Wolf Watch (The Madison Wolves Book 8) (17 page)

The rest of the weekend was very pleasant. There was more kayaking and more fishing, and the wagers continued to flow back and forth, but they were relatively tame and designed to be fun.

Sunday dawned cloudy with storms expected in the afternoon, so we left earlier, arriving home shortly
before noon. After landing, Lara pulled me aside and told me, "Take her home, then you're needed back here."

"All right."

I didn't ask if I was going to be upset -- I wasn't sure I could hide it from Zoe.

"Don't burn bridges," Lara added.

"Right."

In the car, Zoe leaned back against the headrest.

"Well."

"Well."

"Did they like me?"

"They threw you in the shower, didn't they?"

She laughed. "Only two of them. You got the other five."

"I'm bigger."

We drove quietly, both of us perhaps a little emotionally exhausted from the weekend. As I parked, she said, "Elisabeth, I had an amazing time."

"I'm not dropping you at the curb, Zoe. I'll help you in."

"I guess I knew that, but I'm going to say this here. And unless you're about to tell me you don't want to see me again, you'll hear what I have to say."

I smiled and nodded.

"I had an amazing weekend. I haven't entirely figured out how I feel about you, but I hope you want to keep seeing me." She paused for a moment. "But I'm not inviting you to stay this afternoon. I'm going to take a shower and then collapse. I am completely wiped out."

I nodded.

"Now, I am going to ask you flat out. Do you want to continue to see me?"

"Yes," I said.

"All right. Good. When?"

"Let's talk tonight," I replied. "Before bed."

She smiled, then frowned. "Elisabeth, I won't be impressed if you're unable to dump me in person."

"That is not my plan," I replied. "My turn?"

"Sure."

"I had a wonderful time this weekend, too. I haven't figured out all of my emotions, either. To be honest, you aren't what I would have described as my dream date. And yet, I haven't had a time with anyone else like I've had with you. I wonder if my ideas of a dream date have been flawed."

She smiled. "I can handle that."

"There is something that is very important to me: trust. I need to know I can trust you. I can't let you too close, because you'll start to see things that could be used against people who matter to me. Do you understand?"

She lowered her eyes and nodded.

"So this all might take time."

She nodded again. "Thank you for being up front. So we'll talk tonight, and right now, we both want to let this continue."

"Right," I said.

"Now you can walk me in and search my apartment."

I did just that.

* * * *

The lengthy goodbye kiss buoyed my spirits for a while, but I wasn't even halfway home before I began to fret. It sounded like Lara knew something, and I wasn't going to like it.

I really couldn't decide how I felt about Zoe. She was human. She'd never be my physical equal; the difference between her and me was far, far greater than the distance between Lara and Michaela. And I knew they had difficulties due to the physical differences, as capable as the fox was.

I still remember several times where Lara's insane responses to Michaela had resulted in the fox getting hurt. If I lost my mind as badly as Lara did, I could end up hurting Zoe, and she wouldn't heal the way Michaela could.

We were just so... opposite.

I didn't know what her status would be, either, assuming she came clean about what she knew, and Lara decided to let us trust her. I wasn't sure that I was ready to hitch my wagon to someone who might be considered a second-class member of the pack. She wouldn't be the first non-wolf in the pack, but I only had three relationships to compare against: Lara's with Michaela, Michele Lassiter, and June with Benny. Michaela was unique, as was her position in the pack. Michele Lassiter was a force unto herself and deeply respected.

I didn't know what position Zoe could hold, what respect she might command. I didn't know how I felt about that. And I didn't know whether I would want a mate who couldn't run with me.

Not to mention a vegan. Seriously? I was dating a vegan?

But she was damned sexy, and the sounds she made when we made love drove me insane for her.

God, I needed her to come clean. But if she ever found out we had invaded her privacy as badly as we
had, would she forgive us?

I didn't know.

Could I expect her to tell me everything, but not tell her what we had done? And if I told her, would she grow so angry, any trust was shattered, and she'd break any promises she had made to me?

I didn't know.

I went around and around and around, and I knew I didn't have all the facts.

As I approached home, I pulled out my phone. "Where are we meeting?"

"Conference room," Lara said. "How soon?"

"Ten minutes. How bad is it?"

