She headed south through the treed area that had been set aside as a park with fountains and walking trails that were dark at night, perfect for the wolves living closer to town. The full moon was shining off the white snow collected on the fir branches and the path when she heard movement in the trees to her left.
Then she saw the green glow of eyes—wolf eyes. The wolf’s coat was white. A smaller female wolf, about Laurel’s size. And she instantly thought of Charity. What was she doing here? Still trying to catch the wolf who killed her brother? Or had Charity had something to do with it?
Laurel hesitated, not sure what to think, when she heard a van parking at the lot used for visitors to the park. She turned and listened. A door slid open. It sounded like a panel van, like the one the Wernicke brothers owned. If she’d been near when they had opened the door or had driven by her in that van, she would have recognized the sound of the vehicle.
Whoever it was, he was coming this way as a human, his boots crunching on the crusted snow.
Laurel glanced back at the wolf. She was gone. Laurel was just as glad because if the person following her was bad news, she didn’t want the older woman to be hurt. The problem was that if the man was a wolf, he could follow Laurel’s scent, shift if he wanted, and come after her.
“Laurel?” Jacob called out.
Their electrician? She frowned. Then she melted into the woods, wanting to go to him, but unsure about exposing herself.
“CJ said your house was broken into. I was over at your sisters’ place, trying to determine why the alarm hadn’t gone off, when we learned someone was at CJ’s house. CJ and I immediately headed for his place in separate vehicles. But then I saw you running as a wolf in the direction of the park. CJ was going to try to catch up to the men who had broken into his house. We figure it’s the same ones who broke into the other house. I headed in the direction you took off in since he has a gun and I don’t. I’ll take you home before anyone sees you running out here as a wolf.”
CJ wouldn’t have gone home to apprehend the house breaker. His priority would have to search for her and protect her.
“Shit!” Jacob cried out at the same time that a wolf’s vicious growls rent the air.
Laurel raced to the scene and saw Charity’s wolf teeth clamped on Jacob’s arm, clinging for dear life as Jacob tried to beat her off with his bare hands.
Laurel lunged at him, slamming her front paws into his chest and bringing him down hard against the crusted snow. She clamped her teeth on his left arm and bit hard enough to force him to hold still, praying that she hadn’t just injured an innocent man. But he had to have lied to her about CJ.
Then she let go and lifted her chin and howled.
Chapter 22
At the clinic, Darien, CJ, Laurel, Jake, and Doc Weber gathered around Jacob, who had been treated for minor wolf-bite wounds. But for now, he was strapped to the table so they could question him before he was released.
“You’re wearing hunter’s spray,” Darien accused.
“I didn’t do anything wrong. They came out of nowhere and bit me. They should be up on charges of attempted murder.”
“You lied to Laurel and said I was going to the house when everyone knows I would have gone to protect her.”
“I didn’t want her to think I was out there to harm her. She was frightened enough.”
“How come you broke into her sisters’ home and then mine? Were you looking for something in the false bottoms of the drawers? You knew the furniture your father made for Clarinda had false bottoms and how to get into them, but you couldn’t with Meghan watching. You set up the alarm system in the house, so you knew how to disable it. The same with mine. Peter’s checking the furniture, and when he finds what’s hidden in the drawers, the jig will be up. What were you trying to find?”
“I didn’t break into anyone’s place.”
Unfortunately, they had no proof that he had.
“I tried to find the secret compartments when Meghan was watching me and didn’t find any. Every cabinetmaker has his own way of creating them. I told the MacTire sisters that.”
“And you learned cabinetmaking from your father.”
“Yeah, so? Find one piece of furniture I made with my initials on it that’s constructed in the same way as my father’s furniture and has a false bottom.”
“What happened to my aunt?” Laurel asked, her voice soft, but CJ heard the steel behind it.
“I don’t know what happened to your aunt, and that’s the God’s honest truth. Hell, as soon as she bit me, she took off.”
“What?” Laurel said, suddenly looking so pale, CJ took hold of her arm and made her sit in a chair.
“The white wolf that bit me! Who did you think she was?”
“Charity Wernicke.”
“Where did you come up with that idea?”
“She—Charity—said she was keeping house, and then my aunt came to live with Warren and her.”
He gave a sarcastic laugh. “Hell, if Warren had a sister, she wasn’t living there.”
“She was running the hotel. After her brother vanished,” Laurel managed to get out.
“She might have let on that she was his sister, but she was Clarinda O’Brien.”
CJ rested his hand on Laurel’s shoulder, ready to keep her in her seat if she suddenly passed out, she appeared so pale.
“How do you know this for certain?” she asked.
Jacob narrowed his eyes. “Because my father was seeing her, made her the furniture even. Free, because he loved her. But Warren did too. She was perfect for him, did all his housework and kept the books.”
“Are…are you her son?”
“No. My mother had died two years earlier. My father hadn’t looked at another wolf until he laid eyes on her.”
Laurel swallowed hard. “So she mated Warren?”
“She wouldn’t mate either wolf. She wouldn’t say why.”
“Did your father have something to do with Warren’s death?”
“No. He died of a broken heart. He thought, like I did, that Warren left to set up another hotel somewhere else, somewhere that Clarinda was happier, that she managed this hotel, then took off and joined him.”
“Oh, right,” Laurel said, sounding like she didn’t believe him in the least.
CJ got a call on his phone. “Yeah, Peter, what did you find?”
“It’s not good. I’m emailing you a picture so you don’t have to leave there and end your interrogation.”
CJ waited with dreaded anticipation as the picture uploaded. A damn blackmail note? And it looked suspiciously like his father’s handwriting. He was blackmailing Clarinda? For pretending to be Warren’s sister? But Jacob just said she wasn’t pretending.
Every eye was on CJ. “Darien, Laurel, can I see you in Doc Weber’s office for a moment?”
Doc Weber nodded his okay for them to use it.
CJ took hold of Laurel’s arm. She was so shaky, he was worried that she might be going into shock.
When they were in the doc’s office, Darien shut the door. “What did Peter find?”
CJ helped Laurel onto the couch and sat beside her. “A blackmail note from my father, hidden in one of the drawers.”
“Someone needs to catch Clarinda, Charity…whoever she is,” Laurel said, sounding numb.
Looking sympathetic, Darien nodded. “While you were both questioning Jacob, I sent a text to Ryan to have her taken into custody, not as a murder suspect, but to help clear this matter up.”
“Could Jacob be lying?” she asked.
“Could be. We can’t take what either of them say at face value, it seems.” Darien looked over the blackmail note. “It’s Sheridan’s handwriting, all right.”
“If he was blackmailing her, maybe that’s why she disappeared. But why did he blackmail her?” Laurel asked.
Darien glanced at his phone. “Hell, Ryan says they’re looking for her, but she hasn’t returned to her home or store in Green Valley.”