“What if she runs again?” Laurel asked.
“I’ve already put out an alert for her truck. A third of the pack members are out searching in the vicinity where she ran.” Darien’s phone rang. “Yeah? Okay, so she’s running as a wolf still. Good to know. Keep looking until you find her.”
He ended the call and said, “Mason found her truck, and her clothes are inside. She might be headed for home. We’re confiscating her truck.”
“I want to go to my sisters’ house,” Laurel suddenly said.
“All right. Darien, we’ll keep you posted if we learn anything more. Wait, what happened with the Wernicke brothers?”
“They’re royals as far as we can tell. Stanton’s one pissed-off wolf, but he hasn’t shifted yet.”
“Okay, we’ll talk later.” CJ helped Laurel leave the room. “Are you going to be all right?”
“Yes.”
But her voice was toneless, and he had to know what she was feeling. “Laurel, don’t shut me out.”
“What was going on? I want to go to the pit.”
CJ stopped her as they left the clinic. “Why there?”
“I think she loved Warren. I think she couldn’t mate him for some reason. I think Jacob’s father loved her too. And I think she was pretending to be Warren’s sister because she was afraid of someone.”
“But Jacob said—”
“I think Jacob just learned the truth of who she was. Or his father did before he died. And so Jacob knew who she was, but she was gone, so there was no need to say anything to anyone about it. So why wouldn’t she mate either man?”
“Hell, she probably already had a mate! She couldn’t mate Warren because she had a mate and she was scared. He took her in and kept her hidden at his house where she did the books and the household chores.”
“That’s why she loves her ‘brother’ so much,” Laurel said. “She feels guilty that Warren died for loving her. Don’t you think?”
“Yeah. Sounds to me like a good reason. So who killed Warren?” CJ drove her out to the area closest to where the pit was.
“Her abusive mate? And she took care of the hotel for a short while, still pretending to be Warren’s sister after the threat was past, but she couldn’t manage it on her own and probably hated the hotel because it represented the man she lost.”
“So why do you think she’s at the pit?”
Laurel looked out the window. “She goes there when she needs to be comforted. Maybe she feels his spirit there. I don’t know. Maybe he gave her direction in her life and she loved him for it. I’m just grasping at straws here.”
“Why was Jacob trying to find something in the houses?”
“To protect his father, maybe? Thinking that maybe his father did kill Warren? Or maybe he was trying to locate something that would prove his father didn’t have anything to do with it. You know how bad you felt when you learned your father had committed murder. You left the pack. Jacob doesn’t want to live with the pack knowing his father murdered one of its pack members. And he doesn’t want to leave the pack. Just like you and your brothers didn’t really want to.”
“Yeah, okay. That makes sense. Then he would have opened the secret compartment right away, if he could have gotten away with it. He didn’t know what we would find and was afraid it would condemn the memory of his father.”
“Like with you and your brothers and your father.”
CJ let out his breath. “We’ll deal with it. We have before. And…I hadn’t mentioned it because I didn’t think it was relevant, but my father had been the mastermind of a blackmail scheme before.”
“I’m so sorry,” Laurel said, squeezing his shoulder as he parked.
“As soon as I saw the blackmail note, I realized he’d done it before. Hell, maybe it’s like you said, he murdered before too.”
“He wouldn’t if he was getting money from Warren. Once Clarinda took over the hotel, she lost all the money.”
“And my dad might have threatened to expose who she was to her mate if she didn’t give him more money.”
“Or, she did give him money, and that’s why she was broke, not that someone was doing the books and stole it from her.”
“If that’s the case, in a way, she hadn’t lied, because the blackmailer would have stolen the money from her.”
“No matter that she lied, I think she did so only to protect herself, and maybe even my sisters and me. What if her mate came after us, looking to catch up with her?”
“That’s true. I hadn’t thought of that. Do we go as wolves or humans?”
“I need to talk with her.”
“Okay.” They got out of his truck and trudged along the trails left earlier in the snow. Then CJ got another call. “Yeah, Darien?”
“While searching for the white wolf, Jake saw Vernon and Yolan Wernicke in their wolf forms. He thinks they’re trying to chase her down.”
“Hell, okay. We’re on our way to the pit. Laurel thinks she might be there. We’ll keep you informed. Is Stanton still in jail?”
“Released. We had nothing to hold him on. He didn’t shift and—”
“Crap. I just saw him running as a wolf in the same direction we’re going. I’m giving Laurel my gun. I’m shifting.”
“Wait for backup,” Darien said.
CJ handed Laurel his gun and phone and began ditching his clothes. “I’m going to head Stanton off.”
“I should run as a wolf too. I don’t know how to shoot a gun, but that way I can fight a wolf if I need to.”
“Laurel.” He frowned. “All right. Hurry.”
They quickly buried their clothes and both shifted, then ran full out for the pit.
Laurel’s heart was racing so hard that she thought she was going to have a heart attack. She still didn’t know what to think—Clarinda was Charity, Charity was Clarinda? Why would the Wernicke brothers be after her? Because she could prove they couldn’t lay claim to the hotel, Laurel suspected.
When they reached the cordoned-off area, the yellow tape stating it was a crime scene, Laurel saw flower wreaths circling the pit. From wolf pack members? Her eyes filled with tears at the thoughtfulness. And then she saw the white wolf, nearly blending with the snow, standing among the pines. Laurel approached her cautiously, not wanting the wolf to run off. CJ hung back, letting Laurel attempt to win the wolf over.
Laurel had just reached her, the wolf not leaving, thankfully, and they’d touched noses and licked each other in greeting, when Stanton came loping into view.
CJ immediately raced to intercept him. The two faced off against each other. But Stanton didn’t do what CJ thought he would. Instead of fighting, he lay down on his belly, a modified beta move. To be truly subservient and show no animosity, he would have rolled over and exposed his belly. CJ waited for him to do so.
Stanton wouldn’t.
CJ stayed where he was, eyeing the wolf with suspicion. But when he saw Stanton’s brothers join him, CJ growled at them to do as Stanton was doing. No way could he fight three male wolves. The white wolf and Laurel couldn’t help in the matter.
At first, the brothers stood next to Stanton, staring CJ down, challenging him. Finally, Stanton snapped at one of them, who let out a low growl, then sat down. Stanton turned to his other brother and snapped at him too.
He grumbled back and sat down, then they both lay down on their bellies.
What the hell was going on? CJ stayed alert, though when Laurel lifted her chin to howl, the white wolf joining in, he was glad to have Laurel as his mate.
He didn’t want to lift his own chin to howl. He was keeping his eyes trained on the three male wolves, any of whom could suddenly attack him. If that happened, he’d be dead, along with his mate and the older white wolf.
An answering howl called back. Brett. And then several more. His other brothers and others. Darien must have gotten word to them somehow, though CJ remembered him saying that Brett was chasing after two of the brothers. So his brother must have just followed them here.