I lifted the cover of the second file, which was for a man named Finn Barlow. The name meant nothing to me. “Not Jamie?” I asked, referring to the blond, surfer-looking werewolf who’d helped us fight the sandworm, along with Dunn and Mary.
Maven shook her head. “He moved back to Australia last year.”
“So what do you want us to do?” Quinn asked Maven. “Head up to Cheyenne?”
I let the file close and looked up at her. Maven’s eyes went distant for a moment, the only indication she was weighing a difficult problem. “Ordinarily, yes, but we need to move as quickly as possible, and Mary Hollis is still in Boulder.” She glanced at me.
Trying not to squirm, I said, “If they set one werewolf trap, there could be more. I thought it was better to be unpredictable.” And I was damned sure not going to lose Mary too.
Maven nodded. “At any rate, I want Quinn to go up to Cheyenne and assess the situation. Do not attack the werewolves,” she told him, with a note of warning. “But I’d like to know how they’re reacting, what they’re doing. And take a close look at this Barlow.”
She turned her attention to me. “Lex, speak to Mary Hollis. Try to find out if she was involved in Dunn’s death.” She handed me the stack of files. “Then look through the rest of these and see if anything jumps out at you.” She paused just for an instant, and added, “You have silver ammunition for your weapons, right?”
“Yes, but . . . I just can’t see Mary being involved. She was really upset about Matt and Cammie, and even more worried about Dunn. She thinks it was the witches. Or you,” I added.
“Then we have to keep her safe,” Maven concluded. “If this was Barlow, or any of the other wolves, Mary may be a target too.”
Maven told me to get some sleep after I talked to Mary; then Quinn and I were summarily dismissed.
Outside, I wrapped my arms around the files and stalked toward my car like I had blinders on. By the time I unlocked the door and dropped the files on the back seat, Quinn was there, catching my arm. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
I half turned, not meeting his eyes. I was still angry, and there was a chance that I might press him by mistake. Instead, I glared down at his arm until he let go of me. “Is this even our fight?” I said, mimicking his tone.
He gave a little shrug. “It wasn’t personal. I’m in charge of Maven’s security. I need to look at the big picture.”
I blew out a breath. “You’re just so . . . cold. People died. People we could have saved.”
“Werewolves,” he pointed out, still maddeningly calm. “Who live in another state and knew the risks.”
I clenched my fists, conflicted. In a way he was right, and I had no great love of werewolves anyway. I knew, at least intellectually, that I wasn’t responsible for these deaths.
But Ryan Dunn had been a leader looking for his people, and I’d given my word that I would help. Simple as that.
I had no idea how to express any of that to Quinn, though. Instead, I heard myself picking a fight. “You knew the Ventimiglias were going to be at the Dunes last night, didn’t you?”
I couldn’t help but look at him now, but I kept a grip on my magic. He blinked, taking the tiniest step back from me. “Does it matter? Everything would still have happened the same way if you’d known about it in advance.”
“It matters to me.”
“Then yes, I knew. Like I said, I’m in charge of Maven’s security. I needed to be aware in case any of the witches found out.”
“Who else knew?” Maven had always implied she was the only one who knew the details about the weekend passes, but obviously I couldn’t trust that.
“No one. Just Maven and myself.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
A look of slight confusion crossed his face. “Because there was no reason for you to know.”
I threw up my hands. “I’m supposed to be daytime security, aren’t I?”
Now he frowned. This was a lot of facial expressions for Quinn. “Lex. It should have been a completely routine weekend pass. You weren’t involved in the others.”
“Because I thought Maven was handling them herself!”
Understanding flooded his face. “So you’re upset because she told me and not you?”
“No! . . . Yes! I . . . argh!” I turned and slammed the back door, yanking open the driver’s side and climbing in without another word. After I turned the ignition, I felt, rather than saw, Quinn drift away from the car.
I sat there for a minute while the car warmed up, flexing and closing my fingers. I was fuming—and trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me. Quinn and I had had plenty of arguments, but this time I wasn’t even sure what we were fighting about.
