AlphaMountie (4 page)

Then she stopped.

And remain stopped.

She slowly, very slowly, moved her mouth until his cock was entirely
free of her. She blew on it lightly, sending some of the cold November air to chill
him. “If you want to finish,” she said in a low, teasing voice, “I suggest you let
me on the case.” And then she did the most overt thing she could think of, drawing
her tongue slowly along her bottom lip. “I’m very hungry, but I suppose I could
find something else to put in my mouth.”

“Fine,” he said, snarling a little, and she could see the wolf
lurking beneath his calm gray eyes. “You’re my new partner. Try not to get yourself
killed.”

“Excellent decision.”

She lowered her head and took him inside her mouth again, moving
slowly this time, teasing him. He leaned back, thrusting his hips and holding her
down with a gentle hand in her hair until he lost control and came. She sucked him
dry, then swallowed and pulled his face to hers, kissing him hard, the slightly
bitter aftertaste of his semen on her tongue.

When they were finished there was nothing more to say; they’d
now come to an understanding. She zipped up his pants and he started the boat again,
heading for shore in companionable silence.

Entering the hostel was like an assault on Noire’s senses, but
she felt a little more equipped to deal with it now that she knew the man standing
behind her felt the same way.

They had walked to the hostel together after Cam docked the boat.
It was past midnight and the waterfront had quieted down, but a thirty-minute walk
north to the Entertainment District of downtown Toronto was a different matter—the
sidewalks were crowded with shivering twenty-somethings and wannabe-twenty-somethings
in club wear, and the ground beneath their precarious heels reverberated with bass
from dance clubs on both sides of the street.

Noire had been grateful when they’d ducked down a quiet side
street. Pale brick houses ran up the street on one side like a line of schoolgirls
in uniform. Each large house contained several rooms housing backpackers and other
frugal travelers from around the world. Noire herself was staying here in a private
room; before her death, Fawn had bunked down with seven other women.

She led Cam to the steps of the first house adorned with a large
Canadian flag flapping violently in the November wind. He held up a finger and pulled
out his cell. He didn’t need to speak for her to know what he was thinking—the Mountie
was calling in to the local team, checking with the police for updates. The wind
carried his voice away from her, so she waited.

She was thankful for Cam’s jacket, which she’d put on again after
leaving their boat. Looking at him with muscles tight under his uniform shirt made
her shiver, both from the cold and the excitement that this man was actually interested
in her—the plain, too-strong park warden.

Cam closed the phone and Noire waited expectantly. He shook his
head. “They’re still searching the missing persons’ reports for someone who fits
the description of our latest victim. They’ve determined a few women our Jane Doe
isn’t
, but no one she is yet.”

“So we’re still nowhere.” Noire felt her hopes sink.

“Not necessarily. She’s too well-groomed to be homeless or a
prostitute so it likely wasn’t a crime of opportunity. This lends credence to your
theory, that she’s a young backpacker staying at a hostel like this one.”

“It better be this one. Do you know how many hostels there are
in Toronto?” she asked.

“No.”

“A lot.” Her dry retort made Cam smile, and Noire felt a small
bubble of happiness in her throat. She’d noticed a change in his smiles—they were
no longer the phony bared-teeth grins of a stranger. They were meant for her, and
sincere.

“We’ve got detectives and uniforms checking out some of the others
now,” Cam reassured her.

She rubbed a hand over her eyes. This was not the time to be
falling for the guy. She inhaled shakily.

“Are you okay?” He peered down at her, gray eyes worried.

“Yeah. Just thinking crazy thoughts, I guess. I feel like I should
be crying, and instead I’m laughing.” She surprised herself with her honesty. “I
feel guilty. Like I should miss her more. Except I don’t know how it’s possible
to miss someone more than I miss my sister.”

“You’ve been through a lot. It’s not abnormal for your emotions
to be all mixed up. Try not to judge yourself too harshly, eh? Grief makes people
react in strange ways. What is it they say, don’t do anything drastic for six months
after a major loss?”

“Drastic how?” Noire wondered wryly. “You mean like jumping into
bed with the first guy I meet?”

“I was thinking more like don’t get any large tattoos.”

“Ah. You don’t have to worry about that. I’m terrified of needles.”
Where the hell were these confessions coming from? Noire’s mouth was like a runaway
motorboat today.

His smile and eyes were the softest she’d seen from him yet.
He wrapped her in an embrace and they stood there for a moment, on the street outside
the hostel, in the middle of the night as the wind blew furiously around them. She
inhaled his scent, a musk like the woods and fur and rain. She loved the way he
smelled. And the way his body warmed her down to her bones.

