“But I think if he knew about it, he’d have told me,” Jace continued. “The most likely breakdown of information is between the other wildcats and the Lion’s Den itself. As hard as Faythe and I have worked to open a solid line of communication with Titus, he’s working even harder to get the other strays to trust him. Some of them see him as a traitor for working with us.”
I couldn’t blame the wildcats for their distrust of us, and I knew Jace didn’t either. Though most of the other Alphas saw the need for and inevitability of a Pride comprised of strays in the free zone, few were as eager as Jace, Faythe, and Marc were to actually take that step, and the wildcats could no doubt feel that reluctance to accept them.
“Have Faythe and Marc heard anything?” Lucas asked, and Jace hesitated before answering.
“I don’t know. Rick offered to call them and the rest of the council so we could concentrate on cleaning this mess up and finding the sick bastard who’s been stalking his daughter.”
Every gaze in the room found me again. “She shouldn’t be down here,” Isaac said.
Jace turned to me with the first hint of a smile I’d seen from him since we’d stomped all over that line we’d both known better than to cross. Again. “You wanna tell them?”
I sucked in a deep breath. “You’re looking at your newest coworker. I was sworn in this morning with six Alphas in attendance.” I shrugged. “The ceremony broke some kind of record.”
For a moment, there was only stunned silence.
“Why would you—” Lucas asked, but Isaac interrupted him.
“Why would Dad let you do that?”
“It wasn’t up to him.” I gave them another shrug, and all four turned to Jace.
“She’s right,” Luke growled. “Why would you let her do that?”
Jace bristled as if even in human form, his fur was standing on end. “I make the decisions for this Pride, and I don’t owe anyone an explanation.” He cleared his throat, and my brothers shuffled their feet on the grimy concrete, obviously unaccustomed to being reprimanded by their Alpha. At least, in front of an audience. “You four bring in the cleaning supplies and get to work. Teo, I want every photo and scrap of paper filed and catalogued.”
Mateo nodded, then gestured for the others to proceed him up the stairs.
“Abby,” Jace said, loud enough for them all to hear, “you’re on intel duty. Go through every file on Hargrove’s computer. And all his emails. We need to know who the rest of the hunters are and how many of them are left. And where they live, because that may tell us where Hargrove is hiding.”
And if he were smart, he would be hiding.
I nodded, already jogging up the steps after the guys. I would also go through Hargrove’s search history and any online bank statements—we hadn’t found any hard copies. But most of what I was actually looking for, I could never reveal to the others.
Not even to my Alpha, even though it killed me to be lying to Jace.
By the time the sun set three hours later, the guys had cleaned the entire house top to bottom—a skill most toms learned on the job yet rarely used at home. They’d made two trips to the county dump with trunks full of garbage, then had catalogued and packed up everything we would need to keep. Or have to bury. They’d found the desiccated remains of two headless shifters wrapped in tarps behind the shed.
When they came to pack up Hargrove’s computer for further investigation at the lodge, I’d already uncovered the names of ten more members of the sick hunting club.
Six were already dead: Joe Mathews, who’d been killed in Hargrove’s house, the three hunters I’d killed over fall break, and two more who’d been mauled to death in previous attacks, just like Mathews.
“Well?” Jace said as Teo and Isaac packed the cumbersome desktop and its accessories in one of the boxes they’d brought from the lodge.
I swiveled in the rolling chair to face him. “From what I can tell, the other maulings each took place in the victim’s home, which suggests that the killer actually intended to hit Hargrove here, in his own house. Either Hargrove’s guest—Mathews—was here alone when the stray broke in, or Hargrove survived the attack and escaped.”
“One of the blood scents in the basement matches the owner’s scent all over the rest of the house, but we can’t tell how fresh it is, with so many other overlying scents.” Teo shrugged. “He could have been injured in the attack, or he could have cut himself on one of his own tools months ago.”
I blinked, sorting through both information and procedures that were new to me. “Whether he was hurt or not, you think he escaped, right?”
“Or the stray abducted him,” Isaac said. “Maybe Hargrove missed the attack, and he’s the one who hung the pictures afterward. Maybe he killed the stray. Or maybe he was taken and killed by the stray, and another member of their weird-ass safari club hung your pictures up as a threat. Or a warning.”