That was the end of the call. Selena just looked at Owen, waiting for his reaction.
“I’m not sure what that meant,” he said, “besides the obvious. They’re tightening the strings, and Mrs. Brodheureux is clearly in even more danger than before. Anthony said he would discuss the additional ransom demand with her husband immediately, but he also made it clear that the CAs had no more time to rehearse. We may not be ready tomorrow, but the day after has to be it. We can’t wait any longer.”
“Do you think—” Selena began, then stopped. “What about the rest of it? I don’t know the details of the prior kidnappings, but there seemed to be a deeper message in what that man said, don’t you think? He was warning the RCMP against doing...what? Something impossible?” She had a sinking feeling she knew what it meant, although maybe she was jumping to conclusions.
Owen’s expression was grim and his eyes stared somewhere beyond Selena. “You want my gut reaction? My understanding is that most ransom calls are made directly to the family members. When he said we’re pretending to do the impossible, I think he somehow found out that we asked Alpha Force for help, and despite its covert nature he’s somehow learned about our unit of shapeshifters. The good thing is that he talked about pretense, so he most likely doesn’t know it’s true.”
“That’s what I thought, too.” Selena bent her head to look down at her lap.
“Maybe bringing you Alpha Forcers in was a huge mistake.” Owen’s voice was low despite how brutal his words were.
“No, just the opposite,” Selena countered, standing abruptly. “Don’t you see? The kidnappers are worried about what you Mounties are doing. Maybe they don’t buy in to the idea that you’ve gotten shapeshifters involved to save their kidnap victim this time, but they know you’re doing something. Something that’ll end their reign of terror once and for all. And they’re worried. Damned worried!”
She realized she was glaring angrily at him, even as Lupe rose and stood beside her, hackles raised as if she attempted to assess whether she should attack.
Selena felt like kneeling and hugging her wonderful, empathetic cover dog, but she wasn’t about to move or back down or do anything until Owen recanted what he had said.
No matter how things did or didn’t work out for them, Alpha Force was involved now—and so was his troop of newly recruited shapeshifters.
The possibility of complete surprise against the kidnappers might not be feasible any longer. But shifters could still do one heck of a lot more than regular humans to conduct reconnaissance of the suspected location...and then even to assist in the rescue.
Instead of snapping back or once more attempting to discredit Alpha Force, Owen smiled. It was a dubious smile, but he apparently chose not to continue the argument.
“You’re right, of course,” he said. “I apologize. But I certainly wasn’t expecting to lose the element of surprise when my CAs approached our suspected site. Now they’ll need to be extra careful. But they will succeed. They have to. And despite what I said before, they’ll have you, and the other members of Alpha Force, to thank for it.”
Selena stepped toward him, intending to give him a quick hug to reassure him that his assumption of success would come true. But in moments, she was in a full embrace once more and his lips were on hers.
The kiss reassured her that Owen was upset and concerned, but he wasn’t refuting what his unit could do. Nor what hers had taught them.
Even more, it reassured her that, anger and worry be damned, Owen wasn’t blaming her...and that he still wanted her.
A noise sounded from the front of the house, and at the same time Lupe stood and ran in that direction.
Selena quickly pulled away from Owen. “Who’s here?” she asked him.
* * *
Owen guessed correctly, partly because it was too early for the CAs to return from their reconnaissance exercise. The people who had just entered the meeting house through the front door were Sal and those who had gone along to help him, Patrick and Jonas.
Sal was still pale, but he was walking on his own—a good sign.
“Are you okay?” Selena had hurried past Owen and the others to join Sal in the entryway, her hand on his arm below the short sleeve of his black T-shirt. The strain on his face made him look older.
“I’m fine,” he managed to answer, “but I think it’ll still be a while before the idea of food sounds good to me. Is Yvanne here yet?”
“No,” Owen said, trading glances with Patrick.
“It’s okay,” the senior Alpha Force officer said. “Sal wasn’t in any condition to contact his sister at first, but I promised I would if... Well, he improved very quickly, so I let him be the one to call her.”
“She was worried,” Sal elaborated, “but I told her when we were on our way back here and said she could come and see me.”
“That’s fine.” Selena sent Owen a look that told him to drop the subject. “Why don’t you come here, into the living room?” She held on to Sal’s arm, and Jonas took his other one. The aide was also dressed in black, since he was initially supposed to have remained on the mountain as the CAs did their practice recon.
Owen watched them go but stayed back, glad that Patrick did, too. “Is he really okay?”
“He is now.” The shapeshifting doctor looked worried, though. His pale brown eyes were narrowed, and Owen half expected him to growl like the wolf he changed into.
“Any idea yet what happened to him?”
“I want to hear, too.” Selena had returned to the entry area. Owen looked at her. Her hands were on her hips, and she appeared ready to argue if either man suggested she didn’t need to hear whatever Patrick was about to say.
Owen, for one, wasn’t about to tell her to leave. To the contrary, he believed she should know everything that was going on. Analyzing and conveying to others what they, too, needed to know was her job.
“Fine,” Patrick said. “Let’s go out on the porch. Everyone will need to hear this eventually, but I want to get them together and observe their reactions.”
