SEAL Wolf In Too Deep(81)

Then Allan’s phone buzzed. He finished helping Debbie undress, and she shifted almost immediately. He yanked out his phone and saw that it was Vaughn calling. Figuring the PI must have some news, Allan answered, “Yeah.”

“I’ve found Otis’s stash in a storage unit in Bigfork.”

“Everything?”

“Hard to tell. Clothes—mostly the camo kind, ammo, a rifle and a Glock, personal stuff. Possibly the gun used in Sarah’s murder.”

“Anything that might clue us in to where he is now?”

“No, but he’s been here recently and he wasn’t wearing hunter’s camo scent. So I’ve got his scent. And I’m taking some of his T-shirts to share his scent with the pack.”

“Good. What about security cameras?”

“Yeah. Sending the pictures now. He was driving a black Jeep. We got a partial tag. Problem is we don’t want the police to run him down.”

“Yeah, gotcha.”

“So we’re having one of Hunter’s police officers do the trick. Any progress there?”

“Just checking out four more cottages situated around twenty-two to twenty-five miles out from Van Lake.”

“How’s Debbie doing?”

“She’s a wolf.” Allan gathered up her clothes and tucked them in his backpack.

“Okay. Now that I’ve found his scent and that he was staying in Bigfork, I’ll drop these off with Lori and Paul, and then I’m going to start checking into the places where he might be staying.”

“You don’t think he’s taken off?”

“Nope. Not when he’s left so much of his weaponry here.”

“What about Franny?”

“Paul and Lori are there, providing additional protection.”

“All right. If you locate him, let me know.”

“Will do.”

As Allan and Debbie drew closer to the cabin, he noted no lights were on, but he smelled the faint odor of wood smoke. He didn’t have to tell Debbie. She lifted her nose and took a whiff of the air and huffed a little, her body tense.

“Stay close,” he warned, his voice hushed.

Without warning, shots rang out from the direction of the cabin. Allan dove behind a tree as the rounds pelted the snow inches away. He glanced in Debbie’s direction, but she had run off in a wide arc—and then headed toward the shooter.

Damn it to hell and back. He didn’t want her shot. What if the resident was just a hunter? Using the cabin illegally, true, but not their killer?

“Police!” Allan called out to let him know what kind of trouble he could be in if he shot and killed him or his dive partner.

More shots were fired in his direction.

Screw this. He made a wide arc through the trees and around to avoid being shot. Either the shooter had night-vision goggles, or he was a wolf and could see well at dusk. He just hoped Debbie wouldn’t get herself shot.

He wanted to yank out his phone and tell Paul they were going in to grab what could be their suspect, but he figured they were on their own right now. Certainly with Debbie up to who knew what, he had to act quickly to protect her and himself.

A screen door slammed and he assumed the shooter had left the cabin, not wanting to be caught inside.

As soon as he did and Allan bore down on the door, a wild growling—Debbie’s wild growling—made Allan’s blood run cold. It turned to ice when he heard a much larger wolf growl back.

The full moon of January—appropriately, the wolf moon—illuminated the trees and snow, some snowflakes sprinkling from the trees as the branches stirred in the breeze.

Then he saw them—a large tan wolf snarling at Debbie a short distance from the dark cabin, only the tiny glow of a fire inside.

He wanted to kill the bastard quickly with a well-aimed shot, but he couldn’t, not with the way Debbie was tearing into the guy and the way he was tearing into her. Allan had to stop and strip, then shift. It was the only way to protect Debbie, who was attacking and not backing off. The wolf saw Allan then and tried to run, but Debbie pursued him, biting his tail, and he turned around to tackle her again. By then, Allan had shifted and was running full-out, because right this instant, Allan was in a killing mood. Nothing would stop him now.

He bit at the wolf in a vicious way, distracting him. He smelled Debbie’s blood on him, and that incensed Allan all the more. His phone was vibrating in the pocket of his pants nearby, while Debbie bit again at the wolf’s tail. Was the wolf Otis? They had no way of knowing at the moment.

What he did know was the wolf wasn’t calling a truce. He’d tried to run as a wolf. He had something to hide. Paul suspected the wolf was their man.

Debbie was still snarling and growling, and Allan prayed she hadn’t been injured too badly.

The wolf he was tackling was growling just as ferociously as Debbie, but he wasn’t able to overpower or outthink Allan. Not as a new wolf.

Instinctively, the wolf knew to go for the throat, but Allan kept indicating he was going one way and then sweeping back to tackle him another. That was why it was so important for wolves to learn to read body language. This wolf was still clueless. He hadn’t played with another lupus garou, hadn’t learned the techniques to use. But Debbie had. She knew what Allan was going to do and complemented his actions, move for move.