I just felt so useless. Dunn had come to me for help, and I’d done exactly jack shit for him. If I’d known the werewolves were coming in advance . . .
No, Quinn was right. It probably wouldn’t have changed anything. I just hated that he was keeping things from me.
But you knew they weren’t telling you everything. It wasn’t Sam’s voice this time, just the taunting of my own subconscious. When I’d made my deal with Maven, pledging my service in exchange for Charlie’s safety and childhood, I’d made it clear that I wouldn’t kill anyone for her, and I wouldn’t hurt any innocents. Since then, I had killed several vampires, either in self-defense or to save someone else, but I had no issues with that.
Quinn, however, had a very different deal with our cardinal vampire. He was bound to her by magic oath, so if she told him to kill someone, he would have to. And he might decide he needed to spare me from knowing about it.
Uncomfortable as it was, I made myself consider the possibility that Quinn might have had something to do with the murders. Maven wasn’t above killing in cold blood, but no matter how I turned it around in my head, I couldn’t see any reason for her to allow three werewolves into Colorado, then kill them—or ask Quinn and me to look into the murders. If Maven had wanted Dunn or the Ventimiglias dead for any reason, she would have done it quietly, and they would have just disappeared.
And I would never have known about it.
That’s what’s bothering you, dummy, came Sam’s voice. Both Quinn and Maven are keeping things from you. You’re not all the way in or all the way out.
“That’s ridiculous,” I said out loud. “Of course I’m all the way in. Look at the things I’ve done in service to Maven.”
There was no answer from my dead sister. Of course. I sighed and turned the key in the ignition, a wave of exhaustion breaking over me. It was time to talk to Mary.
When I finally returned to the cabin, just after midnight, I found Mary fast asleep in the center of the couch with Dopey curled up on her stomach. The rest of the dogs were obviously locked up in the back bedroom again, either by her or my cousin Jake, whom I’d called that morning during the drive to the Dunes. Jake was a veterinarian, and he’d given me the animals to begin with; he didn’t mind stopping by on occasion when I needed help caring for them.
I paused for a moment in the entrance to the living room, looking at the werewolf on my couch. Mary was sprawled out on the center cushion, with one long leg draped up over the back of the couch, and the other flopping over the armrest. She was wearing only a cropped T-shirt and bikini-style black underpants. It seemed like a strange wardrobe choice for a near-stranger’s house, but that was the least of my concerns.
I wanted to let her keep sleeping—hell, I wanted to crawl into my own bed—but I had already put off breaking the news for way too long.
She didn’t stir as I came into the living room and sat down on the coffee table in front of her. Dopey lifted her head to look at me, yawned, and settled back onto her front paws, the tip of her pink tongue sticking out from between her teeth. She gazed at me with perfect contentment from on top of the werewolf, and I wondered for the millionth time how the little dog had gone this long without being picked off by natural selection.
“Mar
y,” I said softly. Neither of them moved.
I tried sitting on the empty corner of the couch next to Mary’s head, resting a hand lightly on her shoulder. “Mary,” I said again, and this time her eyes opened.
She craned her head back to look at me and said bleakly, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
I didn’t ask how she had known. It was probably all over my body language or my scent or something. “Yes. I’m so sorry.”
Mary curled her legs in and sat up, displacing an unoffended Dopey, who hopped down to the floor and trotted off to sniff the bookshelf with great interest. “How?” Mary asked.
I told her about the bridge, and the damage to the Forester’s locking mechanisms. Although I didn’t say the words he was murdered, I could see the understanding break across her face. It was painful to watch.
Given what Maven had told us about werewolves, I sort of expected her to lash out physically, and I tensed my body, ready to spring away. To my utter astonishment, though, Mary collapsed across my lap, curled into herself even tighter, and began to cry.
I patted her shoulder awkwardly, feeling a little ashamed of myself. There was also a part of my brain that thought, Huh. Dogs huddled for comfort, and sought touch as a way of communicating. This was probably a werewolf thing. God, there was still so much I didn’t know about them.