“Why?” Selena’s tone had the same edge that Owen figured his would have if he’d asked the same question.
Patrick didn’t respond directly. Instead, he turned the latch and opened the front door, then motioned for the two of them to go outside. Selena went first and Owen followed, not wanting her to be out there alone even for a few seconds—not until he knew what was going on and, if necessary, could protect her from it.
Twilight now darkened the sky. The wooden porch was largely in shadow, and so was the open area in front of the two houses, but Owen did not return inside to turn on the light. He’d do it later so the CAs did not need to return in darkness. For right now, though, shadows were just fine.
“Okay, what’s going on?” He approached Patrick, who had taken a position in what might be the deepest shadow on the porch near the closed and draped window into the living room. Or maybe he was just listening to what was happening inside. Owen heard voices but could not make them out.
Shapeshifters probably could, even while still looking human.
“Actually, it’s too soon to tell.” Patrick’s expression was ironic and, if Owen read it right, rather frustrated, too.
“Then what do you think?” Selena sounded as impatient as Owen felt.
They all stood there in the growing darkness, which made Owen think of eeriness and midnight and all the stuff kids were taught about things that were supposedly paranormal—like shapeshifters. If he wasn’t a trained police officer, he might even feel nervous. Instead, he felt protective. Of Selena.
How weird, under the circumstances, was that?
“Well, we did take Sal to that urgent-care clinic near Tim’s former home, where there are clearly shapeshifters living. After a bit of careful discussion on both sides, as well as dropping the names of Tim’s family, the doctors there admitted to being shapeshifters, too. We didn’t get into details like why we were in the area or what we were doing,
but we did ask, and receive, access to the clinic’s laboratory. I didn’t want them to do any analysis on the elixir since its contents were none of their business, but I wanted a shot at figuring out if anything was actually wrong with that vial.”
“And was there?” Owen asked.
“I brought it back with us since we’ll need to get a more thorough and trustworthy analysis back at Ft. Lukman,” Patrick said, “but our initial thought after a preliminary testing was that it was no wonder Sal had become ill.”
“Why?” demanded Selena. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
“Have you ever heard of ipecac?” Patrick asked.
“I think so,” Owen responded. “Isn’t it something that’s supposed to make people throw up if they’ve swallowed poison?”
“Did Sal swallow poison?” Selena demanded. “Did the doctors at that clinic want to give him ipecac?”
“The stuff has been somewhat discredited over the years as being potentially more dangerous than what it’s supposed to help cure,” Patrick responded. “But our initial thought, Jonas’s and mine, was that somehow ipecac had been added to the vial of elixir.”
* * *
Ipecac? Selena hadn’t really known anything about it before, but now she’d learned a little—how it had slightly discolored the blameworthy bottle of elixir with a hint of pink and how it smelled somewhat bitter.
She still wasn’t certain how dangerous the stuff was, although she figured that the higher the dosage, the more damage it could do. Fortunately, there hadn’t appeared to be much in the elixir.
Selena was particularly glad that Sal apparently would be fine.
She hoped Patrick would keep her informed as he learned more. In fact, it wouldn’t hurt to ask now since Owen, too, would need to know. It was his subordinate who had been affected. Besides, he might need some reassurances that the elixir worked fine and was a good thing—nearly all the time.
Selena only hoped that remained true and that nothing like this ever happened again. Not to the CAs and not to Alpha Force.
“When do you think you’ll know for sure if it was ipecac?” she asked Patrick, wishing she could see his expression better in the growing darkness. She’d trained with him some back at Ft. Lukman and had always found him to be a kind and courteous man and superior officer. But his tone of voice now had suggested he was holding back a whole lot of anger—unsurprising, of course.
“This isn’t something we have facilities to deal with here,” he said, “nor will we want to ship it and let it out of our control. We’ll keep the vial refrigerated for now and take it back to Ft. Lukman when we head there.”
“Have you told Major Connell about it?” Selena was certain that the officer in charge of Alpha Force would want to know all about the tainting of the elixir— especially since he was the one who had been in charge of its development.
“I called him, of course. He’s having the rest of the elixir at Ft. Lukman checked to make sure it’s all okay and telling all Alpha Force members out on assignment about it, too. But none of us believe we took it from the post that way when we headed here.”
“Then how do you think it got tainted?” Owen asked. A sliver of light shone near Owen from between the curtains inside the living room window, allowing Selena to see his face. He, too, looked grim. And so he should. Sal could potentially have died. The kidnapped hostage, too, if the mission failed because of treachery.
Selena fought the urge to hug Owen in sympathy and understanding. It would have been inappropriate with Patrick standing beside them.
“We don’t know,” Patrick countered, almost as if he felt Owen was accusing him. Or maybe he really was feeling defensive, defending not only the elixir, but also himself—and Alpha Force. “We will find out, though,” he said. “You can count on that.”
“Right.” Owen’s tone didn’t divulge whether he was genuinely agreeing or full of irony. Not that it mattered.
Selena decided this might be the time to change the subject or suggest they go inside to check on Sal. But before she said anything, lights suddenly appeared along the driveway.
