E.A. Price - Valentine's Wolf (Grey Wolf Pack #11) (18 page)

Chapter Seventeen

They picked up a rental car at Ursa International Airport, and Jake was driving them to the hospital. Every minute that passed, he became tenser. It was a toss-up as to which one of the two was unhappier. Val was fretting her heart out over Hilary while Jake spotted danger lurking behind every shifty looking stop sign.

She wasn’t entirely sure his presence was helping her. At the airport, they first decided on taking a cab, but after Jake had decided the cab driver was looking at her ‘funny like,’ and he frisked the poor rabbit shifter down to within an inch of his sanity, they decided to rent a car instead. It was more convenient to have their own vehicle, and it was less likely that Jake might get arrested.

Val knew he was worried; she knew that during his years of working for the SEA he probably came across some brutal cases, but she just didn’t believe anything would happen to her. She’d lived in the busy city for years, and yes, she had been mugged, her car had been stolen, she was once in a store during a robbery and, of course, someone had broken into her apartment… She forgot her point. Maybe it was that despite all those things she was fine. Although she was seriously starting to wonder why exactly she continued to live in Ursa.

“Valentine!” he snapped peevishly. “Are you listening?”

No, she wasn’t, but she bet she could fudge it and pretend she was.

“You were telling me to be careful.”

“Damn straight.”

He’d been telling her that over and over since they left Rose
.

“Don’t shake your head. You have to be careful of what you are. Half-witch, half-shifter mixes are pretty rare. Usually, kids of mixed races are one thing or the other – not both. And there are some people in the world who think it’s wrong for species to interbreed. It wasn’t that long ago that people who were born as both were killed on sight, or worse. Witches used to drain their energy to make themselves stronger. For want of a better word, half-breeds weren’t considered people, so they got away with it.”

She turned to look at him, aghast. Her leopard snarled. Half-breed made them sound like they were half a person! “Seriously? That’s ridiculous.”

Although something about the use of the word ‘half-breed’ tickled at a memory.
Where had she heard that before?

Jake huffed. “I know it’s ridiculous, but years ago people were scared of your kind. They worried they were too powerful, and so they killed creatures like you before they could prove them right.”

Her cat prowled unhappily. “That’s silly. I mean, look at me? I may have a stonking great leopard in me, but I’m not so powerful that I could just take over the world!”

“I know, sweetheart, but people can hold onto stupid prejudices for a long time. Hundreds of years ago, wolf shifters were practically at war with witches, and to this day there are still wolf packs and witches circles who refuse to have anything to do with one another.”

Val shook her head. This was all getting a little too heavy for her liking. “Look, I get it, there are some mean assholes in the world, but I still don’t think I have to worry. The odds of me being the next victim must be pretty slim.”

Jake flashed her a pained look. “My last case at the SEA was trying to catch a witch who was torturing and killing people like you.”

“Is this the long story?” she asked softly.

He nodded and tightened his hands on the steering wheel.

“But, you solved that case, right?”

He snorted. “Yes, but there were a fair few casualties. We found out the guy – he was called Morgan - was going after a woman named Astrid…”

“Your friend Astrid?”

“Yeah, she is now,” he said tightly. “So we had a protection detail on her – my most trusted agent, Leo. Turns out, he was helping Morgan – he felt the same way about hybrids – so he was feeding him information. And when it came to it, he handed Astrid over to him.”

Val gasped. “But she’s alive, she survived didn’t she?”

“Yeah, just. It took her a long time to recover. They tortured her for hours before we found her. In the end, I had to kill Leo, a man I considered a friend before I killed Morgan, and I had to send a bullet through Astrid’s shoulder to do it. I almost killed her myself. By trusting Leo, I put her in direct danger.” Jake let out a grunt of disgust. “Leo had been leaking information to that psycho for months, and I was too stupid to see it. If I couldn’t see something as basic as that – it made me wonder what else I would miss. So that’s when I quit. I couldn’t trust myself anymore.”

There was such abhorrence in his voice that it sent a chill through her heart. Just talking about it ripped him apart, she could only begin to imagine what he had been going through for the past few years. He hated himself for what happened.

