Wolfe (19 page)

This man would either end me or explode me with lust.

Kiara

Wolfe was going down the mountain into town again. Daytime, but he’d become blasé about hiding his activity. I suppose the townspeople would dismiss him as some regular visitor? I wasn’t sure if he intended to move on soon, but I suspected it.

Maybe I should ask.

When he stooped to kiss me, I kissed him back then grabbed his arm before he could go to the SUV.

At our feet, Lily whined. She knew he was leaving too.

“Take care of her while I’m gone. I should be back late this afternoon. Was there something you wanted to say?”

“Are we going somewhere else? I mean...” I shrugged. “I felt like you might be thinking that.”

He looked off across the landscape beyond the cliff where it fell away past the cabin. “I don’t know. We can’t stay here forever, can we?”

“This place seems to have been deserted for years. We could use this as a base, go elsewhere, come back. We need to talk about the future.”

Though the one thing we couldn’t do was be normal, have friends, or invite the locals over. Or could we?

Maybe it was possible?

“Yeah. We’ll talk some more about this. Later though.” He kissed me again. “Take Lily for a walk.”

“Alone? Like, by myself? You never let me leave the cabin much.” How quaint, that’d shocked me.

“You’re free now, remember? Go for a walk. Just take the gun and be careful. This is a mountain with wild animals. I left you a cellphone on the counter and my number’s in there. If you do get lost, I can find you though. By feel.”

I had a phone? I raised my eyebrows. “Seriously? By feel?”

The man was full of surprises.

“More so now than ever.” He thumped his chest. “We’re tied together. Here.”

“Dayum,” I whispered. “Awesome and creepy. All at once.”

“That’s me. Creepy.” He walked backward a few steps, his hand emerging from his pocket with the keys. “When I come back I’m going to bend you over a tree stump and fuck you hard for saying that.” He winked.

Just like him to leave me with my mouth open, and my mind churning through the sexy possibilities.

God, this was weird. Next, we’d be building that white picket fence around the cabin.

If we could keep him like this, the world was ours.
We.
Joint project. He was right; living on the edge of danger was a heady experience. I’d never before been this happy, excited, or even...satisfied. There was contentment in being such an integral part of someone else’s life.

Did I deserve this?

I hung there, waiting to hear the crack of the mirror in which I lived, or the sound of someone turning the page of the fairytale book.

The noise from the engine faded and I woke myself.

“Okay, Lily. Walk it is. Please though, no dead creatures.”

Why did dogs, even ones the size of a gnat, want to roll in dead things then trot into a house as if their smell alone wasn’t biological warfare?

* * * * *

Damian

He lowered the binoculars. The small dust cloud stirred up by the SUV had settled.

“So. He is gone?” Guera lowered her own binoculars and rolled onto her side in the small observation post they’d set up above the cabin. “Shall we go find the woman?”

“Yes. We can either dispose of her, attempt to get her on our side...”

“Or?”

“One of those. I’ve run out of ideas.” He rose to his knees, surveyed the surroundings then stood. “I doubt we can get her to cooperate, so we should kill her. It means less to worry about when we ambush him.”

“No.” Guera shook her head. “She’s just a nurse. He won’t be back for hours. You know that. We can try. We must try. We can restrain her if necessary. Killing her is not our objective. Am I getting soft?”

He laughed. “No. You’re human. You’re Guera. And I think you’re right. It’s not a flaw. Killing everyone we meet is not good. Besides, we might be able to frame her for the murder. Though having to drill a hole in his skull is going to make that difficult.”

She was ignoring him, with her binoculars to her eyes. “We spoke too soon. A visitor is coming. Not Wolfe.”

“Okay. Then we wait for them to go. We have days. There is no hurry.”

“They are such beautiful love-birds. It will be a pity to spoil it.”

“You know he’s forcing her. It’s not happiness if he’s making her.”

“Maybe.” Guera sighed. “Maybe. You spoil the romance that I made up in my head. Anyway, we will wait.” She grinned up at him. “You can always catch more Pokemon, hey?”

“There is that.” He kneeled beside her and patted her ass. “And after watching that dirty pair fuck many times daily, I figure screwing you from behind while you keep an eye on the incoming visitor would be fine also.”

“Oh my goodness.”

But she didn’t say no. So he reached under the waist of her khaki shorts, found the button and zip to her pants, and began to undo them. “How lucky that I have condoms.”

Guera giggled but lifted her butt so he could get at the zip more easily. “Lucky? You are such a liar.”

“Yes. I am well trained at deception.”

“And at fucking, I hope. Be quick or I will lose interest and you’ll have to do yourself.”

For that comment, he leaned in and bit her plump bottom, until she made muffled squealing noises.

* * * * *

Kiara

We were half a mile of wandering track from the cabin, though less as the crow flies, when I heard a car coming up the road. It wasn’t the SUV returning – I could tell from the sound. Since it passed us, I decided to pick up Lily and walk back. If they found the cabin and all the improvements, they might wonder who we were. And here was the flaw in our glittery future if we stayed. Not everyone was susceptible to Wolfe. Not men.

Though she tired quickly, Lily soon wriggled to be put down, so I set her on her feet.

She dashed off into the undergrowth and instantly became lost.

The unknown car, I had to leave it be while I searched for her – calling her name, cursing her, tramping through the forest and getting sticks in my socks and scratches on my legs.

Should’ve worn jeans, not denim shorts. One day I’d learn.

The road was to the left, down a bit of a slope, and I stepped around a dense copse of trees bounded by wildflowers, only to come face to face with a stranger.

