A Bleacke Wind (Bleacke Shifters Book 3) (33 page)

He glanced at the two bodies lying there, then turned to look up the road where his men stood watch over the other two bodies.” And we’ll need a pickup truck. We’re on the main road just east of the 4-11 fire road.” He glanced at Beck. “Any word on Ken and Nami?… Okay, thanks.”

Trent hung up. “Nothing yet on Ken and Nami. We’re to meet back at the great hall to regroup. I’ll be along once the bodies are picked up.”

“Wood chipper?” Joaquin asked.

“Fuckin’ A,” Dewi muttered. She stood there, her arms crossed over her chest, a dark look on her face.

It wasn’t that they made a habit of murdering people, but the pack had learned a long time ago that a wood chipper was the fastest, easiest way of disposing of evidence. Since the sheriff for the area was a shifter from the pack, there were never any questions.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Joaquin told Dewi. “Your guy, he’s smart, right? A genius. They’re probably in Spokane already.”

Beck reached over and gently clasped Joaquin’s shoulder. He gave Joaquin a quick shake of his head.

Joaquin shut up.

Paul showed up a few minutes later and picked up Beck, Joaquin, and Trent’s man, who’d been with them.

“You coming, Dewi?” Beck asked as he swapped places with Paul behind the wheel.

“No. I’m going to wait with Trent.”

“We don’t need help, Dewster,” Trent told her.

She glared at him. “Do
not
call me that while I’m working.”

Joaquin stepped around the SUV to the passenger side. He didn’t want to get in the middle of a sibling squabble.

Not between a Prime Alpha and her Alpha older brother.

And especially not when the Prime Alpha was his boss.

“Just drop me back at Jack’s car, please,” Joaquin said. “It should be east of here.”

“Okay,” Beck said.

As they got turned around, Joaquin glanced back to see Trent and Dewi standing there, Dewi with her arms crossed again and staring to the west.

It wasn’t hard for him to follow her thinking.

She was worried about her mate and he couldn’t blame her.

At least Joaquin had that small comfort, that he knew Malyah was safe and protected. He knew exactly where she was, too.

Back at Jack’s car, he got in and followed Beck and the others to the great hall. They were almost there when someone in a pickup truck raced past them going the other way.

There goes the hearse.

The good news was the snow had stopped without turning into rain first.

The bad news was night would fall sooner than normal with the heavy cloud cover. With the breezy and cold weather, while not much of a hinderance for the shifters usually, the darker than normal conditions would slow them down a little with their search, as would the wet ground.

And they still had three armed men somewhere inside their compound, not to mention the four after Ken and Nami.

Joaquin followed Beck and the others inside the great hall. There were at least three dozen shifters there now, including several who were shifted, looked like mostly teenagers, who were curled up in a back corner and staying quiet and out of the way.

Beck put the cell phones they’d taken from the dead men on the table. “Got those off them. Trent and Dewi are supervising the body disposal.”

Peyton’s brow furrowed, his shoulders tense. “What are we looking at?”

Beck repeated what Trent had told Peyton over the phone, since that’s all the info he had.

Peyton grabbed one of the phones and looked at it. “Dammit, a passcode.” He put that one down and tried another, which apparently wasn’t locked. He was scrolling through the call log when Web and eight more shifters ran into the great hall.

Peyton looked up. “Good. Perfect timing.” He started going over the compound map again with everyone. “Tell them what car they’re looking for again, Web.”

“Rental. I don’t know what make, but it won’t belong here and probably has Washington state plates on it. They had a black one, a blue one, and a charcoal grey one. I saw the blue one down by the entrance, so that means either the black or grey one is in here. Four-doors, sedan, maybe a Chevy or a Ford from the size. I’d have to go back and pull the security video from the gas station to be sure.”

“Wait,” one of Web’s men said. “I thought you said I was looking for a little two-door Honda.”

Web stared at him. “Yeah, that Beck and Dewi’s mates were driving.”

“Fuck. I passed a four-door black sedan parked on that turn-out a few miles south of town. The one hikers sometimes stage from. It was there when I went by and when I came back. I didn’t see any people around it, though. I thought it was just hikers.”

