Howlin'

by Allyson James

  “Patrice and I can easily break in,” Alain said.

  Jackson rolled his coyote eyes. “Wolves. No sense of subtlety. You’d break the locks and leave a mess, and the whole town would be in an uproar. Patrice might even be called in to investigate herself.”

  Patrice shook herself. “We can’t sit here wondering if he knows anything about Gina or Alain’s father.”

  Jackson grinned. “That’s why you’re lucky you have a wily coyote with you. I’ll check the house.”

  Before the other two could stop him, he’d crept softly to the porch. He rose as silent as smoke to his human form, then the shadows swallowed him and he was gone.

  Patrice blinked, wondering if she’d seen right. She still wasn’t used to the way he seemed to appear and disappear at will.

  She leaned against Alain, taking comfort in his fur and his breathing. The moon slid out from behind a cloud, and she lifted her face, loving the silver light that filled her with power.

  “Nothing to report,” Jackson said from beside her.

  Patrice jumped and barely stifled her yelp. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

  Alain growled, giving the coyote a put out stare. “What did you find?”

  “One man, fast asleep. Dreaming dreams of the innocent. No woman hiding or being hidden.”

  “The outbuildings then?” Patrice asked.

  Jackson shook his head. “I don’t think so. There’s also a big “sold” sign on the front drive. Could be Mr. Dunstan is long gone.”

  Patrice sat down, frustrated. “I thought it was such a good lead.”

  “It still might be,” Alain said. “It’s a place to start, anyway. Gina Wood and whoever was in that hunter’s blind were here. We can try to pick up the scent and follow it again.”

  “The sleeping man might know something,” Patrice suggested. “I have an easier way to get in and ask him than tearing up his house, though. I, friendly local policewoman, can come up here tomorrow to inquire about a disturbance in the night.”

  “What disturbance?” Alain asked. “If he’s not innocent, he’ll be suspicious if he never heard anything about a disturbance.”

  His words were drowned by a sudden howl. Jackson broke from the cover of the trees and began yipping and howling and yowling.

  “What the hell?” Alain began.

  The nervous cattle on the far side of the pasture started to panic. A light went on in the house.

  Jackson kept on making noise, even as Alain and Patrice ran past him, Alain swearing under his breath.

  Jackson swept past them at a dead run, laughing like a maniac. “There’s your disturbance. This is fun.”

  Behind them, a shot rang out. It went wide, but Patrice yelped and doubled her speed. She cleared the barbed wire fence with a couple of feet to spare and scrambled down into the wash on the other side.

  Jackson and Alain caught up to her, then Alain turned on Jackson and snarled like the dominant wolf he was. Jackson looked back at him with a grin, his tongue lolling. Nothing submissive about Jackson.

  “Coyotes,” Alain muttered as he turned and trotted away.

  * * * * *

  Alain didn’t like Patrice going out to the Dunstan place alone the next day, even with her gun. But Patrice convinced him that she’d get on better if she went in her official capacity, which meant civilians didn’t get to ride along.

  That didn’t stop both Alain and Jackson from lurking around the perimeter of the ranch when she was there. The two of them kept Patrice in sight as she talked to the man on the porch.

  But while their conversation was long, there was no tension in it. They were too far away to be heard, even with werewolf hearing, but Patrice’s and the man’s body language told him the chat was easygoing.

  Patrice finished, gave the man a friendly wave and climbed back into her SUV.

  A little way down the dirt road, Patrice pulled over and opened her door. Alain trotted to her and thrust his head inside, resting it on her thigh to enjoy her scent. Patrice scratched his ears while Jackson morphed to his human form and leaned against the SUV.

  “Dunstan sold the ranch last month and moved out just a few days ago,” she said. “He sold everything—livestock, barn full of hay, equipment. The house itself was empty when this man, Peterson, moved in. He doesn’t have any idea where Dunstan moved.”

  “Dunstan is the key,” Jackson said. “He either has Gina Wood, or he had her, or she’s with him voluntarily. We can keep trying to track her, but not if they left in a car for another state. It’s not like the old days when everyone was on foot. So much easier to chase people down back then.” He sighed.

