Frost Security: The Complete 5 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  “Sorry,” she said, smiling like it was no big deal. “I forget sometimes what it's like to have people around while working. Most of the time I'm here alone. Sheila, my friend who told me about you guys, has been helping me figure out the books for the gallery, so I've been spoiled with having her around. But working here all alone can get, well, lonely.”

  “Believe me,” I said with a grin, “I understand your pain. I've had to work quite a few stakeouts all by my lonesome. It can be tough.”

  She glanced away. “Well, you should probably get back at it, then. Hate to have your boss come along and get upset or something.”

  I laughed. “I think Peter would be fine with me coming in. But I'll let him know you're concerned about employee performance.”

  Just as she laughed again, the phone began to ring.

  I tensed up and began to look around for the phone.

  “Don't worry,” she said quickly. “It's just the fax. It'll pick up in just a minute.”

  “You still have a fax?” I asked teasingly. “Thought those died out while I was over in Afghanistan.”

  She laughed as she got up and went over to see what was printing. “We get a lot of faxes, actually. Shipping orders from some older customers, that kind of thing. Some of our suppliers even send our invoices that way…” She trailed off as she stared down at the printout from the fax machine.

  “Jessica?” I asked, concerned. “Everything okay?”

  She picked up the page and held, it out and away from her like it was contaminated. A look of horror twisted her face.

  “What is it?” I asked, crossing the room and taking it from her. I looked from the page to her face, and back again.

  The same phrase covered the sheet over and over again in a small, tight, single spaced font.

  LEAVE ENCHANTED ROCK OR ELSE. LEAVE ENCHANTED ROCK OR ELSE.

  As I stared at the screed, more sheets came streaming out of the fax machine. They were sending page after page of this stuff. What kind of psycho did this?

  “I don't even . . .” she began, her lower lip trembling, before bursting into tears.

  On impulse, I pulled her into my chest, her warm, tiny body pressing into mine.

  “Why?” she cried against me. Her body wracked with sobs, her arms wrapping around me and pulling herself tighter. “Why me, Richard?”

  “I can't tell you,” I said, unsure of what else I could offer her as I rubbed her back soothingly. “But I do know we're going to keep you safe, alright? You got me, you got Peter. We'll protect you. Okay? I promise.”

  Slowly, her tears began to dry and the sobs stopped. She pulled back, wiping streaks of makeup from her face. “You promise?”

  “Well,” I said, stepping back from our embrace and smiling down at her, “that's what you're paying us for, right?”

  She laughed and shook her head, looking away from me. “Yeah, I guess I am, aren't I?” She broke away and pulled out a box of tissues from a drawer in her desk. Not caring if I was there or not, she blew her nose.

  God, I realized, even her nose blowing was cute. That was it. I had to get back to my Jeep before I started obsessing over her even more. “You going to be fine in here alone?”

  She sniffled. “Yeah, I think so. I'll probably close up shop early, though, and head home.”

  “Well, you have my number. If you need anything, I'll be right out the front doors. Text, call, whatever. If you decide to leave, just go, I'll be right on your tail.”

  She smirked. “Right on it, huh? Even with my face looking like this?”

  I was so surprised I couldn’t respond right away. I felt my face get warm and looked away. “Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?” Way to go, idiot.

  She looked at me with an awkward smile and gave an equally awkward hand wave. “Sorry, that was, uh, inappropriate.”

  “Don't worry. You're stressed. People do weird things under stress. In the service, I knew one guy who would say the alphabet backwards every time we got into a fire fight. That was inappropriate.”

  She laughed and wiped a stray tear from her eye. “Did he do it with the whole song and everything?”

  It was good to see her laugh again, to smile. I shook my head with a grin as I leaned back against the wall. “No, he couldn't ever get that far. A bullet would whiz past his head and he'd have to start over. Farthest I ever heard him get was O.”

  She giggled, making her whole body shake. “I know I shouldn't be laughing about this.”

  I shrugged. “It’s okay to think some of the war stories are funny. You gotta find something funny when shit's going down, you know?”

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “Yeah, I guess you're right.”

  “But, listen,” I said, jerking a thumb back over my shoulder. “I'm gonna get back out there. I'll make my calls from the Jeep, see if we can't find out something more about this guy.”

  “Okay. I'll probably be leaving here in thirty. That sound good?”

  “Sure, do what you gotta do. I literally have nowhere else to be.” I turned and left, headed back through the gallery. I stopped and stared up at the wolf painting I'd spotted on my way in, letting the colors and strokes clear my head as I took them all in.

  I heard footsteps back in the office, just her walking around, but didn't bother to turn.

  She needed her privacy, and needed to know I was working to keep her safe. I headed out of the gallery, the bell clanging above. I crossed the slow Main Street and climbed back into my old Wrangler.

  Lacy picked up her phone on the third ring. “Whatchu got, furball?” she asked, her pixie-like voice ringing in my ears.

  Lacy Richter was Genevieve’s granddaughter, and probably one of the best computer techs in the High Rockies, if not Colorado. She could tap a line, hack into a voicemail, and find out everything you could about a person in less than a day. She was also an incorrigible brat, and not even old enough to legally drink. Like her grandmother, she knew we were shifters and she just thought it was cool, like we were real life “furries,” whatever the hell that was. If Gen Richter was our den mother, then Lacy was our mascot.

