Dreaming of the Wolf

Chapter 16

Alicia felt hot with embarrassment mixed with concern as she faced the policemen grilling her while Jake and his brother and their own sheriff gave her moral support.

Where in the world had her driver’s license gone? And when had she lost it?

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d noticed it. “I seem to have misplaced it.”

Detective Hanover nodded, as if that wasn’t important, that he already knew who she was. “Can you tell me in your own words why you returned to your apartment with three armed men from Silver Town, one being a sheriff of the same town, and what your relationship is to everyone, Miss Greiston?”

How did Alicia tell the detective she was “married” to Jake when she wasn’t? Not really. She had no paper proof. And not even his name to call her own. For the first time, she realized just how much that part bothered her. The rest of the pack must have grown up with the notion and it seemed perfectly fine to them, but being tied to someone as his life mate and yet unmarried seemed unthinkable to her. And despite thinking she never wanted to marry again, considering the way she felt about Jake and her need to be with him ever since they’d parted, she realized her only reason to swear off men was that she’d always picked the wrong sort.

She couldn’t have asked for a man who was more concerned for her, more protective, and wanted to make her happy in the worst way. She’d never had anyone care for her like that. How could she not want to be married to a man like that?

But what was she to say to humans in a situation like this?

She squeezed Jake’s hand. “Jake and I are engaged to be married.”

She focused on the detective’s eyes but sensed the tension in the room among Jake, Tom, and Peter. Worse, just as the words spilled from her lips, another two police officers escorted Mario’s henchman down the stairs, and she was sure he’d heard what she’d said. If he had a chance to speak to Mario, he’d tell him what she’d said.

Then Mario would have even more of a reason to eliminate Jake: to hurt her.

She didn’t speak any further until the policemen had taken the man outside, followed by the paramedics, and then shut the door.

The officer glanced down at her hand, but Jake’s hand was covering hers and hiding any ring she might be wearing.

“Recent engagement?” the detective asked.

“Yes. We met a couple of months ago.”

His brows raised and he shifted his attention to Jake, who gave him a slight smile. She was sure the detective was thinking Jake had either been suckered into the relationship or was a really fast mover.

“Love at first sight,” she clarified, just in case the policeman needed the clarification.

He seemed slightly amused and probably unconvinced about such a thing.

“Tom is Jake’s brother, as I’m sure you already know.”

She motioned to him. “And Peter is sheriff of Silver Town,” she said coolly.

“So you take a bunch of armed men to your apartment for protection, anticipating trouble. One of my partners talked to your apartment manager, and she says you have been paying the rent but haven’t been here in some weeks. Why come here now?”

“I came home for some personal things. Because of the trouble I had with Mario Constantino’s men last night in Crestview—I overhead Jake already apprise you of the situation—I’ve moved in with Jake and his family until we get married. But we knew I might not be safe if I came here alone or with just Jake accompanying me, after Mario’s men lost me last night.”

The detective leaned back in the chair, putting welcome distance between them. “You could have called us and let us check out the place first.”

“Would you have spared any men to investigate on an unfounded assumption?” she asked.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, then asked, “Did you know the man upstairs?”

This got really tricky. She tried not to reveal any emotion concerning her mother’s connection, but her damned voice broke when she said, “My mother…” She paused and looked down at the coffee table, trying to keep the tears flooding her eyes from spilling down her cheeks. But she couldn’t control her feelings where her mother was concerned yet. “She was seeing one of the men who worked for Mario. I don’t have any idea what Tony Thomas did for Mario. But my mother’s association with Tony got her killed. And the guy upstairs? He was friends with the murdered man.”

“And”—the detective leaned forward again and his steely look pinned her with the question before he even asked it—“what about you? What was your association with this man who was dating your mother before they were both murdered?”

“None. Only that I had warned her I thought he might be a member of the Mob. I worried for her safety.” Her voice hardened to fight the tears. “She wouldn’t listen to me. She said she loved him. It got her killed.”

“A re you sure there wasn’t something more to this whole case? Seems odd that Constantino would come after you when only your mother was involved with a member of the Mob.”

“I’ve been trying to put him back in jail where he belongs,” she coldly said.

“As a bounty hunter,” the detective said. “We ran a check on your background. You’ve successfully brought in a number of cases, but no one that dangerous. It seems to me you’re a little out of your league on this one. When it becomes a vendetta…”

“I’m not trying to kill him, just put him back in jail!”

