Timber Valley Pack: Lynx On The Loose( A Paranormal Romance With Shifters) (10 page)

              “What was she investigating at the clinic?” Loren asked.

              “The high rate of mutations among your shifters in Timber Valley.  Most of the mothers who gave birth to children with special mutations went to that clinic.”

              “But…most of the children with mutations are in their early teens,” Loren protested.

              “Yes.  The laboratory in Korslovia…well, it’s a long story.”

              “Tell me. I need to know.”

              “The laboratory in Korslovia was first built about sixteen or seventeen years ago.  The head scientist at the time, a man named Chimurski, was experimenting on a shifter there who was a mutation; he was a healer.  His blood had powerful properties not seen before or since;  from what we have been able to discover from the few surviving victims at the lab, his blood was what was used to successfully convert a human into a shifter.”

              “That would explain why Colonel Bradwell was so obsessed with experimenting on shifters who are mutations,” Loren mused. “Korvath must have told him about that.”

              “Yes. Chimurski was only able to turn that one human.  He decided to take that formula that had worked once, and use it on pregnant shifter mothers.  Then there was a regime change, and the lab was temporarily shut down, so he decided to secretly experiment on shifters in the U.S. instread. He came here, bribed the nurse to inject those substances into mothers who came to the Timber Valley medical clinic for treatment.”

              “And then they just sat back and did nothing for all that time? That makes no sense.”

              “Our government was overthrown repeatedly over the years, and every time, Chimurski would shut down the lab and kill all the test subjects, just in case the new regime came out to inspect the labor camp.   He’d wait until things settled down to start up again.  He pretty much abandoned the clinic in Timber Valley. When Horvath came to this country, he decided to take advantage of all those shifter mutations, kidnap them and study them.  My understanding is the nurse didn’t want to get involved again, she was afraid she’d get caught, but he blackmailed her by threatening to reveal her past actions. She told him who all the mutations were, and sent him blood samples.”

                “That bitch,” Cody said furiously.  Shifters were very protective of their children. When that nurse was found, and she would be found, she would face justice swiftly.

              “Where is Chimurski now?”

              “Horvath killed him when he blew up the lab.”

              “So what do we do now?” Cody asked Loren.

              Loren looked around. Nobody else was close to them.  Nobody else knew this information but him and Cody.

              He couldn’t believe what he was about to do.  He was putting his trust, and the future of shifters, in the hands of a human.

              “Do you have enough men to capture them?” he asked.

              “Yes. We know exactly what we’re doing,” AL massy said. “We’ve planned this takedown for a very long time.”

              “Fine.  You’re right, I can’t reveal this to my men. I flushed out one spy, but there could be more. Take us with you,” he said to Almassy in a low voice. “Once Bradwell and Korvath have been captured, Cody can interrogate them and force them to reveal every single traitor in the shifter nation.” He glanced at Cody. “That is, if you’re willing to come with us.”

              Cody flashed a wry smile. “I live for danger.”

              Loren laughed. “That’s funny, I thought you lived for your wife’s good cooking.”   He glanced at Cody’s paunch. “I’ll try to return you to her safely.” 

              “I understand the risks,” Cody said. “This is to protect the future of our kind. What happens, happens.”

              The orange glow of the rising sun lit the horizon.  Dash was in the kitchen making coffee.  Isadora could hear the murmur of voices; Steele and some of his men were up already too.

Dash and Isadora had spent the night in a guest bedroom, with Thomas and Sally sleeping on bedrolls. They were still asleep, curled up in little balls. They looked so angelic when they were asleep. The fact that Isadora knew better made her smile briefly, before she turned back to the window, worry twisting at her stomach.

Isadora paced by the window, trying to think what to do next.  She needed to get ahold of Nicholas and find out what was going on.  Unfortunately, without her cell phone or a computer, she wouldn’t be able to contact him.

              She’d had no choice but to come here, for Thomas’s and Sally’s protection.  However, what was keeping them safe – lots of people swarming around at all times – was making it impossible for her to place a private call to Nicholas.

              She didn’t have a lot of time. Tomorrow Bradwell and a man who was most probably Korvath would be meeting up somewhere in Idaho, thinking that they’d be flying out of the country in a private Cessna provided by their arms dealer.

              Did Nicholas Almassy need more information? Was it safe for her to talk to Dash about what was happening? She didn’t know.

              She glanced at Sally and Thomas. She didn’t want them to think that she’d run out on them, but she needed to get to town to the drug store they’d driven by yesterday, where she could buy a disposable cell phone and check in with Nicholas.

              She grabbed a pad of paper and scribbled a note on it for Thomas and Sally telling them she’d be back shortly, and laid it on the floor next to them.  Dash’s car keys were on the bureau; she stuffed them in her pocket.  Then she carefully lifted the window, shimmied out, and dropped on to the grass, which was rimed with frost and crunched under her feet. 

