BirthStone (28 page)

“Why? Why did you kill him?” Tyrese had
wondered about the randomness of the murder and couldn’t put the
matter to rest.

“He regained control of his wolf without
assistance. For years, Jennings had been a poster child for the
movement, when that changed so did his usefulness,” she said in a
cold calculating tone. “I could not allow others to see him in his
new persona, could I?”

Sadness welled up in Tyrese. He and Jennings
had hung out a few times, the man had been pack. “No, I guess you
couldn’t. Just like I had to kill Robert when he tried to carry out
your instructions to kill my Alpha, we all do the things we feel
are necessary.”

She jumped up and ran at him. This time he
called his wolf and shifted into his hybrid form. She slammed into
the wall of his rough chest and fell backward a few feet.

“Ma’am,” the young pup yelled while scooting
over to the moaning woman. Leon walked in with the last occupant as
Tyrese returned to normal.

“I caught this one trying to climb out a
window on the top floor. They have quite a collection up there,
want me to call it in?”

“Collection?”

“Lots of cages. I think they used this place
as a holding place for breeds.”

Fury ripped through Tyrese as he pulled out
his gun. “Call it in,” he growled as he shot the two breeds, one
after the other, and then Corrina Griggs.

<<<<>>>>

“You scanned her?” Silas asked as he walked
into the bomb shelter where they held Corrina Griggs.

“Yes, Sir,” Tyrese said. “Every test,
including an x-ray, has been done on her. I think the blood samples
we took from her made Matt’s day. She’s the oldest breeder to date,
so he’s running all kinds of tests. But unless there’s something
really weird going on that we don’t know about, she’s clean.”

Tyrone entered the room and stared down at
the woman under the influence of the anesthesia. “We verify she’s
Corrina Griggs?”

“Yeah, dental records, bloodwork, and
fingerprints,” Tyrese said. “Most of it you had in the file, the
rest we pulled from the police and federal records.”

Silas signaled the doctor in the other room.
“Any chance she’ll release hormones? Make everyone crazy?” He asked
remembering Arianna’s reign of terror and Jacques mental state from
that time.

“Not that we are aware of,” Matt said. “Not
all breeders have the same abilities. Arianna was pregnant all the
time; I think her mating scent was recycled a bit. But Griggs, she
didn’t have the pregnancies. I think it’s a use it or lose it kind
of thing. But I plan to do more research into that area.”

Silas glanced at the woman again, hoping she
could provide them with some answers. “Bring her out of it and let
me know when she is lucid.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Silas and the twins stepped out of the
bunker and headed to a secure room in a nearby section. After the
door closed, Tyrese shared what'd happened when he picked up
Griggs.

Silas snorted as he took a seat. “There is a
freaked out pup who swears you were going to kill him and the Ma’am
as well. He probably wet himself when he talked to Hank.” Silas
chuckled. “Good work by the way, the cops are all over that house
and have a warrant for Griggs' arrest. They’re looking for her son
as well. Alfred’s gone underground but he’ll surface soon.”

“Leon and I played it okay,” Tyrese said in
acknowledgment of the compliment.

Silas glanced at him. “When she wakes up,
let’s see if we can find out the root of this thing. Maybe she can
explain how humans and wolves started mixing? Even though I’m
experiencing it with my pups, I’m still baffled how it happened in
the first place. It shouldn’t.” He glanced at them.

“Okay.” Tyrese shrugged.

“Rone, you got point on this,” Silas said.
“I might kill her before we get any answers. I sent a list of
questions to you. Get through as many of these as you can. We’ll be
recording so we can go over her responses again and again.”

Tyrone looked at the file on his tablet and
nodded. “Yes, Sir.” He whistled. “You want to tie her and Arianna
together?” He looked at Silas.

“Not unless they are somehow connected.
Those questions are to close holes and fill in blanks. I need
closure on some things, plus I want to know what she has
planned.”

Tyrese stood and stretched. “She knows she
is going to die, she may not answer.”

“I’ve got something to motivate her,” Silas
said as he typed on the keyboard. The young pup appeared on the
screen. “This is her youngest son. Her legacy. She planned for him
to take over, to rule by her side.”

“Wonder what big brother Alfred thinks about
that?” Tyrone said, chuckling.