“Come on now,” he said. “I can’t imagine you’re afraid of anything.”

Burying her face in his shoulder, Noire muttered, “I didn’t say
I was
afraid
of needles. I said
terrified.
”

At that, he chuckled. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

She shrugged out of his embrace and attempted to look professional.
They climbed the four small steps up to the hostel together. After the cold outside
and the constant sound of the whistling wind that had accompanied them since the
original ferry ride hours before, the hostel felt warm and welcoming. The foyer
opened into a large room with a reception desk on one side manned by a perky brunette,
and large wooden tables nearly covered with beer bottles and snacks. The air was
filled with the laughter of young women and a few men. Noire felt Cam’s hand on
her back. The contact loaned her strength, and she hoped it worked the same way
for him.

Feeling generous, she turned and said quietly into his ear, “Let
me talk to the hostess since I’ve been staying here.”

“It’s fine, I can manage—” he said, but another round of giggles
from the backpackers at the tables drowned out the rest. Noire shrugged and figured
he’d appreciate it once she’d identified their victim.

She walked up to the reception desk, tossing back her hair, playing
it cool. She flashed a broad smile at the young woman at the desk and hoped she
wasn’t mimicking Cam—those wolf grins wouldn’t fool anyone.

“Hi, I’m Noire, I don’t know if you remember me or have seen
me around or what but I checked in a few days ago. I’m in house five, room sixteen.
But that doesn’t matter. Except I just mean that I’m staying here—oh ask the Quebecois
guy with the long brown hair, kinda scruffy, he checked me in. I’m looking for my
friend, she has long blonde hair, about five-foot-eight? Have you seen someone like
that around?”

The hostess slowly lowered a novel she was reading. “Hi, Noire,
I’m Maddie. What’s your friend’s name and I can tell you if I’ve seen her?”

Noire’s mind went blank as a freshly Zambonied rink of ice. How
was she going to explain she had no idea about her supposed friend’s name? “Uh—I
don’t remember. We use nicknames. Uh.” What was a good nickname? “Hers was Blondie.
Because she was blonde. Like the singer.”

She couldn’t stop her mouth from moving, and her brain didn’t
seem connected to the words coming out of it. So Noire was more relieved than embarrassed
when Cam leaned over and whispered into her ear, “Blondie sounds more like a horse
name.”

“Uh—” Noire continued. “What I mean is my other friend, who is
this guy right here beside me, is looking for Blon—”

“Constable Campbell Dawson of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”
Cam flashed his badge at the hostess. “Maddie, is it?” The girl nodded.

Noire tapped him on the shoulder and mouthed “Thank you” before
moving aside. Cam’s returning grin sent her stomach into daredevil somersaults.
Then he smoothed out his expression and she watched him go to work.

Noire didn’t particularly like the way Maddie’s eyelashes fluttered
at the Mountie, but he did have the information in less than two minutes. There
were only three guests at the hostel this week that matched the description of Jane
Doe’s body. Mel Vaughan, an American, and two sisters from Sweden, Hanna and Linn
Jonsson.

Mel, they discovered, was sitting with the group of women at
the tables drinking wine.

“I think I’ve met her,” Noire said quietly.

“Have you seen the Jonsson sisters here before?”

“Not that I know of. She’s the only blonde I remember. I asked
her a few things about Fawn but no one was very helpful.” She wrinkled her nose,
remembering her failure at trying to start up completely unsubtle conversations.

“Mmm. Do you want to try interrogating them first?”

“I think I’m good. I’ll leave the cop work to you. I swear I’m
a lot better with animals—people just confuse me.”

“I know what you mean. But not to worry, though I may feel a
kinship with animals, half of me is human, and I’ve trained my human side well.
I can show you how it’s done.”

She couldn’t tell if this sudden arrogance was a part of the
joke, or legitimate. She decided to tease him back. “But you’re so obviously law
enforcement—perfect posture, perfect amount of muscle, the military-short hair—they’ll
figure out what you’re up to right away.”

“Exactly,” he said with an enigmatic smile. Cam gestured to his
duffle bag. For the first time, Noire noticed an iron-on patch of Dudley Do-Right,
the cartoon Mountie hero from
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show,
on the pocket
of his bag
.
“I just need a place to change.”

Noire pointed him toward the first of the hostel washrooms, glad
she could manage something helpful. Though she enjoyed the teasing, she was starting
to feel a bit put-out at her lack of contribution to the investigation since they
had left the island. She hoped she got to shoot something before all of this was
done.

