“I wanted to be sure I talked to ye ere ye went to bed,” he muttered, bending to pick up the pizza box.
Beth peered at it as he straightened and asked, “Donny?”
“He went to bed nearly three hours ago. Matias let him use his bathroom to brush his teeth and such.”
“Three hours?” Beth asked, her eyes widening. If Donny had gone to bed that long ago, after eating and whatnot, she’d obviously been in the shower longer than the couple of hours she’d thought.
“Aye,” Scotty said. “I’m to wake him up in an hour so that he can keep an eye out for trouble while I rest.”
Beth frowned and turned to walk up the hall toward the kitchen. “Surely that’s not necessary?”
“There have been two attacks on ye in twenty-four hours, lass,” he pointed out, trailing behind her.
Beth didn’t comment. She had thought about what had happened while she was in the shower. It had helped to distract her from the pain as her body healed. And she would admit that it did seem like someone was out to get her, but it wasn’t the first time and probably wouldn’t be the last. Still, now that she was aware of it, she would be more careful and keep her eyes open. She didn’t think they really needed to have someone missing sleep to act as a guard.
“Isn’t there an alarm system here?” she asked. “There is at the Enforcer house in Toronto. Not that they use it much, what with someone at the gates and the dogs walking the property. Speaking of which, Matias has the dogs here. They’d start barking if they heard or saw anything.”
“Aye, Matias brought them in. They’re in his room with him,” Scotty murmured. “And there is an alarm. Matias put it on ere going to bed, so do no’ open any doors or windows or ye’ll set it off.”
“Good, then there’s no need for either you or Donny to be standing guard,” she pointed out. “Besides, so far they’ve only attacked me when I was on my own. I doubt they’ll attack me here when they probably know there are other immortal hunters around.” Glancing over her shoulder, she added, “And I’m not even sure the accident and the attack are connected.”
“Beth,” Scotty began with exasperation.
“Just listen,” she said, pausing in the kitchen and turning to face him. “If the two were connected, that would mean whoever was behind the accident had to have followed us here to Vancouver.”
“Aye,” he agreed with a nod.
“But they couldn’t have,” she assured him and pointed out, “It’s not like we drove here in a car they could have followed. We didn’t even fly out of an airport where they could have checked the flight we were on. We flew straight from the Enforcer house on a private plane to that landing strip twenty minutes from here. So how did they know we were coming to the Enforcer house here in Vancouver?”
Scotty frowned as he considered that and then suggested, “Mayhap they read that ye were going to Vancouver from yer mind.”
Beth shook her head. “I didn’t even know I was coming here until I got back to the house after the accident,” she reminded him. “Mortimer told me what the assignment was and where just before we got on the plane. The only people around were you, Donny, Mortimer, and me. And we took off from the house. We didn’t go anywhere someone could read me after I learned.”
Giving him a moment to think about that, Beth turned and opened the refrigerator to check the contents. Spotting the pizza box inside, she grabbed that as well as a bag of blood.
“As far as I can tell,” Beth continued as she carried the pizza box and bag of blood to the counter and set them down, “nobody could have followed us.”
“Except perhaps someone connected to the North American Rogue Hunters,” he countered. “Anyone working for Mortimer could have found out about this trip easily enough.”
Beth opened the pizza box and verified that it was her favorite—pepperoni, mushroom, onion, and tomato—and then turned to retrieve a plate from the cupboard as she agreed, “True. I don’t think I’ve pissed off any of my coworkers yet, but it’s possible. Except that doesn’t seem likely.”
“Why?” he asked at once as he watched her transfer a couple of slices from the box to the plate.
“They wouldn’t have the time,” she said dryly. “As shorthanded as he is, Mortimer’s had us all working overtime and running here, there, and the other place,” Beth assured him. Seeing the uncertainty on his face, she added, “But it would only take a phone call to Mortimer to see if one of the other hunters is in the area . . . and trust me, he’ll know,” she added dryly, moving to set the plate of pizza in the microwave. “He knows exactly where every one of us is at any given moment.”
“He can’t possibly ken where each o’ ye are at all times,” Scotty said with disbelief as she closed the microwave door and pushed the button labeled Reheat. “Mayhap he can find and follow yer vehicles with the GPS trackers in them, but if ye’re no’ using the SUV—”
“The Council supplies us with cell phones,” Beth interrupted. “We’re to carry them at all times whether working or not. That way they can reach us at all hours and everywhere if there’s an emergency. They can also track us with some kind of app . . .” Beth shrugged and explained, “I didn’t care if they tracked me so didn’t pay close attention to exactly how they do it. But one call to Mortimer and he can tell you who, if any, of our hunters are out here in BC right now.”
“They can track yer phones?” Scotty asked with interest.
Nodding, Beth picked up the bag of blood and leaned back against the counter as she added, “There’s also a program they put on each phone that allows them to see whatever your phone’s camera sees, and even hear what’s said near it. I think it can get copies of your text messages, and allows them to listen in on phone calls too. But Mortimer says they don’t activate it unless a hunter goes missing. I’m not sure that’s true,” she added dryly. “But I’d like to think so.”
“Really?” Scotty murmured, and she could see his mind ticking that one over. From his perspective, as the head of the UK hunters, it would probably seem like a handy little program to have installed in hunters’ phones.
Beth wasn’t sure how she felt about it all herself. In situations like this, it was certainly handy to be able to immediately discount the hunters she worked with from being here in BC and possibly behind the attacks on her. But privacy was something in short supply today. The advent of bugs and cameras and even computers had played havoc with that particular commodity, and she had to wonder how much knowledge was too much, and if they all wouldn’t be happier with a little less of it. It was the fruit of knowledge of good and evil that got Adam and Eve kicked out of paradise, after all. Maybe knowing everything both good and evil that went on in the world wasn’t that grand a thing.
“I’ll call Mortimer.”