She swallowed hard and tried not to let her sisters see her eyes again fill with tears. If she hadn’t seen the white wolf, CJ wouldn’t be missing now. She was certain he wouldn’t have vanished without a trace unless something bad had happened.
She tried to concentrate on searching one of the highboy’s drawers for hidden compartments while her sisters worked on others. Worrying about CJ wouldn’t help anyone.
“Spill the beans about what?” Laurel asked, certain that Ellie and Meghan wanted to know all about her and CJ. But if that wasn’t the topic her sister had in mind, Laurel had no intention of bringing it up.
Both her sisters had stopped looking at the drawers and were waiting for her to answer Ellie.
“What do you mean, about what? About CJ, of course. Here you are telling us not to get too friendly with anyone in the pack, and what do you do? Get really friendly with one of them. And he’s not just a member, but the pack leader’s close cousin.” Ellie teased.
Laurel hadn’t thought they’d be upset about it, but hopeful that she’d want to stay. She hadn’t been sure until now.
“Really friendly,” Meghan said, nodding.
“I have some bad news.” Laurel hated that she had to tell them now. She didn’t want to mention what had happened with regard to CJ, unless that turned out to be really bad news.
“Don’t tell me you’ve already broken up with CJ. Ahhh, how could you go and do that?” Ellie asked. “Here I thought after you and he were caught in that scandalous photo—”
Immediately, Laurel defended herself. “He just kissed my nose.”
“And the one where you were sitting on his lap? Then he stayed overnight.” Ellie looked up from the drawer she’d pulled out and had been inspecting. “And more?”
“We just watched A Christmas Story and fell asleep on the couch.”
“Ohmigod,” Ellie said, poking Meghan, who was staring wide-eyed at Laurel.
“What did you think?” Laurel was afraid they thought she was mated.
Meghan smiled. “Wow. We thought he’d fallen asleep on the couch and you’d gone to sleep in your bed. You slept together on the couch? Together?”
As if she hadn’t said the word “together” enough! “You’ve fallen asleep on the couch while watching a movie any number of times,” Laurel said.
“Not. With. A. Wolf.” Meghan raised her brows.
“For heaven’s sake, that’s not what’s important.”
“It is too,” Meghan said.
Well, yes, it was. Wolves didn’t have sex unless they planned a mating, and it sure sounded like they could be headed in that direction. But now she wanted more than anything to join the search teams out looking for CJ. If something terrible had happened to him… She shook her head at herself. She couldn’t think of it. He was fine. They’d find him soon, and he’d be fine. But her gut instinct told her it wasn’t true.
“Okay, so what’s the bad news then?” Ellie ran her fingers over the bottom of the drawer, searching for a hidden compartment. “Ow.”
Laurel and Meghan looked up from examining two more drawers to see what the problem was.
“Sliver.”
Meghan rolled her eyes.
“The problem is that the Wernicke brothers claim they’re related to the hotel owners who vanished. And now they’re alleging that the hotel belongs to them.”
“Holy crap. No way,” Meghan said. “Are they still staying here at the hotel as guests?”
“Yes. But they thought they should have free rooms.”
Meghan put down the drawer and headed for the front door of the house.
Grabbing her arm, Laurel intercepted her. “Where are you going?”
“They can’t stay here if they think they’re going to take the hotel away from us.” Meghan’s eyes glistened with tears.
Feeling her distress, Laurel pulled her into a hug. “Darien and everyone else in the pack will help us to uncover the truth. And the unpaid taxes meant that the pack took over the property, so the brothers wouldn’t be able to claim it. But they could cause other trouble for us, trying to ruin our business and forcing us to lose money. We could face financial ruin.”
“And if that happened?” Ellie looked just as distraught.
“CJ suggested we build a new hotel. It can be Victorian, small, exactly how we like our hotels.”
“But we love this one. Meghan and I were talking about it while we were away. How much we loved this hotel and how beautiful it is.”
“Right, but we may not have a choice.”
“Wait,” Meghan said. “You want to build a new hotel here?” She wiped away the tears trailing down her cheeks. “You’d do that to stay here? To stay with the pack?”
“I don’t know. We still have to learn why our aunt disappeared and all the rest. The pack may not even want us here after we learn the truth. Would you even want to build a new place? CJ said they’d help us, but is it even something we’d want to do?”
“We love the old buildings,” Ellie admitted. “But to stay with a wolf pack? Especially as welcoming as this one is? I’d be willing.”
“I agree with Ellie. I like the charm of old buildings. But if it meant staying, I’d do whatever it takes,” Meghan said.
Then Ellie smiled deviously. “The pack would never allow the Wernicke brothers to buy the hotel, or if they did, they’d run them out of business.”
“I agree. So in the meantime, we fight them tooth and claw if they try to ruin our business. Even though they have a TV show, which could give them some clout, we have a pack to back us,” Laurel said. “But that’s only contingent on the pack still wanting us here if we discover one of their beloved pack members had anything to do with our aunt’s disappearance.”
“Are you kidding?” Meghan set her drawer aside and pulled out another. “Poor CJ would have no one’s nose to kiss on a cold, snowy day.”
“Or a she-wolf to snuggle with on our sofa while watching Christmas movies.” Ellie ran her fingers under the top edge of the highboy.
“If his father was involved in our aunt’s disappearance?” Laurel asked, trying to be pragmatic about it. “Family is family, after all.”
“He’s not going to stick up for his father if he was involved in murdering Clarinda or covering it up.” Meghan gave up on the highboy and started to search the blanket chest for a false bottom.
Laurel was hoping that would be the case. Her phone rang and she hurried to answer it, her sisters watching her.
She frowned when she saw it was Darien calling, not Lelandi. Her stomach clenching with dread, Laurel feared the worse. CJ had been found.
And he was dead.
Chapter 15
When CJ came to, he was still in his wolf form, thank God, or he would have frozen to death. He was lying on his side at the bottom of a twelve-foot-deep killing pit, with leaves, twigs, and pine needles cushioning his fall. A few wooden stakes pointed skyward at the black night, waiting to skewer their victims. The pit had been used to kill animals—and had been here for years, he suspected, as he considered the weathered age of the stakes. He couldn’t see all that well in the dark, as deep as he was, but he would have been able to smell new wood that had been carved into stakes.
His head throbbed where he was certain he’d cut it, and minor bruises, scratches, and a few ligament strains made him ache all over. An animal or two must have fallen into the pit earlier, and the unfortunate beasts had broken a few of the sharpened stakes. Thankfully, the broken ones hadn’t been replaced, and CJ hadn’t been gored.
Unsteadily, he sat up and tried to get his bearing in the darkness, some of the deadfall still covering the hole. He had to warn anyone else not to take a misstep and fall into the pit. The snow-covered trees looming above hid the sky from his view.