The Wolf Within (3 page)

If I’m not careful, it can result in a kind of contact high. Dealing with Dan with a buzz on wouldn’t be the brightest thing I could do. I shifted half a step further away from her and her head turned.

“You can feel me?”

I nodded again.

She frowned. “But you’re human?”

“Lots of humans can feel weres,” I pointed out.

“Most don’t feel me.”

Probably because they were too busy gazing in lust—or envy if they were female—at the perfection of her face, all high cheekbones and large dark blue eyes. I squished down the little green monster. “Lucky me.”

She looked annoyed. I have no idea why. I hoped she wasn’t one of the weres who thought humans were inferior. It was going to be bad enough working with Daniel without adding a snippy alpha bitch to the bargain. Or maybe she was a feline. Werewolves are most common type of shifter in the US but there are a few groups of big cat weres. I’d never met one but if they were going to show up anywhere, the Taskforce seemed likely.

The elevator came to a smooth halt and the doors slid open. There was a brief flash of red that told me I’d just been subjected to a full body scan, then Ms. Blonde moved forward. “If you’ll follow me, Ms. Keenan.”

I stepped out, trying to scan my surroundings discreetly. I’d never had any actual involvement with the Taskforce before and my ideas of what a secret agency looked like relied heavily on old Bond movies and my collection of spy shows. I was disappointed when the room turned out to be a pretty normal looking reception area. White walls, the seal of the President on the reception desk, and one long low leather bench against the wall closest to the elevator doors. Smoked glass doors in the left hand wall had no signs to indicate where we were. Guess that meant that if you’d gotten this far, you were meant to know where you were.

There was a woman behind the desk. Unlike the valkyrie I’d ridden down with, she was short and dark. She looked sweet and harmless. But in this place she had to be fairly high level FBI. She could probably kill me with her pinky even if she was human.

“Ms. Keenan?” she asked. When I nodded she handed me a lanyard with an ID badge clipped to it. “Welcome to the Taskforce. Please wear this at all times.”

I looked at the badge. It had a picture of me, but not me today. My hair was longer, well past my shoulders. I hadn’t worn it that length for over a year. I frowned, trying to work out where they’d gotten the picture. Then I shrugged. The damn FBI could probably get any picture it wanted. I should be more worried about the ‘welcome to the Taskforce’ line.

I slipped the lanyard over my head as the blonde glided past me and pressed her palm to a small screen by the glass doors. They slid open with a soft hum and she turned back to me. “This way.”

I followed her into a long, low-ceilinged room bright with harsh artificial light that in no way disguised the fact we were underground. Rows of cubicles formed two orderly lines marching down the length of the floor and the place hummed with familiar office noises. What wasn’t so familiar was the fact that the cubicles were filled with vamps and weres.

I’d never been around so many non-humans in one space. My skin tingled even though I wasn’t standing close enough to anyone to feel them under normal circumstances. I guess if you put enough weres in a room, the effect gets stronger. My heart started pounding—an instinctive reaction to being surrounded by people who potentially viewed me as a snack. And the fact that I knew the vamps—and probably some of the weres—could hear my racing heartbeat didn’t make me feel any more relaxed. I spent a lot of time over the years trying to control the fear supernaturals caused me. I hadn’t wanted to let Tate win, let him turn me into someone full of hate and fear. I thought I’d mostly succeeded. But apparently this many vamps and weres in one spot was pushing my limits.

The small smirk on the face of my escort told me she was enjoying my discomfort. It was tempting to accidentally let my silver charm bracelet rub against her and see how she enjoyed a bit of discomfort herself. But that would be small minded and petty. Plus she could probably throw me across the room if I pissed her off too much. I stuck my chin out instead and worked on calming my breathing.

After a seemingly endless walk past the cubicles, with the occupants watching us pass with unnervingly quiet scrutiny, we came to a row of offices, each with a neat nameplate. We stopped at the one that said Special Agent Daniel Gibson. So now I knew what to call him. If only I didn’t have to call him anything at all.

