Erotica/Romance. 74621 words long.
Chapter Eleven
There was a dark sedan parked in front of Julie's house when they drove past. Dante gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to stop the vehicle then and confront the Feds, but he contained his rage and impatience with an effort. He wasn't going to do anyone any good if he killed Feds on his own doorstep. Halfway down the next block, he pulled over and ordered Maurice, Jessie, and Kane out. “I'm going in the front door. You three spread out, locate any Feds staking the house out and then meet me at the house."
He paused as they nodded. “Don't do anything yet. All I want to know right now is what we're dealing with."
The dark sedan was still in front of the house when Dante pulled into the driveway and parked. He checked himself for any signs of blood he might have missed before he got out. A bath would've been better than just mopping off, but he hadn't wanted to spare the time to go back to his place first. The damned cell had been out of range when they'd found it, and then the piece of shit had gone dead about the time they reached a hot zone.
It was a judgment call, and he was well aware his judgment wasn't at its peak at the moment, but he figured the Feds couldn't smell worth a shit—they were human, after all.
Two men in dark suits were sitting in Julie's living room when he walked in, interrogating her. Julie, holding Felicity, was tense and pale, her anxiety bouncing off of him in waves as he entered. The other pups were huddled together in a wide-eyed, frightened heap as far from the men as they could get and still be in the same room with Julie.
A third Fed was standing just on the other side of the wall, hidden, he thought. “What the fuck is going on here?” he demanded, halting before he crossed the threshold into the living room.
The Fed stepped out, a gun drawn.
Dante eyed the gun and gave the man a level look. “Unless you've got a god damned good reason for waving that thing in my face, you son-of-a-bitch, I suggest you put it up,” he said coldly.
"Who are you?” one of the men in the living room demanded.
"You're in my house. I think that's my question to be asking."
"You're the legal owner of this house?"
"I am. Now why don't you tell me what the fuck you're doing in it? Did you invite them in, Jules?"
"They forced their way in."
"You have warrants?"
"We're Federal agents,” the man, who'd risen who was obviously the asshole in charge, informed him.
"And I give a fuck. Warrant?"
"They already searched the house,” Julie put in.
"With or without a warrant?” Dante asked grimly, flipping out his cell phone.
"We have a warrant."
"And you obviously already executed it. Now you can leave."
The agent glared at him. “We have a few more questions...."
"I'll just let you talk to my lawyer then. His name's in the book. Charles Maples."
They glared at him, but they had nothing and they knew it. “We'll talk again, Ms. Beauchamp."
"Not without a lawyer, you won't."
The man stopped in front of him. “I didn't catch your name."
"I didn't throw it. You're an investigator. See if you can find something besides your ass."
Dante followed them out the front door, watching until they'd gotten into the car and drove off. When he reentered the house, Maurice and Jessie had arrived. “See anything?"
They shook their heads. “Looks like it was just the one car—unless Kane came up with something."
Dante transferred his attention to Julie. “Were they alone when they searched the house?"
She nodded. “They threatened to put me in jail if I interfered—made me and the pups wait here."
Dante glanced over to where the boys were sitting in a cluster beneath the window on the far side of the room. “You guys alright?"
They were pale and shaken, but all of them nodded. He turned to look at his lieutenants. “Maurice, you and Jessie check the house out—thoroughly."
Kane returned while Dante and Julie were trying to divert the boys from their fright with a few scoops of ice cream.
"Anything?” Dante asked when he came in.
Kane shook his head. “But the one that was here just circled the block."
"I figured as much."
"Maurice and Jessie back?"
"They're checking out the house,” Dante said coolly. Ruffling the hair of the two closest boys, Dante managed a faint smile for them and then jerked his head at Julie and went back into the living room.
Julie, he saw, was still upset, and he had a bad feeling he wasn't going to like what she had to say. She contained herself, though, waiting until Maurice and Jessie returned.
"It's clear now."
Dante looked at Julie. “You didn't see them drop anything in here?"
She shook her head. “She's gone,” she burst out. “We tried to call you, but we couldn't get through. Jean-Claude's been looking for her for hours."
Dante felt as if the bottom had fallen out of his stomach. “Gone?” he repeated hollowly.
Julie burst into tears. “She said she was going for a walk right after lunch. I didn't think anything about it, honest to god! She didn't take anything. She said she was going to the store—asked me if I wanted her to bring anything back. I saw Jean-Claude follow her. He said she went into the lady's room and then just vanished."