“You think she’ll cooperate to save his
life?” Tyrese asked.

Silas shrugged. “I hope so. Leon said she
caved when he brought this one into the room.”

Tyrese nodded. “I had forgotten about that.
He’s right.”

“Asia doesn’t think Griggs is from the
warehouse but I want you to take this…” Silas handed Tyrese the
dress Griggs had been wearing, “...to her. Let her smell it, just
in case.”

Tyrese stared at him a moment before taking
the material. “What’s up?”

Silas respected Tyrese too much to mix
words. “She’s lonely and needs more contact with pack. There’s no
one else I trust to send. This way I accomplish both.”

“You pimping him out?” Tyrone asked softly
from across the table.

Silas met his serious gaze. “No. I’m sending
him to complete a task. Allow her to scent the material. She needs
pack other than the doctor and myself. Tyrese has already been
intimate with her and understands. What he does is up to him.”

No one spoke.

Tyrese fingered the material before he
spoke. “Asia… being with her intimately feels wrong. It’s like I’d
betrayed the trust of someone important and I don’t know who. I am
attracted to her, who wouldn’t… but she’s mated and I know that
person or will know them.”

Silas sat forward. “Who is he?”

Tyrese shook his head and then shrugged. “I
don’t know specifically, just…it’s a strong feeling that she’s off
limits. Can’t explain it any other way.”

Silas thought for a moment and then sat
back. “Tell her that then, maybe it’ll give her something to hold
onto. I promised her freedom when this is over, she didn’t seem too
excited. But knowing there is someone looking for her might be just
the thing.”

“Okay. I’ll be back.” Tyrese left the
room.

“Jacques thinks we can move on the warehouse
in another week. He found more invoices for supplies delivered to
the same place. Satellite surveillance showed vapor releases from
areas within a five mile radius of the delivery point connecting to
the abandoned warehouse. Alpha Samuel sent scouts to do a
preliminary search. Everybody’s anxious to shut that group
down.”

Silas nodded his agreement. “I don’t think
they are in one location…but we will hit them as we find them.
That’s one of the things Griggs can help us with if she actually
split with them a while back. I wonder what happened to make her
hate us?”

“Huh?” Tyrone looked up from his tablet.

“Think about it. She’s been doing this for
decades… she never had any pups until now. What is this really all
about?” He tapped the desk with his fingertip.

“You don’t have those questions on here,
want me to add them?”

“See if you can work it in the conversation.
I’d like to know the ‘why’ of all this. Granted it’s not as
important as what she has planned and how…but if you can find that
out, I’d like to know.”

“Will do.”

The intercom beeped. “She’s out of it, Sir,
a bit dazed but she’s alert.”

“Thanks.” Silas stood and reached out to
Tyrese. “
Griggs is up, Rone and I are headed over. Meet me in
the observation room when you can.”

“
Yes, Sir.”

Silas glanced at Tyrone as he opened the
door. “Let’s go.” Dr. Passen and Matt met them in the corridor.

“I’d like to sit in on the questioning,
Sir,” Matt asked.

“So would I,” Dr. Passen added.

“Okay,” Silas agreed and continued to the
small room next to the bunker. He grabbed a chair and sat near the
two-way glass before giving Tyrone the go ahead.

For someone who had been under, Griggs
appeared remarkably alert. Which served as a reminder that there
was still so much to learn about breeders and their physiology.

“Hello, Ma’am,” Tyrone said as he bowed his
head in a formal greeting.

“Oh hell. Is this good cop versus bad cop?
You’re supposed to be the nice one who gets me to talk?” She
snorted. “Hell, send in the other one, at least I knew he didn’t
give a damn. No games with that one.”

Tyrone chuckled as he took a seat. “I won’t
play games either, but my mama raised me to be polite to my elders.
If that bothers you, you’ll have to blame her.”

She eyed him with suspicion. “You Jasmine
Bennett’s other twin, eh? Two boys, so different.”

“Not really all that different,” Silas
murmured.

Tyrone shrugged. “Your son is here.”

“Alfred?”

“No. Tomas.”

Her skin whitened. “He’s not my son.”

“Careful, he can hear you,” Tyrone said
kindly.

She swallowed hard while searching the room.
“I don’t believe you.”