“Come in,” Dan’s voice said in response to the blonde’s knock. I didn’t wait. I pushed open the door. Dan was on the phone but waved me in with one hand. The blonde hovered in the doorway. Dan finished his conversation and hung up. He smiled at blondie. “Thanks, Esme.”

Esme? The blonde goddess was called Esme? Call me shallow but that cheered me up.

Dan’s office was small and crowded. Files were piled on almost every flat surface. A stack of multi-colored folders teetered on the corner of his desk nearest me. I resisted the urge to push it to a safer position. If Dan wanted to lose his files, then so be it.

“Hey,” he said with a smile that was just a little too friendly for my liking. This was so not about me and Dan getting cozy. It was about catching the thing that killed my family.

“I’m here,” I said. “Let’s get on with it. Tell me about Tate.”

Daniel studied me for a moment. I thought he might be going to push his luck and try some small talk but he just passed me a folder. “This is everything we have about Tate’s finances when he disappeared. The accounts were frozen and no one’s been near them for twelve years. Two weeks ago, someone tried to tap the account on the top of the list on the first page.”

“Two weeks?” So much for wanting the best. I figured Daniel had tried just about everything in his power before coming to me. “What makes you think I can find anything when the FBI has failed?”

He shrugged. “You always said you were the best. Prove it.”

That earned him a glare but I still ran my eyes down the list of accounts. Most of them were US banks but there were a few in the usual tax havens. The total balance was well into the millions. And I doubted the list was complete. Either being a psychopath paid well or Tate had used his talents for mayhem and violence in a profitable way. I didn’t want to think about how he might have done that. “If this list isn’t complete, he’s probably been living off other funds. Or accumulating new funds. Or he’s dead and the attempt has nothing to do with him. Maybe it was a dumb hacker challenge.” It wasn’t unusual in my line of work to come across computer geeks deciding that trying to beat the Swiss banking system or something would be fun. It probably was fun. ‘Til they got caught and copped some heavy jail time.

“It wasn’t hackers. At least, no sensible hackers. It was a straight access attempt from a public terminal.”

Damn. Public terminals were designed to be anonymous and untraceable. Though they weren’t foolproof, they were a good place to start if you wanted to hide your tracks. “Surely Tate’s not going to do something that obvious.”

Dan shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe he’s bored and wants to play games.”

“I assume you checked out the terminal already?”

A nod. “Yep. Rented under a fake id. Not one of Tate’s known aliases. And the proprietor doesn’t remember any faces. It was a Saturday night, big gamers’ night. The place was packed.”

“Surveillance?”

“Nothing. The tape got fried somehow. And before you ask, yes, we pulled the guy’s servers and the actual terminal. So far there’s nothing worthwhile on them.”

Double damn. Whoever did this knew what they were doing. The challenge was enough to raise my professional interest. I ran a finger down the list. “Well, I’ve got a few things I can try but there might not be anything to find. Give me the soft copy of this and anything else you’ve got and I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’ll have to work from here.”

I dropped the folder. Spend time here, in the bunker with Dan? No thanks. Not gonna happen. I knew lunacy when I heard it. “I have a business, remember? An office?”

“It’s not secure.”

I bristled. My security systems are state of the art. My clients depended on my discretion. I had firewalls on my firewalls and encryption systems a spook would be proud of. My office had alarms, back up alarms, body scanners and cameras. Plus pretty damn good security in the building before you could even get up to my floor. I wasn’t up to the FBI’s standard maybe but I figured I was covered. “Gee, Dan. You work for the FBI. Maybe they could secure my little ol’ computer.”

“It’s not just your computer I’m worried about.”

Tate? He was worried about Tate coming after me? Sheesh. Dan had always been the protective type but combine that with alpha wolf instincts and he’d gotten paranoid. “Tate doesn’t even know who I am.” The police in Caldwell had always told me the attacks were random. No pattern. No reason to choose the victims. “How would he know I’m working on this?”

Dan’s face stayed stony. “I’m not taking chances.”

“Why, Dan, that’s so sweet.” I laid on the sarcastic tone and his eyes narrowed. Score one for me. “But I’m not working here every day. I’m not stupid. I have security.” And even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t agree to spend every day in the same building as Dan. I’d made my decision when it came to him. And it had cost me. I didn’t need a daily reminder of just how much.

