Hunting Moon (Decorah Security Series, Book #11): A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel (15 page)

“That’s why you’re so good in the woods.”

“Yeah.”

“It sounds like a good life.”

“Some of it was very good.”

She tipped her head to the side, studying him. “What was the downside?”

“My dad was strict. It was either his way or not at all.”

“You had brothers and sisters?”

He swallowed. “I have a couple of brothers.”

She must have seen something in his face. “You get along with them?”

“We’re not close,” he clipped out. He didn’t say that two other Marshall boys had died when they made the change from boy to wolf—and a sister had been born dead. He didn’t tell her that was what had happened with werewolf families down through the ages. To turn the conversation away from himself, he said, “What about your family?”

“I’m from Pittsburgh. My dad works for the government. My mom’s a housewife. We had a pretty middle-class life. I went to a coop nursery. My mom was a Girl Scout leader. She baked cookies. She decorated my room in classic girl style.”

He nodded, picturing her as a toddler, then a teenager.

“I have one younger sister, Anna,” she went on. “We’re still pretty close. My parents encouraged me to do what I wanted in life. Unfortunately.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Instead of going to college, I studied dance, and I was good at it. That’s how I ended up at the Midnight Club.” She made a snorting sound. “Or maybe getting the job had more to do with my looks than my dancing ability.”

“Your looks are stunning.”

She touched her hair. “I’m a mess.”

He laughed. “You can wash your hair soon. And you know a top New York nightspot wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t good.”

She sighed. “I guess. But I’m not cut out to be a professional dancer. I’d decided I was going back to Pittsburgh to teach at my friend’s dance studio and start college part-time. That will give me a lot more career choices. I should have left before I met Denato.”

“None of what happened is your fault.”

“I should have had the guts to say I wouldn’t go out with him. Does it make sense that I knew my manager would have been angry if I’d said ‘no’? I mean, I saw it as part of my job.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The only good thing about all this is that I met you.”

“I wish we could have done it the easy way.”

“Like how?”

“If I’d come into the Midnight Club, would you have dated me,” he teased.

She tipped her head up and looked at him. “I would have been drawn to you. But maybe I would have been a little frightened, too.”

“Why?”

“You’re pretty intense.”

He tightened his hold on her, cradling her in his arms.

He wished he could simply let her relax after her ordeal, but now that she’d brought up the subject, he knew there were questions he had to ask.

“Do you know what Dr. Son of a Bitch wanted from you?”

He felt her shudder. “He said a couple of things,” she whispered. “In the therapy session, he saw we were going to explore my role in Johnny Denato’s death. But there must be more to it. He had the fake patients waiting at the Refuge before I got there.”

“How do you know?”

“June—one of them—told me. I switched drinks with her at the snack break, and she got loopy.”

“Clever.”

“I keep wondering if Raymond had something to do with Denato’s death, and that’s why the interrogation was all set up.”

“That’s a possibility.”

“He said I was wanted by the police for questioning.”

Brand’s voice rose. “That’s a damn lie. His death didn’t even make the papers.”

“It didn’t?”

“No. Somebody must have cleaned it up.”

She hitched a breath before going on. “I think his saying that was just to scare me into cooperating—so I’d spill some confidential information about Denato.”

“Why?”

“Because I was going out with him.”

“Would Denato confide in a woman he was casually dating?”

“He certainly didn’t confide in me. He was charming but distant. I tried to tell Raymond we had a casual relationship, but I don’t think he believed it—or didn’t want to believe it.” Her gaze turned inward as she thought about the past few days. “I told him I’d only seen the man for a few weeks. He seemed surprised about that—like he thought it was longer. Or somebody told him it was longer.” She raised her face and looked into Brand’s eyes. “Do you believe that?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you wouldn’t lie to me.”

“How do you know?”

“I think there won’t be any lies between us,” he answered, but he wondered what was written on his face.

“Wait. Are you lying to me about something?”

“No,” he said. “But I want to figure out how to tell you some things about myself.”

“Bad things?”

“Things that might frighten you.”

