A SEAL Wolf Christmas

Chapter 21

When they reached the tree farm, Anna couldn’t help but look in the direction of the pit Everton had dumped her into. She’d felt the cold seep into her bones as soon as she and Bjornolf arrived.

“You alright?” Bjornolf reached for Anna’s hand, giving it a squeeze.

“Yeah. I’m okay. I worry about Jessica’s frame of mind, though. The only father she knows is in jail, and no one’s been able to reach her mother. Now she has all these other issues to deal with… I wonder how she’s handling it.”

“She’s lucky to have Nathan to help her through it. Can you imagine if we’d had each other when we were teens to deal with all our issues?”

Anna couldn’t even imagine having hooked up with Bjornolf as a teen. “We would have been a mess. Getting into all kinds of trouble.”

He laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But we would have had fun. There they are,” Bjornolf said as Nathan and Jessica moved out of the darkness.

Except for their blue jeans, Anna noted, they were dressed in all black just like she and Bjornolf were, as if they were teen versions of undercover operatives.

Jessica was a pretty blonde with dark brown eyes, and Anna thought she looked sweet and innocent, except for the fact that she was a mated wolf and could be expecting.

Jessica was tucked under Nathan’s arm as if he was protecting her. Jessica’s gaze settled on Anna. From the intense look Jessica gave her, Anna knew she wanted to say something to her.

“Jessica,” Anna finally said, her voice hushed, as if giving her permission to ask whatever she wanted to.

“I didn’t… use it yet.” Jessica’s gaze remained steady on Anna. “The directions said to use it first thing in the morning.”

“Ah.” The pregnancy test.

Nathan took a deep breath.

“I want… I want you to read the results with me when I do it.” Jessica was still watching Anna, studying her reaction.

“Sure. I will.” Anna suddenly had a frog in her throat.

Jessica swallowed, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I… I can’t tell my mom about this. I mean, about any of this. Nathan, the wolf stuff. Not any of this.” She said it as though she was asking a question.

“No, you can’t. Do you have any clue where your mom would have gone?” Anna needed to have a heart-to-heart talk with Jessica. Having to keep the werewolf part of their existence secret from humans was essential.

“I think my Aunt Helen had to speak with her. But I called there and no one was answering the phone. I’m kind of worried about her. Nathan told me that he saw my uncle kissing my mom, and… I just figured it was family stuff. But… Nathan said it wasn’t that kind of kiss. What if Aunt Helen found out about it? I’m just glad my dad wasn’t here at the time. He probably would have killed Uncle William.” Jessica took a deep breath, thinking about how her father had tried to murder Anna.

“Hunter’s looking into it.”

Anna wondered how Jessica was dealing with her dad’s actions. In that instant, Anna saw herself as a teen again. No way did she want Jessica to have to carry this burden all on her own. She wanted Jessica to know she could speak with her about any of it. After what Anna had been through, if Jessica was pregnant, she’d refer her to Tessa in the matter. Gladly.

Jessica didn’t look happy, but nodded and then motioned to the house. “I’ll show you where the safe is. We’ll go in the back way through the kitchen.”

Anna’s phone rang, and when she answered it, Finn said, “We’re in place on the perimeter of the tree farm. Yale’s on his way to give us more backup if we need it, since he’s handling the case.”

“Good. We’re about to enter the house.”

Anna relayed the news to Bjornolf that backup was in place.

“Who is this Yale guy?” Bjornolf sounded very much like a jealous mate.

“He’s got a mate, Bjornolf. Don’t worry. I met him on an assignment in Washington, DC. He went to Yale, so that’s what we call him. Smart as can be.”

“Too bad he isn’t on Hunter’s team.”

“Some of us need to be in the field with humans. Like I was. Like you and Hunter and his team were.”

“Agreed.” Bjornolf unlocked the door to the kitchen with the key Jessica provided, gun readied, then pushed the door open with a squeak. “You stay here with the kids, and I’ll check the house out.”