A car was approaching.
Should they head inside and wait to see who it was? That might be the best defensive move. But because neither man moved, she didn’t, either.
The car appeared, not one she had seen before. The light-colored sedan parked right in front of them.
In a moment, two familiar women exited the vehicle—Yvanne and Craig’s girlfriend, Holly.
Sal had been permitted to call his sister and keep her updated about his condition. But who had contacted Holly?
Even if Yvanne knew that her brother was a CA, and what the CAs were about, Selena didn’t think that Holly was supposed to know any more than that her guy was a shapeshifter.
When were the CAs due back here? What form would they be in? Would Holly still be here?
The day had already proved to be interesting. She had a feeling the evening was about to get even more so.
Chapter 18
“Where is Sal? Is he really okay?”
Even in the dim light, Selena could see the panic on Yvanne’s face. Her pale brown eyes glowed as they looked from Patrick to Owen to Selena, stopping on her as if the woman sensed that she was an ally.
“He’s inside, back from seeing a doctor with...appropriate credentials.” Selena glanced toward Holly as she said that. Craig’s girlfriend might know that he was a shifter, but none of the CAs was supposed to talk about the new RCMP team or what its characteristics were. Holly might not know that most of the people here were also shifters. Then again, she might. The main thing was that she wasn’t supposed to know the reason they were here.
If she only knew her boyfriend was a shifter, though, Selena wasn’t going to be the one to broaden her knowledge.
“That’s what he said, but is it true?” Without waiting for an answer, Yvanne headed inside, followed by Patrick.
“Is Craig in there?” Holly demanded. “Is he okay?”
Selena took a moment to consider how to answer—clearly “no” to question one and “we hope so” to question two. But Owen took that task away from her.
“He’s not here. He had an errand to take care of and isn’t back yet. I’m sure he’s fine.” Owen’s tone was clearly intended to soothe Holly, and Selena admired him for his kind attitude.
“When will he get back?” Holly persisted. She looked different when not hanging on to Craig. Her large blue eyes seemed accusatory, despite the concern demonstrated by the way she gnawed her full, lipstick-covered bottom lip.
“Possibly not for another hour or so.”
Was it getting that late already, or was Owen just trying to keep Holly calm? As far as Selena knew, the CAs were not supposed to end their dress rehearsal until the sky had been dark for at least a couple of hours.
That was because it wouldn’t be clear how long they would need to scope out the genuine target area, so they needed to practice all possibilities now. Especially now, since their exercise today would be repeated as reality the day after tomorrow.
The shifted CAs, believing they had another day or two beyond that, wouldn’t yet know of that urgency unless they were in the presence of the aides. Owen might have informed Patrick and the aides, though, about the change of circumstances, triggered by that kidnapper’s phone call.
Given a choice, Selena would tell Holly to wait for Craig at the hotel where they were both staying—most likely in the same room at times, she figured, despite what Owen and others had been told. But she didn’t want to spark any bad reaction from Holly. Even so, she didn’t feel comfortable inviting her inside.
Once again Owen handled the situation, and Selena appreciated that about him.
That wasn’t all she appreciated about him. Even out here in the dimness, she could see his muscular physique silhouetted against the light. She wistfully thought about the last time they had been alone and kissed and made love.
When would they be alone
like that again? Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
Selena shrugged aside her sadness, making sure to paste an interested, unemotional expression on her face.
“Why don’t you come inside for a while?” Owen said to Holly. “I can’t guarantee when Craig will be back, but you can wait with us for now, although you’ll need to leave if we decide to go back to town to wait for him.”
That wasn’t going to happen, but Selena was glad Owen had left the door open to a way to eject Holly from the area.
Selena let Owen lead the way, ushering Holly inside first, and then she followed.
Selena heard voices as they passed the living room, down the hall from the dining room.
Sal sat at the table with his sister beside him. She was asking questions about what had happened, and he seemed to be responding cagily.
Yes, he had drunk something he shouldn’t have and had reacted to it badly. Yes, one of the other people he’d been vacationing here with—Tim—was from a nearby town, so they’d figured out where Sal could get appropriate care.
Never mind that Tim had shifted and been unable to speak and give directions when Sal had become ill. Sal didn’t get into any details about how things had worked out.
Patrick and Jonas were around the table now, too.
“Let’s sit down,” Owen said to Holly. He pulled his phone from his pocket, and Selena figured he was looking for messages or checking the time or both. “Anyone hungry?”
They decided on take-out Chinese, and Patrick asked Jonas to go to town to pick it up.
While they waited, everyone sat around the table and talked, mostly in groups of two or three. Selena wound up talking to Holly, which wasn’t exactly her choice. She had to be careful what she said but kept the subject neutral, on how much she was enjoying this visit.
“Me, too,” Holly said. “Of course, I always enjoy myself when I’m with Craig. He’s why I came here.” As if Selena didn’t know that. “He’s so special, you know.” Selena knew that, too—but she wasn’t sure if Holly was referring to Craig’s shapeshifting abilities.
Canadian Wolf (Paranormal Nocturne Romance) Page 16
