Chapter 12
On his way to Maxon, Ben still didn”t know why he had urged Delilah to stay with him. Going back to her place was too much of a risk in his opinion, but if she wanted to stay in a hotel? He should let her. He should be encouraging this. Imagine, sleeping through the night without getting woken up by that crying baby.
But then, how long would Delilah need to stay in a hotel? This was his fourth day of combing Maxon for the rogue shifter, and he was no closer to finding that bastard than he had been on Monday.
Of course, it might”ve gone faster if Marlana and Viviana had assigned somebody to help him. But the Guardian ranks were down. Doug was away, on loan to the Rock Creek Clan. Laura and Dristan were on their honeymoon and wouldn”t be back for another week. And Agatha, Ben’s sister, was finally pregnant. It had taken her so long to conceive, Marlana wasn”t going to take any chances by putting her on Guardian duty.
So Ben was alone in this detective work. He wasn”t sure where else to go, so he returned to Delilah”s place. He had brought her extra key, so he let himself in.
The place was still unacceptably messy. Delilah shouldn”t have to come home to this. He started in the kitchen and worked his way through, picking things up and putting them away as best he could. He wasn”t sure where she had kept everything before, so he used his best judgment.
When he got to her bedroom door, he paused. Would she view it as a breach of privacy if he cleaned her room? He shook his head. No, she was sensible and she’d know his heart was in the right place. Stepping inside, he realized he wanted to take care of her, and he didn”t want her to come home to a shitty house.
There hadn”t been much in here to mess up, just a few items of clothing strewn around and her bed at a crooked angle. He straightened the mattress and brought the fitted sheet around the corners, then folded up the blanket at the end and plumped the pillow.
A double-sized mattress, flat on the ground without even a box spring. She deserved better, didn”t she know that? She probably couldn”t afford it—she had told him as much, that money was tight.
The clothes on the floor looked like they had been dumped out of the laundry hamper in the corner, so he picked them up. When he touched one of the shirts, he remembered seeing Delilah in it before. This was the blue tank top she’d been wearing when he first saw her outside of the pawn shop.
Then it hit him—that”s where he recognized this shifter’s scent from. He had smelled the shifter there and thought nothing of it, and then he’d thought it was McKenzie’s scent that he’d caught. It had actually been this one.
He tossed the last clothes into Delilah”s hamper, then left her house in a hurry, locking up behind him. He got in his truck and drove to the little strip mall, where he parked in view of the pawn shop. The open sign was on. Now was the question—did the rogue shifter work in the strip mall, frequent it regularly, or had he just been passing through?
Ben had to be careful. If the rogue shifter caught his scent, it could spook him. Ben didn”t want the shifter to disappear; he needed to talk to him, make sure he understood that he had to stay away from Delilah and the baby. Ben needed this shit resolved. Only then could he return to his normal life. Because that was what he wanted, right? Life back to normal.
He climbed out of his truck and made his way over to the pawn shop. He had barely reached the sidewalk when the rogue shifter’s scent met his nose. Smoky, like a forest fire, with the scent of stone clinging to it. Question answered. The rogue was still here.
Ben veered off course toward the taqueria, acting like that was where he’d been headed all along. It wasn”t open yet, so he pretended to make a note of the closed sign in the window before returning to his truck. If the shifter was in the pawn shop and watching him, nothing would look suspicious.
Ben sat in his truck, watching the pawn shop and pretending to be interested in his phone.
After about an hour, a man walked out of the pawn shop. Gray eyes, a head of brown hair and a big-ass brown beard.
The lady at the taqueria called out to the man. ”I have extra tamales. You want?”
The rogue shifter shook his head.
Well, that clinched it. As far as Ben was concerned, anybody who turned down free tamales was a bad guy. He hadn’t even said no, thank you. Asshole.
The rogue made his way over to a blue pick-up and climbed inside.
Ben called Marlana. ”I laid eyes on him. He smells like a wolf. Works at a pawn shop in Maxon.”
”Good work,” Marlana said. ”Don”t engage yet. See if you can figure out what he”s up to.”
”Delilah’s getting antsy, wants to go home.”
”Talk her out of it,” Marlana said.
”I”m working on it.”
They ended the call and Ben dialed one more number.
”Hello, Benjamin?” a voice asked eagerly. “Is it time yet?”
”Yeah,” Ben said. ”Come over for dinner tonight.”
The rogue shifter pulled out of the parking lot and Ben said, “I gotta go,” and ended the call.
He followed the blue truck at a distance. He would tail him for a little while today, but at some point Ben would need to swing by the grocery store.