by Ava Benton
There were photos along a table in the downstairs entryway. I hadn’t noticed them when we walked in, but took the chance to study them closely.
Hope, or who I assumed was Hope, looked a lot like her father. Dark hair, almost black. Green eyes like a cat. Creamy skin. A wide, bright smile. Gorgeous. She was holding a diploma and wearing a cap and gown in what looked like the latest picture.
I noticed there were no pictures of the two of them together.
Slate’s approaching footsteps were welcome, and he whistled through his teeth as we walked across the gravel driveway. “Makes our place look like a shack.”
“Tell me about it. But I got what I needed.”
“Where will you start?”
“Not a clue.” I shrugged.
He pointed our rental car in the direction of the city, way off in front of us. It was early evening, and the tall buildings sparkled in the distance.
“There, I guess.” I indicated with my head.
“Manhattan?”
“You sound surprised.”
“It’ll be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. She might have left the country by now.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Unless she has a passport under an assumed name, she’s still around. Mary already looked all that stuff up. There’s no record of her even buying a plane or train ticket. Like you said, she’s a needle in a haystack in the city. Millions of people.”
“How the hell do you plan on finding her there?”
“I’ll use this.” I tapped my nose with one finger. “And if I don’t find her there after a day or two, we can move on.” I couldn’t explain why I felt so confident that she was there, waiting for me. “You can look up her friends in the meantime. Jack gave you a list of names?”
“The few he knew of,” he said. “I didn’t get the feeling Dear Old Dad was a big part of his little girl’s life.”
Maybe she saw through him, too. She was supposed to be smart.
“Drop me off in the middle of town, and I’ll get to work. Give me a call if you find out anything.”
He wouldn’t.
I was almost sure he wouldn’t. I didn’t know how I knew, but I was certain she was somewhere in the city. She had run away, and not because she wanted to get away from her father or her life.
There was another scent I picked up in that bedroom of hers, one which was finally clear to me. It had teased at the edge of my consciousness, faint but lingering.
Fear. She had fled.
3
Roan
The city that never slept. No wonder. It never got dark with all the lights everywhere.
How did anybody live here? I couldn’t get over the people, everywhere more people. I felt drugged—the combined scents of all those bodies, not to mention the food smells coming from every other doorway and the carts on the streets, was almost too thick to think through.
I told myself to concentrate and focus on my goal. I had a job to do, and when I got it done, I could go home where it was quiet and things made sense.
Not that there wasn’t a certain appeal to it all. The human side of me liked the different sights—especially the women. There were plenty, something for everyone, no matter their taste, and more than a few of them returned my smile.
I felt like a kid in a candy store by the second day of searching. I was about ready to give up, really, having pounded the pavement for endless hours in damp, raw weather with nothing to show for it but the occasional inviting look from a passing chick.
Focus, man.
I had a job in front of me and couldn’t afford to let too much time pass. I could carry the memory of a scent inside me for a long time, like any animal. That wasn’t the problem. But I didn’t have time to wait for the girl to run even further away. It amazed me that anybody found anybody here.
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket and walked with my head up, eyes moving back and forth as I breathed deeply. I wished there weren’t so many competing odors, especially since I was hungry.
I stopped at a hot dog cart to get a foot-long—disgusting, really, but I couldn’t resist the smell—then continued walking after scarfing the thing down in three bites.
A week. She had been on the run for a week.
Where would she go? What would she do? I tried to put myself in her shoes. She was scared, hiding, probably not thinking things out too well because she was busy reacting instead of planning. Yes, she might have taken a regional train—she wouldn’t have to provide ID to purchase a ticket that would get her to Philadelphia or Washington—but I doubted it.
In New York, she could monitor any news of her father. She would know if the news of her disappearance got out. A smart girl. I had to keep that in mind.
A new scent floated past me on the breeze and caught my attention. I went from being a human walking off his lunch, blending into the crowd as well as somebody like me ever could, to a dire wolf on the hunt.
Hope.
She was somewhere nearby.
My eyes narrowed as I scanned the dozens of people walking back and forth. Most of them were insipid tourists, snapping selfies, dropping trash everywhere instead of taking just another ten seconds to find a trashcan.
She wouldn’t be one of them. She was a city girl, not here to take in the sights. Probably on her way somewhere, walking with purpose. She wouldn’t be hanging around where anybody might spot her.
I looked for a girl trying to blend in.
I noticed a small, quick-moving figure in a dark gray hoodie with a black backpack just about as big as she was. She kept her head down, and I couldn’t see the face but I could tell it was a girl from the slight build and light, quick footsteps. Otherwise, she was dressed to blend in. I wouldn’t have noticed her if it wasn’t for that scent.
I couldn’t get it out of my head. It was her.
I trailed at a safe distance with my eyes on her at all times. Where was she going? And in such a hurry.
Did she know I was following her?