I had no idea what I could say that might help, so I just let her cry for a long time. Eventually, she seemed to be winding down, and I said—partly to break her out of it, and partly because . . . well, I really wanted to know—“Hey, Mary? Why aren’t you wearing pants?”
She sniffed and sat up, pulling up the neck of her T-shirt to wipe her face, exposing a flat, muscled stomach. “I don’t like having anything on my legs if I can help it. It feels too restrictive.” She said it with the practiced tone of someone who’s had to repeat an explanation many times.
“Oh.” When I thought about it, I realized that I’d never seen her wear pants. “Uh, okay.”
“What’s going to happen now?” she asked me.
I didn’t know if she meant with the werewolf pack, or with the overall situation in the Old World, but the answer was the same either way. “I don’t really know,” I admitted. “Can you think of anyone who would want Dunn dead?”
She arched a single eyebrow, as though I was being annoyingly coy. “The witches, of course. They’re still pissed about Trask.”
I blinked. I hadn’t actually gotten that far in my own reasoning. “Was Dunn on Trask’s side during the war?” As far as I knew, Maven had killed Trask and all his lieutenants, but his pack had been enormous. She probably wouldn’t have been able to dispatch every single one of them.
Mary shook her head. “Dunn lived in Oregon until . . . six or eight years ago? Most of the Cheyenne pack is new.”
Which was probably why Maven had wanted to work with them. “What about the Ventimiglias?”
“They moved to Cheyenne after Dunn did.”
Well, there went the witch theory. “I can’t see the Colorado witches coming up with this elaborate murder plot just to get revenge on a werewolf who wasn’t even involved in the previous war,” I pointed out.
Mary scowled at me. “Who else could it be?” she snapped.
Without waiting for an answer, she jumped off the couch, impossibly fluid and graceful, and began pacing back and forth in front of me.
It wasn’t like a human pacing. Earlier, when I’d practically walked a hole in the floor at the coffee shop, I had been moving to get rid of angry energy. Mary’s pacing, on the other hand, was a controlled, anticipatory lope, like a caged predator eager to get out and tear into something. “I thought it might have been Maven,” she said, “but if anything, this makes her look bad, like she’s either incompetent or intentionally deceiving the witches. It could be someone wanting to make Maven look bad, but that leads me back to the witches too.” She stopped and turned to face me, jabbing a finger. “It has to be one of the clans.”
Her reasoning made sense . . . but she was leaving out an entire species of suspects. Very carefully, I said, “I’d be curious to see which of your pack members becomes alpha now.”
Mary actually bared her teeth, and to my surprise, Dopey let out a whimper and scuttled out of the room. Apparently even she had some survival instinct. “Don’t even think about it,” Mary snarled. “A werewolf would never do this.”
“Why not?” I argued. “Someone wanting to be alpha, wanting control of the pack—”
“Would either challenge Dunn or leave the area to start their own pack,” she snapped. Her feet were planted, her hands balled into fists. “Despite what you might think, we’re not savages. There are peaceful ways of gaining power.”
That hadn’t really been my experience, but there was no need to get into that. Before I could answer, I felt my cell phone vibrating in my pocket. I pulled it out, glanced at the screen. Quinn.
When I looked up at Mary, she had crossed her arms over her chest, obviously not going anywhere. And, of course, she had super werewolf hearing. I sighed and answered the phone. “Hi, Quinn. I’m here with Mary.”
A two-second pause, then he said, “Okay. I’m in Cheyenne, and the werewolves are gone.”
Chapter 12
Mary’s eyes widened. “Gone?” I said, confused. “You mean they’re missing?”
“Not exactly. I took a quick look at a couple of their places, and their toiletries are missing, drawers left open. They must have seen the news and decided to make themselves scarce.”
I was watching Mary as Quinn spoke, and I saw a slight relaxing of her shoulders when he mentioned the missing items, like now everything made sense to her. “Let me call you back,” I said to Quinn.