He had Lily under his arm, a short gray beard, and a scruffy head of mostly gray hair. The cigarette in his mouth left a trail of smoke on the air. Distinctive, and I realized I hadn’t smelled cigarette smoke for many weeks.

This then, was the world coming back.

“Hi there!” He dragged on the cigarette then pulled it from his mouth. “Found a dog. Yours? Lily? Heard you calling.”

I nodded and held out my arms. When Lily wriggled, he set her down.

“Fucking cute thing.” His wide grin wasn’t just for the dog as his gaze very obviously tracked down my body.

I had the revolver at my waist, but my leather jacket mostly covered it. The gun made me feel safe, out here in the middle of nowhere, on a mountain with this stranger.

Funny, but I feared him more than Wolfe.

He was probably kind and sensible.

“Thanks.” I bent to pat Lily and tried to calm the bouncing thing. Didn’t work, but it gave me something to do. Asking this guy to have coffee, or something, might be polite but it wasn’t happening. “What are you doing up here?”

“Ohh.” He snorted phlegm then jerked his chin backward, in the direction of the cabin. “I heard gossip someone had squattered in the old cabin. Thought I’d take a look. It’s been repossessed you know. I put in a bid to buy it.”

“Oh?” I inclined my head.

“Yeah. I could let you have it. For a price.”

“Really?”

“That is, if it is
you
with all the stuff at the cabin. You’ve been doing quite a bit of work!”

I twisted my lips. “I’ll let my...husband, know.”

“Sure. You do that. I’m a cool guy. Easy as pie to sell it back.”

Lily was making excited dog sounds up the slope and he looked there and tossed his cigarette aside. “She’s found you something? You’re going to lose that critter again.”

“A dead pigeon probably.” I recalled the phone and dug in my pocket.

I let him wander off upslope while I rang Wolfe. He needed to know about this.

You okay?
His voice sent a wave of relief through me. I was so reliant on this man.

“Yes, but we have a visitor. A man who says he’s buying the cabin. He wants to sell it back though.”

Damn. That’d mean signing things. We can’t do that.

True.

“Will I get him to stay?”

No. Be safe though. I don’t like him being there. Tell him your boyfriend is coming back soon. Because I am. I’ll be a little longer than usual driving back. Had to use the north road as there’s a bad landslide on the other and a big hole in the road. I nearly went over the side.

“Okay. Except, you’re my husband.”

He laughed.
Get rid of him. Tell him I’m coming.

“Sure. Bye.”

Bye.

I could hear the guy yelling something and I needed to see what he was up to. He didn’t seem the type to hurt the dog, but...

When I reached where he stood, on a flat area under some trees, I found him shooing Lily away from a hole she’d dug, with his foot.

“Fuck. Man. We’re gonna need the cops up here.”

“What?” I stepped forward, frowning.

It wasn’t difficult to see why he wanted the cops.

The recent storm must’ve loosened the soil here too. It had a little terraced, raised area and the earth had crumbled at the edge, exposing a two foot chunk of fresh dirt. Lily had only enlarged the mini landslide. In the freshly dug soil were bones. Human ones. I knew exactly what I looked at this time. No doubts. No possibility of doubts.

“Holy crap. Is that a bit of jewelry?”

“Yes.” I clicked my fingers to call Lily away and, for once, she obeyed.

The amethyst bracelet from the photo was here. Purple stones glinted in the specks of sunlight filtering through the foliage. I kneeled and spotted the distinctive, gold heart half-buried in the soil. The bones were those of the wrist and hand – carpals, metacarpals, phalanges. Only, I gulped, there were more metacarpals than there were phalanges, and those were the finger bones.

I knew where the rest of the phalanges resided – at the cabin, in the lowest drawer by the bed, in a little cardboard box I’d found.

This was Amelia. She was dead.

The earth was cool and soft under my palm.

Unless someone had stolen her bracelet?

Whoever this was, someone had buried her here. Had Magnus killed her and hidden her body? For some reason her fingers had been cut off and burned in the fireplace.

Or crushed. The bones here, and those at the cabin, weren’t cleanly cut.

Or...I froze...or chewed off.

Fuck.

I picked the bracelet out of the dirt, grimacing as bones fell away, ignoring the guy’s comments about disturbing a crime scene. Already I had a notion, an evil, nauseously bad one that was making my heart rattle. While rubbing the dirt off the gold, I climbed to my feet.

“No cops.”

“Why? Why no cops? Unless you’re guilty of something?” With a superior grin on his ugly face and hands on hips, he spat out, “What the fuck are you telling me?”

Asshole.

“Go.” I swiped back the jacket so he’d see the gun, put my hand on the butt. “Fuck off and go.”

“Heyyy. No need for that, girlie. I’m going.”

I watched him stumble down the slope. He must’ve thought he was safe because he yelled out, “You watch yourself! Cops will be here soon!”

Fuck him. I fumed. An idea clicked into place. It would slow him down, if nothing else. If he took the bait.

“My husband is coming back up the north road
right now
. I phoned him. You wait! He’ll be on you, mister!”

I pulled out the gun and fired a shot in the air.

He ran. He ran like hell, and a few minutes later I watched his car tear down the road. I was pretty sure he didn’t take the north road, though he must’ve come up that way. What a putz.

Maybe I was a little nasty and a lot hasty, but I had worse things to worry about. Someone in the past had killed Amelia. Maybe bitten off her fingers then burned them.

If it was just some ancient killing, it was tragic and sad, but not terribly relevant.

Except...I guess I had this hunch. Which was why I kept cleaning off that heart, rubbing away the grime over the engraving on the back.