“Your PA? Tate’s more than fifty years older than him. Stronger. He’d rip his head off.”

I shuddered. “Thanks for the mental image. But no, my security system is not just Jase.”

I’m not dumb. I deal with vamps and weres and I take precautions. I wear a cross. My accessories are all solid silver. I carry a big ass gun with silver bullets and I know how to hit what I aim it at. The vase of flowers on my desk is full of holy water. If any of my clients decide that I look tasty, then they’ll get a nasty surprise. They might still get me, but I make pretty sure I could hurt them in the process.

“This is not up for debate, Ashley.”

I pushed the file back across the desk, a little harder than strictly necessary. “Then I won’t take the job.”

His face twisted. “You always have to do things the hard way, don’t you?”

“You mean not the way you want me to? Yep. Sue me. It’s my life.”

“And you’d throw it away to spite me?” Dan snapped.

“Oh, get over yourself. I don’t run my life around you—” I broke off as he pulled another folder out of his drawer and tossed it in front of me. “What’s this?”

“I didn’t want to show you these.”

“Show me what?” I stared at the folder as if it were a box of tarantulas. It was white and the seal across it was black. The neat little label read ‘Tate, McCallister. SF10536.’ It gave me the willies.

“These are photos we found in one of Tate’s properties. We tracked it back to him about six years ago.”

Now I
really
didn’t want to see the contents. The house where a psychopathic vampire serial killer lived? There was nothing inside
that
I wanted to see. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“Just look.”

I opened the folder reluctantly. The first photo was of a fairly average looking house. Well, a fairly average looking mansion. High walls, trees, big iron gates. Pretty standard. I felt my nerves ease. Then I turned to the next photo and my heart almost leapt out of my chest.

It was a picture of me. Standing by my parents’ grave. For a moment I tasted bile but I fought it back.

I recognized the shot; it had run in all the big papers at the time. I hated it. Me in black, my face swollen from crying, watching them bury my life. I was sixteen in that photo. Sixteen going on three hundred. I’d never really felt young after Tate. The thought of Tate having
that
picture made me feel ill. But I wasn’t going to let Dan see that.

“So he likes to read the paper.”

“Keep going.”

I turned to the next photo. Me again. But this time not so young. College graduation. Years after the Caldwell massacre and Tate’s disappearance. I tasted bile again and dropped the photo as if it were red hot. “But these are—”

“Keep looking.” Dan’s tone didn’t invite argument.

Swallowing hard, I leafed through the photos. Me at school. Me at college. The final picture was of a room in Tate’s house. Pictures of me covered one whole wall, a sinister montage. Suddenly the room seemed awfully hot. I closed my eyes as everything started spinning, trying to breathe and not throw up.

“Ash?”

Dan was round the desk and by my side before I knew it.

“Shit, Ash. I didn’t mean to scare you that much.” He put a hand on my back. The warmth of his skin radiated through my suit. God. It was so tempting to lean into him. To let him chase the fear away. Except, when it came to Dan, the scariest thing was Dan himself. He was a werewolf. I couldn’t afford to forget that.

“Yes, you did,” I managed, forcing myself to shrug his hand off. The spinning started to slow down. It seemed that anger trumped panic, at least for the moment.

“Here, have some water.”

He closed my hand around something cool. I cracked one eye open and lifted the glass to my mouth. The act of swallowing made the spinning recede even further. “I’m okay.”

He didn’t touch me again but he didn’t move away. The tingle of his shifter energy flowed around me. “Take your time. If it makes you feel any better, he had walls with pictures of the families of all the Caldwell victims.”

No. No, that didn’t make me feel any better. All these years I told myself the Caldwell massacre was a random event. That Tate was a monster and that sometimes bad things just happen. The thought that there might be more to it than that – that the monster had a plan, a plan that might not yet be played out, sucked all the warmth from my body. I wrapped my arms around myself. “He has photos of my college graduation. That means he was still alive then. All the statements made about him say that he was believed dead?” All these years I’d told myself it was true. That Tate wasn’t out there somewhere. I’d had to believe it in order to survive.