She didn’t say anything; she just reached out and caressed his cheek. It seemed to calm him a little, and he even rubbed himself against her hand.
Oh, her poor, noble wolf.

Jake let out a harsh sigh. “Morgan’s gone, but he has his very own copycat killer right here in Ursa. I’ll bet the fucker would have loved to have seen this - to see his work being continued.”

Val could sense his anger boiling and quickly tried to cut him off. “But, just by looking at me, you can’t tell that I’m a hybrid, can you?”

“Well, I admit that…”

“So no one else will either,” she said convincingly.

“We don’t know…”

“Then everything will be fine. It’s not like I’ll be running around Ursa, anyway. The only places I plan on going are the hospital and my apartment.”

Jake rolled his shoulders a little, trying to lose some of the tension gathering there. “You don’t plan on going to work?”

“No, I’m here for Hilary, and given that my boss appeared to be trying to get me arrested for embezzling, I really can’t be bothered with all that. Besides, I don’t really trust myself enough to be out in public at the moment. I mean, I seem to have an understanding with Venus, but what if I go nuts and start zapping people? What’s to stop me from turning into the wicked witch of the west?”

“You could never.” He treated her to the beginning of a smile. He wasn’t relaxed enough to smile fully, but she could see the start of one trying to break free.

“Thank god, does this mean that I can go out in the rain and continue to bathe?”

“I’d say so – in fact, I insist on the bathing.”

“I regret that I won’t have any flying monkey minions, but it’s worth it – I enjoy being clean too much to melt every time I step into the shower.” She grinned and then faltered, feeling guilty for joking around when her best friend was in the ICU. “Dumb jokes aside, I am just here for Hilary, I can’t go anywhere until Hilary’s okay, and I don’t plan on doing much else other than being at her side.”

Jake gave her a look of sympathy that came out more like a grimace. “I know. But after we go to the hospital, I wouldn’t mind actually catching up with Robyn about the case.”

Robyn?
Where had she heard that name before? Wait a moment! “Robyn, as in your ex-wife Robyn?”

He’d mentioned her a couple of times in conversation. He hadn’t said much about her; he was adamant there wasn’t a lot to say on the subject of their defunct marriage.

“Yeah, she’s leading the case,” he told her placidly. “She’s a smart woman, I’m sure she’ll catch whoever’s doing it, but she did ask if I wanted to consult, and I am curious.”

“Not that smart,” muttered Val sullenly.

He creased his brow. “Why?”

“She let you slip through her fingers.”

“We were incompatible.” He dismissed what she said, but his eyes softened a little, and she could tell he was pleased.

“Good, you don’t have feelings for her.”

“No, none,” he said quickly and emphatically.

“Then you can just go see her while I’m at the hospital.”

Jake scowled. “No, I’m not leaving you.”

Val rubbed his shoulder in a placating gesture. “I’ll be at a hospital surrounded by doctors, nurses, and security cameras – I’ll be fine. I don’t really want to meet your ex or learn anything about the case, so this is the best solution. You go find out about it while I stay with Hilary, you can come by the hospital when you’re done.”

“I don’t like it…” he began grimly.

“Well, we’re in a relationship now, so maybe you should get used to doing things you don’t like, like antiquing and visiting my grandma.”

She tried to be teasing but it had the same outcome as if she were trying to tease a boulder. No reaction and a stony face.

“Those I can handle, leaving you alone and putting you in danger - I can’t.”

“You’re forgetting, I’m a big, bad leopard.” On cue Venus let out a ferocious roar – darn tootin’!

Jake shook his head. “You’re…”

“Not taking no for an answer,” she said more gently. “Seriously, I kind of want to see Hilary on my own - to see how bad it is. And if she’s awake now, she might not want someone she doesn’t know in her hospital room.”

“I suppose,” he ground out reluctantly.

She threw caution to the wind and unsnapped her belt so she could scoot over and kiss his cheek. He muttered something about it being illegal to not wear her seatbelt, but he didn’t say no to the kiss.

Safely ensconced back in her seat, she said, “I’ll text you when I find out which room Hilary’s in, and when you’re done with that woman…”

“Robyn,” he interjected with an amused lilt.

