Blood of a Werewolf (23 page)

“Hmmm.
 
Guess I hadn’t noticed since you didn’t have your hair up, by the way, it looks cute like that.”

“Thanks. So what was the emergency trip? Another hot date?”

“Hardly. No, let’s just call it a family emergency. Devon had to go back to Maine to take care of some family issues, so I went along for the ride.”

“Well, not that I mind taking care of Harry, but why didn’t Rowan just take care of him?”

“It just so happens that Rowan has hooked up with Devon’s brother, Blake and he and Rowan came along.”

“I see.”

“So here’s your check!
 
Anything I need to know before I get out of here?”

“Not really.”

“Oh, did you find any good books on werewolves?”

“Oh yeah, let me go get them.”
 
A couple minutes later she set two books in front of Darby, “Here you go! New hunk of yours a werewolf?”

“You are full of it today!” Darby said, a little unnerved at how close to home Allison was. “Pull these out of inventory and add them to my account.
 
And, no, he’s not a werewolf, he’s a vampire - way sexier than Dracula ever was.
 
Guess I’ll have to reprimand him for biting my employees though, can’t be having any lawsuits.”

Allison laughed.
 
Darby thought to herself,
they say the best place to hide something is right out where everyone can see it, right? If I’ve joked he’s a vampire, then that should be the last thing she would think he is, right?
 
Whatever the logic, what’s done is done.

“Thanks again, Allison.
 
I’ll keep you posted on my schedule, but you can call me on my cell anytime.”

“See ya, Darby!”
 

Darby walked in the back door with groceries for dinner and set them down on the kitchen table.
 
As she started to put things away, Devon came in behind her and wrapped his arms around her, starting nibbling on her neck.
 

“Hmmm. Hungry are we?”

“Yeah a bit, or maybe a bite, but only for you, Love!” Before Darby knew what was happening, he twirled her in a fancy dance step and dipped her back, kissing her deeply.

“Yummy,” she said when he returned her to a standing position. “What’s for dessert?”

“Can’t tell you – it’s a secret!” he whispered.

“Speaking of bites, have you bitten any cute little red heads in the last week?”

“No, why do you ask?”

“It seems my employee, Allison, has mysteriously contracted two holes in her neck that she thinks are bug bites she got some time last week.”

“Hmmm. Oh boy!
 
Telling you our trade secrets may get us into a little more trouble than I had anticipated, but truly, would you rather us biting guys?”

“Well, no...I...hmmm...I guess I hadn’t thought of that, but I’m also not to sure how I feel about you necking with people I know. I mean, after all, it is kind of an intimate thing, whether the girl knows it’s happening or not. Remember, we know all these people. I can’t imagine seeing old Mrs. Bennett with ‘bug bites’. And I really don’t think I’d like to see some hot looking girl walking around with what I knew was a calling card from you or Blake. Would it be a lot to ask if, say, you two took up dining on people Rowan and I might NOT run in to? Like say, in San Francisco or San Carlos, somewhere we don’t frequent. Think of it like this, how would you feel if I left bug bites on a bunch of sexy hot guys?”

He chuckled. “I think I see your point. I’ll talk to Blake.
 
We’ve never lived in a community for any extended time, so it was never an issue before, but we could do what Uncle Dominic does and just have blood sent to us from the family doctor. That is, if you don’t mind our red cocktails every once in a while, or the bag of blood in the back of the fridge?”

“I don’t mind, but you might want to put the blood in the garage fridge, on the off chance that a guest might grab his or her own beer and freak about the bag of blood. Thanks, Sweetie. I appreciate it. Really, I do. I hope it’s not too confining for you.”

“No problem, Love. Many vampires sustain themselves this way and it is certainly less gruesome. I’ll make the arrangements with Dominic tomorrow.”

All the groceries were now put away and Darby grabbed a beer out of the fridge, “You want one?” she offered.
 

“Sure.”
 

“By the way, as far as I’m concerned, just grab anything you want out of the fridge.
 
You and your brother are welcome to anything here, unless the giant green bean starts eating me out of house and home, then maybe chipping in would be appropriate.”
 
She laughed and he joined in.
 
“What I’m trying to say, is don’t be shy, you’re my family, and what is mine is yours.”

“You are too kind, Darby!” He kissed her again. “Same goes for me, everything I have is yours, including my heart!”
 
After smooching a bit, they went to the living room.

“I went into the bookstore today to do payroll and stuff and brought home some books on werewolves.
 
Thought it couldn’t hurt to read up on the folklore.”

Blake said, “You really think it’s an issue, huh?”

“I think we should be prepared. ” Darby took a swig of her beer and continued, “I also think that Blake and I should go to Colorado and try and find Benjamin Wolfe’s family and see if they would be willing to give us some first hand information.”

Devon and Rowan both protested in stereo.
 

Darby put her hands up to quiet them so she could explain.
 
“I know you don’t want to admit this, but it makes the most sense.
 
Devon,” she looked at him and continued, “You have a project that needs to be finished at work.
 
I know you are ahead of schedule, but we don’t know what the future brings right now, so now may be a good time to complete some things.” She turned to Rowan, “You, my dear, have a foreign substance running around in your bloodstream, and I think you need to take it easy until we know how this is going to all play out.

“We’re not talking a week here, I figure we can get a lot done in a day or two, unless his family turns out to be harder to find than we expect. Maybe we can find a birth certificate for him – that would tell us the name of his parents and where he was born.
 
We start in Colorado and go back in time from there.
 