Now, why would she think that? Her guns were all the way back
in Algonquin. Unless she could borrow Cam’s. She wasn’t really a Smith & Wesson
kind of girl, but she really wanted to shoot something right about now.

She thought about walking over to the women drinking and sitting
down with them. Taking a swig from the wine bottle and starting a conversation.
She decided against it. Instead, she studied the group. Eleven in total. Mel was
striking, with platinum blonde hair and an inch of purposeful dark roots showing
that didn’t distract from a very low-cut V-neck blouse. Many of the other young
women ranged from pretty to gorgeous, and the variety of accents floating out from
the group (Australian, Quebecois, Japanese, something Eastern European maybe) made
Noire feel as if she was watching a casual version of the Miss Universe competition.
The two young men at the table definitely seemed to be enjoying themselves. Music
played in the background, something Euro and ambient that Noire couldn’t identify.
A scruffy guy with more beard than Grizzly Adams made some retort that was clearly
hilarious, from the level of laughter at the table—and then the room fell suddenly
silent.

Noire turned her head to see what they were staring at.

It was Cam, now gloriously dressed in full Mountie reds. The
red jacket was perfectly un-creased and clung to his body like a second skin. Black
pants and boots did not show one speck of dust. Noire had no idea how he kept the
uniform in that condition in a duffle bag—magic, maybe. She felt herself adjusting
her own posture to mimic his.

“Excuse me, everyone.” His voice was deep and powerful, just
like what Noire thought of as his normal speaking voice, but yet
more
somehow.
More authoritative. More impressive. More sensual.

Noire could swear she saw the women at the table actively swoon.
She hoped no one fainted. That would be embarrassing. Especially if it were, say,
Mel Vaughan—if she slid out of that chair in a faint, it’s possible one of her boobs
would pop out of that shirt.

“My name is Constable Campbell Dawson.” As he said his name,
an auburn-haired woman sighed theatrically and fanned herself. Noire scowled. She
relaxed a bit at the sound of her own name as he continued. “My associate, Noire
Pelletier, and I are here on a police investigation. We’re looking for information
about a young woman who may be staying here.” As Cam described Jane Doe, Noire watched
the women at the table. They listened intently, eyes never blinking.

When he finished, it was Mel who spoke first. “I think I know
who you’re looking for, Constable. One of the Swedish girls—I haven’t seen Linn
today but Hanna is in her room. Riko, sweetie, would you mind grabbing her?” A Japanese
girl grudgingly stood and left the room without saying a word.

Cam moved to the tables and began speaking to the group, but
Noire held back. She didn’t want to embarrass herself again, and with the women
fixated on the Mountie, she knew her presence wouldn’t help.

However, she couldn’t keep herself from eavesdropping.

What Cam discovered with his uniform and silver tongue was more
than Noire had managed all week. According to Mel and two other girls, an older
man (“older” apparently meant mid-thirties, since most of these women were younger
than Noire’s twenty-eight years) had been skulking around the Jonsson sisters for
a while. He hovered at the edges of hostel-organized events, paying for bottles
at the wine and cheese night, and covering rounds of beer at the karaoke outing.

“He sang some gawdawful Barenaked Ladies song once,” Mel remembered.
“I mean, the song was great—who gets tired of ‘If I Had a Million Dollars’? Nobody.
Unless you count my douchebag ex. It was the performance that was terrible. Dude
had a three-note range, I swear.”

The Australian hostess Maddie had joined the table by then (apparently
the reception desk didn’t need manning if there was a hot Mountie in the room) and
she perked up at this. “Yeah! He’s the one who signed in as Steve Page. Like
the guy from Barenaked Ladies? Kind of an obvious alias, but his ID matched so we’re
not gonna question it. Even if he can’t play guitar.”

Cam asked Maddie to look up the name in their computer system;
Maddie seemed both thrilled to do him the favor and sad to leave his side.

Mel jumped back in at that point. “Hell, I almost slept with
him myself though. Even if he was old, there was something kind of carnal about
him. Beastly, almost. A real air of authority. What can I say, I get a bit slutty
for a man of authority.” The girl touched Cam’s arm.

If Noire had been a werewolf, she knew, this was where she would
have ripped Mel’s throat out.

But then Mel continued, and Noire heard her sister’s name.

“He was all over this mousy thing, Fern or Fawn or something.
You know the type, quiet, limp brown hair. She never came out drinking, only did
the day trips to the art gallery or the ROM or whatever. Boring.”