had left a spot on the ground that looked exactly like dried blood.
Natalie looked over the open slope of the mountain. This wasn’t a place you took someone to kidnap them into a car. There was only one thing you would do to a young woman out here.
Hurt her. Rape her. And leave her for dead.
If there was a clue to Yvette’s disappearance she needed to get down there now, before she lost it.
She lightened up her pack, leaving only one water bottle, a candy bar, her phone and the bear spray, just in case. She’d stuffed her climbing shoes and helmet in her pack—good thing—and some chalk. All the essentials. Just not a rope or an extra pair of hands to make sure she was safe. She changed shoes. Put on her helmet, crushing down her hair. And then she got down on her belly, took a good grip on a rock, and swung her feet out over the edge.
The part of her brain that always took over when she was on a hard climb, took over. Grip with your toes, find a good handhold. Search for the next foothold. And—go!
Swing if you have to. Test for weight. And always, go at a steady pace. Not too slow or you’d get tired. Move from rock to rock, toe-hold to toe-hold, and work your way on down. She was about ten feet from the ground when she glanced at the bottom, caught by the flash of light.
It was a phone. The light glinted up at her from the crystal-studded case of Yvette’s phone.
Natalie’s breath caught and she got lightheaded. She had to get down there.
She reached down for the next handhold, shoved her fingers in and wedged them tight. Moved her foot, reaching for the next small bulb of rock. Tested it. Went for it.
And then she was sailing out into space. She twisted her body away from the wall, tried to relax, and hit the ground. Everything went black.
Chapter Two
Luca rode Espresso along the fence line that followed the southern border of the ranch. The afternoon was getting hotter and he was grateful for the wide brim of his hat, and the fact that eventually he’d get to a point where he could ride into the neighboring ravine and both he and the gelding could take a cool dip in the creek.
The other hands at Windy Gap thought he was crazy to always volunteer for checking the fences. But they didn’t understand—they were all socially oriented and thrived on being close to the rest of the pack while too many people made him nervous.
They called him a loner, and that was okay with him. He loved this type of job, out here on the edges of the massive property the pack owned. The air was clear, the summer day was long. He could take his time with no one around and no expectations. Perfect.
Espresso pricked his ears up. Luca took his cue from the gelding and listened. The sound was coming from the direction of the ravine and the creek, not from the state park on the other side of the fence. On the slight breeze he heard a woman’s voice and he frowned. No one should be out here. The state park trail wasn’t heavily used, and there were plenty
of signs warning visitors to stay clear.
“Damn it to hell!”
He turned Espresso and headed for the sounds of an irate woman. Not something that would be his first choice, but given that there shouldn’t be anyone here at all, it was his only choice.
The shouting died off as he drew closer. When he got to the edge of the ravine he found a pile of discarded stuff. Espresso gave a snort and wouldn’t move any closer, rolling his eyes and stamping. Luca dismounted to get a better look.
Sneakers, a half-full bottle of water, an apple, two bandannas—one bright pink, the other covered with Hawaiian flowers in purple and green, and a variety of combs, hair-ties, sticky-notes and pens. It looked like a high-school locker had been dumped in the middle of nowhere.
His nose wrinkled. Even without the extra sniffing power of his wolf form he caught the faint scent of an old kill.
No wonder the horse didn’t want anything to do with the spot.
There was something else. The ground here looked odd, like someone had decided to choose this isolated spot to clean up the dirt and scattered rocks and leave the area bare, but they couldn’t quite get out the stains from the massive amount of blood that must have soaked into the ground.
He caught the sound of someone moving down below and peered over. On the ground near the bottom of the wall a woman sat, frowning at a cell phone. Her long brown curls were ineptly caught up in a haphazard ponytail and even from this high up he could spot the blood streaking red on the creamy brown skin of her legs and arms.
“Hello,” he called down.
She looked up, the deep focus on her face changing to a look of surprise. “Hey!” She waved. “I’m down here.”
“I can see that.”
Lone Enforcer: An Alpha Shifter Suspense Romance (Wolf Enforcers Book 2) Page 1
