Undercover Wolf

Chapter 15

Quinn pulled a nice knit shirt and casual slacks from his suitcase, then dressed quickly while Kristine was in the shower. He pictured her beautiful, irresistible nude body beneath the spray.

Which was why he stayed out of the bathroom—to avoid temptation. As much as he regretted it, he was out of time. He had things to accomplish.

He wasn’t going to shift today. However, he did intend to take some risks.

Risks he had no intention of inflicting on Kristine.

Risks that included going against a very clear order from a commanding officer to essentially do nothing but wait.

Doing nothing went against everything within him. Plus, he had an idea, one that might yield nothing, but he had to try it.

He had to do something, whatever was necessary, to find his brother and sister-in-law—if that was still possible—as well to help the outfit that their commanding officer also wanted to protect. Not to mention all the other shifters who belonged to it. And Kristine.

If she knew what he’d be up to, she would tell him that he, too, had to obey the order they were under. That was her military mind-set. But if he made it clear he was going to do it anyway, she would insist on coming along to help—as much as she’d hate disobeying. She would resent him for it—and she might even impede him.

So, instead, to cover his trail, he’d tell her he was doing something else she’d want to avoid.

He’d already sounded her out about her interest in sports. She had very little, if any.

The Bar Harbor Golf Course had an excellent reputation. He’d make up a story about how they paired up groups at the course. And that was where he would claim to go, alone.

As long as he felt comfortable that Kristine would be safe, of course.

On impulse, he drew his cell phone out of his pocket. As he had so many times before, he pressed first the button that would automatically call Simon’s number.

As always these days, it went right to voice mail.

Even so, he tried Grace’s number, too.

The same. Not that he expected anything different. If they were in trouble somewhere, there was no reason to think that they’d suddenly gotten access to their phones again.

If they had, surely Simon would have called him.

He still refused to dwell on the obvious alternative—that they were dead.

Instead, he allowed this moment of frustration to bolster his resolve to do as he’d planned today. After all, it would result in his visiting possibly one of the last places Simon had mentioned in one of the couple of conversations they’d had when the honeymooners reached this area.

He slipped his phone back into his pocket and got back to putting together a story to distract Kristine.

When she finally exited the bathroom, he was sitting on the bed poring over touristy materials they’d picked up to support their cover story. He looked up.

How could a woman look so sexy in a huge white robe with her hair tucked into a towel?

He made himself stay cool as he said casually, “Since we’re supposed to do nothing, I’ve got an idea. I’ll go play a round of golf.”

Her face was as beautiful without makeup as with it, even when she frowned, like now. “I could watch you, I suppose...”

Damn. That wasn’t the idea.

“But, you know,” she continued, “I think I could do more good just wandering around Bar Harbor. Not doing any investigating, of course. I won’t do anything against the major’s orders, so I’ll just be waiting. But wandering around this town, observing as a tourist...if I happen to see anything helpful, I’ll call him to get the okay before I act on it, but—”

“Call me first,” he said fiercely. “I don’t want you doing anything dangerous.”

She laughed. “That’s sweet, but you’ve seen how I can protect myself if I have to.”

“And you’ve seen how good I am as your backup.”

“Yes, you’ve proven yourself. I especially like you as a wolf...except around here.” She looked tellingly at the bed. He laughed.

“Okay, no need to lay it on so thick. But you promise to stay out of trouble? And to stay away from those DSPA guys?”

“I promise.”

* * *

Of course her fingers had been crossed behind the folds in her robe. Kristine would play it all as it came, she thought as she changed into her jeans and T-shirt. She kept her back to Quinn, not just for modesty. She loved the way his eyes watched her as she dressed—or undressed. She didn’t need the distraction.

She had never disobeyed direct military orders. She wouldn’t—exactly—now.

She was glad, though, that Quinn was being a good boy and going off to play golf. Or at least that was his story. She hoped it was true—or that he at least wasn’t doing anything foolish. Or dangerous.

