Chapter 16 #2
“I’m great,” she said, though inside her instincts were starting to scream. The more normal Alan acted, the more she thought of a volcano. Just when and where would he erupt? “So no fever, no GI problems?” No seething underbelly of violent intent?
He looked up at her, his expression steady. “Wondering when I’m going to explode?”
She nodded. “You’ve had a turbulent few weeks.” And wasn’t that the understatement of the year?
He didn’t disagree, but his eyes grew a little distant.
As if he were looking inward rather than outward.
But a moment later, he shrugged and turned back to making their breakfast. Er.
..late lunch. “I feel calm, Tonya. Like everything has settled into place.” He took a deep breath.
“No fever or seizures, either, so I think the Tasering did something good there. Shocked everything into working together.”
That was good...maybe. Calm and settled was really good. Unless he meant the last final pieces before the suicide run. Which, given what he’d been saying before, made way more sense.
“We need to talk,” she said as she settled on a stool. Though God only knew what she was going to say that she hadn’t already. Except for, are you aware that I might become pregnant? That I’ve just done what I swore I’d never do? Risked becoming a mother with an unstable man?
He looked up at her, clearly about to give her a glib answer.
But at her serious expression, his eyes narrowed and he straightened.
The sight reassured her. When other people fobbed her off with a glib answer, he’d always taken her seriously.
He’d always known when to pay attention, even if they ultimately didn’t agree on whatever the topic.
She smiled at him and thought that now maybe they could talk meaningfully and still keep their clothes on.
But just as she drew breath to speak, Carl stomped in, balancing three cups of coffee and a bag of danishes. “Help me,” the man called, “before we have a caffeine tragedy.”
Alan shuttered his expression and turned back to the eggs.
Tonya sighed and went to help her alpha.
She might have had some choice words for the man about his terrible timing, but the smell of coffee hit her nostrils and all was lost amid the need to drink.
She grabbed two of the cups, slurping from one and handing the other to Alan.
He took it quickly, flashing his gratitude to her with his eyes before drinking his.
“You’re welcome,” Carl said, his tone grumbly.
Tonya glanced at the man, her brows arched.
The three of them had known each other all their lives.
They’d lived in each other’s houses, shared food, family, and childhood idiocies.
Alan had been two years younger, but he’d kept up for the most part.
He’d only pulled back when the natural separation happened.
Shifters on one side, nonshifters on the other.
The first went wild in the woods. The others went to college prep classes and science camp.
Even so, the three of them had always seemed like a unit.
When Carl was grumbly, the others shouldered more of the minutiae of the clan.
When Tonya was bitchy, they gave her space.
And when Alan got sullen, they teased him and bought him spa shit or gourmet foods.
It was their rhythm, or it had been. Because the new Alan refused to play that game.
Instead of asking Carl what was going on, Alan shot him a glare.
“Didn’t ask you here. Not going to thank you for interrupting.”
Carl’s eyes widened at the unusually cold tone. “I’m trying to help.”
“So tell us the lead.”
“Tell me how you’re feeling first.”
“Hungry.” He scooped an omelet onto a paper plate, which he pushed at Tonya. Then he grabbed a danish out of the bag before starting the next omelet.
“That’s not what I meant,” Carl said.
“Too fucking bad. What’s the lead?”
Carl glared at him, not out of anger but frustration.
Tonya could relate. They both wanted to help him, but weren’t sure how.
And Alan wasn’t giving them any clues. Carl tried to wait him out, but it was a losing game.
Had been since they were six and eight. Alan could out-patience a rock, and no shifter would ever outlast him in that department. Though, apparently, Carl wanted to try.
How did men ever get anything done around such monumental stubbornness?
“Just tell us the lead,” Tonya said as she dug into the omelet.
Food. Sweet heaven, it was really good food, and Tonya had to stop herself from inhaling it like a starving child.
Carl turned to her, studying her with his serious dark eyes. “You okay?” he asked, his voice lower. Less disgruntled.
Alan looked up, and both men waited for her answer. She swallowed quickly, then nodded. “I’m fine. He’s fine. We’re all fucking fine. Now what the hell is the lead?”
Both men arched their brows in identical expression of surprise because one, they were brothers and two, no one was anything close to fine. But since nobody was talking, it was up to her to keep them on track. And that meant glaring at Carl until he spilled first.