“Oh,” she whispered. “Is that why you’re tense?”

“Yeah. But something you can count on. I would never hurt you. Never.”

She searched his face for a long moment before answering, “Okay.”

The way she said it made him wish they were already past the hard part. But one thing he did know. At least he could give her a better life than werewolves had been able to offer their mates in ages past. His cousin Ross’s wife was a geneticist, and she’d made a big difference in the survival rate of children born to members of his clan.

Before Tory could ask him any more questions he didn’t want to answer, he heard the sound of a motor in the distance, and then Brand’s phone rang. He answered it immediately, relieved to get out of the conversation—at least for the moment.

“Yes?”

“This is Frank. We’re going to land in a clearing about a quarter mile from your location. Can you walk there?”

He glanced at Tory. “No problem with walking a quarter of a mile?”

“I think that’s okay.”

He conveyed the information, then clicked off, suddenly feeling weird about introducing his boss to his lifemate—when she didn’t even know about her new status. He stood with a jerky motion, feeling her eyes on him.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“No,” he answered, pulling the rope taut. After making sure it was secure, he hauled himself up, then reached down for Tory, grasping her hand and pulling her upward.

When she’d reached the upper level, he clasped her to him, stroking her back before turning her loose.

“Okay?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s get out of here.”

As they started off, he kept his arm around her.

When she asked, “What’s wrong?” he knew she could feel the tension gathering inside him.

“I’ve been thinking about what we have to do next, and it’s something you aren’t going to like.”

Tory’s head whipped toward Brand, and the look on her face made his chest tighten painfully.

“I thought I could trust you,” she whispered. Afraid she might be going to run from him, he got ready to follow.

“You can.”

Still looking uncertain, she asked, “Then what are you planning?”

“We have to go back to the sanatorium—while we still have access.”

Her reaction was exactly what he had expected. “No!”

“I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I thought there was some other way to find out Raymond’s motivation.”

“What do you mean?” she demanded, and he was thankful that at least she was listening to him.

“Someone hired Dr. Son of a Bitch to interrogate you. And if we don’t find out who it is, you’re going to remain in danger. Why should they give up because Raymond’s dead? Do you want to spend the rest of your life in hiding? You want to never see your parents or your sister again? And do you want to put them in danger?”

“How?”

“If someone can go after you, he can go after them.”

She went pale, and he could see that he’d gotten through to her.

“I can’t take that chance.”

“Then let’s try to figure out what’s really going on. All right?”

“I guess I have to.”

He clasped her hand, and they started off, following the sound of the rotors. Finally, Brand saw the machine through the trees and picked up his pace.

Three men stood at the edge of the clearing, their shirts flapping in the wind from the rotor. Frank was in the lead, along with Mack Bradley and Cole Marshall, Brand’s cousin. Ben Walker was at the chopper’s controls.

Brand could feel Tory slowing down as they approached, but he kept her moving, watching Frank watch them with a satisfied expression on his face.

“Tory Robinson, this is Frank Decorah, my boss,” he said. “Frank, this is Tory.”

“Nice to meet you,” they both said, shouting above the sound of the helo.

Then Frank added to Brand, “I knew there was some reason you were coming up here.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. Kismet.”

Brand would have liked to explore the comment, but the older man motioned to Cole, who came over. He also opened a channel on his satellite phone so that Ben could hear as well.

“Tory ran into a bit of a problem in New York, and she ended up at a fake sanatorium up here,” Brand said, then gave them the executive summary of what they were doing up here.

Cole winced, then turned to Tory. “Lucky you hooked up with Brand.” He was also giving them a close look, and Brand knew both he and Frank were pretty sure this woman was going to be Brand’s lifemate. Well, he certainly couldn’t talk about that now, especially since he hadn’t explained anything to Tory about werewolf bonding. He knew that she felt close to him. But how was she going to like finding out that her lover was a shape-shifter.

The uncertainty on his face must have given something away.

“What?” Cole asked.

“Personal discussions later,” Brand clipped out. “Right now I think we need to go back to the facility where they were holding Tory and see if we can figure out exactly what was going on.” When he explained his thinking, the others agreed.