“Yes,
her
, when you’re finished with
her
, come find me.”

“Fine,” he growled. “But I’m going on the record as saying that I don’t like leaving you alone.”

“Duly noted.”

She chewed on her thumbnail and stared out the window. She was too worried about Hilary to take Jake’s concerns seriously. He was just being overprotective. At that moment, all she could think about was her best friend.

*

After a terse conversation with the nurse at the front desk,
who did not want to be helpful at all
, Val was rushing to the elevator to get to Hilary’s room.

She slipped in and pressed the button for floor two. The only other occupant of the elevator was currently camouflaged under an enormous bunch of flowers. She wrinkled her nose at the sickly floral scent. Her heightened sense of smell was definitely going to take some getting used to.

Val turned her back on them and pinched her nose. Her leopard growled uneasily, and she felt a shiver of fear. Before she could wonder at it, two firm hands roughly grabbed her from behind. The scream died in her throat as she felt a prick on her neck, and lethargy overcame her body.

She collapsed and was vaguely aware that she was crushing the flowers now littering the floor. Her vision blurred and the last thing she heard was a very familiar voice that said, “Hello half-breed.”

Chapter Eighteen

Jake smiled and flicked the visitor badge he’d been given when he arrived. He’d visited the Ursa SEA offices a few times before. They were practically a carbon copy of every other set of SEA offices around the country – they were reassuringly beige, bland and boring.

Being back there wasn’t so bad. But he supposed part of that was knowing that he could hand over his visitor’s badge and leave anytime he wanted. He wouldn’t want to work there again. Give him his sheriff’s uniform, his poky office and his missing cats any day of the week.
Speaking of cats…

His wolf chuffed at him. Yes, the beast wanted to leave and get back to their mate – sooner rather than later. He checked his phone again. Still no message. He guessed – or hoped – that Valentine was too busy to text him. Her lack of communication didn’t sit well with him.

Jake caught a familiar scent and looked up to see Robyn striding toward him purposefully. She never walked any other way. She always looked like she was marching off to declare war on some unsuspecting nation.

He nodded his head and held out his hand. “Nice to see you again, Robyn.”

Robyn rolled her eyes. It was a familiar gesture that had become routine throughout their marriage. “Same old, stuffy Jake,” she sighed. “You’d have probably given me a handshake on our wedding day if I’d let you. Most men at least give their ex-wives a hug.”

She shook his hand thoroughly, and he tried not to wince at her firm grip. It was called ‘power hand shaking.’ Robyn took a seminar on it while they were dating.

He arched an eyebrow. “I once investigated a case where a guy kept sending his ex-wife pig hearts infested with maggots. Don’t knock the handshake.”

Robyn took a step back and cocked her head to one side. “Wow, that was almost a joke. For a second, I almost forgot you were a robot.”

Jake gritted his teeth and soothed his howling wolf as he ignored her jibe. Some things really never did change. She would always say that she was joking, but really, she was trying to get under his skin. Maybe that was why it didn’t work between them –
because he never let her
.

She led him into the deep underbelly of the building – well, not really, more like the second floor where her team had taken over a conference room and the walls were covered in information pertaining to their current case, and also the past murders committed by Morgan.

Robyn’s team seemed to be thrilled to meet him. Awkwardly, he shook their hands and ignored the looks of awe on their faces. He really didn’t feel like he deserved it. They told him that they studied some of his past cases at the training academy; he tried not to look too startled by that or notice that Robyn was scowling.

He was amazed at how young they were. He tried to remember back to when he was a newbie, but nothing came. He couldn’t remember being anything other than jaded. He was only 34, but he felt worlds apart from the excited young agents trying to swarm him. With a growl from Robyn, they soon settled down.

Jake peered at a picture of Morgan and resisted the urge to tear it to pieces and stomp up and down on it. It might seem a tad petty.

Robyn ran through the details of the case. They echoed the murders Morgan had committed.

Robyn rubbed her forehead. “So far the only link we have between the two victims is that they both used a number of online dating sites, and they both used one called Intimate Connections. It would explain how the un-sub found them. The dating site is virtually a grocery store for crazies.”