“Fine,” he said before taking a moment to drain his cup of coffee. “We think we’ve spotted her at a Walmart outside Grand Rapids. She had a boy with her and was buying school supplies.”
Alan paused in the middle of flipping his omelet. “School supplies? For the kids?” His voice was tight with disbelief.
“Yeah. It was one of Tonya’s spotters who called it in.” He looked at her. “Left a message at the station.”
Tonya immediately reached for her phone, which was downstairs.
Damn it, she’d been so busy with...She shut off that thought rather than get distracted.
She’d been so busy that she hadn’t even checked her phone.
She pushed off the stool to get it, but before she’d done more than stand up, Alan slid it over to her.
At her surprised look, he shrugged. “I haven’t invaded your privacy. Don’t know the code.”
“Yeah you do.” It was his birthday. Because...well, because some dates stuck in her head. His fourteenth birthday was one of them.
He shrugged. “Okay, maybe I do, but I didn’t check.”
She wanted to ask him why not. She wanted to know if he’d just hadn’t gotten a chance to look or if the old Alan—the one who was considerate and law abiding—was coming back to the fore.
But no way to easily express that, so she swallowed it down and thumbed on her phone.
A moment later, she was listening to a message from Samantha, a shifter-friendly mom of three who lived in Grand Rapids.
The woman said exactly what Carl had already relayed.
A cougar-shifter buying school supplies.
That was it. Then she took another five minutes to scroll through all her emails. None of it helped.
Meanwhile, Carl kept talking. “Mark got access to the security tapes. It looks like her.”
“But you don’t know where in GR she’s staying,” Tonya asked as she set her phone down.
“Not yet.”
“So sniff her out,” Alan said, his voice calm.
“We’re talking a major city, not some backwoods town. Even our noses can’t pick up her scent when she’s in a car among thousands of other cars.”
Alan took his time, dropping his food onto another plate before setting the pan in the sink to soak. “She’s not in a car.”
Carl frowned. “How the fuck do you know that?”
Alan gestured with his fork toward the garage. “Go in there. See if you can smell a car.”
Carl started to turn, but Tonya held him back. She and Mark had gone through there as well and the whole place had smelled of hot summer dust. “Alan’s right. No car. Hasn’t been one in there for months.”
“Then how the hell did she get from here to Grand Rapids so fast?”
“Greyhound?”
“No,” Tonya said, finally putting it together. “She’s got a friend who drove her.” They both turned to look at her, their expressions once again identical.
“Who?”
“Think. She’s on the run with two cougar kids, but she stops in a major city and starts buying school supplies.”
Alan leaned forward. “She plans to settle down. Raise them.”
“She’s been trying to repopulate the cougars after the wolf–cat war. That’s been her whole goal from the beginning, hasn’t it? That’s why she brought in her relatives from Arizona.”
Carl took up the thread and kept going. “But they’re dead now. Worse, she can’t experiment anymore because we’ve got Einstein and all his serums.”
Tonya nodded. “So what’s her only choice?”
Alan released a low grumble. “Activate whatever kids she’s got and raise them. Pick a metropolitan area like GR and just be quiet. Who will notice her?”
Tonya tapped her phone. “My spotters will.” She had a network throughout Michigan of shifters or shifter-friendlies.
She’d alerted them months ago about Evil Einstein and the Crazy Cat Lady.
And once they’d gotten the bitch’s real name—Elisabeth Oltheten—she’d had pictures and everything.
“Plus, she only had one kid with her at the Walmart, right?”
Carl nodded. “The boy.”
“So where’s the girl? Someone has to be watching her.”
“Unless she’s dead,” Alan said, his voice flat.
Carl shook his head. “She was buying school supplies for two.”
Tonya looked around the kitchen, remembering the food here. “She’s trying to settle down. Healthy vegetables in the refrigerator, nutritious cereal—”
“Chains in the basement,” Alan added.
Tonya blanched, unable to respond for the momentary flash of what was down there and what she’d done to Alan. But Carl didn’t know, and so he kept thinking out loud.
“So the kids are fighting her.”
“Of course they are,” snapped Alan.
“Which means she’s definitely got someone with her. Someone—”
“Johnny.” Alan’s voice was tight with emotion. And when she and Carl looked at him, he closed his eyes in frustration. “Why the hell didn’t I realize that earlier?”