"Jesus fucking Christ, Jules!” Dante ground out, glancing down at his watch. “Just after lunch?"
"We tried to reach you! I couldn't leave the pups, damn it! Jean-Claude's been all over everywhere trying to pick up her scent!"
Jean-Claude slipped into the door at about that time, took one look at Dante's face and turned white. “Sorry, boss!"
Dante sucked in a deep breath, stalked across the room, and punched him in the face. “Not half as sorry as you're going to be!” he roared, diving for the man and jerking him up by the throat.
Maurice and Jessie grabbed Dante's arms, trying to pull him loose. “Damn it, Dante!” Maurice bellowed. “We need to know what he knows. If you beat him senseless we'll have to wait till he comes around."
Dante sucked in several more deep breaths, shook Jean-Claude, and finally released him. “Sit down and tell me
exactly
what happened,” he ground out.
Rubbing his throat, Jean-Claude moved shakily to a chair, collapsed in it, and carefully recited the tale. “There was no window—no way she could have gotten out."
"Which means she walked right by you, you son-of-a-bitch,” Dante growled.
"I'm tellin’ you she din. I never took my eyes off the door, not once. After I'd waited ‘bout fifteen minutes I got worried and asked a woman to check for her. She said there wasn't nobody inside. When dat woman came out, I went in and checked myself. She wasn't there. There wasn't nothin’ in there that she'd left and I couldn't find no trace of her. I been back and forth over and over. I pick up her scent here, track it there and lose it."
Dante ground his teeth together in impotent fury. “She outsmarted you. Tell me about the women you saw come out."
"None of them was her."
"Any of them close to her age? Height? Weight?"
Jean-Claude frowned. “Two."
"What did they look like?"
His frown deepened. “One had brown hair, the other was a red head.” He looked up sheepishly. “The red head wreaked of perfume—near gave me a nose bleed. She was taller though, wasn't wearing clothes anything like Ms. Shilo had on—different bag. Sun glasses. I couldn't see her eyes."
Dante pinched the bridge of his nose, struggling against the rage and anxiety that was twisting his gut. “She went in as blond, came out as a red head, and walked right by you. Damn it to hell, Jean-Claude!"
Striding to the window, he stood staring out at the darkening street, trying to figure out the best way to go about getting her back. The Feds were going to be a real pain in the ass. If they weren't damned careful, they'd have the Feds in behind them while they were tracking her down. And they couldn't wait. Her trail would go cold and he'd never find her. He had no idea even where to look.
He felt sick to his stomach at the thought.
Not finding her was not an option.
It was painfully obvious he hadn't succeeded in marking her, but he'd bound himself to her, nevertheless, if the churning sense of loss was anything to go by, and he knew it was. The up side to that was that, by binding himself, he had finely attuned his ‘radar’ to her. If he could catch even a faint trace of her, he could track her.
He tried not to think of how big an ‘if’ that might be when she had such a huge head start and he had such an enormous area to cover. If he couldn't narrow that down, fast, he was going to lose all trace of her.
"Go back to the store again, Jean-Claude—follow the scent she was wearing. Find out which plane, train, bus, or fucking boat she got on and get back to me as quickly as you can. And watch your ass. We've got Feds breathing down our necks, and they want her."
When Jean-Claude had left, he turned to Julie. “As soon as it's full dark, I want you to take my SUV and the pups and go to a hotel.” He paused. “We'll wait till we hear from Jean-Claude. Then, which ever direction Shilo took, you'll take the opposite, find a hotel near the edge of the city. I want them as far from her as I can get them right now."
Julie looked at him wide eyed. “Wouldn't it be best to take the pups to Mary Jane? Or maybe Cindy?"
He shook his head. “I don't like this any better than you do. But one thing we can't do is lead the bastards to any of the others. They're not going to hurt you or the pups. They'll follow you and stake out the hotel, expecting you to contact Shilo."
Maurice frowned. “What if they just call in another car to tail her and stay where they are?"
Dante shrugged. “I'd rather have them as far away from pack property, and Shilo, as possible, but it's not going to be a problem if they don't take the bait. They won't be able to tail us. Once Jules is gone, we'll shift into wolf form. They aren't going to pay any attention to a pack of ‘dogs'. We'll go back to our place, change, grab one of the other vehicles, and go after her."
"They might have found out who you are by now, Dante,” Julie said worriedly.