Jake grunted. She had such a way with words. “Any idea who it is yet?”

Her lips pursed into a tight, little line. “No; Intimate Connections have given us a list of all the men who looked at each profile, and we’re working through the crossovers. One of the victims advertised herself as being half witch, half tiger, but the other left species unfilled. So, whoever is doing it, can tell somehow.”

He ran his eyes over the wall of evidence. “You think they’re connected to Morgan?”

“We believe so,” piped up a young jackal shifter, blushing furiously when Jake turned his eyes on her. “There are just so many similarities between the murders – like the markings on the body – things that weren’t disclosed to the public. But we really know so little about Morgan, we can’t find anyone connected to him who we could uh…”

Her voice trailed off as she noticed Robyn’s icy glare.

Jake felt a stab of guilt and his wolf yowled mournfully. “That’s my fault. If I hadn’t killed him…”

Robyn rolled her eyes yet again. Something she did a lot around him. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself,” she snapped.

He checked his phone again and was irked to find he still hadn’t received a message from Valentine. His wolf soon bounced back from his maudlin mood and started snarling. She specifically said she’d text him, and she hadn’t! He should call her. Or maybe he should run right over to the hospital and take her over his knee.
Damn, she brought out his kinky side.

“We’re going to get the guy doing it; it’s only a matter of time,” declared Robyn confidently.

Jake nodded absently as he twisted his phone in his hand. No matter how many excuses he made, Valentine should have texted him by now.

“Excuse me, I have to make a call,” he said as he ducked out of the room, pretending he didn’t hear Robyn huff.

The call went straight to voicemail. As his temper rose, his wolf began to prowl, and his anxiousness over leaving Valentine alone deepened.

What had he been thinking? Valentine was a new shifter; if she were attacked he couldn’t be certain that she would even be able to shift, never mind calling on her witch powers to protect her. Leaving her alone in this city had been the stupidest thing he had ever done.

Determinedly, Jake stormed back into the room, making more than one agent jump. Fuck, he hoped he was wrong about this, but the fact that he couldn’t get hold of her, the breakin at her apartment, this apparent stalker… Hopefully he was just overreacting, but he had a really bad feeling. And hadn’t Valentine mentioned that she’d used the online dating site?

His eyes blazed amber as he surveyed the fresh-faced agents. “You have the records from this dating site?”

“Intimate Connections?” one stammered. “Yes, of course.”

“You’ve looked at the crossovers? People who looked at both profiles?”

Robyn snapped to attention and clicked her fingers at the jackal shifter who passed her a sheaf of papers. “Yes, we’ve been able to eliminate some but not all yet. Some of these are fake names and details; we’re still tracking them down.”

A cheetah shifter agent let out a bark of laughter. “There are more crossovers than you’d expect considering how wildly different the victims were. I mean why would a guy who looked at a hot college student then go onto a dumpy truck… ugh…”

He gulped as Jake leveled a vicious snarl at him. He was in no mood for this young idiot’s opinion. Everyone else gave him fearful looks, but Robyn wasn’t moved.

“Can it, Clark,” she sniped at the pale cheetah. “Jake, what are you getting at?”

“Can you bring up another profile?”

The jackal nodded. “Sure, the company gave me access.”

“Valentine Daniels, see if she has one.”

He turned his back on a frowning Robyn and tried calling his mate again. It went straight to voicemail.
Again
.

Jake wasn’t proud of himself, but he grabbed the cheetah by his collar. “Get me a phone number for Ursa General Hospital – now!”

The cheetah scuttled away.

“I have Valentine Daniel’s profile,” called the jackal. “Her account was closed just last week, but they still have her details on file.”

Jake peered over her shoulder at the computer, pretending he didn’t notice the trembling jackal next to him. Yep, that was definitely his beautiful Valentine staring back at him. His wolf snapped his jaws unhappily at the thought of countless men looking over her profile. It didn’t matter now; she was his.

“Good work… uh…”

“Danica,” she squeaked.

“Danica, cross reference all the people who looked at her profile along with all the people who looked at the victims.”

