Wolf Untamed

by Paige Tyler

  Bree assumed the room across the hall was a guest bedroom and held out little hope of finding anything there, but when she opened the door and saw the sleek desk and shelves lining the walls, she realized Ken had turned the space into an office. Maybe she might find something after all.

  The computer to one side of her desk caught her attention right away, but when she booted it up, the first thing she saw was the blinking cursor waiting for a password. Not that she hadn’t expected to see it. Everybody had their computers password protected these days. But it was still a pain.

  Bree started searching through the desk, keeping an eye out for a password list at the same time she looked for anything else that might be interesting. Mostly, it was more of the same stuff she’d seen in the bedroom nightstands: notepads and individual pages covered with investment strategies for different clients, potential foreign investments, hedge-fund options, tax-saving schemes. She was starting to think that not only was Ken anal retentive when it came to writing everything down, but he’d lived and breathed for his job and his clients. Which made it hard to understand why he’d suddenly start stealing from them.

  She was seconds away from giving up hope of finding anything to connect him to the thefts when she found the spiral notebook buried among the stuff filling the inbox atop the right side of the desk. Picking it up, she flipped through it. Most of the pages were empty, but when she got to one with a list of Ken’s clients, she stopped cold. Four names were circled in red and three others in blue, and there were dates beside each name. Holy crud, these were the seven people who’d been robbed. This was Ken’s hit list, his plan on who he was going to rob and when.

  Bingo!

  She flipped to the next page and saw detailed descriptions of the valuables belonging to each person and exactly what had been stolen. There were comments on the various security systems in place at each residence and how difficult it would be to circumvent them, along with notes that a thief would need to have certain passwords and combinations to get through some of the systems.

  Thank God Ken had an obsessive habit of writing everything down. This was as good as a confession. Not that the man would ever end up in jail, but she had no doubt she’d find details on where he’d hidden the fortunes he’d stolen. Because a man like Ken would definitely write it down.

  But the words on the next page of the notebook stopped her celebration. The page was almost entirely blank, except for one urgently written sentence he’d underlined.

  Someone is setting me up!!!

  She stared at the words for a long time before slowly flipping to the next page. It was a list of people who had complete and open access to Ken’s client list, including the private information that would have been protected. The list was relatively short—the three partners within the firm, two people from the firm’s IT department, one from the legal branch that handled documentation to the government, three people from the admin section, and all alone at the bottom of the page, another name Bree was intimately familiar with.

  Dave Cowell.

  Circled and underlined.

  She flipped back to the beginning of the notebook, reading it again with fresh eyes. It hadn’t been apparent the first time through, but now she saw it. It was all in the word choice, the way events had been laid out in factual past tense. Ken hadn’t been writing down the details of the clients he planned to steal from. It was the details of his clients who’d already been robbed. Ken wasn’t confessing. He was investigating. Just like she was. Except he was investigating because he was sure someone was trying to make it look like he’d done the crimes.

  And Bree’s instincts were telling her his investigation had ended with him walking into a diner during rush hour and ultimately shooting himself in the head.

  She frowned as she read the part where Ken came to the painful conclusion that Dave was behind the thefts. When the firm hired Dave, Ken had shown him his list of clients so Dave could quickly get up to speed on how things worked at Garrett, Wallace, and Banks. Ken had tried to help him, and Dave had used him. Her ex-husband had stolen millions in jewelry, art, and collectibles, knowing the cops would track it back to the person managing those clients.

  She flipped the pages faster and faster as Ken outlined how he’d started following Dave every time he’d left the office. Ken listed every place Dave went, including dates and times, with comments on who he talked to and what happened. Ken wrote that he assumed one of these outings would lead him to wherever Dave was hiding the stolen goods, or maybe the buyer he was planning to sell the stuff to. Instead, Ken noted a bizarre meeting with a man who willingly gave Dave his car and another in an alley where a woman gave Dave a backpack full of jewelry. Ken was sure they were the items stolen from Garth and Vera Williamson.

