“But what if legal drugs are only part of his business?” she continued. “The legit side. What if he hooked up with one of the Colombian cartels to access the illegal kind, too? Or to distribute them here, using his cover of making legitimate drugs? Making lots more money at it. No expensive research. Just grow the stuff and distribute it and collect the dough, tax-free. Because of his other connection, no one would even suspect he’d have other kinds of dealings down there.”
Bjornolf nodded. “Very possible. No one would ever know, except for maybe two wolf agents with the DEA who suspected the truth.”
“Why would they have been at the Christmas tree farm, then?”
She knew Nathan was listening to them. Normally, she wouldn’t have talked shop in front of someone who wasn’t on the investigative team. In Nathan’s case, he seemed to have inside knowledge. The only drawback was if Everton was involved, Nathan might feel a need to warn Jessica.
He didn’t say anything about what was being said, but she was certain he was trying to think of anything that might help them with piecing the puzzle together.
“Wentworth might have tried to set Everton up if the two don’t care for each other,” Bjornolf said.
“What if Everton is in on this?”
Nathan was in the process of moving an ornament already on the tree to another spot when he paused to look at Anna, but he didn’t offer anything.
Anna sighed and folded her arms across her chest. “We have to look at every possible reason why Wentworth would tell his brother, Jeff, that we shouldn’t have killed their kidnappers in the Amazon, and why DEA agents were murdered at the Christmas tree farm. It’s possible that Everton is involved up to his eyeballs. He may know about his half brothers’ involvement and have blackmailed them even, wanting a share of the money. Maybe he got rid of the DEA agents for Wentworth.” She paused. “Remember when William and Jeff were talking, and the one said they had led trouble to someone’s doorstep, but they weren’t there to take care of the mess this time?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“I wonder if the agents disappeared around the same time.” Anna shook her head. “Without more to go on, it’s a guessing game.”
Nathan went to the sack to get one last ornament out. “Are you ready?” Nathan pulled out the angel. “See it’s gold, copper, and silver with a gray wolf standing beside her long skirt.”
Warmed to the marrow of her bones, Anna smiled. “It’s beautiful, Nathan. The prettiest angel I’ve ever seen.” It had been killing her not to take a peek before the guys came in from outside.
“I was afraid you might want something else. That you envisioned a different kind of angel. Something softer, maybe.”
“She’s perfect.” Anna went to hug him, and he quickly looked at Bjornolf, as if seeking his approval.
Bjornolf gave him a nod and a smile, but Anna had already moved to embrace Nathan. “You’re so sweet, Nathan. I’ve never celebrated the holiday. You’ve helped to make this one so special to me, and I’ll never forget it.”
He hugged her back, then he said to Bjornolf, “My dad always put the star on the tree. Did you want to do the honors?”
Nathan was fighting back tears, just like she was. Bjornolf gave her a small smile and squeezed her hand, and she noted his eyes were misty, too. “I’d love to.”
She realized then she’d never think of the holidays again as one of those hassles in life, involving crowded shopping centers and annoying Christmas jingles played over and over again. She put her arm around Nathan’s shoulders and watched as Bjornolf put the angel and wolf ornament on top of the Colorado blue spruce tree.
“We’ll have the most beautiful tree of any of the open houses, guaranteed,” she said proudly.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”
Bjornolf cleared his throat. They both looked over at him. “Anna, you said you knew how to cook?”
In short order, they had baked chicken thighs, asparagus, and baked potatoes on a big serving dish sitting in the center of the cherrywood dining table.
Bjornolf and Nathan looked at the table, then at Anna. “We need holiday decorations for the table for the open house,” Bjornolf said.
“Yeah,” Nathan said.
They both studied Anna, waiting for her response. She wanted to say she didn’t “do” shopping. But after all that Nathan had done, she couldn’t say no. She sighed. “After lunch, all right?”
Nathan gave Bjornolf a high five.
She was doomed.
After lunch, Bjornolf and Nathan put away the dishes. She could really get used to this, but she figured when…
She paused as she wiped down the table. She hadn’t even considered what might happen beyond the mission—what would become of Nathan, or where she and Bjornolf would end up.
“I need to make a quick call. Be right back.” She headed into the bedroom and shut the door, then fished out her phone and called Hunter. “I need you to look into something for me.”
“About the murders?” Hunter asked.
“No. About a Jessica Everton, adopted daughter of the owners of the Christmas tree farm. She was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico.”
“What are we looking for?” he asked.
“To learn if her real parents were wolves.”
Chapter 16
Shortly thereafter, Anna got a call from Hunter letting her know that Rourke, their investigative reporter, had just called to tell Hunter that once he’d interviewed Helen Wentworth and after investigating some leads, he suspected Jessica Everton might be a wolf. First, according to Mrs. Wentworth, there was the case of a mysterious adoption—no evidence of papers, the Evertons’ own loss of a baby daughter, Jessica’s behavioral problems, no birth record for her that he could locate—and the scent of wolf when he’d dropped by to see the girl at the tree farm.
Anna shared the news with Bjornolf and Nathan. “We’ll finish decorating for the open house after we go shopping. Then Nathan, you arrange for Jessica to come over for dinner tonight.”
They couldn’t put this off any longer than that.
He looked skeptical.
Anna sighed and took his hand. “Nathan, if she’s truly a wolf, and if you two had sex, then you’ve mated with her. If you’ve mated with her, you could very well have gotten her pregnant. We have to learn the truth and deal with it.”
He frowned. “You shouldn’t have to do anything. Hunter took care of his mistakes all on his own.”
Anna nodded. “True. But he’s the pack leader. He had to. You’re not even legally an adult yet. We’ll help you in any way we can. Okay? Hunter and the rest of the pack will, too. That’s what a wolf pack is all about, Nathan. We take care of each other through the good stuff and the bad. You don’t have to do this alone.”
He bit his lip, then said, “She thinks she’s pregnant.”
Anna quickly closed her mouth, not wanting to look so astonished.
“I got angry with her because I knew I couldn’t have made her that way. That was one of the reasons I left to see Sarah.” Nathan glanced at Bjornolf. “Until he mentioned that in rare cases our kind could get a human pregnant.” He took a deep breath. “Jessica’s too afraid to get a pregnancy test and see what it shows. She swore I was the only one she’d been seeing.”