And then she’d found out Duke wasn’t the only one. Millions of dollars in royalties stolen outright, or taken from musicians and songwriters trapped in unfair contracts. And that was just the tip of Alexander’s corrupt corporate iceberg.
But she’d been hoping to hear from Duke. He’d been threatening to confront Alexander, and Emma had been trying to convince him to hold off until she could contact the FBI. She wanted to make sure he was keeping himself off Alexander’s radar.
After a second’s hesitation, she logged onto Facebook. She didn’t think Alexander could track her with it, and Duke might have messaged her.
Instead, her news feed had multiple links to a Nashville news story. ‘Local Musician Injured in Near-Fatal Hang Gliding Accident.’
Emma gasped, and clicked on the link. ‘Duke Granger, lead singer of the country band Red River, was gravely injured when his glider failed…’
Emma stared at the screen, feeling nauseated. This couldn’t be right. She and Duke flew together all the time, and they always checked each other’s equipment for safety. She herself had checked Duke’s glider less than a week ago. There was nothing wrong with his equipment. And the timing was just too coincidental.
She scanned the article. Duke was in the hospital, in a coma. They were hopeful he’d wake up, but they didn’t know if he’d walk again. And then, further down, she saw it. ‘Granger had recently filed a lawsuit against his recording company, TVU Records. The CEO, Alexander Grant, said, “Duke Granger is a valued member of the TVU family. We are confident that this dispute can be handled without resorting to the courts, and we send our best wishes for a complete recovery.”’
Emma wanted to scream, to pound the computer, to pound Alexander Grant. He’d already handled it ‘without resorting to the courts.’ The bastard. Why, why hadn’t Duke waited? Why hadn’t he trusted her?
She had to get this laptop to Grizzly’s FBI contact. Before Alexander Grant hurt somebody else.
Her eyes fell on Jace’s sleeping form. She closed her eyes, thinking about his hands on her, his kisses, how safe he’d made her feel.
He’d offered to help her. But she couldn’t let him.
He’d end up like Duke, and she’d never forgive herself. Alexander Grant had hurt enough people. This was all on her now.
Quiet as a cat, she dug her jeans and boots out of her bag and put them on. She put her wig back on, and then packed up the rest of her clothes. Or at least, the ones that weren’t tangled in the sheets with Jace.
Finally she was ready. She stood by the bed, looking down at Jace one more time, wishing things could have been different. As if he could feel her gaze on him, he stirred and reached out for her.
“Darlene?” he murmured.
That one word hit her like a bucket of cold water. This had all been a fantasy. He didn’t even know her real name. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from reaching over and brushing back a lock of hair from his face. “Go back to sleep,” she whispered. “I’ll be right back.” He turned over with a sigh and drifted back into sleep.
This is ridiculous, she told herself. Stop mooning over him and go. Every moment she stayed put him in danger. Put them both in danger. Her only safe place was with Griz.
Now, she just had to figure out the best way out of here. She fingered the keys to the Malibu. She might be able to sneak over to it without being seen by Alexander’s minion, assuming he was still out there. But it was a big risk—if they’d traced the car to her, then he’d have it staked out. Not to mention that it was stolen, which meant the cops could be on the lookout for it too. But if she ditched it, her only other choice was to hitch a ride—or to steal one.
Her gaze fell on the motorcycle keys on the bedside table. Jace’s jacket was hanging on the back of the desk chair, and his helmet was perched on the desk. It had a tinted visor—perfect for remaining anonymous.
Oh, no. She couldn’t even believe she was thinking what she was thinking.
Emma hesitated, and then said, “Oh, hell.” She snagged Jace’s jacket and shrugged it on, then grabbed the helmet and pocketed the keys.
Jace’s wallet was on the bedside table. His angry words floated back to Emma. “What was your plan? To fuck me silly and steal my wallet?”