Anna nodded. She could easily check the house while Bjornolf stayed with the kids, but she knew it wouldn’t have looked right. Nathan would expect Bjornolf to protect her and the kids. Even as highly trained as she was, the perceptions still reigned—big bad he-wolf protects she-wolf and offspring.

“Clear,” Bjornolf said after several minutes, then ushered them inside. He took Anna’s arm and pulled her aside and whispered, “Gray wolves, old scent.”

Anna stared at him, uncomprehending.

“Don’t you smell it?”

She took a deeper whiff and frowned. “Man and woman’s.”

Bjornolf nodded.

“The safe is in the basement,” Jessica said as she walked into the posh kitchen, everything crisp, clean, and white—cabinets, ceiling, tile countertops, blue and white chairs—with a warm golden floor and table, and big windows overlooking a field of evergreens covered in white.

She led the way down the stairs. “It’s a rec room. Pool table, exercise room.”

A massive, gray slate fireplace took up one wall, sooty and full of ashes, giving off a smoky smell. Dark wood paneling covered two walls, the ceiling, and the floor. A large TV sat against one wall, brown leather couches configured around it. Two narrow windows were situated high above, evergreen shrubs blocking what little light might have come through the windows on a day that wasn’t overcast.

The smell of bleach and lemon-scented wax cleaner masked the odor of smoke from the fireplace that would have dominated the room.

Jessica headed past the billiard table, a rowing machine, and a treadmill sitting against the opposite wall. A dartboard in a cabinet took center stage against a corkboard wall, perfect for really lousy shots.

“Do you come down here a lot?” Anna asked.

Jessica shook her head. “I don’t like it.” She shuddered.

Bjornolf noticed her trembling a little.

“I’ve never seen a dartboard like this,” Anna said.

“It’s one of those electronic ones.” Nathan motioned to the scoreboard. “It keeps score on an LED screen and has voice commands and makes sound effects.”

Anna shook her head. What happened to doing things the old-fashioned way?

Jessica unhooked the dartboard and set it on the floor to expose a wall safe. “He figured if anyone ever searched for his safe, they’d look in his office or bedroom. Maybe the living room. But a basement? Behind a dartboard? No one would think of that.”

Heavy-duty gray wall safe. Standard dial combination.

“You don’t happen to know the combination, do you?” Bjornolf asked Jessica.

“I only know one of the numbers is six. I was watching him when he saw me and told me to run back upstairs. He was angry, but I’m sure he didn’t think I could ever figure out the other numbers. That was the only time I ever got close when he was unlocking it.”

Bjornolf got on his cell phone to Hunter. “Okay, we’ve got six as the first number of the combination. Any ideas for the rest?”

“Give me a sec.” Hunter started talking to someone nearby. “Rourke, in your investigations, have you come across any numbers that might have been used on a safe?”

The speakerphone was on as Rourke responded. “Yeah, often wedding dates or birth dates. Sometimes owners won’t change the combination on a safe after it’s installed and it’ll be all zeroes. You said the first number is six?” Rourke paused. “Bingo. Try one and then five. The numbers correspond to the month and day that the Evertons’ daughter was born.”

Click.

“It worked,” Bjornolf told Hunter. He pushed the lever down and pulled the safe door open.

Inside the safe, bundles of money were stacked on one shelf. A huge stack of papers rested at the bottom of the safe. Bjornolf pulled out the papers and said to Hunter, “Thousands of dollars’ worth of cash stashed in the safe. I can’t imagine why someone who owns a Christmas tree farm would have this much cash on hand.”

The papers included birth certificates, a marriage certificate, titles to vehicles—including the work vehicles used by employees at the farm—and the deed to the tree farm.

Bjornolf said to Hunter, “Just going through the papers now.” He handed some of the documents to Nathan and Jessica.