  But it was Ken’s description of the nights Dave spent sitting in his car outside her apartment building that made her cringe. Dave had been stalking her for weeks. Thank God she’d gotten the restraining-order paperwork done before coming here.

  With a shudder, she read through several more pages of agonizing details relating to what Dave ate for lunch and who he slept with before finding a whole page dedicated to a meeting Ken was sure would be with either a fence or an accomplice. But instead of sitting down to talk with someone who fit the criminal stereotype, Dave had met with someone with a very familiar face—Ernest Hobbs.

  Sure she’d read wrong, Bree backed up and started again, only to figure out she’d been right the first time. Dave had met with the reporter from the Dallas Daily Star to talk about stealing stuff. This wasn’t a guess on Ken’s part, either. He’d actually been brave enough to move closer and overheard Hobbs giving advice about which bank Dave should hit next.

  Bree’s head was spinning by the time she read the last page of notes, as Ken described following the reporter across town to a self-storage unit near the farmers market before coming home to finish writing up all his notes about what he’d seen. The man’s last line in the book said he’d planned to take everything he’d collected to the police the next morning. Based on the date Ken had written at the top of the page, that next morning was the same day he’d taken her, Brandon, and everyone else hostage at the diner, then committed suicide.

  Getting to her feet, Bree left the room and headed for the door, taking the notebook with her. This was so much bigger than she’d thought. Dave and this damn reporter weren’t merely involved in robberies. She didn’t know how, but something told her they were responsible for Ken’s death, too.

  She dug her phone out of her purse, fumbling to enter her pass code as she reached for the doorknob. She needed to tell Diego about this. Now.

  Bree was so focused on her phone she didn’t see someone standing on the other side of the crime-scene tape until she bumped into them hard enough to bounce off. She opened her mouth to lie about what she’d been doing inside Ken’s apartment only to gasp.

  “Oh crap,” was all she had time to say before a hand reached out and grabbed her.

  Chapter 16

  “She’s still not answering her damn phone,” Diego growled as Hale took a sharp right turn, sliding the SWAT SUV into the parking lot of Bree’s apartment building and slamming on the brake in time to keep them from running up onto the sidewalk in front of the building.

  The truck barely came to a stop before Diego jumped out and ran for the entrance. The drive over had taken forever, even with lights flashing and siren blaring. Or at least it had seemed that way as he’d desperately tried to reach his soul mate on the phone. But the call to her office got him a secretary who said Bree was out on an investigation and every call to her apartment and cell went straight to message.

  While he’d sat there panicking, Trey had been talking to first Gage, then Samantha Mills, telling them everything Hobbs had said. The ME had handled the news that Dave’s blood was to blame for the delirium effect surprisingly well for a medical professional, askin
g intelligent questions without coming out and saying they were lunatics. Diego couldn’t blame her. He was a frigging werewolf who’d fought vampires not too long ago, and he was still having a hard time accepting Dave could turn people into puppets simply by wiping his blood on them.

  “Diego, you need to stay cool!” Hale shouted at him as he charged up the stairs ahead of his pack mates, taking the steps three and four at a time. “We don’t have a clue what we’re walking into.”

  Easy for you to say, Diego thought as he fought to keep his fangs and claws from extending. It’s not your soul mate and beta at risk.

  The mere notion of Bree or Brandon being hurt was almost enough to send his inner wolf spiraling out of control.

  He reached the fourth floor and raced for Bree’s apartment. He could pick up her scent, even out here in the hallway, but because she lived in the building, it was hard to tell yet whether it was an older scent or if she was currently in her apartment.