A credit report, maybe – that would list all his residences, spouses, if any, and his social security number.
 
You two are software engineers, can’t you hack into something?”

Blake and Devon looked at each other and laughed.
 
“Just because we are software engineers, doesn’t mean we hack into firewalls for fun – it’s not like the movies,” Devon said.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Blake admitted somewhat reluctantly.
 
“Sorry, Devon, remember when I got that point against my driving record a couple of years ago, well I may have hacked into the DMV to cleverly discard the point.
 
Come on, they were going to double my insurance on the car.
 
I also might have slithered into the police database and expunged a few tickets from…”

“Please, Blake, don’t tell me anymore...I can’t believe you would take a risk like that again.
 
You promised me you wouldn’t do that stuff anymore.
 
You almost went to prison once for hacking into websites.
 
Uncle Dominic may not be able to pull strings like last time, if you do this again.
 
Don’t you realize, you could go to prison for that, for a very, very long time?” Devon shook his head.

“Only if you get caught,” Blake retorted.

“Great.
 
Nice attitude, Blake.”

“So what you are saying is that you have a program that can hack into the police database?” Darby asked.

“Umm…it can be done.”

“That would simplify things,” Rowan said.

“And we could all go to jail with him,” Devon said.

Ignoring Devon’s comment, Darby said, “Blake, this program, can it cover its trail? I mean would the IP be traceable back to us? Say we do a search on this guy; it would show his record, his parents, maybe siblings or a spouse? That’s what…four, five moves in the database and two or three prints.
 
As long as we don’t download to an IP, can it be traced?”

“Are you sure you’re not a software engineer?” Blake said then continued, “Basically, you just need a thumb drive or flash drive with Linux loaded on it. Aside from that, you need a laptop that can be booted from a thumb or flash drive.
 
Then you go to your nearest public place, say a coffee shop or an airport, the bigger the better. Then log on to the internet using the facility’s Wi-Fi network. It would be very hard for anyone to trace it. The program I have would allow us one hundred and sixty seconds to browse around.”

“So, since you’ve been in the database before, you know right where to go and could feasibly jump in and out faster this time because you know where you are going.”

“Yeah, if they haven’t changed their formatting, it should be possible.”

“I can’t believe you are encouraging him, Darby! Why are you even suggesting such a thing?” Devon asked.

“I know it’s irresponsible of me, but this is my sister’s life we are talking about and this could give us a huge time advantage.”
 

“But, this a federal crime. Maybe worse.
 
That’s long, hard time. I can’t allow him to do that. Personally, I can’t understand why you would even consider it. I thought you cared about him, me, all of us,” Devon argued.

“I do, Devon, I do very much. I guess, I just got a little over zealous! You’re right. Things are just getting a bit desperate here, but I shouldn’t have encouraged him,” Darby said dismissively, then continued, “Blake, have you come up with anything on the Wolfe Family in Colorado in your web searching? Some phone numbers or email addresses?
 
The four of us can start calling and hopefully we’ll find a relative that way. If you haven’t yet, maybe we could search MySpace and Facebook too.
 
Maybe we’ll get lucky and find someone.”

“Wow,” Blake said.
 
“How do you know so much about the Internet?”

“The bookstore does most of its business online.
 
You get to know a thing or two about the Internet, being a webmaster.”
 

“Cool, I’ll go grab my laptop,” said Blake.
 

When Darby and Devon were alone, Darby turned to Devon, who was livid.
 
Although he’d said it was okay, she was sure that it was not. She thought to herself,
that’s cool, if the shoe were on the other foot, I might be reacting the same way.
 

They were a lot alike in many ways. She’d try to make it up to him later when he’d had some time to cool off. In the meantime, she made dinner.

The four of them sat down to dinner together later that evening. Conversation was pleasant, but it was obvious to all Devon was still very angry.
 
His comments were short and almost gruff when directed at Blake and he all but ignored any existence of Darby, but to Rowan he was his same sweet self.
 
Darby knew that she had obviously crossed a line she ought not have crossed. She wanted to talk to him, but he took his leave, using work as an excuse, and left early that evening to go next door.

Darby tried several times to talk to him, to apologize, but either he wasn’t ready or he couldn’t forgive her for suggesting Blake’s involvement in something so wrong.
 

At first she thought he was overreacting, but after a conversation with Rowan she learned that Blake’s previous run in with the law was very serious.
 
So serious, in fact, that he was looking at 5-10 years in prison.
 
Dominic had been a key instrument in keeping Blake from doing any time, but Devon couldn’t be sure that Dominic could call on any more favors on Blake’s behalf if he were to be involved in something again.

If he were to get caught again, he’d probably get the maximum penalty. This news hit Darby hard and made Devon’s reaction more understandable. If she had known this during her conversation with Blake, she might have smacked him on the head herself.
 

Blake and Rowan had come up with some leads for finding Benjamin Wolfe’s family.
 
The Facebook search turned up several possible Wolfe family members all in Colorado.
 
Darby asked Blake if they should make plane reservations, or wait to talk things through with Devon.
 
Blake didn’t think it was a big deal, and pushed Darby to go ahead with the plans.
 
She wasn’t sure that was a good idea. She didn’t like leaving with things so uncomfortable between her and Devon.
 
Blake pushed her hard, though, telling her she could deal with it when she got back.
 
At the time, Darby hadn’t realized how desperate Blake was to lay this problem to rest, or she would have listened to her heart and put things off until things were worked out with Devon.
 
Before she could even think straight, Blake had already made the reservation for the next afternoon.