Wolf at the Door (6 page)

“He’ll go after them. I need to tell them
they’re not safe in Bear Creek anymore.” If they ever were. She was
turning to find her phone when Brandt caught her arm.

“We’re going to do everything we can to keep
all of you safe.”

Timber nodded. Part of her believed him. The
other part of her still lingered in the past, in the indelible
memory of what had happened last time. Still, she didn’t say a word
to contradict him as Brandt walked out her front door, leaving her
to the silence of her house.

Then she took a deep breath and picked up her
phone. Her wolves needed to hear about the danger from
her
.

And somehow, with or without Shifter Town
Enforcement, Timber was going to find a way to make sure every
woman who had come to her for protection was kept safe. Even if
they all had to sleep in her house with Brandt on her couch.

A soft smile tugged at the corners of her
mouth.

Actually, that sounded like a grand idea.

***

Exhaustion knotted between his shoulder
blades. Brandt hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair,
rubbing the back of his neck. Somehow Timber had managed to call
every single one of her wolves before he’d had the chance. Three
had already packed up and disappeared. He couldn’t blame them, and
when he called Timber to ask why they weren’t answering, he could
tell she didn’t either.

But that still left twelve. He managed to
move two into Delphi’s pack and three more had agreed to be put
under shifter protection. The rest were moving on. They’d run from
danger to get here, and they didn’t need someone else’s problems on
top of theirs. Thankfully, it narrowed the availability of Wolfe’s
preferred targets considerably. Brandt knew without a shadow of a
doubt that Wolfe would go after Timber’s wolves the moment he
realized he couldn’t get to her.

He’d keep attacking until she came out of
hiding. Or was forced to by STE, which he was probably counting
on.

And, as much as Brandt wanted to believe he
could keep everyone safe, there were no guarantees. He could only
do his best, offer them his best. Bracing his elbows against his
desk, he dropped his face into his hands. Not that his best felt
like much at the moment. Charles Wolfe. Tate had dug up everything
Shifter Town Enforcement could find on the man.

Wolfe didn’t have a record. He’d come from a
good neighborhood, good family. Both parents dead, he’d been an
only child. If he had any surviving relatives, there weren’t any
Tate had been able to track down.

And he’d never once had a run-in with Shifter
Town Enforcement.

Whoever Timber had gone to before had not
only written her off when they’d handed her back to Wolfe, but
they’d tossed out her complaint as well. There was no record.
Nothing.

A sudden spurt of fury made him lash out, his
fist slamming into the desk as he stood up.

Last known address? The bastard’s childhood
home, and that had been foreclosed on four years ago. They had
nothing but a ghost name. There were no credit cards to chase. They
had a picture, one he would run by Timber tonight to make sure, but
Tate had already arranged to have it plastered all over every news
station, internet news site and newspaper they could find. The
local wolf packs had received the image first.

Everyone needed to know what the man stalking
them looked like.

But ultimately, it was a very weak safety
measure. If Wolfe caught them from behind...

Frustrated, Brandt leaned back in his chair.
Tate hadn’t found much more on Timber than Wolfe. Her family was
dead, she’d had a pack back in Chicago, but if anyone had bothered
to report her missing, Shifter Town Enforcement hadn’t kept the
file.

He knew the system was corrupt, but hell, it
was cases like this that pissed him off the most. He couldn’t blame
her for not wanting to trust anyone. Tapping the desk with a pen,
he stared at the phone. At least she’d opened up. Thanks to Timber
they knew who they were after, and while they couldn’t simply go
knock on Wolfe’s door and catch him, she’d given Brandt glimpses
into how the Wolfman worked.

He’d killed to torture Timber, to become a
wolf-shifter. He’d gotten the latter, but it would all be about
Timber now. She’d been a part of his original obsession, and Brandt
knew it wouldn’t just go away. Hell. He snatched the phone and
dialed.

“Lawrence,” a soft feminine voice came over
the line and Brandt found himself smiling. It had been what Ollie
had said about her experience which helped him get through to
Timber earlier. His sister was the best link he had right now.

“Hey, Ol.”

“You sound like hell.”