  Diego slowed to let Trey and Hale catch up, then took a step back, ready to kick the door of her apartment right out of the frame. That was when he realized it was already slightly ajar. His heart dropped into his stomach. He threw a quick look at his pack mates before slowly pushing the door open, his fangs extending as he picked up a trace scent of blood. The only thing that kept him from losing it was the knowledge that the blood didn’t belong to Bree or Brandon. He only prayed it wasn’t Beth’s, either.

  He cautiously moved into the living room, SIG drawn and ready as he surveyed the apartment. His nose confirmed neither Bree nor Brandon were there when someone hurtled out of the hallway from the direction of the bedrooms. There was a flash of silver that could have been a weapon and an angry screech; then the person was on him.

  He cursed, this close to squeezing the trigger before he realized it was Bree’s sister. He barely got his arm up in time to protect himself, relieved despite the pain when the butcher knife plunged into his right forearm instead of his neck. Knocking the blade out of her hand, he dropped his weapon and focused on trying to keep Beth from hurting him without hurting her in return.

  Beth continued to fight, scratching and biting at him as Diego pinned her arms to her sides and held them there. Hale jumped in to help while out of the corner of his eye, Diego saw Trey continue through the apartment, weapon drawn, undoubtedly looking for other threats.

  “How the hell do we stop her?” Hale asked, trying to get a grip on her legs. “It’s like she’s on a bad LSD trip.”

  “I don’t know,” Diego said. “Just keep her from hurting herself.”

  Hale let out a grunt as Beth twisted around and sank her teeth into his forearm. “Who’s going to keep her from hurting us?”

  Diego didn’t have an answer for that, mostly because he was busy avoiding a swinging fist as Beth got an arm loose and attempted to smash him in his face. He’d finally managed to get her arm restrained when Trey hurried back from the bedroom.

  “There’s some kid in one of the rooms playing a video game like a frigging zombie,” he said as he came over to help with Beth. “He won’t stop playing that stupid game no matter what I do.”

  Diego had no doubt it was Kevin. The fact that the kid wouldn’t stop playing threw him for a loop though.

  He was prying Beth away from Hale’s arm when he picked up a strong whiff of the same blood he’d smelled when he pushed the door open. Shit, it was Dave’s blood. It had the same tangy, slightly acrid odor he’d smelled at the salsa club when the jackass had busted his lip. And at the bank when those college kids had tried to rob the place. There’d been blood on the temple of the guy he’d fought. The moment it had rubbed off on Diego’s uniform, whatever hold Dave had on him disappeared.

  As Beth continued to twist and turn in her effort to get away, he caught sight of something red on her neck directly below her ear.

  Blood.

  And it was still wet.

  “Get a towel,” Diego ordered. “Dave’s blood is on her neck, and we need to wipe it off.”

  Hale looked like he wasn’t sure about the logic of leaving him and Trey alone to deal with Beth, but then released his grip on her flailing legs and jumped up. That earned him a kick to the crotch before he could get clear, but he kept going, limping slightly as he ran for the kitchen. He came back a moment later, dropping down beside Diego.

  “Don’t let the blood get on you,” Diego warned, holding Beth’s head still so Hale could wipe it off.

  It was startling watching how fast the change happened. One second Beth was snarling and snapping, the next she relaxed, her body going limp. The moment she saw Diego and his pack mates, her eyes widened, a look of pure terror on her face.

  “Brandon,” she murmured, trying to sit up. “Where’s Brandon? He’s here for Brandon!”

  “He isn’t here.” Diego put his hand on her shoulder, gently keeping her where she was. “Calm down and tell us what happened.”

  Beth looked confused for a moment, frowning like she was trying to remember something. If she was like most of the other people Dave had gotten his blood on, she might not remember anything but a few phantom images that didn’t seem real…if they were lucky.

  “It’s all so blurry,” she said, putting a hand to her head as Diego helped her sit up.

  Beside them, Trey got to his feet, murmuring something about going to check Kevin for Dave’s blood.