              As she started to stroll towards Dash’s truck, a voice called out to her.

              “Going somewhere?” Dash asked.

              Busted.  So much for sneaking off on silent cat feet.

              “Yes, in fact. I’ll be back later,” she said.

              “Then I’m coming too.”

              She shook her head, walking quickly around the side of the house towards his truck. He followed right behind her.  “No, you’re not.”

              He trotted up to her. “It’s too dangerous,” he said firmly. “You can’t go anywhere by yourself as long as Colonel Bradwell and his men are out there.”

              “I know what I’m doing,” she said. “And keep your voice down. I don’t want you to wake up Thomas and Sally.”

              “You still don’t trust me enough to tell me what you’re doing?” Dash demanded angrily. “I’ve risked everything by putting my trust in you. I cut off contact with the Wardens. I brought you and the kids here despite orders not to have contact with Steele ever again. I could have just called in Warden Redthorne, had him protect Thomas and Sally, and handed you over to him.  What does it take?”

              She chewed her lip with frustration. She wanted to tell him, she really did.  She wished she could at least tell him that it would all be over tomorrow, but even that much information, in the wrong hands, might tip off Bradwell and Korvath.

              As soon as those two were in custody, she could talk. She could tell him everything.  She could tell him how she’d been watching Karen and her younger siblings to keep them safe, because Almassy had told her that Horvath was obsessed with shifters with mutations. 

But not now. Not when they were so close.

              “I’m sick of you shutting me out, Isadora,” Dash said evenly. “Make a choice.”

              Anger flared up inside her. Why couldn’t he have any faith in her? Was he just looking for an excuse to break things off with her? Probably. Her parents had always told her no decent man would want her, and Dash was undoubtedly a very decent man.

              Well, she didn’t need to be told twice.

              “Fine! I just made my choice!” she yelled, and jogged around the corner of the house. She quickly climbed in his truck and headed towards town.

              A quarter of a mile from the house, she was surprised to see Korvath burst out of the woods and start jogging alongside the pickup truck.

              Had he been hanging and waiting for her? He didn’t seem as frantic right now; he actually looked pretty cheerful.

He waved at her.  She pulled over, and unlocked the door.

              “What’s going on?” he asked. “Where’s your wolf bodyguard?”

              She scowled. “We got in an argument. I may have over-reacted.” Actually, she probably had over reacted. She had a tendency to be hot tempered.

              “What did you argue about?” He sounded surprisingly sane and calm today.  Bipolar, maybe? He was almost like a different person.

              “Trust issues. I have them. However, in this case, I also have my reasons.” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

“I wonder if I should go back and apologize,” she mused. She really hadn’t given Dash any specific reason to trust her. She was asking him to take a lot on faith. 

              “Probably,” he said.

              “You think?” she said, surprised.  Was she actually having a rational conversation with Pyotr? Will wonders never cease, she thought.

              “Yes. However, unfortunately, that’s not going to be an option.” His voice had suddenly taken on a tone of menace.

              “What?” Isadora said, startled. Suddenly, she didn’t know why, the hair on the back of her neck stood up.   She slammed on the brakes and reached for her car door.

              Then she felt the sharp jab of a needle in her arm, and suddenly the world went all rippley.

              “You want me to identify Zador Horvath for you?” he said with a sneer, as she fell into darkness. “My pleasure. I’m Zador Horvath, pleased to meet you.”

* * *

              Dash stood on the front porch, cursing silently to himself. Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed Isadora so hard. It just stung that she still kept him at arm’s length. 

              Two of Steele’s police officers were sitting on a porch swing eating breakfast. Because Roxanne was an anomaly, a human who could give birth to a shifter, they were especially worried that she might be a target. There were half a dozen more men who lived in town who’d slept in the living room on cots, in case there were any kind of attempt to abduct her and Steele’s son.

              The front door banged open. “Everything okay?” Steele walked out onto the porch, holding his mug of steaming coffee.

              “Yeah, fine. Minor spat with Isadora,” Dash said glumly.

              “She’s a hellcat, all right.” Steele shook his head. “You’ll have your hands full with that one.”

              “She may not come back,” Dash said grimly.  He realized that the thought of her never coming back cut him deeply. Was he actually thinking of trying to make things work with her? Forever?

              He thought about a future without Isadora, and it seemed bleak and gray. Safe, predictable, and not worth living.

              “She’ll come back.” Steele sounded more confident than Dash felt. “I see the way that she looks at you.”

              Dash raised an eyebrow. “Really? How does she look at me?”

              “Like a cat looking at a bowl of cream. She’s always liked you.  Why do you think she only misbehaved when you were on duty?”