Dante shrugged. “I doubt that. The house belongs to a holding company, and it's just one of thirty, and the holding company belongs to a corporation ... which belongs to a larger corporation. It'll take them a while to track down my personal residence."
Jessie spoke for the first time. “I want her back as much as you do...."
Dante turned to look at him. “Somehow, I doubt that."
Jessie's expression tightened. “We can't bring her back here with the Feds looking for her. That's all I'm sayin'."
Dante's lips thinned, his face hardening with purpose. “Then we'll just have to get rid of them, won't we?"
* * * *
Shilo was more tired than she could ever remember being and deeply depressed by the time she finally pulled into the barn near her cabin and shut the engine off. She didn't get out at once, just sat staring into space, allowing her mind to wander. “There's no sense in moping, Anne-Marie,” she muttered finally.
Getting out of the car, she went to the trunk and took out her spare suitcase—the one she always kept in the trunk for ‘just in case'. The sun was setting as she left the barn. Ordinarily, she would've paused to admire the sunset. She wasn't currently in the mood, even if she hadn't been tired to death. Between depression and plain out weariness, it took all she could do to drag herself into the cabin. She dropped the suitcase by the door and locked the door behind her.
Her cats, one Siamese, one Burmese, and a Maine Coon, studied her through narrowed, accusing eyes. “Give me a break, will you? I know good and well Mr. Clements checked on y'all while I was gone."
The Maine Coon, Monster by name, yawned, stretched and went back to grooming herself. Ching and Buddy hopped down off the couch and trotted behind her as she headed towards the kitchen, zipping out the back door like greased lightning when she opened the door and went out to find food in the chest freezer. Monster strolled out in their wake and disappeared, as well. “It's almost dark,” she called after them. “If you don't want to spend the night in the barn, you'd better be scratching at the back door before I get ready for bed!"
She realized after she'd lugged in an armload of food that she really didn't feel up to cooking. She'd spent two days on the road, zigzagging north to south and east to west, and changing cars twice before she'd been convinced nobody was following her and went to pick up her own car. Ordinarily, it would only have been one at the most, but she'd been more unnerved than usual. She'd just
thought
it was nerve wracking to have the authorities searching for her. The possibility of having lycans in behind her was
much
more unnerving.
The worst of it, though, was that she'd almost hoped Dante
would
come after her.
"Dream on,” she muttered as she stuffed her groceries into the refrigerator. After staring at the possibilities for a few minutes, she went back out to the freezer and sorted through the freezer meals until she found one that didn't make her feel like gagging. Ripping the box off as she came back in, she stabbed a few holes in the plastic and threw the plastic tray into the microwave.
While she was waiting, she pulled off her heels and dropped them on the floor, and then dragged the long black wig off that she'd switched to after the red one and hooked it on one of the kitchen chairs. Her hair was matted to her head from wearing the damned thing and her scalp itched. God the wigs were hot and uncomfortable! She managed to eat most of the microwaveable meal and then headed to her room for a shower.
It was barely eight o'clock when she came out again. She stared at her bed longingly, but she knew if she climbed into it she'd be awake long before dawn and feel just as bad tomorrow as she did right now. Instead, she went into the small living room and settled at her desk to check her email. There were three hundred messages and two hundred ninety nine was junk—Everybody and his brother wanted her to have a penis enlargement! “As soon as I get one, buddy, I'll let you know,” she muttered irritably, deleting the messages. She propped her arm on the desk and dropped her chin in her hand. “I haven't even seen a damned penis in forever."
The last message was from somebody in Africa that wanted to give her a hundred million dollars. Sighing, she deleted that one, too. After cruising to a couple of the chat sites she frequented and discovering nobody was online that she was interested in chatting with, she went to the news and scanned the stories, reading a couple that caught her interest.
It was nine o'clock when she checked the time again.
Shutting down her computer, she wandered over to the bookcase that held her movie collection and scanned the titles. She'd watched all of them at least twice. On the good side, she thought wryly, she also knew which ones she liked. Picking out a suspense, she moved to the TV and turned it on and inserted the disk. Before she started the movie, she went to the back door and called the cats. None of them came. Shrugging, she locked the door and went back to stare at the TV screen until her eyes were too heavy to hold them open any more and finally went to bed.
"Tomorrow's another day, Miss Scarlet,” she muttered as she punched her pillows and settled down, trying to find the sleep that eluded her the moment she was ready for it.