Wolf Hunt

by Paige Tyler

  By the time the meeting was over, she was ready to admit that Trevor was an attractive man with a nice body, an infectious grin, and a razor-sharp, wry sense of humor. While she had no idea what the shifter was about, she’d had a hard time seeing him as a traitorous, cold-blooded killer. Then again, she’d never seen a traitorous, cold-blooded killer when she used to look at Wade either, and he’d betrayed the entire team and killed Jodi in the most vicious manner he could. All in all, she was a crappy judge of character.

  “Your heart’s beating faster again,” Trevor murmured as he drove past the same gas station they’d passed twice already. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped.

  Dammit, he was right. Her heart was thumping harder than normal. It always did when she thought about Wade.

  “I’m just going to toss this out there,” Trevor said. “But can I assume you’re nervous about being in a vehicle with someone like me?”

  Alina did a double take. “No, that’s not it at all. I don’t have a problem with you.”

  He arched a brow and gave her a look that said she was full of crap. “So you’re telling me your heart starts racing at random moments for the heck of it?”

  She opened her mouth to tell him it was none of his damn business, but closed it again. There was a good chance they could be walking into a dangerous situation when they got to wherever they were going. She’d rather not do that while in the middle of an argument. But she also wasn’t in the habit of giving up personal info without getting anything in return.

  “Why should I tell you anything?” she demanded. “It’s not like you’ve been exactly forthcoming with me. You still haven’t told me where we’re going or what a shifter is. For all I know, you could be making up this stuff about being able to hear how fast my heart is beating.”

  Alina expected Trevor to say something suitably snarky, but he surprised her.

  “Fair enough,” he agreed. “We’re going to talk to a guy who lives in Bowling Green. He worked in IT at the DCO training complex and went into work two hours before his normal duty time on the day of the explosion.”

  “You think he was working with the rogue DCO agents who killed John Loughlin?”

  While the idea made sense, it wasn’t exactly in line with what he’d told Dick.

  “I think it’s possible the guy might have brought the bomb onto the complex,” Trevor said.

  Alina waited for him to say something else about the man, but he fell silent. That left her with a lot of questions, the first one being why no one had already talked to this guy. Surely, the people investigating the bombing would have done that right off the bat. More importantly, why had Trevor lied to his boss about where they were going and what they’d be doing?

  “You told the director you wanted to talk to some people who’d gotten into a scuffle with two men you thought might be the rogue agents,” she reminded him.

  He glanced at the side mirror this time. “Yeah, I did.”

  There was a lot of stuff he wasn’t telling her, including who he thought was following them. She decided not to push on those two subjects…yet. He was talking, and she wanted to keep that going. Time to move on to a different topic and see what else he’d tell her.

  “Back to the shifter thing for a minute,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Dick said something about you having animal DNA, but that’s just an expression, right? Like when someone says a person is as mean as a junkyard dog or strong as an ox.”

  Trevor didn’t say anything for a long time, and Alina thought she’d pushed too far.

  “I’m a coyote shifter,” he finally said. “I have canine DNA mixed with my own. When I shift, I take on certain physical characteristics of a coyote.”

  All Alina could do was stare. What could she say to a man who’d just claimed to be part coyote?

  “Are you serious, or are you just messing with me?” she demanded.

  In answer, Trevor took one hand off the wheel and placed it on the center console between them. As she watched, his fingernails extended until they turned into five sharp claws almost an inch long and deadly looking as hell.

  Alina stared. It had to be a trick.

  She opened her mouth to ask how a human could possibly have claws but stopped cold as he turned to look at her with eyes that were glowing yellow and a pair of elongated canines protruding out over his lower lip.

  Crap on a stick.

  She jerked back so hard, she almost snapped her neck, then immediately regretted her reaction at the flicker of disappointment that crossed his handsome face. Before she could say anything, the claws, fangs, and glowing eyes disappeared.

  Trevor put his hand back on the wheel and focused once again on the twisting, turning country road. “Enough about me,” he said casually, as if having long claws poking out from under his fingernails was an everyday occurrence for him. Hell, maybe it was. “Now that I’ve told you where we’re going and demonstrated the shifter stuff isn’t BS, let’s get back to you. Why was your heart beating so fast before?”

  Alina didn’t answer. She didn’t like confiding in a stranger, even if he was supposed to be her partner. But he’d answered her questions, so she supposed she owed him something.

  “A mission went wrong a couple of years ago in the CIA. I try hard not to think about it, because when I do, I get upset. That’s probably why you heard my heart racing.”

  She tried not thinking about the fact that her heart was probably racing all over again simply from making that confession, and she prayed he wouldn’t push for more details.

  “Are you wondering if you made a mistake getting out of the CIA?” he asked.

  Her first instinct was to say no. Then again, that was always her first instinct. But instead, she nodded.

  “Yeah. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t wondering that. But then I realize I did the right thing. It was time for me to leave,” she said.