She picked it up and opened it. There was a few hundred dollars in cash, and after a minute’s hesitation she took a hundred. She was running low, and she’d need gas money to get to Grizzly. But the rest—she put the wallet back on the table with the remaining cash intact, as well as his credit and debit cards. She knew it wouldn’t matter. He’d still think she was exactly what he’d said she was. A scammer. A thief. And he’d remember her badly.
But there wasn’t anything she could do about that. She couldn’t let him get involved. She couldn’t let Alexander hurt anyone else like he’d hurt Duke.
She just hoped Jace didn’t wake up and try to follow her. Of course, there were ways to prevent that—or at least slow him down. Emma did what she had to do, and then she slipped out the door.
When Jace woke up, he was going to want to kill her.
She guessed that was better than her getting him killed.
Chapter 7
Jace woke to the sound of a door closing quietly. Usually he woke up quickly, his inner wolf instantly alert to any strange sound, but it was the middle of the night and his wolf, still sated from loving Darlene, was sluggish and slow to respond.
Until he heard the sound of his motorcycle’s engine revving up outside.
“Shit!” He was awake in a split second, out of bed and lunging for the door. He opened it just in time to see Darlene’s platinum-blonde wig curls peeking out from under his helmet, glinting under the arc lights in the parking lot as she gunned his bike and peeled out.
“Shit, shit, shit!” That lying hellcat had seduced him and stolen his bike. Jace cursed himself as all kinds of a fool, to fall for her act. The dangerous ex; the need for help. She’d played him like a violin, pushing all his protective alpha buttons. And now he was standing stark naked in the doorway of a motel room, watching her ride off into the pre-dawn light. On his fucking motorcycle.
An appreciative whistle from across the parking lot, followed by raucous laughter, made him realize he better go back inside to curse himself in private. Shifters weren’t especially modest, since they were so used to stripping naked in front of the pack when they made the change. But the last thing he needed to finish off this debacle was to be arrested for indecent exposure.
He slammed the door and paced the room, breathing heavily. When he was furiously angry his wolf always wanted to come out, and now was not the time.
Betrayal surged through him, hard and bitter. He should have known. He’d no more than thought about opening himself up to a woman, and she’d shot him down and made him look like a complete jackass. No wonder he couldn’t form a bond. He’d only known her one night, and he’d stupidly offered her a little piece of himself. And she’d ripped it to shreds and danced on the pieces, laughing.
She was probably laughing now.
He could still scent her—on the sheets, everywhere in the room. He could have sworn that they’d shared something real, some connection. And that she’d really been scared of something. Of someone.
So what was the truth? Was she a practiced con artist? Or a frightened woman in trouble? He had to know.
And he had to get his damn bike back.
Jace forced himself to sit down and think. Calling the police was out of the question; shifters never dealt with human law enforcement if they could possibly avoid it. Too much chance of being outed. Shifters had their own Enforcers. In fact, that was one of the jobs Jace and his pack sometimes handled. Tracking down rogue or criminal shifters. He could certainly handle one human.
Yeah, right. Like he’d done so well with that already.
He knew that one phone call would get him all the help he needed from his pack mates. The problem was, he was the alpha. And one thing alphas never did was allow
themselves to look like fools in front of the rest of the pack.
The last thing he wanted to do was tell his pack mates that he’d been suckered by a sexy con woman and lost his bike. Rafe and Jesse were the only ones who he could trust with something like that, and even they would never let him hear the end of it. If Kane or Israel found out, they’d use his bad judgement to undermine his alpha status. He was already in a precarious position, being so close to the three-year deadline and not having bonded his pack and his territory.
Before calling in the troops—even those he trusted—he had to at least try to fix this himself. Which meant tracking down that two-faced lying hellcat and recovering his motorcycle.
She’s in danger, his wolf said.
Sucker, he told his wolf in his mind. You just like the way she smells. And the way she fucks.
And anyway, this situation called for human brains and strategic thinking. Not wolf instincts.