              Dash shrugged, trying to look indifferent, but he was secretly pleased.  His lynx liked him. Every couple got in arguments from time to time; he could work through this. “You could be right. Anyway, no point in sitting around and brooding on it. What’s on the agenda for today?”

              “We’re pretty much just keeping watch. All of my men are on duty, pulling overtime, for now. We’ve got fire spotting towers that are manned by volunteers. They’ll radio us if they see anything suspicious.”

              “What about the Gunds?” Dash said. “They’re shifters, they could be a target. We don’t know what Bradwell and his men are after.”

“The Gunds are all staying on their property, except for Edvin and Axel, who share a room in town.”

“Wasn’t Edvin dating the mayor’s daughter, or something like that?”

“They’re engaged now.  Speak of the devil,” Steele added, nodding towards their car, which was headed in their direction. Edvin pulled in and parked.

              “What’s up?” Steele asked as Axel and Edvin strolled up, stopping at the bottom of the stairs.

              “I know this is going to sound crazy, but can I scent your truck?” Axel said to Dash, then glanced around. “Where is your truck?”

              “Isadora drove off in it a few minutes ago. Why?” Dash asked, a feeling of alarm rippling through him.

              Axel grimaced, rubbing his face with his hands.  “There was a familiar scent that I smelled. It was bothering me yesterday.  It reminded me of when I was held in the lab.  There was a scientist who worked there sometimes.  When I was walking by your truck, I thought I scented him, but then I thought, I must be crazy. He couldn’t be riding around in a truck with you. It’s been bothering me all night, though. If I could just scent it, I can put my mind at ease.”

              “What did the scientist look like? And what was his name?” Dash demanded.

              “They called him Dr. Smith, but it was like a joke, because clearly he was from some Eastern European country.  His looks, let’s see, he was a Caucasian male probably in his fifties, with bad scarring on his face, mostly on one side.”

              “No!” Dash howled, fur rippling on his face and fury raging through his body.  “The man with us was named Pyotr, and he was a survivor of a similar laboratory in Korslovia – but he can’t be Korvath,” he said, turning to Steele. “He was a wolf shifter.”

              “The man who worked in the lab – he smelled like a wolf shifter,” Axel said.  “I always thought it was just from being so close to us all of the time, or maybe some treatment that he did on himself. I only saw him a couple of times, but I remember him.”  His tone went grim and angry when he said that.

              “Did you ever tell anyone that one of the scientists working at the lab smelled like a wolf shifter?” Dash asked.

              Axel shook his head. “No. I didn’t like to talk about everything that happened there.”

Then he looked around. “The man you travelled with, where is he now? If I see him, I’ll know.”

              “We were approaching Steele’s house but he ran off…when he saw all the people there.”

              Axel stared at him. “You mean, when he saw me here. Because he knew I’d recognize him.”

Dash felt anger rippling through his body. Where was Pyotr now? Isadora was out there, alone.

              “Steele, I need to borrow your car.”

              Steele pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Let’s go.”  As he hurried towards his car, he called out to the two police officers on the porch swing. “Stay here and keep an eye on my family!”

              “Check on Sally and Thomas and make sure they’re all right!” Dash yelled out to them.

              “I’m coming too!” Axel said. “You might need backup.” He and Edvin jumped in his car.

              “How could the scientist be a shifter?” Steele demanded, as they climbed into his patrol car.

              Dash said. “Here’s what I think. Dr. Horvath finally succeeded in turning himself, at that lab in Korslovia, but then he was forced to blow up the lab and lost all his research.     I think that’s how he convinced Bradwell that a human really could turn into a shifter – he used himself as proof. And he probably got that facial scarring when he destroyed the lab.”

              “You said he was travelling around the country, living with Hobos,” Steele said. “Why would he do that?”

              “It’s the perfect cover. Think about it.  He wouldn’t have to explain why he didn’t belong to a pack.  When he wasn’t working at the lab, he could travel, finding out where the local packs live, and tip off Bradwell so that he could snatch up shifters. He could live among shifters and study their habits, posing as one of them.”

              As they drove, Dash looked around, worried. He didn’t see his pickup truck anywhere.

              “Call her,” Steele suggested.

              “She doesn’t have her phone with her any more.”

              Steele’s phone rang, and he answered it as he drove. Dash looked out the window, scanning the streets as Dash talked.

              “That was Officer Waterford. Sally’s gone too. Thomas is still there,” he said.

              “Isadora left by herself. Sally wasn’t with her. I don’t like either of them being out without protection, with Korvath being so close.” His fangs descended, and the bones shifted under his skin. He just wanted to shift, and kill something. He rolled down his window and partially shifted, just his head, sniffing at the air to see if he could pick up Isadora’s scent. Nothing.