  She looked out the passenger window, waiting with a slight sense of dread for his next question, the one where he asked her exactly why she’d left the Agency.

  Nothing had been the same after the operation in Turkey. In the immediate aftermath of the ambush that had killed her entire team, she’d been so furious that all she could do was think about spending the rest of her life hunting Wade down and making him pay. The need for revenge was like a fever that raged day and night.

  The Agency had done everything they could to help her find Wade at first. But after about a year of scouring the globe, the search had started to lose steam as other events took priority. The Agency moved Wade’s cold-blooded betrayal to the back burner, he was placed on a watch list with thousands of other high-value targets, and Alina was told to let it go. She hadn’t, and it had cost her.

  Initially, the Agency had allowed her to stay in the field, but over time, her fixation with finding the man who’d killed her team had made her coworkers and supervisors uncomfortable. They began to think she was unstable, obsessive, and a risk to other agents. To some degree, maybe she was. Because for a long time, all she cared about was getting revenge.

  Finally, the big shots at Langley had decided to put her zeal for catching traitors to good use and transferred her to the CIA’s version of Internal Affairs. Instead of chasing after bad guys, she’d been chasing dirty agents. It wasn’t something an agent should ever be asked to do, and Alina had hated it. So when the director of the DCO had approached her out of the blue about a new job—one that included a promise to jump-start her search for Wade—she’d hadn’t even had to think about it. That brilliant move had gotten her a partner who had claws and glowing yellow eyes.

  Well, she’d wanted a chance to get out and do something different. From now on, maybe she should be more careful what she asked for.

  “You going to be able to focus on what we’re doing here?” Trevor asked, pulling her ou
t of her reveries.

  Alina gave herself a shake and realized they were in the parking lot of a nice little apartment complex with well-trimmed hedges and perfectly manicured lawns. Around them, the other spaces were filled with electric cars. It wasn’t exactly a place that screamed “cold-blooded killer hideout.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured Trevor, then added, “assuming you’re actually planning to tell me what we’re doing here. Who’s this guy we’re looking for, and do you have anything linking him to the bombing besides the fact that he happened to come into work early that day?”

  If Trevor was involved with the people who’d murdered John Loughlin, why act like he was hunting down the killer? And if he wasn’t involved with the rogue agents and honestly wanted to find who’d done it, why was he so reluctant to talk to her?

  “His name is Seth Larson,” Trevor said and shut off the engine. “The DCO brought him in to specialize in cybersecurity and data protection. Like I said before, he was hired three weeks before the bombing and quit two days later.”

  As if that explained it, Trevor opened his door and stepped out of the vehicle. Alina quickly unbuckled her seat belt and jumped out, practically running to catch up with him as he headed for the apartment building.

  “You do realize that when he started working at the DCO could easily be a coincidence, right?” she asked as she fell into step beside him. “And as far as quitting right after the bombing, I’m betting a lot of people bailed after that.”

  Alina took his silence as confirmation as they entered the building and climbed the stairs.

  “Do you have anything else on this guy?” she asked. “Some indication of a payment, a personal beef with Loughlin, a connection with the rogue agents who went on the run?”

  Trevor shook his head as he stopped in front of apartment 231. “Nothing like that. But Larson was previously employed by a man John had been trying to apprehend for years.”

  “What man?”

  “An extremely powerful man who has used other people to do his dirty work for years. As it happens, he’s also the same man who got Seth Larson the job at the DCO.”

  That didn’t tell her much. And while Trevor appeared to be searching for the bomber, he didn’t seem to be trying to find any of the rogue agents.

  She opened her mouth to ask him about it, but before she got a chance, he reached out and pushed the doorbell. He immediately followed that up with a few knocks that were louder than the bell.

  The door was jerked open so fast, Alina automatically reached for the sidearm on her hip but stopped at the last second at the sight of a young guy in jeans and a T-shirt with wire-rimmed glasses and at least three days of stubble on his face, a little blond boy standing behind him.

  “I heard the bell,” the man said, clearly pissed off. “You didn’t have to knock, too.”

  Trevor frowned and opened his month to say something no doubt abrupt and snark filled, but his words were cut off by a soft, frightened voice.

  “Daddy, do you have to go away again?”

  Larson glanced over his shoulder at his son. The little boy, who couldn’t have been more than eight, was close to tears.

  “No, Cody. Daddy’s not going anywhere. I’m just talking to some old friends.”

  Cody moved closer, studying her and Trevor, his blue eyes curious. “Friends?”

  Larson looked at them, a pleading expression on his face. “You two are friends, right?”

  Alina smiled at Cody. “Yes, we’re friends of your dad. We worked with him a little while ago.”

  That seemed to satisfy the little boy, who turned without another word and headed back into the living room. When he was out of earshot, Seth Larson frowned at them.

  “I don’t remember seeing either of you from the time I was at the DCO, but I’m guessing that’s where you know me from,” he said.