They carried them over to the pool table, spread them out, and began concentrating on the birth certificates and the Evertons’ marriage certificate. “Everton was Roger Wentworth, married to Dorothy Slade on the marriage certificate. And here’s a birth certificate for Angela Wentworth. Then a death certificate dated three years later for Angela Wentworth,” Jessica said, her voice soft and upset.

Anna looked at the death certificate. “She died when you would have been just a toddler. Did your adoptive mom ever talk to you about it?”

Everyone looked up from the documents they were reading and studied her. Jessica took a deep breath and nodded. “Just once. I was looking through some pictures my mom had taken of me at Christmastime with Santa, and I came across some photos of Mom holding a toddler I didn’t know. I asked who she was. My mom said she was her daughter born three years before they adopted me. It happened when they lived in Portland. Mom was at the mall shopping. A nanny was watching Angela and she got away from her. She ran out into the street and a car hit her. My mom gave me a sad smile and said then they adopted me. She wouldn’t talk about it after that.”

Jessica sorted through the papers she’d been looking at. “No birth certificate for me. No adoption papers. Nothing. I don’t even know if my first name is really Jessica.”

Nathan looked unsure. Anna joined Jessica and pulled her into an embrace. “We’re all trying to learn the truth. You’re not alone in this.”

Jessica nodded and gave her a hug back. “Thank you.” Then she wiped her eyes and went back to looking at the papers with Nathan. She paused and glanced at Anna and Bjornolf. “Nathan talked to me about the dead men.”

Anna and Bjornolf looked at him.

He let out his breath and shrugged. “She smelled the dead bodies, too. Like we did. I told you. When she and I went on that walk that time. I thought she might have been here at the time. Heard something. No one has asked her.”

“And?” Bjornolf asked.

Jessica sighed. “I overheard a couple of men talking with Dad. I stayed home from school because I had a bad cold that day and was in my bedroom playing a video game, but you know how our hearing is. They asked Dad how well he knew my Uncle William. He said he was his half brother. They asked if he knew anything about Uncle William’s business.

“He said sure, Uncle William was into pharmaceuticals. They wanted to know if he was involved in anything illegal. My dad said for them to follow him outside because he had to get some work done, and they could talk while he worked on some new plantings. That was it. He must have gone to get his coat and gloves and stuff, and then left with them, shut the door, and was off.”

Stuff? More like a gun, Anna suspected.

“When was this?” Bjornolf asked.

“It was a Monday morning. We’re closed on Mondays to give the farmhands a break for working over the weekend. Dad catches up on work even when we’re closed. So we didn’t have any customers.”

“How did your dad and William get along?” Anna asked.

“It was weird. They hated each other but needed each other for jobs… somehow. Not sure. Dad worked for Uncle William before he got the tree farm. So they were kind of okay back then. But then Uncle William cut Dad out of their father’s will, and Dad said he wasn’t going to work for his older half brother any longer. I… don’t think he knew William was having an affair with my mom. If he knew, I’m certain that Dad would have killed Uncle William.”

Anna nodded. “I’d have to agree with you there.” She examined the deed to the farm while Bjornolf was searching through some old papers having to do with plants in the Amazon. They were dated thirteen to fifteen years ago, shortly before Jessica was adopted by the Evertons. After comparing handwriting on documents written, signed, and dated by Everton, Bjornolf could tell Everton was not the same person who had written the list of rainforest plants.

Anna touched Bjornolf’s arm and he saw the worried look in her eyes. “The Everton farm belonged to an Oliver and Jenna Silverstone,” she said quietly.

Silver. Gray wolves. They often used gray, grey, or silver in their names.

“The deed’s old,” she said.

He scrutinized it. “It is. But why would Everton have this old deed and not the one that shows he and his wife now own the property?” The situation looked more sinister than he had first suspected. “Hunter,” Bjornolf said over the phone, “I’m scanning the deed and sending it to you.” He waited.

“Got it. We’ll check into the deed as soon as the county courthouse opens this morning,” Hunter said.

“Sounds good. What do you make of this?” Bjornolf asked Anna, showing her the papers listing the rainforest plants and their chemical properties.