  I rolled my eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that?” I reprimanded in a growl. “How do you know I'm not calling you on speakerphone or something?”

  “How do you think I keep you from calling me on speakerphone, old man?”

  Knowing this would quickly devolve into a skirmish of words I'd never truly win, I chose instead to just grumble and move on. “The boss tell you about what I got going?”

  “Death threats on the hot local girl? Yep.”

  “She's got a name.”

  “Of course she does, fuzzy. Jessica Long, right? What's going on? Time is money here.”

  “You know her silent partner that died? The executor of the estate came by just now. Axelrod left his part of the business to his nephew, Wyatt Axelrod. Need you to look into him.”

  “Think he's the perp?”

  I shrugged as I looked out over the sleepy Main Street. “I don't know, to be honest. But Jessica thinks the calls started right around the time her old partner died. Maybe he wants the business for himself and he's trying to push her out for cheap?”

  “I'll look into it. Anything else?”

  “One other thing. She received a fax, another death threat, just a little while ago. Any chance you could track where it came from?”

  “From here? No, but I can get in there first thing tomorrow and check it out. Depending on what number it came through on, they either used an online service, a cell phone, or the internet.”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Do that first thing, as soon as she opens. That fax looked crazy, and I'd like to figure out who's sending it. And you can do that? Fax from the internet?”

  “I know, right?” she replied, a grin in her voice. “First men turning into wolves, now this! The wonders, they never cease.”

  “Ha. Ha.”

  “Got anything else for me, old man?”


  Sure, I had a hundred questions. Who was this Blake Axelrod guy? Who was making these calls? What was Jessica's biggest goal in life? Did she like Thai food? Why did she feel so perfect when she was in my arms? I shook my head. “No. That's it for me.”

  “Got it. I'll see what I can dig up on Mr. Wyatt here and get back to you. You going to be home or out running around in the woods all night?”

  “Neither,” I responded. “Stakeout tonight at the client's house.”

  She giggled. “Sure,” she said, drawing out the word. “Stakeout.”

  “Oh, grow up.”

  She giggled again. “Got it. S'later, dude.”

  After we hung up, there were still questions nagging at me. Most importantly, though, was the biggest one I had: why was I so drawn to her? It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced.

  Why her? Why Jessica Long, a woman I'd just met?

  Chapter Six – Peter

  Peter leaned back from the desk as he cycled through the Alexa database for news articles on wolves. He and Richard normally switched off, taking turns to do the monthly checks for out-of-place shifters. You never knew when you'd find one that might be a good fit for Frost Security.

  Recently, their efforts had almost entirely tapered off in the last six months when they'd welcomed Matthew Jones into their group. If Peter wanted to keep them all employed, and at a respectable rate of pay, he needed to consider keeping the team at five people. There was only so much work they could rustle up, and he knew it.

  But diversity mattered, both in talent and personality. For instance, it'd be good to have a female shifter around. It would bring a different perspective to the variety of tasks people hired them for.

  This was enough database mining for one day, though, especially with a new client on the books.

  And what a client they'd pulled in. Not only was she a local—it was always good to help people from town and generate goodwill—but she was Richard Murdoch's one true mate. Richard, of course, didn't know it. But Peter knew from the look his father always had as he gazed at his mother, and from the lore they'd told him as a pup. Once a shifter found their partner, they were in it for the long haul.

  Peter remembered that feeling well, and it still tore at him that he'd had to leave his all those years ago. It was like a silver bullet right through his heart every time he thought of Vanessa. But what was he to do? She was gone.

  No, the best thing for him, now, was to focus on his pack and its happiness. If it had taken a cut-rate deal on their services to make sure Jessica Long hired Frost Security for her case, then that was what it had taken. End of story. What was his pack mate's happiness compared to a few more dollars? Now, with Peter's help, the ball was in Richard and Jessica's court. All Peter Frost could do was sit back and wait, and help Richard with the protection detail as much as he could.

  He leaned back in his chair, stretched, and let out a big, growling yawn that seemed to shake the glass walls surrounding him. It was getting late in the day, and his stomach grumbled for another meal. Rubbing his eyes, he closed the web browser and shut off the computer. That was enough database searching for now. If there were any more shifters out in the wild waiting for a friendly tail wag before they joined a pack, they'd still be there tomorrow. He grabbed his sidearm from his desk drawer and stuffed it in his hip holster, then headed out to the front.

  “Calling it a night, Peter?” Gen asked as he stepped out into the waiting area. She was busy at her desk finishing up some last minute paperwork—payroll probably. He could hear Lacy, too, somewhere off in the rear of the office, her music blaring as she worked away at research for Murdoch.

  “Yes, ma'am,” he said, nodding. “Need to catch a quick nap so I can relieve Richard tonight. You leaving soon?”

  “Soon,” she agreed. “Just need to finish up this last little bit of billing for the jobs down in Denver, then I'll be right behind you.”

  He nodded, his stomach grumbling again, catching even Gen's attention. She looked pointedly at him.