This way, he wouldn’t be around to see it if she herself did something not strictly in accordance with what the major had directed, beyond simply looking at local sights, like a normal tourist.

That would grate on her conscience, but at least no one else would ever know. Especially Quinn.

No need to tempt him to reciprocate if he wasn’t already.

“I’m ready.” She turned...to see he’d been watching her anyway. She felt her face redden, even as her blood began heating inside.

No time for that now. She grabbed her purse. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Quinn joined Kristine in the coffee shop and bought a large brewed coffee to go. She sat down with her laptop at a table.

“Do you plan to hang out here all day?”

“Don’t know yet.” Her too-innocent expression suggested she might bolt as soon as he was gone.

“Call me when you’re ready to leave. I’ll check in with you when I can from the golf course.” Or wherever he really happened to be.

“Sounds good.” She smiled up at him.

He bent down to kiss those obviously perfidious lips. They were still, after all, playing the roles of newlyweds.

Good thing that he was taking the car. She could always hop a tourist bus or whatever, but there would still be other people around. Less chance of something nasty happening to her.

Unless...

“Be sure to call me if you run into those guys,” he said, knowing she would understand which guys he meant. “If they show up anywhere you happen to be, be sure you’ve got plenty of other people nearby.”

“Witnesses when I deck them the next time?” She laughed.

“Something like that.” He hesitated. “You know, maybe I’ll just forget the golf. You and I could do more sightseeing together. See what other plans we come up with.” He’d have to forgo the latest idea he’d had for attempting to track down Simon and Grace, but so be it.

“I’ll be fine.” Kristine looked peeved. “I know how to stay out of trouble.”

He knew how well she could get into it, too. But this would possibly be his last chance to do what he intended to—and leaving Kristine here, even without him as backup, would be less dangerous to her.

Besides, she wasn’t likely to do too much to get into trouble. She would never disobey a direct military order. She would at least have to appear as if she had listened and was standing down. Looking around for answers? Maybe. Acting on suspicions? No.

“Okay,” he said. “But be sure to stay in touch.”

* * *

First thing, as Quinn directly disobeyed orders, was to rent a small boat.

With all the touring they had done on Mount Desert Island, Quinn felt fairly certain he’d have sensed his quarry sooner if they’d been in a hotel or hidden somewhere in Acadia National Park.

But one place Kristine and he hadn’t searched was the coastline.

Simon and Grace had talked about wanting to tour the New England coast on their honeymoon, and his brother had actually called from one of the spots to gloat about being there, about the incredible seaside location complete with wild waves crashing into the thick, eroded cliffs of the shoreline. Could they be hiding in a place like that?

Might they even have shifted somewhere along the shoreline, using some of Simon’s pills or the Alpha Force elixir?

Maybe this would be fruitless, too. Quinn had to try, though, in case this vast area held answers.

If not, he had a backup plan for surveilling other parts of the island later.

Now, he edged the tiny motor craft between the towering rocks and lower reeflike crannies that constituted the edges of the island. There were undoubtedly caves hidden along the shore. In fact, he spotted some openings in the cliffs that suggested hollowed-out areas where people—or shifters—could hide.

Or be hidden, dead or alive.

He aimed his craft as close to the shore as he dared. This spring day threatened a storm, and it was windy—which made the surface of the ocean rise and fall in waves of unpredictable height and ferocity.

He could swim, if he had to. But saving himself from being battered against the rocks if he fell into the surf—well, that was less certain.

It felt chilly here. He’d intended to bring along the beige hoodie he’d packed but hadn’t found it during his quick search of their hotel room and rental car. No matter. He could always buy another one, and the coolness now was far from unbearable.

He again felt glad he had left Kristine behind. As a longtime soldier, she probably could swim well, like she did everything else. Even so...