No, or else she would’ve looked behind or at least glanced over her shoulder once or twice.
She was a girl on a mission. I couldn’t decide how long to follow—should I wait to see where she was going? Should I catch up and catch her and take her home?
She made my decision for me when she broke into a run.
“Son of a bitch.” I took off after her. She was fast, but I was faster. I wasn’t trying to hang back without her noticing me, so I could put on a little speed—it actually felt good, not having to hold back the need to chase her. My wolf side took over and my legs pumped easily. The best part was the way others paid no attention to us. We might as well not have been in the crowd. I guessed life in Manhattan was like that. Stranger things probably happened all the time in tourist traps like Times Square.
“Hey!” I caught her backpack before I reached anything else and stopped on a dime. I didn’t have to pull her—the momentum she’d already built up would’ve knocked her on her ass if it were anybody but me holding on to her. I kept her on her feet.
When she caught her breath enough to speak, she let out a string of curses like nothing I had heard since I left the SEALs. I was actually impressed with her creativity.
“You finished?” I asked when she finally stopped.
Even with all that, nobody paid any attention as they passed us. With the way she was dressed and the way I held her backpack, they probably thought I was pursuing a thief.
“What are you doing?” She tried to turn around and hit me.
I held her at arm’s length. The funny thing was, all she had to do was slide her arms out of the straps and she’d be free. She didn’t do that. There had to be something inside the backpack that meant something to her—or she just didn’t think about it, too surprised to make the smart move.
“You’re Hope Fremont, aren’t you?”
In all the fighting, the hood fell back from over her head and revealed her face. The girl from the
pictures glared up at me—same delicate features and dark hair, same emerald eyes.
“Who? Get off me!”
I didn’t. “You’re Hope Fremont. I know you are, so don’t bother lying about it.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about—but if you don’t want me to scream ‘rape’ in the middle of the street, you’d better let go. Now.”
She would, too. I didn’t know how I knew. I just did.
“Are you gonna run again?”
“From you?” She looked me up and down. “No. I’m afraid of what would happen when you caught me again.”
“You’re not stupid.” I sized up my options and figured I could catch her again if she ran. So I let go and was actually surprised when she stayed still.
“Why did you chase me?” she spat, smoothing her clothes, rolling her shoulders—the straps had cut into her the way a seatbelt would during a car crash.
“Why did you run?”
“Because you were following me like a fucking stalker!”
“I could’ve just been walking behind you. Only a guilty person runs the way you did.”
“Unless they’re a person who thinks a creeper is stalking them, which was what I thought.”
“That’s a lie. Stop wasting my time.”
Her creamy cheeks turned pink. “He sent you for me. Didn’t he?”
“What if he did?”
She shook her head. “Please. I know you don’t know me from anybody, but you’ve gotta believe me. You can’t take me back to him.”
“It’s not my problem. You’re my responsibility, and he hired me to bring you home. It’s for the best.”
Her head swiveled back and forth again. Even when it went still, her eyes darted in all directions.
The fear coming off her skin was potent. I could smell it. It wrapped my head in a sort of fog. I reminded myself what I was there for and how much I wanted to get back home—not to mention how much the fee from Fremont would come in handy.
My jaw tightened. “I’m taking you home to your father. None of this domestic bullshit is any of my business. I have a job to do, and I’m gonna do it.”
“Like hell, you are!” She tried to bolt, zigzagging her way through the crowd.
I caught her before she got more than ten steps away and my hand encircled her bicep like a cuff.
She was small, easy to overpower. That didn’t stop her from fighting back, of course. If we had been anywhere else in the world but New York, somebody might have noticed me pulling her into a tight space between two buildings. There was barely enough room for us to stand face-to-face.
“I don’t know where you think you’re going,” I snarled—time to pull out the big guns and scare the shit out of her if need be, just to get the damn job over with—and I bared my teeth—no fangs, this time, at least not yet—to show her I wasn’t kidding around. “I came out here to track you down, and I have, and I’m taking you home.”
“I’m an adult, you know. Not a kid. I can go where I want and do what I want.”
She had a point.
I was expecting a kid and ended up with a full-grown woman. She was small, but she was definitely an adult. Early twenties, I’d guess. Maybe five, six years younger than me. Her father made her sound like a child.
Still, there was no doubt that I had the right person. Her scent filled my nostrils and went straight to my head the way it had when I first took a deep breath with my nose against her sweater.
“Your father is worried about you, is all. He’s a powerful man and he has his enemies. He wants to be sure you’re safe—up to now, he thought one of his rivals had you kidnapped.”
“Oh, really?” she laughed. “Did he say anything about a ransom?”
“Well, no. He seemed worried about the possibility. I think that’s enough.”
“You’re kidding, right?” She tried again to yank her arm out of my grasp and yelped in pain and surprise when she couldn’t.