Tyrone shrugged. “That’s within your rights.
However, La Patron has instructed me to tell you the young man is
here and the future of his mental health depends on you. We can
mute the sound or keep it on. If you want your son to hear
everything…”

“You mean my death?”

“No. I meant what I said. You have to
understand, I’m fascinated with your history.” Tyrone went on to
repeat everything he had learned about her to this point. “You are
a formidable woman, yet Tomas is the first breed you gave birth to
since you killed the twins. Why?”

She met his eyes with gleaming pride. “One
of the girls still lives, somewhere. The servant didn’t kill her.
Or she wouldn’t die. I saw her once, or at least I think that was
her. Anyway, it was time to meet my obligations. How could I be a
part of the breed nation with human sons?” Her one hand, not in
cuffs, rose and fell. “Optics. It was all about optics.”

Silas was glad Tyrone didn’t buy that.

“So you don’t care about Tomas? It’s okay if
La Patron reprograms his wolf like he did Jennings?”

Visibly, she stiffened. Her face reddened.
“No. Hell no, it is not okay. I don’t want that bastard anywhere
near my…Tomas. You keep that pedophile away from that boy. Silas
Knight cannot be trusted,” she screamed.

Stunned by the accusation, Silas leaned
forward with his elbows on his knees as he searched his mind for
anything that might have been mistaken for what she claimed. He
came up empty.
“Ask her why or who I approached
,” he told
Tyrone

“That’s a serious accusation, Ma’am. Can you
prove La Patron is a pedophile? I mean who did he violate?”

“What difference does it make? You won’t
believe me.”

“Try me,” Tyrone said in a strong tone. “I
have younger siblings, so if you have proof that he violates young
children I’d appreciate hearing it. And so you know, I have this
weird gift of being able to detect lies.”

Silas ignored the stares from the doctors
and focused on the answer to Tyrone’s question.

“My girlfriend, Pammie Lee, was ten. One
summer day I met her in groves midway between our plantations. We
had just climbed the tree and settled down when she told me she met
this man, only he wasn’t a man. She swore he could change into
animals, she’d seen him do it. I didn’t believe her of course and
she swore me to secrecy. I thought that was the end of it until I
came across the biggest, blackest wolf I’d ever seen. His eyes were
emerald green and he stared at me for a moment, sniffed, and then
walked off. That’s when I remembered Pammie Lee’s description of
her wolf. Pammie Lee was pregnant before she turned eleven and died
during childbirth. I heard she had a son, but of course he died
too.”

“You assume that wolf was La Patron?”

Her eyes flashed as her chin tightened. “I
know that bastard raped and impregnated my friend, and she was only
ten, had just become a woman if you know what I mean.”

Silas understood the inference. The woman
had spoken the truth, as she knew it, regarding the incident. But
he knew with certainty the green-eyed wolf wasn’t him. When she
lived in Virginia, he had been in the mid-west preparing for
expansion. Plus, this had nothing to do with her rape, or did it?
Had the green eyed wolf raped Corrina and not her friend? Is that
why she had such recall? Was she hiding her own experiences behind
an impenetrable wall of misery so that she could deal with her
nightmare? Or was she just as crazy as Arianna had been? He didn’t
know and grew weary chasing shadows for answers.

“
It wasn’t me. Move on with the
questions
,” he told Tyrone.

Tyrese stepped into the room and sat in the
chair next to Silas. “She vaguely recognized the scent but said it
was old. She’s going to think on it.”

Silas nodded but kept his gaze on Tyrone and
Griggs. For the next hour and a half, Tyrone had an in-depth
conversation with the woman, in which they laughed and chatted like
old friends. Tyrone called her out on her lies three times before
she settled into the cordial interrogation.

“Hungry?” Tyrone asked Griggs when he turned
his tablet over.

She snorted. “My last meal?” There was a
resigned note in her voice.

Tyrone shrugged. “You did try to kill La
Patron. But I think he could forgive that if his mate and babies
hadn’t been nearby. That was poorly done, Ma’am.”

“The bomb was for the caves. Jasmine refused
to leave, that’s the only reason Siseria didn’t detonate then.
Jasmine Bennett should never have been in danger. When she was,
Julie’s life was forfeit. She should have disposed of Siseria
before the woman was taken.”