Dreaming of the Wolf (Heart of the Wolf #8)(65)

Jake’s hand tightened fractionally on Alicia’s. Her teeth were clenched together, and she didn’t know what to say. She was innocent, but if these men pushed her too hard, Jake and his family would be forced to turn them. She didn’t think the pack could kill them. That scenario would be too difficult to explain. But if they turned them, they’d have to take them into the pack, and Darien had already said he didn’t want two more newly turned pack members—male types, who probably had families of their own. And that would cause an even greater ripple effect of trouble.

The detective flipped through his notebook as if he needed to refresh his memory on the details of his investigation. She was certain this time it was a ploy to make her squirm. She didn’t squirm, although she felt light-headed and was afraid her face had drained of all color. She was barely breathing, and Jake looked anxiously at her. She scolded herself for not hiding her feelings better, but she couldn’t help it. They knew something. About the wolf.

And she was feeling damn guilty. How could she not? She’d bitten one of the two men. She was guilty! Nothing in her bounty hunter training said she could bite a perp into submission. Not that she had been after these guys, but still…

The detective tapped his pen at the open page. “Says here two men in the room next to yours saw a dog run out of your room. A big dog. Like a German shepherd. They never saw any sign of a woman leaving. One of the men had fired into the air, scared by the size of the wolf.”

Wolf. Twice he’d referred to it as a wolf. But if the eyewitnesses thought it was a dog, why did the detective think it was a wolf?

The detective flipped through some more pages of his notebook, while the other one continued to watch her expression. Her blood ran cold. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing and force Darien’s hand. But she didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t cause trouble for their kind.

“Blood was found on the rug near the door. A man’s blood. But not the same as the blood from the one who died. Wolf saliva was mixed in with the second man’s blood.” The detective looked up from his notes. “So what about the wolf?”

Her stomach bunched tightly into a knot, Alicia licked her suddenly very dry lips. Yet, she thought the detective was feeding her a story. No one would look to see if saliva was a wolf’s or a dog’s, would they?

“Wolf saliva?” she asked. “You mean, canine saliva, right? Is there a difference between a dog’s and a wolf’s?”

“Believe me,” the detective said with a smug expression, “The saliva sampled from the bite marks was wolf DNA. They can determine that to rule out that it wasn’t some other animal’s bites.”

She took a shallow breath and said, “I—”

“It’s not illegal to own a wolf,” Jake interjected, his voice quietly firm, as if he was a lawyer who knew her rights when it came to pet wolf ownership.

She supposed that to protect themselves, Jake and the rest of the pack would know about such a thing for self-preservation.

The detective switched his attention to Jake. She thought Detective Simpson was fighting a smile. Jake to the rescue. But it was more than that. It was as if the detective had caught them in a falsehood. But she wasn’t rolling over and playing dead yet.

“No, you’re right, Mr. Silver,” the detective said with emphasis, “not unless the wolf owner takes the wolf within the city limits of some cities, which is illegal. Crestview is not one of those cities. But the wolves have to be fenced in with at least eight-foot-tall fencing. Every access has to be locked to prevent the wolves from escaping.

“Taking a wolf into a motel room isn’t legal, nor a safe thing to do. If Miss Greiston was afraid for her life and was using the wolf for protection, it wasn’t really a smart idea. Nor was it legal. The wolf could have injured anyone. Since it has bitten someone now, we’ll have to hunt it down and make sure it wasn’t rabid.” He sat taller and turned to Alicia. “So what about this wolf, Miss Greiston?”

“He wasn’t mine,” she said stubbornly, head held high, voice confident.

The detective raised his brows.

She shrugged. “I don’t own any pets. Never have. I don’t know where the animal came from or where he went. You can check with my apartment manager. I’ve never had any pets at the place. They’re not allowed.”

At least the part about not owning any pets was true. But what if they checked out the hotel rooms where she’d stayed over the past month? What if they found wolf hairs on the carpet where she’d restlessly paced, trying to shift back into her human body?

“The wolf ran off into the woods, the eyewitnesses said.” The detective studied her for a moment more, then asked, “But where did you go? Why did you run away?”

“Jake came for me.”

“You’d left your phone charging on the dresser. Only one phone call had been made. To 9-1-1. The sound of the men breaking into the room was captured on tape. They heard the one man cursing up a blue streak as he said, ‘Come on, Cicero, damn it. We’ve gotta get out of here before the police arrive. She’s run off. Holy crap.’ Then there was a lot of grunting and groaning and moaning. We assume that was when he helped the injured man outside. After several minutes, doors were opened and slammed shut. Then a car engine roared to life, and the vehicle tore off down the road. Detective Tandy and I arrived shortly after that.”