“You’re gonna break your arm. I’d suggest you stop being stupid. It’s no use, fighting me.”
She still tried one more time, stubborn thing.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to strangle her or tell her I appreciated her spirit.
She wouldn’t go quietly, even when it was clear I had her trapped.
A long strand of black hair fell in front of her eyes, which she blew back with a gusty sigh. “You don’t get it yet, do you?”
“Don’t get what?” I had expected this.
She was going to try to talk me out of doing my job—her father had mentioned what a smooth liar she was, too. I reminded myself of that, not that it mattered.
Being the way I was had its perks—like being able to smell a lie. Not literally, of course. Lies don’t have a scent. But people do when they tell them, no matter how convincingly they deliver whatever comes out of their mouth. Something else comes out of their pores. I pick it up every time. I was ready to smell it on her.
She glared up at me, all fire and fury. “I didn’t run away to be a brat, asshole. And whatever my father told you is a lie. He’s not looking for me because he’s worried about me. He’s worried about what I know.”
It was the damnedest thing. I didn’t smell anything coming off her other than what I had already smelled, the unique mixture of smells that made her up.
She met my eyes straight-up, too. No shrinking away, nothing.
“What you know? What’s that mean?”
She finally broke the staring contest we were in to roll her eyes. “It means I saw something I shouldn’t have seen and he wants me silenced. Permanently.”
4
Hope
What fresh hell is this? I thought, as we sat in a cracked vinyl booth at the nearest greasy spoon, facing each other from across a chipped table.
It wasn’t bad enough my father wanted me dead. He decided to send a massive, bulging, thick-necked thug after me. A thug with deep brown hair and icy eyes and a jaw chiseled from stone, not to mention a hell of a grip.
My arm was going to hurt for a while after the way he grabbed me—not that he even meant to hurt me. I knew that much.
We eyed each other over our coffee cups. It was shit coffee, but I didn’t expect much. As long as we managed to stay out of sight.
“You hungry?” he asked as I scanned the menu.
“Starving. Not sure I wanna run the risk of contracting food poisoning here, though.” The menu needed to be wiped down, and I’d already asked for a clean coffee cup since the lipstick stain on the original wasn’t exactly my shade.
“I’m pretty good at being able to tell if food is off or not.”
I glanced up at him, staring through my lashes. “Are you bragging about this?”
“I’m just saying. I can tell. Order something. I won’t let you eat it if it smells off.”
What a weirdo. I didn’t reply. Instead, I tried to figure out a way to get myself out of his clutches. What was he in it for? Money, of course. One of Dad’s fluent languages. I could speak it, too. Would that be enough?
His hands, curled around a cup of coffee. So big. I remembered the pressure around my bicep—not difficult to do since it was still throbbing, low and dull. He must have noticed me looking since he let go of the cup and pressed them flat to the table, fingers spread. Like he was inviting me to observe him.
“Why are you doing this? I mean, really. Did my father hire you to find me and tell you I ran away? Is that it?” I looked at him to gauge his reaction. Would he even bother trying to fool me?
He didn’t bother. “Yeah. That’s the long and short of it. He paid money to me and my group.”
“Your group? Like, bounty hunters? That sort of thing?”
“Not exactly. Bounty hunters are—”
“I don’t need you to tell me what a bounty hunter is. I already know.”
His expression shifted into something like amusement. “Anyway, there are four of us. Used to be Special Ops. And now we do odd jobs, I guess you could sa
y.”
“Odd jobs. Like finding people who don’t want to be found?”
The waitress came over then, a gum-chewing, heavily made-up woman who looked like she’d been working there for decades. Maybe she came with the building.
I ordered pancakes, figuring they were a safe enough bet.
Once we were alone again, he nodded with a wry smirk. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“It’s exactly what you do. I don’t want to be found. There’s a reason I ran, you know?”
“Ran from me? Or ran from home?”
“Both,” I frowned.
He was having fun, toying with me.
I didn’t have time to play. “Listen. How much is he offering? I have money, too.”
“A quarter of a million dollars? You have that much money at your disposal?”
My stomach dropped. “You’re not serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
He was willing to spend that much to get me back? He wasn’t playing around. That meant he was desperate, which meant what I knew was as big a deal as I feared.
I willed my legs to stop shaking and was glad the table blocked them from view.
“No. I don’t have that sort of money lying around. Fifty thousand is as much as I can dig up at once, but it’s yours if you pretend this never happened.”
One of his thick, dark eyebrows shot up. “And you have that much money available?”
“I’ve socked money away over the years, in accounts my father doesn’t know about. I can access it without him tracing my activity because he doesn’t know they exist.”
“You plan ahead. Were you anticipating something like this?”
“Like my father wanting me dead?” I snorted.
“Like running away,” he replied tersely.
“Wrong. You refuse to get it. Don’t tell me that thick neck of yours means you’re stupid.”