This truck stop was right off the highway, a mile or two from any town. Unlikely that ‘Darlene’ had walked here, so unless she’d had someone drop her off, she’d driven here on her own. Which meant that she might have a vehicle parked in the parking lot. With his wolf nose, he should be able to find it. There might be clues in it about where she’d come from, and where she might be going.
Great. He had a plan. He stood up to get dressed—and that’s when he realized that the Lying Hellcat hadn’t just taken his bike and his helmet. She’d taken his motorcycle jacket. And his saddlebags with all his stuff. And his cell phone.
And his pants.
Jace started swearing all over again.
Chapter 8
Emma waited until she was a couple of hours down the road before giving herself a break. She pulled off the highway and drove to an out-of-the-way service station, where she gassed up the motorcycle. She bought herself some coffee, and then rolled the bike over by a weathered picnic table. Stopping made her antsy, but she needed a rest. Keeping a bike this heavy on the highway was a lot more tiring than driving a car.
She still felt guilty about leaving Jace and taking his bike. The guy who owned the crappy Malibu had been a different story. He was a jerk who cornered girls in bars and groped them without invitation or permission. He deserved to have his shitty car stolen.
But Jace Monroe was something else entirely. He’d been good to her—offered to help. And she knew the loss of the bike would really hurt. It was a beauty, and from the way it had been maintained, she could tell he loved the thing. It was probably irreplaceable to him.
She also felt guilty about taking his stuff. Although, it was hard not to grin a little at the mental picture of him finding out his pants were gone. And it was the only way she could figure out to keep him from following her. To keep him safe.
Maybe Griz could find some way to get all his stuff back to him—some way that couldn’t be traced to either of them. After all this was over.
She eyed his saddlebags. It was so, so tempting to see what was in there. To find out more about him. Yeah, okay, his stuff was private, but she’d never claimed to be a good girl. Not even close. And she had to find out if there was any contact info in there, didn’t she?
She gave in to the devil and opened up his saddlebags. The right side didn’t have much of interest. A couple of changes of clothes, all similar to what he’d been wearing last night. The left side held a worn toiletry bag and a leather-bound journal. She put those aside—she didn’t claim good-girl status, but she drew the line at reading people’s diaries. Another layer of clothes, and…well, damn.
A handgun—a Glock, if Emma remembered her shooting lessons correctly. Also spare ammo and a set of handcuffs with keys.
Well, that gave her a whole new perspective on Jace Monroe. Was he some kind of law enforcement after all? God, she hoped not. The last thing she needed was a pissed-off cop following her, on top of everything else.
She looked through all his pockets and checked the bags again. No badge. So either he was deep undercover, or he was just a biker who liked to handcuff people, and who got into situations where he might have to shoot someone. Which didn’t make her feel much better.
She took another sip of her coffee and eyed the journal again. It might not be a diary—it could be undercover case notes. On the other hand, it might be a list of his gang’s drug contacts. Maybe she should at least find out what she was dealing with here.
She opened the journal. The first page was a list of names. All women—a couple dozen of them. Probably not his drug contacts, then, unless women had recently taken over the underworld in record numbers. Names had been added in different ink at different times, with contact information.
His girlfriends? His booty call list? But he had a cell phone—why didn’t he just keep his contacts in there?
Then she turned the page.
The first girl’s name was at the top, with a full dossier on her. Photos, background information, likes, dislikes, employment history—the whole works.
At the end of it was a scrawled phrase—‘Outcome: terminated.’
What the hell? Was he some kind of hit man? She looked at the handcuffs again. Or a serial killer?
She flipped more pages. He had dossiers on every single one of the women. Dates for ‘contact initiated.’ Detailed notes on their lives. And every last one had been ‘terminated.’
Maybe he was just really, really anal about the girls he dated? She’d thought Alexander Grant was a control freak—it figured that she’d hooked up with a guy even freakier.
She picked up his phone. There was a lot you could tell about a guy from his phone—if, of course, she could even get into it. If he had fingerprint security, she was screwed.
She pushed the ‘home’ button and the lock screen came up. Swipe to unlock, it said.