Considering he felt like hell, he didn’t see
any point in taking offense. He remembered a conversation they’d
had when she’d been trying to get a step ahead of the Hunter. No
one had known that killer as well as Ollie, but sometimes knowing
still left you blind.

“You remember the Wolfman case?” She hadn’t
worked it, but she’d studied it. She’d studied most high profile
cases and, considering Brandt had been hell-bent on finding the guy
and failed, Ollie had taken a keener interest in that one than
most.

“Yeah. Guy was killing wolf-shifter females
on the full moon. Stopped after a year, was never caught. Drove you
nuts. You hate not getting the bad guy,” she gave a chuckle, “runs
in the family I guess. Why?”

Brandt stopped tapping his pen against the
desk. “He’s back.”

“Shit. Hell of a down period.”

“Yeah, well, he lost the object of his
obsession for awhile. Found her again, though.” Brandt grimaced.
“It’s not my story to tell, but I could use the extra brain power.
Short version? He was human, desperate to become a ‘werewolf’ and
picked out his perfect mate.”

“And she didn’t want him.”

“Nope. He kidnapped her, begged her to change
him, and when she wouldn’t, he kept her but also began abducting
and killing others. She escaped while he was disposing of the
twelfth victim.”

Ollie made a quiet sound, and Brandt
hesitated. His sister was strong. Hell, she’d always been strong.
But he hated to be the one to bring back old memories.

“Don’t go big brother on me,” she muttered,
startling him. “I don’t have to see you to know you’re having
second thoughts. Dean Winters is dead. And for the record, he’s not
the only killer I’ve stopped.”

Dean Winters had been the Hunter and Ollie’s
own personal Charles Wolfe. “And the nightmares?” Brandt asked as
gently as he could.

“Better. Not perfect, but better. Back to
your case, the girl, you said she escaped?”

“Been living in hiding. She changed her name
and created a pack for runaways. We put the link together when he
killed one of hers and left her a present on her front stoop.”

Ollie cursed. “The bad guys never seem to get
it that their gifts just aren’t that appreciated.”

Brandt couldn’t help but smile there, because
he’d seen how white Ollie had gotten after one of the Hunter’s
gifts. She knew. And she knew the hell that Timber would have gone
through in the moment she’d recognized Wolfe’s scent.

“So he found her again. It’s personal, then,
and you know it. He’s not going to stop. You need to move her—”

“She escaped him twice, Ol. The first, from
before he actually started killing, and Shifter Town Enforcement
gave her back to him. He was human at the time and she was a wolf,
you know how this game works. His word was better than hers. She’s
not going anywhere. I’m lucky she’s talking at all.”

Ollie was quiet for a moment. Brandt could
guess what was going through her mind. If someone had handed her
over to the Hunter...

Brandt had to bite back a growl. Fuck, but
he’d have personally killed a Hound for that.

“I don’t know what you called to hear, bro,
but she sounds strong. She got away twice. She survived. And from
what I know of that case, she had to be a hell of a person to put a
life together, especially one
saving
others, after getting
away from him.”

“What would it take to convince you?” Ollie
would know what he was asking.

“You. If Shifter Town Enforcement had done
that to me, it’d take someone special, someone worth trusting, to
get me to put my life in their hands again. It won’t happen
overnight, and she’s going to need time she probably doesn’t have,
but it’s about honest. About doing what you say you’re going to do.
Big bro, you can’t lie worth shit and so you don’t tend to even
bother. She’ll believe the honesty vibe soon enough. “

“Soon enough might not be soon enough.”

“I know. So what are you doing in the
meantime? If I remember right, you bunked with Nana and me through
my demons. Hell, you kept watch with me. Left your pack and your
own open cases behind. Not being able to wrangle her into shifter
protection isn’t going to stop you.”

“I’m sleeping on her couch.”

Ollie laughed. “She already trusts you then,
more than either of you know.”

“I told her about how you could remember the
smallest details from the time you were in the shack. The birds
thing. It wasn’t my place--”

“Bull. I don’t care what you tell her. I got
through it, I’m okay now, but you know what? Sometimes you have to
know that someone else out there understands. Give her my number.
If she needs to call, she’s more than welcome to.”