  “In these new days, we can use a paper trail instead of a scent trail,” Patrice said. “I can try to track him through whatever info we have on his car or his driver’s license, see if he has any kind of record.” She looked at Jackson curiously. “How long have you lived out here, anyway?”

  Jackson smiled. “Oh, since forever.”

  “You can do a simpler kind of tracking while I go through records,” she said, returning his smile.

  “Anything you want.” Jackson leaned into her and Alain scented his desire loud and clear. It made his mate-protection instinct kick in and he morphed back to human before his wolf could attack Jackson.

  Patrice looked back and forth at their naked bodies, pheromones pouring from her. “Well, this is every woman’s fantasy. Or should be.”

  “You are the one with the handcuffs,” Jackson said. “Which I remember you used very nicely yesterday.”

  Patrice blushed. Alain felt a twinge of envy that he wasn’t good at the light banter Patrice and Jackson seemed to do effortlessly. He was more wolf-like, his emotions basic and gut-level.

  Jackson leaned closer to Patrice, his arm stealing around Alain’s waist. “Maybe you’ll have to take us into custody. Maybe search us for concealed weapons.”

  Alain’s cock rose swiftly and steadily. This road wasn’t all that deserted—someone could drive past on the main road any time. For some reason this made him even harder.

  Patrice’s radio crackled, and the voice at the other end started talking about an accident on Highway 179. Patrice shook her head ruefully. “Not practical. I’m on duty.”

  Jackson shrugged. “Later then. What fantastic plan did you have in mind for us tracing Dunstan?”

  Patrice grinned at him as she reached for the radio. “Easy. Ask the neighbors.”

  Chapter Eight

  Patrice assisted at the accident between Sedona and the Village, which fortunately left no one hurt. Many cars were involved—that highway had some of the most beautiful scenery in the country, but was also a narrow, winding, two-lane road. Ogling drivers often paid the price.

  She returned alone to her office, wondering how Jackson and Alain were getting on talking to Dunstan’s neighbors. They hadn’t called and neither of them carried cell phones. Too much of a pain to keep track of when they were on four legs, they’d told her.

  She did look up Geoffrey Dunstan. He drove a big, white pickup and had recently sold his ranch down to the last nail. He’d taken his furniture, which implied he had somewhere to take it to.

  She could find no record in the county database of Dunstan buying another property, but Geoff Dunstan did have a brother, Ben, who owned a house in Jerome. The county records site obligingly coughed up the address and she printed it out, folded it and slid it into her pocket.

  She had other work to do that precluded jumping up and driving out there right then, unfortunately. There was the follow-up report her captain wanted on the altercation between a tourist from New Jersey and the man on whose land he’d been trespassing. The tourist threatened to sue when the local turned a gun on him, but he’d been digging up cacti on the local’s land to transport home to Jersey. The tourist had been astounded that there was such a thing in Arizona as “cactus-napping,” and that it was highly illegal. That one had been tricky.

  Jerome was outside Patrice’s
jurisdiction anyway—she’d have to contact the police there or the Yavapai County sheriff’s office to get any kind of official warrant. Sedona lay just inside the Coconino County line, which meant she’d have to call or drive all the way to Prescott to get Yavapai’s cooperation.

  Easier to sniff around as a wolf. She did leave a message at Alain’s house about what she’d found—he didn’t answer or call her back.

  At about three, her phone rang, and Jackson was on the other end.

  “Hiya, babe.”

  She heard noise behind him—music and men’s voices. “Where are you?”

  “A bar in Cottonwood. The Last Chance. Interesting name.”

  Her senses perked. “Why are you there? What have you found out?”

  “That Dunstan liked to hang out here. So did Alain’s dad. The plot thickens.”

  “Where’s Alain? Is he with you?”

  “He is keeping an eye on Dunstan’s brother’s house. He lives in Jerome, in a house halfway up the mountain.”

  “I know. I looked up the address. How did you find it?”