Good thing she hadn’t questioned his ability to play golf today, though. He supposed she’d figured he would simply stop if the weather got too bad.

At the moment, his surroundings smelled like salt water and sea life, fishy and strong and not his favorite scents. Over the cracking of waves against the shore, he heard the calls of birds overhead, other watercraft in the distance.

No howls, although he didn’t expect to hear them, in daylight, outside the full moon. Even so, he every once in a while uttered his own soft call as similar to a shifted wolf as he could, just in case.

No responses.

Maybe he should come back while shifted, lope along the beach, duck into even smaller openings. But there were too many areas where the cliffside reached the water, where wolves would be unable to run.

Twice, he maneuvered the boat to the shore, beached it and walked into caves nearly at the waterline, good caches for people or animals. He found moldering seaweed, occasional dead seals or fish. No people. No bodies of mammals that were not usually found at the shore.

Even so, he had rented the boat for the day, and it was barely midafternoon. This was a long shot, sure. But it was something he had to try.

At one of his stops, he called Kristine. He could barely hear her, although his phone had a satellite connection so he did get through.

“Everything okay?” he asked loudly.

“Yes, but where are you?” she shouted. “There’s so much background noise. Are you on the golf course?”

Good thing she didn’t have a tracker on him.

“Inside the clubhouse. In the bathroom, actually—near the showers. Sorry. I should have called from outside. I’m enjoying this, though.”

“Good. I’m having a good day, too.”

He smiled as he hung up, glad he had checked in with her.

He got back into the boat and sailed on.

* * *

So where the hell was he—really?

She shouldn’t feel so peeved that Quinn had abandoned her to go against direct orders and continue his investigation, but she was certain now that was what he had done.

Kristine had been a good girl so far, mostly retracing steps, stopping in shops where newlyweds might go for souvenirs or clothes or stuff that they could ship home to start furnishing their living quarters at Ft. Lukman. She, at least, wasn’t exactly disobeying orders this way. If anyone asked, she was just having fun. Being a tourist.

But in each place, she talked up how she’d just gotten married and wondering aloud, as she had so many other times before in this town, if other new couples frequented the shop. The answers varied. It sounded as if a couple resembling Grace and Simon had gone a couple of times into a nice-size bookstore and browsed. Had they bought anything? The clerk Kristine talked to was unsure, although she remembered them because they seemed interested in books about Bar Harbor nature and wildlife.

Yes, it was probably them. But this didn’t get Kristine anywhere beyond confirming the presence of the people she’d known had been in town.

She was already butting up against the major’s orders, at least somewhat. But she needed to do more. Her time here was undoubtedly limited, and so far Quinn and she only had questions, not answers.

She had to do more, right now. Before Quinn returned from his claimed golf game, or Major Connell called again with more orders—like telling them to return to Ft. Lukman right away.

Fleetingly, she recalled her promise to Quinn to be careful, stay safe and not do anything to put herself in danger.

Well, she would at least be careful.

But it was time to implement her current—and perhaps last—idea to try to find Grace and Simon.

* * *

“Oh, they’re gone?” Kristine acted both surprised and sorry after stopping at the nurses’ station on the floor of the hospital where Kelly and Holt had been patients.

Once again, the nurse she’d caught there between patient visits was Bridget, the same one who had acted so friendly to Kristine before.

“Left late yesterday.” Bridget looked up from where she sat behind the desk. Her nod caused her bright golden hair to crimp around her pudgy cheeks.

“I’d talked with them again and thought they were still having some pretty bad headaches,” Kristine said, leaning over the cubicle that formed the station. She would play the nurse card again, since it had gotten her some empathy when she spoke with Bridget before. “When I’ve dealt with people with severe head trauma, they can remain hospitalized for a lot longer than this. Do they have follow-ups scheduled with any doctors?”

“That’s getting into possible patient confidentiality issues again.” Bridget’s lips pursed as she pulled back.