“What if the Silverstones were doing research on plants in the Amazon?”

Bjornolf agreed. “Hunter, we’ve got more. Listen to this. In the documents we found, someone made a detailed report of plants in the Amazon. Chemical properties, common plant names and botanical names, what they might be used for. There are weeks of detailed reports collected over two years, with breaks in between dates for several months, and then more reports as if the researcher left the Amazon, then returned and continued with the studies for another few months.”

Bjornolf read a small portion of the notes to Hunter to give him an idea.

“Amor seco, a dense leafy perennial grass, rich in flavonoids and alkaloids.

“Ajos sacha, leaf power, calming effect for some, not sure of effectiveness, causes thirst.

“Uncaria tomentosa, cat’s claw vine bark and root powder, strengthens immune system, similar to a wolf’s.

“Bauhinia forficate, or pata de vaca, leaves of a flowering tree in the pea family used for diabetes mellitus.”

“Hmm, sounds like we have another mystery,” Hunter said.

Bjornolf took pictures and then emailed them to Hunter.

After a few minutes, Hunter said, “I’ll have a research botanist I know look these over and see if she can come to any conclusions.”

“Good,” Bjornolf said. “I’ll take pictures of the rest of these documents, then return the papers to the safe.”

“Do you mind if I grab a bag of a few more of my things? Some more of my clothes?” Jessica asked.

“No, go right ahead.” Bjornolf put away the papers as Nathan and Jessica went upstairs.

When he thought they were out of earshot, Bjornolf said to Hunter, “Something else that seems strange. Both Anna and I detected a very faint scent of gray wolves in the house. I checked out the whole house and found their scent in every room. It appears they were here years ago. A man and a woman.”

“Like maybe fifteen years ago or so? When Jessica was a toddler?” Hunter asked.

“Possibly.” Bjornolf glanced at the stairs. “Do you think maybe her parents actually owned this house? That this was her home all along?”

“Could be. My uncle lived here for many years, deeding the cottages along the coast to me and Meara this past year. He’s living in Florida now, but he might know something about them. I’ll call him.”

“Something else to consider,” Anna said. “What if it was combination of things? Something the Silverstones were looking into in the Amazon that the Wentworths wanted, and Dottie had seen the Silverstones’ toddler and wanted to replace the toddler she’d just lost?”

Bjornolf swore under his breath. Then he told Hunter about what Jessica had revealed to them about the family dynamics. “We’re finished here. We’re taking the kids to our cottage for a bit, then they’ll go back to the family they were staying with until the open house tomorrow night.” Bjornolf grimaced as he realized it was later than he’d thought. “Actually at this rate, it’ll be tonight. Talk to you later.”

He took Anna’s hand and walked up the stairs with her to the first floor.

Nathan and Jessica met them at the landing, two bags in hand. Nathan was smiling at them. He was glad when Bjornolf invited them to the cottage.

Jessica looked upset as she wrung her hands, then caught Anna’s eye and quickly shoved her hands in her jacket pockets.

Anna said to Jessica, “It’ll be all right. It’s not going to be the end of the world, no matter what the results show.”

Bjornolf realized it was probably getting to be time for Jessica to take the pregnancy test. They could feed the kids breakfast, see them on their way, and spend the rest of the day in bed while Hunter learned what he could about the situation.

“What do you think of all this?” Anna asked, climbing into the Land Rover with Bjornolf. Nathan was loading Jessica’s bags into his truck.

“Seems odd that Everton was getting a lot of cash for Christmas tree sales and stuffing it in a safe. The list of rainforest flora doesn’t make any sense unless it’s something that’s making them money.”

“Like illegal drugs,” she said.

“Yeah. And the deed? I’m wondering if Everton came by the property in the same way they came to adopt Jessica.”

“He murdered her parents and raised their daughter,” Anna said, believing just what Bjornolf had been thinking.

How could they prove it, and how would Jessica take the news if they learned the truth?