  “Yes,” Trevor said, his tone softer than Alina would have expected. “I’m Trevor Maxwell, and this is my partner, Alina Bosch. We’d like to ask you a couple of questions about the morning the bombing happened.”

  Larson threw a quick glance at his son, as if he was afraid Cody might have heard, but Cody was lying on the floor coloring and didn’t even look up. “Sure, I can talk. Just…don’t use that word—bomb. I don’t think Cody knows what it means, and I really don’t want him to. He’s autistic, and sometimes he gets upset easily.”

  Alina nodded. Beside her, Trevor did the same.

  Larson led them into the small, tidy apartment, past an eat-in kitchen, and into the living room. There was a couch against one wall, with a TV and bookshelves opposite it. A fancy computer sat on the coffee table, some kind of accounting spreadsheet showing on the screen, but Alina barely took notice of any of it. Cody was far more fascinating.

  Spread out on the floor around him must have been nearly a hundred completed pictures torn out of coloring books. Every one of them was absolutely amazing. While the colors were unusual—trees in blues and purples, people in every shade of the rainbow, skies in yellow with orange clouds—there wasn’t a single crayon mark out of place or outside the lines. In a word, they were breathtaking.

  Seemingly oblivious to them, Cody finished the picture he was working on, then carefully pulled it out of the book and set it aside before starting the next one.

  Larson motioned them toward the couch. “You two want a soda…or water? Sorry, but that’s all I have in the house.”

  Alina shook her head as she sat. “No, I’m good.”

  Trevor declined the offer as well, moving carefully around the pictures on the floor as he grabbed a place beside her on the couch and pulled out a pen and spiral notepad from a cargo pocket. Larson sat down on the floor with Cody, making sure to move his son’s artwork aside first.

  “To be honest, I’m kind of surprised no one stopped by before this,” he said.

  That confirmed what Alina had thought. It shocked the heck out of her at the same time. She was an agent, not a cop, but talking to every single person who’d been in the complex at the time of the bombing seemed like common sense.

  “On the day of the…incident…you showed up for work two and a half hours before your normal duty time,” Trevor said. “Mind if I ask why?”

  Larson’s gaze went to his son, a smile curving his mouth. “I went in early so I could grab a few hours before Cody got out of bed. He loves his grandma—she watches him for me when I’m at work—but he can be a handful sometimes.” He frowned at them. “My boss—Lisa Marino—said it was okay. I’m sure she’ll confirm that if you ask her.”

  Beside her, Trevor visibly relaxed. “Lisa left the DCO two weeks ago. I’ll try to get in contact with her, but that could take a while.”

  “How about Karl Thomas? Is he still there?” Larson asked. “He knew about me going in early.”

  Trevor nodded. “I think he’s still there. I’ll check.”

  Larson looked at Cody again, his expression thoughtful this time. “I guess a lot of people left after what happened.”

  “Is that why you quit when you did?” Alina asked. “Because of the…incident?”

  Larson was silent for a moment as he watched his son color. Tears formed in his eyes, and he blinked.

  “I had to,” he said, turning back to them. “I loved the work, and the people there were amazing, but the hours were already getting tough on Cody…and his grandma. Trying to go to work early might have helped a little, but a full day at work was still too long to be away from him. When the other stuff happened, I realized that if I’d walked past the admin building forty-five minutes later to get that cup of coffee from the cafeteria, I could have been caught up in…in everything that happened. Then Cody wouldn’t have anyone. I couldn’t take that risk.”

  “How long have you been taking care of Cody on your own?” Trevor asked.

  “About a year,” he sa
id, then cleared his throat. “I guess Kristy just couldn’t deal anymore. She bailed one day while I was at work. I was mad at her for a long time, but I finally gave up on that. I know now that she did the best she could.”

  Alina glanced at Cody to see if he’d react to the mention of his mother, but he continued to color like he hadn’t heard a thing.

  “Do you stay home with him full-time?” she asked Larson.

  Larson nodded. “Pretty much. Like I said, my mom comes over to take care of him now and then, but he doesn’t like me to be out of his sight for long.” He gestured to the laptop on the coffee table. “I do a little consulting work long distance to help pay the bills, but it’s tough. I really thought I’d struck gold landing that job with the DCO.”

  Alina remembered thinking something very similar when Dick had offered her a job there. That reminded her of what Trevor had said before they’d knocked on the door, about there being an extremely powerful man involved in getting Larson hired at the DCO.

  “Can I ask how you heard about the job at the DCO?” she asked Larson.

  “I’d done some work for a subsidiary of Chadwick-Thorn back before Kristy left, then some consulting work in April for the main corporate office over near Anacostia-Bolling, installing and networking a fancy security system,” Larson said. “While I was there, I got the opportunity to meet with Thomas Thorn, and after the security gig was done, he offered me an IT job at the DCO. It had everything I was looking for—good hours, great pay, amazing medical benefits, challenging work. It was mostly internal security stuff like monitoring DCO employees to make sure none of them were inadvertently sending classified material over unclassified computer systems. Things like that.”