  “Talking to the neighbors.” She heard laughter in his voice and pictured him, standing there tall and sleek, his liquid dark eyes dancing. “And your phone message helped. I was going to call you back but Alain hightailed it out of there.”

  “I can come out in about half an hour, if all goes well. Have you talked to his brother?”

  “He wasn’t home. I’m here in case either he or Dunstan comes in. The house is too close to neighbors for Alain to go all wolfie, so we might have to wait until dark to investigate.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Terrific.” He lowered his voice. “Looking forward to it.”

  He could make her wet in two seconds flat. Her hand shook as she hung up the phone, her pheromones raging. She’d never in her life have dreamed of falling for two men at the same time—that was something you read about in books you hid from your mother.

  She couldn’t actually get away until after five, though she chafed at the delay. She changed to her civilian clothes and drove her own car west and south toward Cottonwood and Clarkdale, into the sinking sun. She brought her gun and badge and handcuffs.

  Jerome glittered on the side of the nearly sheer mountain west of Clarkdale. Once a mining town, then a ghost town, Jerome was now the home of artists and New Agers—and apparently Geoff Dunstan’s brother.

  Cottonwood lay at the crossroads of the 89A and the 260 that led east to the freeway. It was a workingman’s town, different from the overdeveloped opulence of its neighbor, Sedona. Modern retail stores had sprung up everywhere, but behind them still lay the heart of a small town.

  Patrice found the bar easily enough, on a narrow street not far from the highway. Jackson lounged near the doorway talking to a few men inside like they’d been buddies forever. Jackson had a way of putting people at their ease.

  The men perked up with interest when Patrice walked in. Jackson smiled as he wrapped a firm arm around her waist and led her abruptly out.

  “Alain came down here not half an hour ago,” he said as they went to her car. “He got close enough to scent Gina Wood. I said I’d stay and wait for you.”

  Patrice unlocked the doors. “You two should really get to cell phones.”

  “I spent all those years without them. Can’t teach an old coyote new tricks.”

  “Balls. Why couldn’t Alain scent her right away? We caught the old scent easily enough at the ranch.”

  “Carbon monoxide.” Jackson wrinkled his nose as Patrice started the car and pulled out onto the road. “City smells interfere, chemicals confuse things. Besides, Alain hasn’t been able to shift or get closer to the house. Even in Jerome, I think people would notice a man stripping off his clothes and changing into a wolf.”

  “I see your point.”

  She drove through Cottonwood and into Clarkdale, then took turned off on the switchback road that climbed the mountain. The valley floor fell away, the houses of the towns below lighting for evening.

  Clapboard houses painted yellow, blue and white hung from cliffs above, once the homes of prosperous miners. At the top of the hill, the streets no longer hugged sheer drops, but the switchbacks continued as they wound through the town—there was very little level ground here.

  Jackson directed her down a narrow street that ran behind dark brick buildings. The other side of these buildings, once boarding houses and brothels, housed shops and small cafes. Many shut early in the evening—most tourists descended to Sedona or went over the mountaintop to Prescott for the night.

  The sun had slid behind the hills during their drive. The desert night darkened quickly, twilight lasting only a short time. The stars were out by the time Jackson pointed out the narrow alley that led to three houses close together, plus a fourth house at the very end.

  The last house was nestled between trees, the far side of it overhanging a sheer drop. Deep shadows from cottonwood trees and the cliff above engulfed it in darkness. Patrice couldn’t see Alain.

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t like this,” Jackson said. “He told me he’d wait until we were all together before he went in.”

  “It’s dark now and if Dunstan did kill his father, maybe his wolf wouldn’t let him wait.”

  “In that case, we’d hear some noise. Dunstan screaming, for example.”

  Jackson silently got out of the car. Patrice joined him, peering at the end house. Only one of the other houses seemed to be occupied, or at least only one showed lights. The two closest to Dunstan’s house were quiet and dark.

  “What did they tell you at the bar?” she whispered.

  “That Dunstan and Thomas Dupree drank together a couple of times. But that they weren’t friendly.”