"Manageable, so far," she said. "Wait until you get here for details."

"Right," I said, and we clicked off.

But by the time I made it to the conference room, I was half of a wreck. It wasn't relieved when Michaela looked at me gently and handed me a beer. I stared at it.

"It's not that bad," she said. "But it's not good."

"Damn it." I opened the beer and took a slug. Then I moved to the table.

We had, well, almost everyone. Greg had sent two technicians to us, Gabe and Kurt. We'd worked with Kurt before, and Karen and Gia knew both of them. Lara, Michaela, and Gia were there along with the enforcers from the weekend. And it appeared Scarlett was promoted to temporary enforcer, as she was also in attendance.

I was happy to have her there. She had a good head on her shoulders. I gave a passing thought to elevating her to a permanent, part-time enforcer. She was already acting like one. Making it official would give her status if she needed it, and it would be easier to bring her in when we needed her. But that was a question for another day.

"Sit there," Lara said, indicating a seat. I sat, and then she sat on one side
of me, Gia on the other. "The good news first."

"There is absolutely no indication this information has been shared," said Kurt. "We have been through her mail and her browser history. She uses both Safari and Firefox, but if she knows how to clean her history or cache, she hasn't
done so in months. It is possible but unlikely that she has uploaded this information somewhere else, and she has a great deal of removable media in her apartment. We went through everything she had that's big enough to hold what we found, and we didn't find copies, but it's possible she has some buried somewhere."

I nodded.

"That's the good news," Lara said. "There's no sign of spread. That doesn't mean there hasn't been any, but if there has been, we haven't found it. Now the bad news."

Without a word, Gia opened her computer, bypassed the security, then turned it towards me. She hit one button, and a video began.

The scene was in the woods, and the view was fixed, as if this were security footage. I didn't immediately recognize the scene.

A wolf appeared. Gia froze the screen, and I stared.

Zoe had video of me as a wolf.

"Fuck."

Lara put her hand on my arm, not saying anything. Gia then continued the video.

The wolf on the screen
moved into view and then right back out. Then there was a flicker, and there was a new scene. This was from a different angle. The wolf moved into view then stopped, turned around twice, then flowed to human.

"Fuck!" I screamed. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

I lay awake. Elisabeth had sounded strained on the phone. When I'd asked about it, all she could say was, "Work stress."

I almost told her I was falling in love. I didn't think she was ready to hear it. I wasn't sure I was ready to say it.

I'd had an amazing weekend. I had really, really liked Elisabeth's family and friends. They were all wonderful, and they had treated me well.

Were they all werewolves?

Elisabeth had as much as told me they were, except Michaela. No, Michaela married into the family, and it sounded like there was some stress from it.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know if I was safe with her. What if she bit me while we were making love? What if she turned into some wild beast as a
wolf? She'd stood under the full moon with me, and I'd seen no sign of her turning beastly.

Clearly some of the mythology was wrong.

It was clear that she was struggling with her nature. When she said she was afraid of letting me get too close until she knew she could trust me, it was clear to me she was talking about the lycanthropy.

I wondered if that was why we stayed in Bayfield while everyone else stayed at the lodge. Had they all turned into wolves after we left? Or was that really just to give us a little privacy. I wasn't sure I believed the privacy story, not after the Friday morning wakeup. I wasn't sure they had the concept of privacy amongst themselves.

They'd been exceedingly casual with our nudity. We hadn't gotten a hard time about anything except sleeping in late. And Elisabeth had been casual with her own nudity with me.

No, I didn't think that sort of privacy was anyone's top concern.

What was with all the showers? Did I smell that bad. I imagined her sense of smell was better than mine, at least as a wolf. What about as human? Was she human? If not, what should I call her?

I had a lot of questions and very few answers.

It took a long time to get to sleep Sunday night.

* * * *

I slept poorly Sunday night and woke with disquietude. I spent the morning going through the photos from the weekend, trying to shake the mood. But the photos only reminded me of Elisabeth. About eleven, I sent her a text.

"Missing you."

I received a reply a few minutes later. "In meetings." That didn't help, but twenty minutes later, "Me, too" arrived, and that helped, a little anyway.

