“Unless Hunter wants to terminate me.”
Meara took in a ragged breath. “We won’t tell him.”
She cast Cara a warning look.
Cara bowed her head slightly.
In disbelief, Tessa stared at Meara. “Why?”
She shrugged. “He’d want to eliminate all of us for putting him in this bind. It’ll be our little secret.”
Keeping secrets from Hunter was like trying to drive a car across the ocean. Tessa knew she would sink and drown before she got anywhere.
“Want some cocoa?” Cara put on a fake smile and offered Tessa a mug.
Tessa had known something would go terribly wrong after she had come home from Michael’s trial, but she never guessed the nightmare could get this bad.
Rourke looked over the edge of the cliff where the men had pushed Hunter. “I don’t know how in the hell you managed to survive. The tide must have come in just at the right time.”
Hunter examined the nearby trees, looking for signs of a struggle. Half a foot of snow had fallen, so the ground would yield no clues.
“Looks like you gave them a hell of a time.” Rourke twisted a broken branch back and forth.
“I still can’t figure out why they would have attacked me. If I came into a wolves’ territory unannounced, the pack leader would either welcome me, or tell me to leave. The only way he would fight me with the intent to kill was if I had seriously violated pack laws, killed one of his wolves, tried to claim a female he had other plans for, or threatened to take over his pack. Maybe I was headed in the direction of Tessa’s cabin and Yoloff, the one who wants her, got riled, thinking I was after her.”
Hunter led the way to Bethany’s log cabin. Like Tessa’s place, the house sat cliffside with a view of a rocky beach, woods all around, and no sign of any other homes.
“Why she would live out here by herself is what puzzles me,” Rourke said. “I can understand Tessa’s situation. She and her brother lived together and had inherited the house. But Bethany?” He shook his head as Hunter unlocked the door. “She was kind of a loner, like… .” Rourke stopped dead inside the house. “It’s him, isn’t it? The smell of Tessa’s stalker.”
“Yoloff, yeah. He’s been here. His brothers, too. And recently. Did they have a key to her place also? No broken windows.” Hunter checked over the two-bedroom, one-bath house. “She wasn’t killed here.”
“No, the coroner said she’d died when she fell to her death on the rocks.”
“But why not here? Why a mile away?” Hunter searched through her bedroom drawers.
“She loved to take walks in the woods. That’s what Michael said at the trial. He didn’t like it that she was taking them alone. Of course, it sounded like a perfect alibi since no one could confirm that she was seeing someone behind his back. Either this phantom guy did it, or some stranger. Neither the sheriff or his deputies bought Michael’s story.”
“Sheriff’s been here. So has Ashton. And three of the wolves that had been around Tessa’s place? They’ve been here, too. Which meant they were tied into her death, or curious possibly.”
“And a ton of other humans. Coroner, deputies. But I wouldn’t know whose scent I’m smelling unless I got a whiff of them now.” Rourke motioned to the house. “What did you want me to look for?”
“Any sign of anything out of the ordinary.”
“You won’t find her diary. The D.A. kept it as evidence. But there was nothing incriminating in it about Ashton. Or anyone else for that matter. Just Michael. They fought concerning her seeing someone else, but she never confirmed it one way or another.”
“Ashton said he kept a pretty low profile,” Hunter said.
They moved back into the kitchen. Rourke pulled open a cabinet door. “Yeah, he didn’t leave any clothes in the house. Nothing personal to tie himself to her.”
Hunter paused. “Don’t you think that’s odd?”
“What? He didn’t want Michael to learn that he was here with Bethany on the sly. Ashton still valued his friendship, even if he wasn’t showing it in a very loyal way.”
“Unless he had some things here and got rid of them after he’d murdered her.” Hunter pulled open another drawer.
“I thought you believed the grays had killed her.”
“I’d considered it. The one might have wanted Michael out of the way so he killed Bethany, and then Michael was blamed for it. Tessa would be left unprotected.”
“But why not just kill Michael?”
“The wolf’s a beta. If he’d been an alpha, he would have killed Michael and taken Tessa. But he didn’t. He’s stalked her, waited, watched, for what? He couldn’t get up the nerve. Maybe he cared for her too much and was afraid if he turned her and things didn’t work out, he’d have to destroy her. On the other hand, what if the guy couldn’t even kill Bethany? What if Ashton did it? But now Bethany’s murder played into the gray’s hands, and he had a chance to make Tessa his. Only he still stalked her, worried about her acceptance of him.”