  Diego nodded, then waited as patiently as he could while Beth shook her head repeatedly, like she was trying to jar loose a memory. A few moments later, Trey came out of the bedroom guiding Kevin to the couch. The kid seemed out of it, kind of like he had after smoking weed.

  “Dave showed up at the door,” Beth finally said, wincing like it hurt to say the words. “I told him Bree wasn’t home, but he pushed his way in. He said he already had Bree and that he was here for Brandon.”

  Diego’s heart seized in his chest, fear shooting through him as he fought the urge to jump up and run after Dave right then. He couldn’t do that, though, because he had no idea where that asshole psycho had taken them.

  Tears filled Beth’s eyes and rolled down her face. Diego’s sympathetic side wanted to tell her to stop if it hurt too much to talk about, but he couldn’t do that until he knew what had happened to Bree and Brandon.

  “It gets so fuzzy from there,” Beth said, reaching up to wipe the tears from her cheek as more slid down her face. “He grabbed Brandon and I couldn’t do anything to stop him.” She gave them a pained look. “Why couldn’t I stop him?”

  Diego put his hand on her shoulders again, giving them a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “Beth, I need you to focus on what else you heard. Did Dave say where he was going? Where he was taking Bree and Brandon?”

  Beth gazed at him as if she had no idea what he was saying. Then an almost vacant look came across her features and he thought she might pass out.

  “Dave said he was going to be rich and that he was going to leave the country and take Bree and Brandon with him,” she said softly, the words coming out as if she wasn’t sure they were right. “I tried to stand in his way, but he pushed me aside, saying he needed to hurry.”

  “Why did he need to hurry?” Diego asked urgently, having visions of Dave hustling Beth and Brandon on a plane at that very moment. “Are they leaving right now?”

  Beth looked confused again as she shook her head. “I don’t think so. He said he needs to get money first.”

  “Where’s he getting the money from?” Trey asked, moving closer. “Did he say anything that would give us a clue? Or where Bree and Brandon would be while he got the money?”

  Fresh tears rolled down Beth’s face. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  Diego patted her on the shoulder, telling her it would be okay though he knew it wouldn’t. His inner wolf wanted to rip Dave apart.

  “He said he had to be there when it went down,” Kevi
n suddenly said from where he still sat on the couch. “That he couldn’t control so many people unless he was close enough to them.”

  Diego opened his mouth to ask Kevin if he remembered anything else, but Trey’s phone rang, interrupting him.

  Trey took out his cell, putting it to his ear as he walked into the kitchen. Diego was still trying to get Kevin to piece together what he remembered when his pack mate came back in.

  “That was Gage. Someone is trying to rob the Federal Reserve. He wants us there ASAP.”

  Hale looked at Diego. “What’s bigger than the Federal Reserve Bank?”

  “And if Dave needs to be close to control whoever he has doing the job for him, that means he’ll be somewhere nearby.”

  “Along with Bree and Brandon,” Diego said. Picking up his gun from where he’d dropped it earlier, he shoved it in his holster, then got to his feet. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  The building across the street was a mismatched collection of glass and white stone structures of different heights that definitely shouldn’t have worked together, but somehow did. If Bree were the kind of person who was into architecture, she might say the place was beautiful. But she wasn’t, and she sure as heck wouldn’t have been gazing at the place right now if she wasn’t tied to an office chair with nowhere else to look than out the long row of plate-glass windows directly in front of her.

  Bree looked around to either side of her, trying to figure out where she was. It didn’t help much since the only things she could see from her vantage point were a few empty desks, a dusty floor lamp, and another chair similar to the one she was tied to. From what she could piece together, she was in an empty office space, probably on the third or fourth floor based on the view she had out the window.

  She yanked at the clear packing tape wrapped tightly around each wrist, twisting until she thought the stuff was going to cut off the blood flow. It was useless. She’d never break the stuff in a million years. She would have screamed for help, but there was a cloth gag in her mouth. No matter how hard she tried to yell, the sound came out muffled.