Joaquin’s blood chilled.

“You didn’t stop and investigate it?” Peyton asked.

The guy glanced around, apparently realizing he’d fucked up. “No, I was ordered to find a Honda.”

Joaquin, Beck, and at least fifteen other shifters, including Peyton, all muttered, “Fuck,” under their breaths.

Peyton scrubbed at his face. “Web, take three armed guys and go check it out. Report back.”

“Cell coverage drops by that point on the road, for at least another ten miles.”

“Then go check it out and get back to where you can call me.” He glanced at Joaquin. “Take Joaquin with you, too. He should be able to know if it’s them or not by the smell. Right?”

Joaquin nodded. “Yeah.”

“Stay together and do
not
do anything until you call me. Oh, hold on.” Peyton pulled his phone from his pocket. “Joaquin, take down these numbers. They’re for Ken and Nami. Keep trying to call them as you can.”

He read the numbers off to Joaquin, who quickly entered them in the phone Badger had given him. He had Dewi’s number in his old phone back in Florida, but not in the new one.

Web picked his men. “Let’s go.”

Joaquin followed them, taking Jack’s car again. He now had two guns and extra mags taken off the two men he and Beck had located, in addition to the gun and two mags Jack had given him before he’d bolted out of their house following Peyton’s call.

It was going on four o’clock in the afternoon, the weather dreary, damp, and miserable.

At least something was able to take my mind off Malyah for a few little while.

Not that he was happy about that for a myriad of reasons.

* * * *

Beck watched them quickly file out of the great hall, knowing damn well he couldn’t argue with the pack Alpha in front of others.

He
wanted to be on that mission.

Peyton apparently read him correctly. “I need you here, Beck,” he gently said. “I’m sorry. You know the compound better than Joaquin does. It’s been a couple of years since he’s been back. I need your eyes and ears here on the ground helping with this.”

“Why can’t Dan get a chopper in the air for us?”

“I called. They have a group of Boy Scouts overdue in the national forest and have every available person focused on that. You know he can’t pull resources from an official operation.”

“Dammit.” Beck scrubbed at his face. “I feel like I’m sitting here jacking off. We should be
out
there.”

“We have to do this smart.” Peyton pointed at the map. “We know what kind of vehicle we’re looking for now, and depending on what Joaquin reports back, one of two colors.”

Peyton traced the main road with his finger, as well as the largest, most heavily used side roads and trails. “I’m going to start the phone tree again so anyone who sees that car can call in. But we need to sweep from the main road north. Based on what you’re telling me the four men said, the other car likely went north. There aren’t any homes or buildings south of the main road at this point. We need to start at the main road and work north, a coordinated search grid, so we can pin them in.”

“They’ve been out there nearly six hours now,” Beck said. “They could have broken into a house and be hiding out. They could have made it halfway to the northern boundary. Hell, if they went too far east, they could have gotten into the national forest.”

“I already told Dan to be on the lookout for any vehicles along their western boundary, and why. He’ll investigate if they find anyone.”

Beck realized someone was missing. “Where’s Badger?”

“I’ve got him out rounding up people and sending them out of here.” Peyton turned to Beck. “We’ll find them,” he gently told Beck.

“No offense, Sir, but don’t promise me something you can’t. We don’t even know if they’re still alive.” Beck had dropped himself totally into work mode.

It was the only thing stopping him from disobeying direct orders from his pack Alpha.

“Four down, seven to go,” Peyton said. “With more wolves hunting the three we know for sure are on our land, it’ll go faster. Then we can focus on the last group of them.”

Beck hoped he was right. Because if he lost Nami, he wouldn’t want to live.

He dreaded what might happen if Dewi lost Ken.

For years, he’d silently chastised Duncan Bleacke for killing himself when his wife died. Not when Badger had survived the murder of his mate over a hundred years earlier.

Now…he couldn’t blame the man, and he felt guilty for the years of recriminations he’d silently heaped upon him while he was helping raise Dewi. How it would have been so much easier on her, and better, had there been another Prime Alpha who could have helped.