“Then you appeared on the beach.”
“Right. And he got anxious. Started playing games. Showing how he could get in, leaving his scent on her sheets, wanting to claim her, getting more and more rash.”
“And then he bit Ashton to…? ”
“I believe at that point he wanted to kill Ashton so he could get to Tessa since you and I were gone. Even more desperate, he took a bigger chance, but when Tessa got the gun and started shooting, he tucked tail and ran.”
Rourke shoved his gloved hands under his arms. “What if the gray did it? Or Ashton for that matter? We can’t prove either did because they can’t go to prison. Not when they’re werewolves.”
“We just have to find the evidence, and I’ll sort it out from there.”
Rourke took a deep breath. “All the evidence points to Michael.”
“He didn’t have an alibi?”
“Nope. He was supposed to be home sick with the flu, but nobody was there to verify he’d stayed home in bed either. Tessa had run to the city to get supplies and sell some more of her photographs. When she arrived home, the sheriff had already arrested Michael and taken him in for questioning.”
Not that Hunter wanted to believe anything bad about Tessa, but his wolf’s wariness instantly made him suspect anyone and everyone. “How long was she in the city?”
“Four hours.” Rourke’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. Don’t you go thinking Tessa had anything to do with it. Between receipts and store personnel and surveillance tapes at the stores where she sold her work, she had an airtight alibi.”
“For all the time?”
Rourke looked out the living room window. “Yeah.”
“Not for all the time. You’d make a lousy liar, Rourke. Don’t try it with me.”
“All right. So she had enough time. But she wouldn’t have done it.”
Hunter smelled the air. “She’s been here before.”
“Sure, Tessa has. She was friends with Bethany, too, damn it, but she didn’t do it.”
“Did the defense think she might have?”
Rourke looked at the floor.
“Did they, Rourke?”
“Yeah. Michael’s defense attorney said she had motive because the attorney was trying to cast doubt on Michael’s supposed guilt. Tessa suspected someone else was seeing Bethany, too. That’s what the defense attorney said. That as loyal as Tessa was to her brother, she could have killed Bethany in a fit of rage. Two police officers had to restrain Michael to keep him from hitting his attorney, he was so pissed. His temper didn’t help his case.”
“Did Michael always have a temper?”
“Not that he showed publicly. I always thought he kept pretty quiet, except for getting in trouble for minor infractions of the law. Breaking and entering, joy riding in a car once, but I figured Ashton was the mastermind.”
Hunter returned to the bathroom and sifted through the drawers.
“What are you looking for?”
“I can understand why Ashton wouldn’t leave anything incriminating here in case Michael came across it, but why wouldn’t Michael have left anything?”
“He didn’t like coming here, so he said at the trial.”
“Why not? Seems to me it would be a great place to have private time with his girl.”
Rourke gave a derisive laugh. “He thought it was haunted.”
“Haunted?” Hunter shook his head. “I need to pay Michael a little visit at the jailhouse.”
Rourke peered out the bathroom window. “The wind is really picking up. Holy shit!”
“The grays?” Adrenaline instantly flooded Hunter’s system, preparing him for another fight.
“No, that idiot Ashton.”
Hunter’s blood heated several degrees. “I’ll kill him.” Although Hunter’s sister and Cara were still at Tessa’s house to protect her, if the three male grays tried to take off with Tessa, his sister and Cara could be in a world of trouble.
As soon as Hunter headed outside with Rourke on his heels, a patrol car drove into the driveway. Hell. Ashton in his wolf form judiciously moved away from the house, slinked deeper into the woods, and slipped out of sight. But Hunter and Rourke had a lot of explaining to do.
“Have you got permission to be breaking into Bethany Wade’s house, gentlemen?” the deputy asked, as he climbed out of the car, his hand on his holster. He was a scrawny, sawed-off little guy and Hunter could have eaten him for a midnight snack if he gave them any real trouble.
“This is Deputy William O’Neal,” Rourke said. “And, William, I want you to meet my friend, Hunter Grey. He’s an ex–navy SEAL. He’s done quite a lot of investigative work for the navy, and he’s trying to dig up more clues concerning Bethany’s murder. I’m doing an investigative report for the newspaper.”