“The sooner we get in there and out again, the better,” Ben said, his voice crackling over the phone.

“Can you give us the location?” Ben asked.

Brand provided some rough directions. “I’ll recognize it when we get there,” he said. “Plus it’s the only big structure you’re going to see at the edge of the park.”

“What about your car?” Frank asked.

Brand grimaced. “I’ll have to take care of that later. Someone will need to come up here with four good tires.”

As he escorted Tory to the helo, he gave her an apologetic look. “I’ve got to give Ben directions; do you mind sitting in back with Frank and Cole?”

“That’s okay,” she answered in a small voice. He could tell she didn’t love the idea, but it was probably just one more thing she didn’t like at the moment.

After they were strapped in, Ben took off, and they headed east, toward the edge of the park. He looked down, watching for vehicles on the road, but he saw none heading toward the facility or away. The surviving guards must have made a quick getaway.

When he spotted the compound, he pointed, and Ben circled, then landed just outside the gate, which stood open the way they had left it. They brought along several extra weapons as they exited the helo.

Tory’s pale face and drawn features told him how much she didn’t want to be here.

Still, when they’d all assembled outside the fence, he said, “You can wait out here with Ben, if you want.”

“I don’t want to make you one man short. And I don’t want to cower out here while you go in.”

“Good. Then let’s do it.”

He kept one hand on his gun and his other hand linked with hers as they walked through the gates. If he hadn’t known better, from the look of the place, he might have thought that the building had been abandoned long ago.

“How many people were here?” Frank Decorah asked.

Brand glanced at Tory, but she only shrugged. “You have a better idea than I do.”

I’d say there were eight guards and at least two other staffers in addition to the doctor.”

“And four fake patients,” Tory added.

“What’s a fake patient?” Cole asked.

“Dr. Raymond was pretending that there were four other people here for treatment—two men and two women—in addition to me. But I’m certain all of them were actors pretending to be in treatment. We all had meals together. And we had a group therapy session. He was also trying to convince me I’d been there for weeks, when I’m sure I only arrived a few days ago.” She swallowed hard. “He was also drugging me. But yesterday, I switched orange juice with one of the other women at snack time, so I didn’t get that dose. When I didn’t eat my soup at lunch, he brought it into the office and made me eat some—until I spilled a lot of it on his expensive carpet.”

Cole winced. “Nice.”

“And all to find out something about a guy named Johnny Denato,” Brand said.

“The gangster?” Frank asked.

Brand nodded. He looked at Tory. “Can you tell them something about what happened before you got here?”

She filled them in on her relationship with Denato—ending with his being killed in his apartment.

“Kind of strange that it didn’t make the papers,” Frank said.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Brand answered.

“So it’s not Denato who initiated this elaborate plan,” Brand added. “It’s someone else, and we need to find out who that is.”

“Is the client aware that Tory escaped?” Ben asked.

“We don’t know,” Brand said. “I assume not because Raymond and his men came after us immediately.” Turning to Tory, he asked, “Can you show us the doctor’s office?”

“Yes.”

She started for the door, but Brand put a hand on her arm. “Let us make sure the place is really cleared out.”

“You stay with her,” Cole said. “We’ll search.”

The other men went in, and Tory stood stiffly beside Brand as they fanned out. Cole went upstairs. Ben went to the basement, and Frank took the first floor.

Tory watched him heading for the kitchen. “What’s wrong with his leg?” she asked.

“He lost part of the leg in Vietnam,” Brand answered. “Most people don’t notice.”

“I’m a dancer. I notice how people move.”

“Right.”

“He manages fantastically well, and he looks a lot younger than what his age must be,” she said.

“Yes, we think he’s got some secret fountain of youth.”

“Really?”

“I’m only half kidding.”

They stopped talking as Cole came back. “The basement is empty, except for some holding cells.

Tory’s breath caught. “Holding cells?”

“Nobody’s in them,” Cole answered.

Before he could say more, Frank returned. “No one’s on the first floor. But I can see the staff cleared out in a hurry. The cook must have been in the middle of preparing a meal. He left vegetables and meat on the counter.”