Tate paused outside Brandt’s office and
lifted an eyebrow. “Thanks, Ol. I have to go.”

“Need me to come up there?”

“No, but I’ll let you know if that changes.”
He hung up and gestured for Tate to come in.

“You all right there, boss?”

No. He was running on four hours of sleep and
caffeine. He also still didn’t have the slightest clue how he was
going to keep Timber safe.

“Fine,” Brandt ground out, the word a
half-growl as it slipped past his teeth.

Tate snorted. “Call it a day. Everything else
that needs doing I can do.”

“I’m not—”

“You’re right,” Tate said, cutting him off.
“You won’t be going home. You’ll be packing up and playing guard
dog for the one living witness we have. So sitting here pounding
your fist into your desk sounds like a much better plan than
keeping her safe. Or—here’s a thought—what about finding out what
else she might know?”

Brandt leveled a glare at Tate, but, hell,
the man was right. They had other cases the pack was working on,
and he was more than willing to trust Tate to handle all of
them.

“She trusts you,” Tate said softly. “I don’t
know why. You’re such a stubborn jerk.”

“Watch it,” Brandt warned, but even as he
said it, a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Tate was going
to make a damn good alpha someday real soon.

“Go see what else she knows about him.
Background check pulled blanks, but she lived with him for a
year.”

In hell, chained to a bed
. But he
didn’t say it. Because Tate was right. A year was a long time, and
Brandt doubted that Wolfe had been able to hide much from her.
She’d seen him at his worst, what could there have been to keep
from her? “All right. Hold down the fort here. Call me if anything
new comes in.”

It felt weird walking out in the middle of
the day, knowing his pack was still there, working without him. But
if they had one real shot at catching the Wolfman, it lay with
Timber. Brandt stopped home long enough to pick up a fresh change
of clothes and some essentials before driving to her place.

He passed an STE vehicle parked on the road
outside her house. The Hound inside waved to him as he pulled up
next to the car. “All clear?” he asked.

“Yup. It’s been pretty quiet all day. I do
patrols every half hour and I haven’t seen or smelled a thing. Far
as I can tell, he hasn’t been here since last night.”

Brandt nodded. A Hound could tell pretty damn
well. Scents rarely lied. Rough patches of weather, tricky terrain,
that could throw the scent off course a bit, but there’d been
nothing in the weather today that would have made his Hound’s job
difficult. And short of having a witch in his back pocket, Wolfe
couldn’t mask his scent well enough to escape a Hound.

Relief settled Brandt’s shoulders.

“Thanks,” he said and turned his car up the
drive.

Pulling up in front of her house, Brandt
looked around, familiarizing himself with the sights and sounds.
Once out of the car, he wandered. Her yard was well kept, with a
flower garden off to one side. The dirt was freshly turned over,
and he spotted the pair of gloves and a dirt-covered spade on her
front steps.

He strolled around back, his stomach twisting
a little when he spotted the tree Tate had mentioned. It sat right
next to her bedroom window. A branch leaned out, close enough to
touch the glass. That he didn’t like at all. Even if he was bunking
on the couch, if Wolfe could shinny up that tree quietly enough,
there was a chance he would get to Timber before Brandt could stop
him.

The back door creaked open and he jerked his
attention to the woman standing on the porch. Dirt was smeared over
her thighs and knees. Her white tennis shoes were filthy. She wore
an over-sized sweatshirt that hid every one of her curves.

Timber had pulled her hair back in a
haphazard pony tail, but several strands hung loose over her face.
Dark purple waves seemed to frame the edge of her jaw, a jaw as
smeared with dirt as her jeans. Lust stirred low inside him, a heat
that slowly began to simmer the moment she’d stepped outside.

She was stunning. Even when she looked like
she’d been rolling around in her garden she managed to take his
breath away.

She leaned toward him, bracing her arms on
the wooden rail, and Brandt realized he was walking closer, drawn
to her. Hell, but now he knew what went through a moth’s mind as it
flitted closer to the fire. He shouldn’t, but nothing short of a
gunshot was stopping him.