“Sorry,” Kristine said. “Like I said before, because of my... involvement in their injuries, I want to make sure they’ll be okay.”

From the last time, she knew that the staff was aware that the two men had been injured in an altercation. Kristine could always hint more strongly that she was a little worried that the guys would sue for compensation for their injuries—and if so, that she’d need to gather evidence that they attacked her first.

Bridget studied Kristine for a long moment with soft brown eyes. Then she stood and drew closer. “You know I don’t have all the facts, but there was some more talk around here. Whatever happened...well, from what you told me those guys deserved all they got, and more.” She stopped for a moment, regarding Kristine shrewdly, as if assessing her reaction.

Kristine sucked in her lips in a way she hoped looked sad yet resolute. “That’s my position,” she said.

“Well, whatever the circumstances, they still needed medical attention and seemed to know it. When they insisted on leaving yesterday, though, it was like they’d had a bomb lit under them—figuratively, of course. They suddenly had to get out, never mind their short-term prognoses.”

As if they’d received orders, Kristine thought.

“But did you think they were progressing adequately? I’m not asking for a medical opinion, of course. But as I said, I’d like to believe they’re healing as well and as quickly as possible.”

“Oh, I think so. In fact—”

Kristine took a step closer at Bridget’s hesitation. A doctor and nurse walked by behind her, conversing so earnestly that Kristine doubted they were paying any attention to what went on at the nurses’ station, but whatever Bridget had been about to say, she obviously didn’t want anyone to hear it.

“In fact?” Kristine prompted quietly.

“Well, don’t let this go any farther, but...well, I heard those guys talking now and then when I went in to check their vitals. They spoke only in generalities, so I wasn’t sure what they meant, but they seemed to be discussing some work assignment they were on that had gone bad. They weren’t sure what would come next, but staying in the hospital as long as they could sounded like a good idea at that moment. Of course, I could be all wrong.”

Or all right, Kristine thought. If the DSPA guys had wanted to stay here, it could mean their investigation hadn’t been going any better than Quinn’s and hers.

Maybe they had no better idea of the newlywed Parrans’ location and were happy to stop looking.

Until they got orders to leave the hospital. Because they weren’t permitted to give up—just as Quinn and Kristine were under orders that they had to give up?

Or were they given more information?

This was something she’d discuss with Quinn...after she followed up on it herself.

Where was he now? Had he found anything helpful during his “golf game”?

Was he staying safe?

* * *

This outing hadn’t been useless, Quinn told himself as he turned the wheel to aim the small, rocking boat around the last craggy areas he intended to investigate today. The sun had started its descent in the sky long ago, and the surrounding odors of water and fish somehow seemed enhanced—maybe because he had endured them for so long.

He had at a minimum eliminated a lot of areas of the shoreline from his suspicions about where Simon and Grace might be hiding out, or where they’d been stashed.

He hadn’t eliminated the surrounding ocean itself, though, despite how unlikely it was that his brother and sister-in-law were being held captive on a boat.

But they could have been killed and their bodies tossed into the water.

Damn. He definitely hated to think like that. But if they were alive, Kristine and he would have found at least some sign of them, wouldn’t they?

On impulse, he dialed her number on his phone. Amazingly, despite how sporadic even his satellite reception had been out here, it went through.

“Hi,” he said. “You still at the coffee shop?”

“No, but I’ll be back there shortly.”

“Where are you?”

“Wandering the town. And you?”

“Wandering the golf course. I’ll rejoin you soon, though. Think about where you want to grab dinner.”

“Okay.”

It sounded like such a mundane conversation. As if they really were newlyweds.

But Quinn knew better. He knew Kristine better. “Where are you headed right now?” he asked.

“I’m just figuring that out,” she said. “See you later. Bye.” And then she was gone.

Leaving Quinn unreasonably worried.

Why, suddenly, did he have a feeling that, obeying military orders or not, she was going straight into danger?