Shaun bared his teeth at the enormous bruin. “If you’re accusing me of fucking up—”
“Guys. Stop.” Evan’s command snapped like a whip. Shaun straightened as if he’d been zapped with a Taser, and even Justin looked wary.
“I’m not blaming anyone, I just want solutions. Who is behind the things that have gone wrong?” He stared at the ceiling as he test-drove ideas, discarding them one after another.
For the past six months he’d been focused on a financial takeover of as many properties in the Whitehorse area as possible. The recent big bear gathering that had threatened the city had briefly sidetracked him, but for the most part, he’d thought he was in control.
Well, except for the charming little fact he’d sniffed his mate but had zero luck tracking her down. That hadn’t disturbed him at all.
Bullshit.
He couldn’t dwell on it, not only because her absence would drive him mad, but because there were no easy solutions. Obviously, he was missing some information. Now was the time to put aside his distractions and get to the root of the most demanding troubles.
He shot to his feet and paced the living room.
Shaun cleared his throat. “Suggestion. Don’t worry about who, yet. Worry about how.”
“Figure out how these seeming coincidences happened and put my butt in jail for the night? Sounds logical.” Evan glanced at Justin. “Since you’re planning on sticking around, grab some paper and take notes.”
Justin pulled a pad from his briefcase. “Fire away.”
“Bills supposedly went unpaid, and shipping orders are being changed, both for the kitchen and the hotel, that much is certain. The power is one example, but lots of recent deliveries have been cancelled.” Shaun wrinkled his nose as he concentrated.
“Bookings got messed up. We’ve had complaints about that as well,” Evan noted.
“Sometime in the past week? Month? …well, it can’t have been for very long or Caroline would have noticed.” Shaun’s eyes widened. He glanced at Justin before crossing the room to Evan’s side and whispering, “Is it safe to talk around Booboo?”
Evan nodded. “He’s got our back. I trust him.”
Shaun narrowed his gaze, giving Justin the evil eye. “I don’t know that I do, but fine.” He spoke louder. “All these weird things are happening around the hotel, your apartment or the pack house. Which means it’s got to be someone on the inside.”
Evan shook his head. “Impossible.”
“Why?” Justin asked. “There’s no one in the pack upset with you for any reason?”
“Doubt it. Also, the hotel profits go into funding the pack’s activities, and their retirement funds. It’s unlikely anyone would mess with things that affect their livelihood just to get at me.” His pack members were wild at times, but not stupid. “Plus I’ve talked to all of them over the past week. If someone was that upset, I’d know.”
Justin lifted the pen from the pad, watching Evan closely. “The wolf thing? Really, you’d just know?”
“The pack connection is an important part of us.” Evan leaned a hip on the island counter as he considered. “No. I’m positive, everyone I talked to is doing great. Maybe some of the women I turned down are disappointed. The ones who hit on me since it looks as if I’m single again.”
“Women.” Shaun and Justin exchanged knowing glances instead of being at loggerheads.
Shaun hummed. “Could be one of them. I mean, woman scorned, and all that.”
“Jeez, Shaun, grow up. You prove to me any of the females were upset enough to screw over the entire pack because I said I was taken, and I’ll quit the damn job right now.”
“You can’t quit. You quit, and that puts me Alpha, and no way do I want the pack when it’s this fucked up.” Shaun ducked under the halfhearted fist swing Evan tossed.
He growled at his friend through his frustration. “You’re lucky I like you, or I’d burn off some of my irritation pounding your ass into the ground.”
“You can try. Anytime, anywhere, mon capitaine.”
All their debating wasn’t finding solutions. “This is the trouble with doing things the sneaky, undercover way. I might want to amalgamate the two packs in Whitehorse, but it would have been so much easier to march in and take over territory after ripping out a few throats.”
“You want me to get some friends to look into your troubles?” Justin offered. “I know you’ve got your own people, but the ones I deal with shift through dirty bear accounting all the time.”
“Duuude.” For the first time, Shaun sounded impressed. He was damn near bouncing with excitement as he faced Evan. “Take him up on it. I was talking with a couple bear shifters last week, and you should hear some of the nasty shit they try to get away with. I bet his guys can find the trouble, no matter how deep it’s hidden.”
A quiet ping sounded in the silence that followed Shaun’s approval. Evan paced a few more times back and forth across the floor, considering hard.
Ping.
Ping.
Justin tilted his head toward the desk. “You going to answer that?”
Evan frowned. “Answer what?”
“You got an IM.” Shaun pushed him toward the desktop computer Caroline had set up in the apartment to allow basic hotel tasks to be completed without having to go into the office.
Evan eyed the thing with suspicion. Great. More technology.
“Do I have to?” He turned back to see both guys examining him as if he were an alien creature. “Look, last night I swear my computer turned on the sprinklers without me. I don’t want to do anything to piss off the evil techno-overlords again.”
“Come on. Computers don’t work without you.” Shaun laughed. “Don’t be a scaredy-cat. You can do it.”
Evan’s fist hit Shaun’s shoulder with a resounding smack as he reluctantly passed his Beta en route to the desk. “Shuddap, you jerk. Justin? Go ahead and find out what information your people need. I want answers as to what’s going on, and I want them yesterday.”
Justin rose to his feet and pulled out a phone. “I’ll do this outside. Then lunch?”
“Sure.” Evan found the mouse and answered the summons. Ahh. This conversation was worth risking contact with a computer. His secret connection within the Canyon pack.
Amy?
Hi Evan. You okay?
Oh hell. She must have seen the news. I’m fine. Just a mix-up. Everything is straightened out
Not really, but that was as much as he was willing to admit.
Amy had been sharing bits of information about Canyon, and her intel was vital to his goal of merging the packs.
Can I help with anything? she asked.
I’m more worried about you, Evan admitted. You’ve been risking too much, getting in contact with me so often. I don’t want you in trouble. There’s always a risk your Alpha will find out you’ve been talking to Takhini
Amy paused for so long he thought the Internet had gone down.
I’m positive Sam won’t do anything
Which was not an answer, because there was no way she knew for sure how her Alpha would respond. If the shoe were on the other foot, and he discovered one of the Takhini pack had been discussing secrets with someone else, he’d be extremely pissed.
Evan grew more uncomfortable by the minute with the entire situation. Having access to information was important, but damn if he wanted to put an innocent wolf into harm’s way. He’d found out about Amy a couple weeks ago, and the longer the deception went on, the more unsettling the idea became.