  “What about Gina?”

  “She used to come in with Thomas Dupree, but they haven’t seen her lately. They think she dumped Alain’s dad.”

  Patrice watched the house uneasily for a few minutes. She couldn’t sense Alain in the shadows, and Jackson was right about car exhaust blocking scent. A pickup roared on the switchback above them, its metallic odor drifting down to them.

  “We have to get in there.”

  “Agreed.”

  The wolf in Patrice was snarling and dancing, though she stood quiet still. Instincts told her to shift, to fight, to kill. The moon was rising and she felt its wild pull.

  Control. She remembered Alain’s deep voice directing her to hold the change until she was ready. If she went bounding in without knowing what was going on, she might harm Alain or Gina Wood. Or Dunstan might get away or die before she could question him.

  Patrice the cop needed to make a perpetrator pay for what he’d done, by the book. Patrice the wolf wanted to tear apart anyone who hurt her mate. She had to find the balance between the two or she knew she’d become the beast entirely.

  Jackson put his lips to her ear, in perfect control of himself. “Let’s strip down, honey. We’ll sniff around and see what’s what.”

  In the blackest shadows of the trees, they took off their clothes and piled them on a dry patch of ground. A cat slid around the base of a tree and rubbed itself first around Patrice’s ankles, then around Jackson’s. It purred when it touched Jackson.

  “Why isn’t it terrified?” Patrice asked. “Considering what we are?”

  Jackson’s teeth gleamed in the dark. “It knows I won’t hurt it. Nice kitty.”

  The cat sauntered off, a pale smudge in the darkness.

  Patrice began to shift. Her wolf wanted to burst forth, growling and snarling, but she clenched her hands and held it in. Count to twenty. Shift when I’m ready.

  She steadied her breathing, drawing calm from the still air, the cool smell of mud, the crisp light of the stars. At twenty she let out her breath and changed into the wolf.

  “Very nice,” Jackson said beside her, now a coyote.

  “Let’s find Alain.”

  “Quietly,” Jack
son murmured.

  Patrice picked up her handcuffs and gun in her mouth and followed Coyote to the house. As a wolf Patrice could smell better, despite the distracting car and truck exhaust. She smelled several scents she had at the Circle T ranch, but stronger now. Gina Wood. Geoffrey Dunstan. And over that, the unmistakable scent of Alain, her mate.

  She growled and started to lunge forward, but a mouth closed heavily on her tail, stopping her short.

  “Quietly,” Jackson repeated.

  Patrice drew a breath, trying to smooth her hackles. Her fur felt charged, like any touch would spark.

  They crept to the back of the house. An old-fashioned enclosed porch ran the length of it, the doors closed and locked.

  The windows of the porch were dark but had no curtains or shades. The porch ran almost to the cliff wall on one side and faced the drop on the other, so that someone might sit and enjoy the view. No one could see into this place until they got very close, as Patrice and Jackson were doing.

  Jackson shifted smoothly into a man and peered into the window, cupping his hands around his eyes. Patrice didn’t dare try to shift, so she reared up and put her paws on the sill.

  What she saw made her rage flame.

  Alain lay on the floor of a living room wrapped in a gleaming net, his hands tied behind his back. Patrice could smell the silver in the net, and also in the chain that wound through the ropes that bound his hands. He was naked, the touch of silver probably having forced him back to human form.

  Two men faced him, both holding shotguns. One was Geoffrey Dunstan—she recognized him from seeing him a few times in Sedona. The other must be his brother, Ben.

  “You make me sick,” Dunstan spat. “Werewolves. Worse than animals. At least they act on dumb instinct.”

  “What did you do with Gina Wood?” Alain asked. Patrice was alarmed how faint his voice was.

  “Stupid whore. Wanted to fuck an animal instead of a man who’d be good to her.”

  “Maybe she figured out you were crazy,” Alain said. “She was happy with my dad—why couldn’t you let her be happy?”

  “Because she was a beast whore. But it’s easy to kill a werewolf. A little silver makes them sicker than dogs and their human hearts can’t take it.”