She swallowed her anger. This was not helping, but Jake had said the same thing when he first met her and had triggered the response.

The detective continued in the same tranquil manner.

She wished she sounded a lot more coolheaded, but she guessed that with Jake and Peter’s finding Mario’s man in her apartment and hearing the shots fired, and then worrying that Jake or Peter had been hit, she’d been unnerved more than she thought.

“Did you think Constantino would be here waiting for you today?” the detective asked.

“No. I wouldn’t be that naive. He sends his henchmen to do his dirty work.”

“Even in the event of your mother’s murder?”

Alicia took a steadying breath as she thought of how her mother must have been terrified in the final moments, facing Danny Massaro, his gun held out to shoot her. “He ordered the hit. But Danny Massaro did the killing.”

“And you knew this how?”

She felt Jake tense a hair. He hadn’t asked her himself, and she hadn’t thought to tell him. “Danny’s brother, Ferdinand Massaro, told me.”

The detective quickly began taking notes, then looked up at her. “Where can he be reached?”

In that moment, she knew she was doomed. The police hadn’t known she knew anything about Ferdinand’s untimely death. Or that she even knew him. How could she explain she’d been at his place, had managed to run away without being killed by his murderers, and had never told the police she had been there?

Every time there was a murder of one of the Mob in Mario’s employ or related to him of late, she was involved! The word would leak to Mario and his henchmen that she might be a possible witness to the murder. And then they’d want her eliminated even more than before.

She shook her head. “Ferdinand always left me messages.”

“Left you messages?”

“He was my informant, telling me where Mario could be reached, hoping I’d take him down because I was a bounty hunter.”

“Why was he informing on Mario for you? If his brother worked for Constantino, seems to me it was a good way to get his brother killed.”

“I don’t know. I suspected Ferdinand had his own vendetta.”

The detective motioned to his partner and said, “We need to locate this Ferdinand Massaro, A SA P.”

“Right.” The other detective left the apartment and began talking on his phone.

Alicia swallowed a lump in her throat. She didn’t have any idea if Mario had disposed of Ferdinand’s body or just left him dead in his condo. What if the police could tie her to the crime scene?

“The place looks clean, unless you tidied it up,” Detective Hanover said to Alicia.

For a moment, she thought the detective was referring to Ferdinand’s condo, then she realized he was talking about her apartment. Get a grip, Alicia!

“It was like this when we arrived,” she offered.

“Then it appears Mario’s henchman was only waiting here for you and wasn’t searching for anything incriminating you might have had here. Or he was very neat when he went about his business.”

She didn’t say anything, thinking the same thing, but why say one way or another when she truly didn’t have an answer? Besides, she didn’t want to give away the fact she had her mother’s belongings, which she’d be going through if the police would ever leave her alone.

Detective Hanover watched her for a long time before he finally said, “A ll right. Well, one other thing.”

Something in the way he said “one other thing” made her think it was significant, although he tried to make it sound like an offhand last-minute question. She tried to not tense up while she waited for him to say what that one other thing was.

He tapped his pen on his notepad like Detective Simpson had done at Darien’s house, and for an instant, she felt it was a training technique they all had learned in police detective school. A way to fluster the interviewee in a crime-scene investigation.

“Two 9-1-1 calls were made in Breckenridge, both about you,” he finally said.

She stared at him in disbelief.

He paused, observed her reaction, and then forged ahead. “The first was nearly two months ago, coinciding with when you said you met Mr. Jake Silver.” The detective read from his notebook, “A handwritten death threat was left at the room of one Miss Alicia Greiston.

Myron Baker, assistant manager of the Mountainview Inn, called to report that Alicia Greiston had hastily paid for her hotel room and left without sending word to Mr.

Silver although they’d had a prearranged engagement later that day.

“Now,” Detective Hanover said, “my father happens to be the police chief in Breckenridge and led the investigation.”

Police Chief Winston Hanover. Of course. She’d met him when he was trying to solve her mother’s murder several months earlier. Who would have thought his son would now be interrogating her in another incident?

“My father was unsuccessful in locating the missing woman, you, Miss Greiston. He assumed you had gone missing, not wanting to see Mr. Silver any further.

Although my father was still concerned about your interest in Constantino, that the mobster has been spending time in the area, and that you believed there was a connection between the man and your mother’s death, not to mention her lover’s murder as well. None of which my father has been able to corroborate to date.”