When I put the phone back in my pocket, Mary’s expression was defiant. “Where did they go?” I demanded.
She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. That’s the whole point.”
“The whole point of what?”
“The . . . oh, what’s the word?” She stared at the ceiling for a moment, then snapped her fingers. “Protocol. Dunn set up a protocol years ago, when he first became alpha. If the pack as a whole is threatened by an enemy we can’t see or overpower, we’re supposed to disappear for a few days to give him a chance to either work it out or find us a new territory. It’s like a, what do you call it, a doomsday protocol. One of the other pack members must have activated it.”
“Was it you?”
She shook her head. “I checked in briefly on the phone on the drive back, but only to warn them that Dunn was missing. Someone else must have decided the protocol was necessary.”
“Who?” I asked. “Which pack member has the power to make that call?”
She shrugged. “If you asked me yesterday, I would have said only Ryan or Matt. But now they’re dead, and someone decided that was enough of a threat to warrant the quick disappearance.”
She might have been lying to protect the other werewolves, but I couldn’t tell. And either way, this was getting us nowhere.
I flopped back down onto the couch, and Mary perched on the edge of the chair. We sat there regarding each other for a long moment, until finally I scrubbed my face with my hands and said, “Okay, look. Someone found out about Matt and Cammie’s trip to the Dunes. They used that knowledge to set up a way to kill Ryan Dunn in Maven’s territory. We need to know exactly who knew about the trip.”
“Which of the witches, you mean,” she retorted.
I threw up my hands. “Goddammit, Mary, I’m trying to help you here!”
“Really?” she said sarcastically. “Because you care so much about me and the other werewolves?” She tapped her nose. “I can smell the silver in that gun, you know. I’m not a fucking idiot.”
Crap. The revolver was in a pancake holster at the small of my back. I was so used to having a weapon that I had genuinely forgotten about it, but Mary probably wouldn’t believe that. I sure wouldn’t if I were her.
I made myself pause for a slo
w, deep breath. When I was ready, I said in a quiet voice, “Look, Mary. Dunn was your alpha, and he was in Colorado under my protection.” It hurt to say it out loud again, but I made myself do it. “He got killed on my watch. We both want to find out who killed him, and we both agree it wasn’t my boss. Right?”
She gave me a tight nod, then added, “But you have loyalties to the witch clan, too.”
Was that what this was about? “No,” I said slowly, “I have loyalties to Simon and Lily Pellar. They are my friends. The rest of Clan Pellar hates and fears me.” Vampires knew if someone was telling the truth by how their scent and pulse changed; now I hoped werewolves had similar abilities. “I know you haven’t spent much time with them, but in your gut, do you think Simon or Lily was responsible for this?”
Mary hesitated, but she had to concede. “No.”
“Then, like I said, we want the same thing. But I need to know who in your pack knew about Matt and Cammie’s trip.”
Mary chewed on her lower lip for a long moment, looking at me. “We all did,” she admitted finally, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. “The pack voted on where we wanted to go with the next weekend pass, and we all knew Matt and Cammie would be the scout team.” She shrugged. “The exact date and time wasn’t common knowledge, but anyone could have just asked Cammie and she probably would have told them.” Her face softened. “Cammie wasn’t a suspicious person.”
I nodded. It was my turn to share information. “Quinn and Maven were the only vampires who knew, and neither of them told anyone,” I told her. “Not even me. The witches didn’t know.”
“You think they didn’t, but they could have found out without being told,” she argued. “Someone in a witch clan might have seen the Ventimiglias at a gas station or rest stop. If someone’s been keeping tabs on us, they could have been spotted.”
I sighed. “I suppose you’re right. But that leaves us pretty much where we started.” I needed another way to come at this problem, but aside from figuring out who’d known about the trip and who might have held a grudge against Dunn, I had no idea where to start. Quinn was the former detective. I was just hired muscle who could talk to ghosts.
Boundary Broken (Boundary Magic Book 4) Page 8