I hoped she would call me, but when I didn't hear from her by late afternoon, I sent, "Any chance I could hear your voice?"

"On duty until late," was the reply. "I'll call if I get a chance, but I need to focus. Sorry."

Well, she had a job, and it was important.

I thought about that for a while. I knew I didn't have the entire story about, well, anything. But I thought about Michaela being kidnapped. I was pretty sure it wasn't by a business competitor or someone angry with Lara's business practices. Was the petite woman some sort of prize caught in the middle of a werewolf tug of war? Elisabeth had said Michaela resented her protection detail. Was it protection, or was she some sort of prisoner?

I thought about Portia and Karen's story, about Karen being hired to prevent a businessman's daughter from running away. I wondered if Michaela's protection detail served the same purpose.

She hadn't acted like a prisoner. She had acted like she owned the place. And her affection for Lara and the others was clear.

Why was everyone else so big, but Michaela was so small?

Lara doted on her, and I could tell Elisabeth loved her, too. The affection from several of the others was clear, especially Angel and Scarlett. All of them had taken orders from her, even Lara, although it had felt like Lara held the real power. Were they just humoring her?

But it was clear that Bayfield had been her home, and it seemed like they were bending their lives to her wishes.

I didn't understand.

Was it exactly as it seemed? Michaela was Lara's willing, exuberant wife? That was the simplest answer, but it still seemed like I was missing something important.

Everyone had repeatedly used the word "clan". But they had hesitated over the word before using it, nearly every time. Were they dancing around a different word they normally used?

Like "pack"?

I was sure of that.

Michaela had been estranged from Lara for a while and had gone somewhere else. She'd acted as a bodyguard. She was tiny. How could she possibly have been a bodyguard, especially for someone famous like Suzette? Was it just a story? Everyone had acted like they believed her, but maybe it was just a story. Lara had said the stories they told were occasionally fabrications.

Well, that might be something I could check. I fired up the web browser and began doing searches on Suzette. There were thousands of hits, thousands and thousands. But Michaela had said something... They'd gone to Washington DC. Something about a baby picture.

So I searched for Suzette, Washington, and baby. And I found references to a Facebook post. It took a while, but finally I was staring at a picture. "Suzette holding Daphne at the Vietnam War Memorial. We weren't sure it was her, as there weren't any obvious bodyguards with her, just another woman."

I was sure that other women had been Michaela, although there weren't any photos of her.

My phone rang. It was Elisabeth!

"Hi!" I said.

"I just have a minute or two," she said. "What are you doing?"

"Honestly?"

"Always."

"It's a little embarrassing."

"Just tell me."

"I'm looking up Suzette on the web."

"Why is that embarrassing?"

"Michaela's story," I said. "I found a photo of Suzette with a baby. I was curious. Is that dumb?"

"No." Elisabeth paused. "Zoe, she was offering you a great deal of trust telling that story in front of you. You can't ever tell anyone."

"I think on some level I knew that," I replied. "Although I hadn't actually thought about it. Elisabeth, how could Michaela be a bodyguard?"

"She wasn't the only one. In a way, she was sort of a beard."

"What do you mean?"

"No bodyguard in sight, just this tiny woman. That can't possibly be a major star like Suzette. You see?"

"Sure."

"That being said, Michaela could kick the ass of most black belts."

"Shit. Seriously?"

"Oh yeah. She's small, but she's very, very fast. And all that kayaking has given her tiny body some pretty impressive muscles. She's very strong for her size. She and I spar."

"What?"

"She's fragile, and I have to be careful, but she's faster than I am. Hand-to-hand, she can't really hurt me, but if she has a weapon, she does a whole lot better."

"Guns, the great field leveler?"

"She prefers knives."

"I-" I thought about it. "How much is 'a whole lot better', Elisabeth?"

"She beats me, Zoe. Not every time, but more than her fair share. It's actually rather embarrassing."

"Oh shit," I said. I was using that word a lot lately. I needed to find a better expression.

"We don't talk about this outside the clan, Zoe."

"Of course," I replied. "Thank you for trusting me, Elisabeth. It means a lot to me. I know we just spent the weekend together, but I really would like to see you."

"I'm sorry," she said. "Not today. You understand, I can't share details about my job."

"You can trust me, but I understand."