Ben was just coming down the stairs. “People left their stuff up there and cleared out on the double.”

“When the men on the search team who survived came back and gave them the bad news,” Brand clarified.

“It looks like ten rooms up there had been occupied.” Cole said. “Some were doubles.”

“And there’s a nicely furnished bedroom on the first floor that probably belongs to the doctor,” Frank added.

Cole turned to Tory. “You were locked in the room with the cage around the balcony?”

“Yes. Brand found me up there.” She swallowed. “Well, maybe a wolf found me.”

Brand stiffened.

“A wolf?” Cole asked carefully, his gaze swinging from Tory to his cousin and back again.

“Yes. I saw it outside on the grounds.” She turned to Brand. “Did you see it?”

The question hung in the air before he answered.

“Yes.”

The two werewolves exchanged glances, and Brand kept his gaze steady and as neutral as he could manage. He knew Cole was thinking, “You haven’t told her yet.”

He answered with a tight nod.

“What?” Tory asked as she caught the silent exchange between the two men.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Brand clipped out. “Right now we have to search Raymond’s stuff and get out of here. Show me the office.”

She hesitated, her gaze still on him, and he knew she wanted to ask questions. Finally, she turned and walked stiffly down the hall.

“This is where I woke up,” she said as they stepped into the room. It held only a comfortable seating arrangement and small desk.

Not much here,” Brand muttered. Stepping into the hall, he started opening doors and found one that was more of a working office.

“In here,” he called, and Tory joined him.

Ben stayed at the front door. Cole went upstairs where he could watch the road leading to the facility. Frank followed Brand as he walked to the laptop computer on the desk. When he touched a key, the screen sprang to life.

“He figured he was coming right back, and he didn’t turn it off. And nobody on the staff would have dared violate his privacy,” Brand remarked as he began scrolling through the doctor’s directory.

He found an extensive collection of information on Tory and another with employee names and positions. He also found a lot of background on a man named Gary Freemont.

“Does that name mean anything to you?” Brand asked Tory.

“No.”

“I think he’s the client who wanted you brought here.”

Tory stopped pacing and came to stand behind him again. Frank took several steps into the room, looking at Brand expectantly.

“Apparently Freemont had heard about Raymond’s specialty through a satisfied customer.”

“There’s a network of these guys?” Tory asked in a disgusted voice.

“Like any criminal activity,” Frank muttered.

“Freemont came to him offering a lot of money if he could get information from you,” Brand added, scrolling down through the file. “He was initially delighted to hook up with Raymond. But when nothing happened right away, he started getting impatient for results,” Brand said.

“Impatient! I’d only been here for two days,” Tory said. “I mean, trying to convince me it was longer was part of his strategy, but he couldn’t pull the same tricks on Freemont.”

Brand shook his head. “I guess the guy realized he’d made a bad deal.”

“Or maybe he gave Raymond bad information,” Tory murmured.

oOo

“Like what?”

“Raymond thought I’d been in a long-term relationship with Denato. That wasn’t true at all.”

Brand switched to another file. “Raymond did a bunch of research on both Denato and Freemont. It looks like both of them are—or in the case of Denato, were—into a drugs, gambling and sexual slavery.”

Tory sucked in a sharp breath. “Prostitution?”

“Immigrants brought in for the purpose—with no way to escape.”

Tory gagged. “Maybe that’s why Denato never made any moves on me.”

“I’m guessing they had an agreement to divide up the city—but Freemont wanted more.”

“So maybe he’s the one who killed Denato,” Tory said.

Brand nodded.

Tory clenched her fists. “And I was going out with a guy who was thoroughly despicable.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I knew I was afraid of him.”

Brand scrolled rapidly through correspondence.

“Here’s some e-mails where they’re discussing Denato. And from the tone and content of the exchange with the doctor, I’d say that Denato and Freemont were supposed to be business partners—but Freemont thought Denato pulled a fast one on him and stole a lot of their profits.” He scrolled through another e-mail. “Jesus.”