Danica nodded.

“Do you know something I don’t?” asked Robyn suspiciously.

Jake blew out a breath. “I hope not.”

The cheetah passed him the number for the hospital; he snatched it and started dialing. Quickly, he found out where Valentine’s friend was, and was transferred to that floor. In exasperation, the nurse on duty told him three times that the only people who were in Hilary’s room were her mother and her mother’s friend. No, she hadn’t seen a redheaded woman come anywhere near the room.

His jaw almost cracked with the effort of maintaining his red-hot fury and keeping his beast at bay. It had been almost two hours since he dropped Valentine at the hospital. It could not possibly, under any circumstances, take her that long to find the room.
Something was wrong
. At that point, he asked to be put through to security and the nurse was only too glad to get rid of him.

When the bored-sounding security guard came on the line, Jake virtually barked orders at him. They were said with such an authoritative voice that the guard didn’t even stop to question who was giving him the orders. Technically a small-town sheriff from Virginia wouldn’t have any sway, but the guy didn’t even stop to ask.

Jake told him that someone was missing and had possibly been abducted in the hospital, and they needed to find her. He took an e-mail address and number and said he would send over a picture of the woman they were looking for. The guard rang off with a ‘yes sir.’ He then had the now nervous looking cheetah send the profile picture of Valentine over to the hospital.

“What the fuck is going on?” roared Robyn, who never liked to think there was anything she didn’t know.

In the back of Jake’s mind, he still hoped that perhaps he was overreacting, but he doubted it. In the pit of his gut, he felt that something awful was happening. He knew it, and his wolf knew it, too.

“I have a list of the crossovers between all three women,” volunteered Danica, almost timidly. “There are only ten altogether, and we’ve managed to eliminate five of those.”

Jake glared at the screen and noticed one of the names on the list was that of Lester Biggs. Maybe it was a coincidence, but Valentine’s stalker was called Lester.

His wolf grumbled in a mixture of fear and anger. No, there was no coincidence. That was the guy. He could just sense it. He felt it deep down inside of him.
That was definitely the guy.

“That’s him – Lester Biggs.”

Robyn scoffed. “How can you possibly know that?”

“I’ll explain on the way,” he said shortly as he strode to the door.

She threw up her hands. “Where the hell are we going?”

“Hospital.”

*

Val groaned. Oh, her freaking head! It wasn’t bad enough that she had a raging headache storming within, but she also had an irate leopard snarling and clawing to get free.
What had she been saying about the two of them getting along?

Actually, it was kind of strange that Venus wasn’t just taking over. Val was too tired to fight her, and the edgy cat was dying to be free. She tensed and tried to shift and was amazed when she couldn’t. No wonder Venus was so panicky. It wasn’t her inexperience stopping her; no, there was something wrong with her. She couldn’t seem to get her body to respond.

Her eyes snapped open, and she growled at the bright light shining in her face. She squinted and tried to look around the room. She seemed to be in a hospital room, or rather an operating room.

Her gaze alighted on a man to her left who was staring at her intently.

Her mouth felt thick and wooly. “Lester… is that you?”

She recalled getting into the elevator and then… and then… not much else.

“What are you doing here?” What am I doing here? She thought worriedly.

Val tried to sit up, but her body really didn’t want to co-operate.

Lester let out a sound of disgust. “Like you don’t know,” he hissed, in a cold voice.

“I really don’t,” she mumbled trying to look around her.

“You’re a half-breed, I have to kill you,” he replied simply.

Venus howled in fury, and Val didn’t feel like she was far behind. Jake was right; there were people out there who wanted her dead just for being born a little bit different. Oh, Jake!
What if she never got to see her mate again?

No, she would see him again. The alternative was unacceptable! She didn’t know how long she’d spent wasting time being all unconscious and useless, but she was sure, by now, Jake was getting all het up about her not texting him. He could burst through the door any second… any second… Okay, it would have been really cool if he had arrived right at that moment, but, instead, she needed to stall the lunatic.

“But why?” she asked, making her lip quiver.

Yep, she had to make him think she was afraid – not hard given that she was.