"We're spread thinly this week. I would like my company to have another six or eight employees, but they're hard to find."

"Why?"

"It's not that hard to find employees, but it's very, very difficult to find people who I know can't be bought."

"Oh," I said. I thought about that. "I think I understand."

"So, we're spread thinly. Both Michaela and Lara have business meetings this week. I have people watching my nieces. I have people with Michaela. I'm with Lara. And at the same time, we're investigating a corporate espionage incident, so I have employees monitoring that. And all that is more than I should be telling you, especially over the public cell phone system."

I was touched she trusted me.

"So I shouldn't take it personally that you can't see me."

"Right."

We talked for a few more minutes before she said, "I'm sorry. I have to go. Remember -- no posting follow ups to that Facebook post you found."

"How did you know it was a Facebook post?"

"I am very good at my job, Zoe. I know exactly what picture you found."

"Oh, of course. Will you get another break?"

"If I do, I'll call, but don't wait up."

"I miss you, Elisabeth."

* * * *

While Monday's phone call helped, I still woke up crabby Tuesday morning.

My relationship with Elisabeth, if relationship was even the right word, was based on secrets. She was keeping secrets from me, important secrets. But I was keeping some from her, too. And the longer it went on, the worse it was going to get.

I thought about destroying the evidence. I'd set up the cameras to keep track of what was going on with that eagle's nest that Lara had talked about. I'd planned on collecting information of anyone harassing the eagles -- it was illegal, after all. But instead, I'd gotten footage of Elisabeth. I'd left the cameras in place, but their batteries were long expired. I should go collect them, see what was on them, then decide what to do.

But Lara said they had surveillance. The cameras were across the road; I hadn't trespassed on their property. But what if they had cameras that caught me? Before, maybe no one would notice, and they wouldn't have had any particular reason to pay attention to me. But what if Elisabeth were watching
her cameras as I drove up to take my cameras down?

No. I'd leave the cameras where they were for now, or maybe send someone else to get them.

But could I do that? What if that person got caught instead? That could be even worse.

But if I could destroy all the videos and all the pictures I had taken, if I erased every single copy, then it was like it never happened, right? I never would need to tell Elisabeth I had spied on her, and maybe someday she would trust me enough to tell me about herself.

Except it had happened. I knew her secret. And after the way I'd reacted on our date in the park, I knew I would eventually screw up, letting her know I knew. And then she would want to know how.

I didn't know what to do,
and I was in a foul mood because of it.

It was rare I didn't know what to do. It was even more rare I found myself facing a moral quandary.

I showered and was still in a foul mood. I remembered what she'd done to me in that shower.

I really, really wanted her to do it again.

I sent Elisabeth a text. "Thinking of you." A smiley face came back twenty minutes later.

I decided I needed to direct my frustration in a fruitful fashion. I drafted a sample letter to the editor along the lines of, "The Koch Brothers are evil and must be stopped." Oh, it was somewhat more elegant than that, but clear and simple. I checked the GreEN budget and decided I could afford a mailing.

I produced five hundred copies and then spent hours signing each one in a purple pen, leaving a personal note for those people I knew well enough. Then, while I was at it, I drafted a "Thank you" note to Lara and Michaela. I mailed everything, sending the thank you to the address from Elisabeth's business card. I figured it would get routed properly somehow.

* * * *

We didn't talk Tuesday.

Or Wednesday.

Thursday afternoon, I tried working with my photos. I was a good photographer, but good photographers weren't that uncommon, and I didn't have the brilliance of someone like Rodney Lough, nor did I have the equipment he had or the travel budget. Keeping myself fed required attention to my photographs.

But I repeatedly found myself staring at some of my images of Elisabeth.

"What am I going to do?" I finally asked aloud. "Can I walk away from you? Can I walk away from what I know?"

I got up and prowled around my little apartment.

What would she do when I told her? What if she was angry? What if she... She'd told me she was protective of their secrets. What would they do to me, if they knew I knew?

I stared out the window leaning my head against. "Would you kill me, Elisabeth?" I asked. "Should I take precautions?"

But I thought about it. And thought about it. And thought about it.

"Trust starts somewhere," I said. "And I don't want to wait."

Picked up my phone. "Please call me. We have to talk."