Alicia barely breathed.

“So what happened, Miss Greiston? Why did you suddenly disappear from your hotel that day?”

“The note containing the death threat explains it all. I feared for Jake’s life and left before Mario killed him for hanging around me.”

“And now?”

“Jake assures me that Mario has no chance at doing him any harm.”

“Hmm,” the detective said. Then he flipped to another page in his notebook. “Then a day or so ago, a 9-1-1 call was made from the Cliffside A rt Gallery, and the woman frantically tells the operator that a woman is in trouble.

Her name is, surprisingly… Alicia Greiston. But the woman quickly tells the operator it’s a false alarm and the woman had passed out due to being pregnant. Since no real medical emergency existed, the operator concluded the conversation. But when my father heard of the call, his interest was instantly piqued. Now he knows the woman is still around, still alive, but he’s disconcerted that he hadn’t had a chance to talk to her… you.

“But it doesn’t end there. That night, another 9-1-1 call is made. A high-school buddy of mine gets the call about the shooting at Crestview Motel, and guess who’s at the heart of the shooting? Why our elusive Miss Greiston. Of course, Detective Simpson didn’t know you’d gone missing in Breckenridge or been the subject of the call about a pregnancy mishap…” The detective hesitated, and his gaze dropped to her waist.

She felt her face burn with embarrassment as she could imagine both Peter and Tom looking her over again, trying to figure if that was what all this was about. Had she’d gotten pregnant with Jake’s baby? But the timing wasn’t right, as far her having been turned, if a werewolf couldn’t impregnate a human.

“And now this. It seems as though no matter where you are, trouble follows you. My boss says we need to put you in protective custody, considering who you’re dealing with and how much my father would like to take Constantino down. But I wasn’t sure which one of you he was concerned more about protecting, considering all these shooting incidents that have occurred. You, or the men who hassle you and keep ending up shot or dead.”

And he didn’t even know about the man she’d shot on the trail where her mother had died.

“I’ll be fine with Jake and his family.”

“In truth, you’re bound to put his whole family at risk.

There’s a good chance somebody’s going to do something rash and someone you love is going to get blamed for it when they’ve never done anything criminal in their life.” Detective Hanover looked at Jake, as if to say he was the one the detective was talking about.

Jake shook his head. “We’ll be careful. We’re just picking up some of Alicia’s things from her apartment and giving notice. She’s permanently moving in with me.”

“I’ll need your address,” Detective Hanover said. “But think about it. If you change your mind…” He handed Alicia his business card. “Just call me.”

The other detective opened the front door of the apartment, and from the grim look on his face, he probably had learned Ferdinand Massaro was dead. “Can I talk to you for a moment out here?” he said to Detective Hanover, his gaze shifting to Alicia, then back to his partner.

They couldn’t know she was involved in that murder, too, could they?

“Sure.” The detective looked at Alicia as if he knew she had something to do with the latest report, which had her on edge all over again.

The two men left the apartment and shut the door, and the detective’s partner began talking.

Alicia slumped against the couch, realizing just how tense she’d been up until now. Jake wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a comforting hug. But none of them spoke while she and the others all listened, trying to hear what was being said outside the apartment.

Because of the large glass window and their enhanced wolf hearing, Alicia and the others heard the man say, “I learned Ferdinand Massaro is dead. Found in his condo by his cleaning lady the next morning. He’d been murdered the night before. A couple returning from a late-night movie saw a woman fitting Miss Alicia Greiston’s description leaving the condo, frazzled and upset, sometime in the middle of the night. Several blocks from the condo, a cab driver gave a woman fitting Miss Greiston’s description a ride to her car parked in a suburb on the other side of the city.”

“Hell. Now why did I guess she might have been involved in another shooting incident that was connected with Mario’s gang?” Detective Hanover asked.

“Not a shooting this time. Massaro’s neck was broken.

The coroner said it had to have been a man who killed him because of the trauma to his neck. But it only figures, Hanover. The little lady gets around. She sure has a hell of a lot more gumption than she appears to.”

“She’s good at staying alive, I’ll give her that. Anything else you can give me before I go in and question her some more?”

Alicia closed her eyes against the pounding headache developing in her temple.

Jake kissed her cheek. “A re you okay?”

“No,” she whispered. “What do I say now?”