The answer struck them at once. “Her clothes,” they said simultaneously.
They hastened back to her room where Larissa was still sound asleep, and Darien jerked open the metal locker. Empty.
“I’ll find out what happened to them,” Jake said.
Apparently eavesdropping from the hallway, Silva walked into the room. “I took them home to wash.”
Silva,” Darien said, annoyed.
She smiled. “Sorry, bad habit of mine. Used to overhearing conversations in the bar. Guess because my life is dull at times.”
“Her clothes?”
“They were bloody so I took them home to wash. Cleaned her jeans. With the bullet holes in it, the shirt was a total loss. She’ll need a new peach lace bra to match her panties, if anyone’s interested.” Silva paused for effect.
Darien could have wrung her neck, although she got the result she wanted. The image of Larissa’s lace bra and the creamy mounds they had confined came to mind. He knew damn well what she’d looked like beneath the turtleneck, and he didn’t want to be reminded.
“I cleaned the lining of her leather jacket, too, but it’ll need some patchwork. Oh, and I washed your shirt, too.”
“The letter?” he asked, too angrily.
Smiling, Silva pulled an envelope from her pocket. “I had to soak up the blood, so the letter’s a little hard to read in spots. Found it in a hidden pocket inside her leather Jacket. It crinkled when I was mopping up the blood on the lining, otherwise I probably would have missed it.”
“Why didn’t you mention it before?” He stretched his hand out for the envelope.
She withheld it. “I was waiting for you to be in a better mood. Appeared that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.”
Darien seized the letter from her.
“You might want to sit down when you read it.”
Larissa already told me what it said.” He yanked the letter out of the envelope; barely aware Jake stood breathing down his neck to get a glimpse of it.
“Then you already know your mate had a living husband.”
Darien jerked his head up and stared at Silva, not believing her words.
Silva folded her arms and looked smug.
Hell, he knew it. His worse nightmare realized. Lupus garous dldn’t divorce. They mated for a lifetime and only mated again if they lost their lifemate, if they found someone else they couldn’t live without. That meant a female was a virgin when first mated unless she was widowed, or in rare cases had been with a human. Lelandi hadn’t been a virgin. Too hung up on her to learn anything he didn’t want to know, he hadn’t questioned her.
He sat down hard on the chair next to Larissa’s bed, hating that Silva knew how horrible the news hit him. So was it a red blackmailing Lelandi for mating a gray when she was already mated to a red? Or a gray who’d learned the truth, blackmailing her so that he wouldn’t tell Darien? But why kill her?
Staring at the letter, he couldn’t make himself open it. Now he wondered If the man who had accosted Larissa had been Lelandi‘s mate.
Her nightmares were now becoming his own.
Jake stood next to the chair, waiting.
Pack leaders had to keep their packs together. No matter what. Darien had to get through whatever life dealt him. Clenching his teeth, he opened the letter and began to read.
Dear Lelandi,
He glanced up at Jake.
“So the letter’s from her,” Jake said, jerking his thumb at Larissa. “It’s not from her sister.”
If you’re reading this, I’m dead. Might as well say it like it is. You know me, that’s the way I always could be with you. No one else. Just you, sis.
“Hell, no, it can’t be from her,” Darien said, waving his hand at the hospital bed. “Not if the letter is supposed to be from the dead twin.”
“Then Lelandi was Larissa and Larissa was Lelandi? I’ll never get it straight.”
Darien felt a colossal pool of tension collecting in his temple. The more he found out about his mate, the more he realized she wasn’t who he thought she was. “Seems that way.”
“That’s why she kept saying she was Lelandi when we called her Larissa. I thought her confusion was a direct result of her wounds, and then later from the medication.”
So what else had his mate lied about? Having a family, a pack, a husband, her name. Part of him wanted to know, but part of him ranted the secrets kept buried. What difference did it make to know all the sordid details now?
I could never be what you thought I should, the good daughter, the perfect wife, but you always forgave me as a sister. You tried to steer me right a million times, but I finally had to find my own way. Who would have ever thought little ol’ me would end up with two husbands living at the same time, eh? Sorry, L. Just like the rest of our family. we don’t exactly go along with pack rules. In our blood, I guess.
If I could do it all over again. I wouldn’t have been born. Honest.
I wanted to be just like you. Hope you don‘t mind too terribly. Didn’t try to cause you any trouble. Don’t ever get hooked up with the wrong wolf and then find the right one.
But if Darien was the right one, why was she so unhappy? None of it made any sense.
One of the lupus found out. He’s been blackmailing me. Been getting death threats, too. If Darien learns about my other mate, he’ll be wishing I’d died the first time around.
The fear she’d be found out—that’s what made her so inconsolable.
I’ve made a real mess of things. Like I usually do with my life.
Give Mom and Papa my love. I know they’re white-haired by now over all of my shenanigans. Love you, sis. Find the happiness I was never meant to have. Larissa
He looked at—Lelandi, still sleeping soundly, wondering how the hell Larissa had sent her the letter after she had died.
“Maybe we ought to let him have some private time?” Silva said to Jake.
“You need anything, Darien?” Jake asked.
He shook his head, feeling like his whole body had sifted through a grinder. Leaning back in the chair, he closed his eyes. He’d wanted his mate to tell him what upset her so.
Now he almost wished he didn’t know.
Later that afternoon, Jake poked his head in the room while Lelandi slept soundly and said to Darien. “We’ve got problems with one of the leather tanning machines, and I really need help on this one.”
Darien figured he didn’t, but wanted to get his mind off his troubles. As it turned out, it took more than an hour to fix it and Darien was thankful for the diversion.
Returning to the hospital, Jake opened the back door. “I can’t believe anyone could screw up the leather tanning machine that badly.”
“At least no one was injured.” Darien said, “like the last time.”
Ritka sleeping at the nurse’s station caught his attention. She could be a real bitch, but she always worked hard, never slacking off.
“What the hell.”
Jake gave her arm a rough shake. “She’s out cold.”
Darien’s stomach clenched, and he glanced down the hall. A janitor was passed out next to a bucket of mop water, and Deputy Peter lay sprawled on the floor next to his chair in front of Lelandi’s room.
Shit.” Darien bolted down the hall and slammed Lelandi’s door open, the force banging it against the wall. Lelandi was gasping for air, a black plastic bag covering her face, suffocating her.
“Odin’s teeth!” In a couple of bounds, he was beside her bed, digging his fingers into the bag, trying to rip it open, his heart thundering.
Before Lelandi was fully conscious, she felt she was suffocating, the room pitch black, yet with her wolf vision, she should see clearly. She tried to move her hands, but her wrists were bound again. She could barely breathe as something pressed against her face. Something clinging and black. No oxygen. Blacking out. Where were her guards? Inside room? Outside...