A Prime related to her by blood, not just someone she loved as adopted family.

How maybe if Duncan had still been alive and in charge of the pack, Charles and Chelsea might not have died.

He shook himself out of that line of thinking. He couldn’t think like that. It would drain his focus and could get people hurt, or worse.

The last thing he wanted or needed on his conscience were more deaths.

Chapter Thirty

Manuel breathed a sigh of relief. They’d finally found a wooden sign at a junction in the dirt roads, for Campgrounds A, B, and C, and arrows pointing which way.

“Which way?” Guillermo asked.

Manuel studied the maps. “Okay, I think I know where we are. Head toward Campground B.”

Guillermo turned to the right and started that way. Now stuff was starting to match again on the maps and satellite photos.

At least something was starting to go right, but they were way later than they’d originally planned. Saul and the other three men probably reached the meeting place hours ago and were wondering what the hell was going on.

Yes, he’d have to admit they’d got lost, but at least they were finally on track.

“Stop somewhere in this area,” Manuel directed a few minutes later. “Pull off the road and hide the car. We’re about five minutes from the other area. We can use the car to get away.”

“What are we going to do?” Carlos spoke up from the backseat. “Go in there and just start asking where Joaquin is?”

“Exactly. If we don’t see him first.”

“What if they’re ready for us?”

He turned and looked over the seat. The usually quiet man was awfully chatty all of a sudden. “Are you questioning me?”

“I’m questioning the fact that we don’t have a plan.”

“I sincerely doubt every man, woman, and child in this place knows Joaquin.” Manuel said. “Or what he did. I would bet money on people not knowing what he did.”

“With all due respect, this is not a solid plan.”

Manuel didn’t like hearing his guy speaking what was nagging him in his own mind.

“Okay,” Manuel said. “Then we’ll look around a little first. Blend in. Pretend we belong here. We know what the guy looks like.”

Carlos sat back and stared out the window as he slowly shook his head. “I have a really bad feeling about this.”

“Then what’s
your
plan?”

“I don’t
have
a plan, and that’s the point, sir. Neither do you. I’m all for getting vengeance, but we need to make sure we’re not walking into a trap. For all we know that guy at the store called people and they’re just waiting on us to show ourselves.”

Manuel considered it. “We still need to find the others and join up with them. Safety in numbers. The meeting place isn’t too far from here. We should leave the car here and walk in.” Thus decided, Manuel opened the door and got out.

His men followed him, he was glad to see.

One thing he noticed as they drew closer to the campground and looked down on it from a rise was how…desolate it appeared. Full of tents and RVs and camper trailers, but…

No people visible. Even for the dreary weather, there should have been signs of life.

Guillermo and Carlos had their guns drawn.

“Put those away,” Manuel whispered.

“I got a really bad feeling about this,” Carlos said, his gaze darting around, everywhere, frantic. “You don’t feel it?”

They jumped at the sound of wolves howling nearby.

“And what the
fuck
with the wolves?” Guillermo said. “They’re like fucking cockroaches around here.”

Screw walking around the campground. They would absolutely stand out like this. This plan was going to shit faster than he could improvise it.

“Let’s go find the others,” Manuel said, heading south. “This way.” He headed off, not bothering to wait for them to answer. Now that he knew where he was in relation to the map, it wouldn’t be difficult to stay out of sight, moving through the woods while staying just off the road.

They were making their way toward the arranged meeting place when Manuel heard several vehicles race past on the road. They looked full of people, and one of them, a pickup truck, had several people sitting in the back.

Armed people, men and women.

He stopped.

“Fuck,” Guillermo whispered.

Dammit.
Manuel hoped maybe they hadn’t seen it, but obviously not. “Keep moving,” he said. “If nothing else, we need to find our guys and get them out of here.”

“There’s four of them!” Carlos protested. “How the fuck we all gonna fit in the car?”

“I’m
not
leaving men behind.” He put on speed and drew his gun.

After a couple of minutes, he spotted the roofs of a couple of large buildings and they found what looked like a large metal maintenance building. Out behind it lay piles of mulch, gravel, and sand. Several large tractors were parked there, as were two snowplows.