No way. No password? No unlock code? Not law enforcement, then, and definitely not a hit man or a serial killer. The guy was a security disaster.
Emma swiped the screen and started exploring the phone. He had hardly any contacts. Maybe ten or fifteen that didn’t look like business contacts. Who only had ten friends? None of the women on the list were in there.
In fact, almost all the personal contacts were guys. Maybe the members of his gang—his crew? Nothing to tell what it was they did, though, besides ride motorcycles. During their time together, the subject of his job had never come up. Now she wondered what he did for a living, assuming he wasn’t a serial killer or a hit man. Maybe he was just a drifter, traveling around on his motorcycle and doing odd jobs.
No, he’d said his crew was ‘back home.’
Emma worked her way through the rest of the phone. He had decent taste in music—mostly country, but coming from Nashville, she had no problem with that. He also had some kind of New Age crap with wolves howling in the background. She wrinkled her nose. What with the tats and all, the guy was clearly obsessed with wolves. Probably imagined himself as some kind of alpha.
She was flipping through his video files when the phone started ringing. She jumped and almost dropped it. The ringtone was an ancient Creedence Clearwater Revival song, something about ‘Don’t go out tonight.’
The contact name came up. ‘Rafe.’
On impulse, she hit the green ‘answer’ button. “Hello?”
There was silence on the other end. Then a guy’s voice said, “Uh, Mindy?”
Mindy. The last name in the notebook—the last one Jace had ‘terminated.’
“Yeah, this is Mindy,” she said. “Who’s this?”
“It’s Rafe,” the guy said. His voice was vibrant and sexy, full of life and mischief. He sounded nice, not like the best friend of a serial killer. “I’m Jace’s Second. Is he around? I thought he was coming back today.”
Jace’s second? Second what?
Emma thought fast. “I guess he’s leaving later,” she said. “He’s, um, in the shower. Can I give him a message for you?”
Did Rafe sound like he was expecting Mindy to be terminated? Sh
e couldn’t tell. Maybe if he left a message, she’d figure out what was going on with Jace and his gang and this Mindy.
“In the shower, huh?” He let out a wicked laugh. “Woo hoo! Nailed it!” His voice got fainter as he called to someone on his end of the phone. “Hey Jesse, Jace and Mindy been getting it on! Looks like Amerind was right about there being a disturbance in the Force.” He spoke in Emma’s ear again. “Man, last night musta been epic if our Seer could feel it all the way up here in Idaho.”
Idaho? Emma dropped the phone like it had burned her. No way. Jace couldn’t be from Idaho…
From where the phone lay on the ground, she could hear Rafe’s voice still coming faintly through the speaker. “Mindy? Mindy?” Silence. “Damn. D’you think I scared her off?”
Emma picked up the phone and heard another guy say in the background, “Of course you did, moron. You have the tact of a charging elephant. If Mindy bails and we lose Silverlake because of your loud mouth…”
The call cut off.
Emma stared at the phone, not even trying to figure out all that weirdness about Seers and scaring people off. Instead, she began paging through screens until she got to ‘My info.’
Jace Monroe. PO Box 147. Silverlake, Idaho. She put the town name into Google Maps and tapped the screen. Silverlake was north of Cascade, right next to Hawkeye Mountain.
By tomorrow, she was going to be riding Jace Monroe’s stolen motorcycle right into his home territory. Wearing his biker gear.
Shit.
Chapter 9
It took Jace a couple of calls to the front desk to fix his situation. The motel manager, not even trying to hide his laughter, arranged for someone to go over to the truck stop and pick him up some new jeans and a jacket. Luckily it was a full-service truck stop, with a store that sold everything from clothes to DVDs to hunting rifles.
In the meantime, Darlene—or whatever the hell her real name was—was getting further and further away on his bike. Which, no doubt, was exactly what she’d planned on when she stole his pants in the first place.
Fugitive Mate (Silverlake Shifters Book 1) Page 4