  “Don't worry,” he said, raising his hands up in surrender, “I'm going to eat, too.”

  “Not just another burger, I hope.”

  He laughed as he turned to leave. “No, of course not,” he said, pushing open the office door and letting himself out onto the old patio. “Steak,” he called back over his shoulder, just as the door closed.

  Peter took a moment to stand there, looking out over the quickly darkening town. The mountains to the west shaded Enchanted Rock below them, making for an early sunset. Sunlight bathed half the little hamlet in golds and yellows, lighting it up like it was on fire. The other half was painted in muted grays and blues—sad tones, like they'd hired Picasso to design the place.

  The Rock was a good town. A quiet town, a place where he and his pack could run free at night, where they could find work and be left alone when they wished. He didn't regret setting up shop here, or bringing Richard with him. This had been a good choice, a solid one, made even better by the friends they'd made, like Gen and Lacy, and the new pack members they'd managed to recruit.

  But still, worry gnawed at him. Something was coming, and he knew it. He'd smelled it in the wind the other night, while the pack had been returning from their romp in the river. Just a whiff in the air, but still a familiar scent that he remembered from his parents' home back in Pennsylvania. Even though the estate had burned to the ground months before while he was off serving in the SEALs, he could still smell that cloying scent over everything. It had practically seared itself into his memory.

  He sniffed the air again, his human-form senses not nearly as attuned as his wolf's, but still strong. All he could smell, though, was pine and spruce, and the rich, loamy aroma of summer. He smelled the soil fed by dying leaves and needles, plants fed by spring runoff from the snowy mountains, and the smoke from an open grill as some hunter out on the other side of town cooked a venison steak.

  His stomach grumbled again. All these questions about the case and the odd, sinister scent could wait.

  Right now, all he could think about was supper.

  Chapter Seven - Jessica

  “Curious Turtle,” I said into my cell phone, my voice tight as I worried about whether or not it would be another animatronic voice piped through some computer. They'd been calling both the gallery and my cell phone for so long that I'd begun to dread any unknown number. And to think, before all this started I'd thought telemarketers were bad! “How can I help you?”

  “Jessica? It's Richard.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of his voice. Not because it was familiar—the animatronic crazy man was more familiar by now—but because something about him was reassuring. Then my breath caught in my throat again as I realized he wouldn't be calling me unless there was a problem.

  “Everything okay?” I asked uneasily.

  “No, no, everything's fine. Just giving you an update, and I figured it would look strange if I walked back in. Also, I'm calling to see if you've reconsidered the offer on the safe house.”

  “What's the update?”

  “Our people are working on getting information on Wyatt Axelrod, and we should have something tomorrow morning. Also, our IT person will be by early tomorrow to look at your fax machine and see what she can dig up. She's pretty sure she can figure out where it came from, so that gives us a good lead.”

  I nodded, the knot in my stomach unraveling a little.

  “Now, about the safe house. The offer is still open. I'd be much more confident in being able to keep you safe there.”

  “I have dogs, Richard. I can't just abandon them for the night.”

  “No friends who can look in on them?”

  “And not have it look strange when I didn't tell them about my leaving town? Wouldn't that just tip someone off?”

  “Pick them up and head to the house afterwards?”

  “I just want to stay in my own home, tonight, okay? It's just…it's just where I feel safest, alright? Is that t
oo much to ask?”

  He sighed on the other line. “No, I can understand that. Well, wherever you choose to stay, I'll be there.”

  Something about the way he said that last part, that he'd be there, actually filled me with a little confidence, like a balm to soothe my aggravated fight or flight instinct. What person wouldn't feel that way, though, with a tough guy like Richard Murdoch reassuring them over the phone?

  “Heading out soon?” he asked.

  “Just about to grab my purse,” I replied as I went around to my desk and pulled my handbag from the drawer. “Are you going to follow me?”

  “I’ll be a short distance behind. You'll see me, I'm sure, but no one else should. And, remember, I need to be the first one in the house. Wait for me when you get there. If anything seems off, you leave. Okay?”

  I nodded even though he couldn't see me. “Got it. See you soon, then.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” he replied in a clipped voice just before we both hung up. I tucked my phone away in my purse and headed out through the gallery, giving it the once over.

  I didn't know what to think about all this. First the threats, now Blake's nephew coming on the scene? Were the two linked? Richard seemed to think so, but he was an outsider looking in. I shook my head, sighing. Maybe being an outsider gave Richard more perspective than I had? I didn't know. All I knew was, I was scared. Scared and worried. About my future, about my safety.

  I locked up and headed out to my car, glancing around warily. I caught sight of my security blanket in his old, beat-up Jeep Wrangler down the block. I resisted the urge to wave and just climbed into my old red Jetta, started her up, and took off for home.

  I lived on the south side of town, in a little two bedroom cabin I rented. It wasn't anything extravagant, but the view out of the large picture windows was incredible. It was worth the couple hundred extra dollars a month to get such a spectacular view every morning, and it was only a short drive during the summer. Of course during the winter months the trek was longer and moderately dangerous, but that was pretty much how it was for most people from October to April.