A Howl for a Highlander (35 page)

“Hell, didn’t you kill Duncan? He can’t have killed the others.”

Stealing the show for a second, Kenneth choked out, “They’re… they’re wolves. Trained killer wolves.”

“Yeah,” Sal said, motioning to one of the wolves. “Kill Kenneth, the lying bastard.”

Not believing that Sal—and not Carlotta—had been the one to sic the wolves on her and Duncan, Shelley tried to sort out her options to get herself out of this predicament. She couldn’t move past the other wolf to get to the wolf door. She couldn’t do anything about the front door—not while she was in wolf form. Once Kenneth was dead, the two wolves would deal with her.

Carlotta wasn’t the one who had wanted her dead. What about Sal’s guards who had already left his estate? Had Sal staged the whole thing to look like he was without protection? Had he wanted to get the humans away from here so he could deal with Duncan, a wolf and much more of a threat?

One of the wolves lunged at Kenneth. He threw up his arms to protect his throat from the wickedly bared canines, screeching in abject horror.

Seconds later, Kenneth was sprawled on the tile floor, his throat ripped out, dead.

Shelley was panting from all the running and her heart tripping over itself, her body heated, but chills still ran up her spine.

Sal folded his arms and looked crossly at Shelley. “So, Duncan MacNeill believes I’ve stolen his clan’s money, eh? That’s why he asked for that much money for you. It wasn’t for you at all.”

So he knew. How long before he’d finally figured out that Duncan and his people were after their investments? That had to have been why Sal had ordered his men to kill Duncan. It had nothing to do with her.

Shelley inched away from Sal. If she could get to the front door, maybe she could shift in time, run outside, and shift again. Even though she was tired, she’d had enough of a rest that she felt she could run back to see Duncan and still outdistance the other wolves. The adrenaline was still pumping rapidly through her blood.

Hopefully Duncan and her uncle were all right. The three of them could take these two wolves on. Sal also, if the bastard decided to shift.

“You could have been mine. But you were in on this, trying to trap me, weren’t you?” Sal’s brows rose. “Now you came here for my protection, didn’t you? A little too late.” He shrugged.

Not having much of a choice, she knew her next move might not work, but she had to give it a try. She bolted for the front door and found to her profoundest relief that it had a wolf door. She rammed it with her nose and dashed outside.

“Get her!” Sal yelled.

As soon as she raced around the front of the house, she saw three wolves headed straight for her, while the two Sal had commanded to go after her were catching up to her from behind.

Duncan was in the lead with another wolf racing after him. She didn’t recognize the second wolf as one they’d been fighting. Had he been a latecomer? Her uncle was off in the distance, running to catch up to them. So it would be Duncan and her against the two wolves behind her and the one following him.

She just hoped Sal would stay out of it.

But the wolves behind her began to slow down. Maybe not so confident when they saw Duncan.
She
sure didn’t intimidate anyone.

What truly amazed her as she ran to join Duncan was that the wolf behind him didn’t seem intent on fighting him.

Then she didn’t hear the wolves behind her. Not running toward her anyway. They were suddenly moving away from her, back toward the safety of the house.

Duncan reached her, brushed his body along hers in greeting, and kept running after the two wolves. The other wolf that had been following him dipped his head slightly at her, almost smiling, and she wondered…

It couldn’t be Duncan’s brother, Cearnach, could it? How did he get to her rented villa? They’d missed him at the airport! A taxi. He must have realized they were in trouble.

Her uncle finally reached her and nuzzled her face, catching his breath. As much as she wanted him to rest, she knew they needed to kill as a pack. Together, she and he followed Duncan and his brother into the house, where Duncan began fighting one of the wolves who had chased her, and Cearnach was battling the last of the wolves. Another wolf was waiting for Duncan and Cearnach to wear down before he got into the fracas. That coward Sal.

Damn Sal that he cared more for his blasted money than for werewolf lives or human life, she thought, as she glanced at Kenneth’s dead body.

Duncan growled and bit at the big alpha male that had driven the truck. Cearnach was seeing to the other. Her Uncle Ethan had Sal pinned to the floor, not killing him, knowing they needed to get the money out of him.

Cearnach and the other wolf crashed into a table, a porcelain lamp falling and smashing to the floor. Then the wolf yelped and Cearnach stood over the dead man, panting, then shifted his attention to Duncan, ready to lend aid if his brother needed it.

Shelley would have helped Duncan, but the two wolves were snarling and running into tables and couches, their attacks so vicious that she knew if she got in the way she’d get trampled by the much bigger males.

The wolf turned his back on Duncan and tried to escape. Fatal mistake. Duncan leapt on him, ripping into him, and killed him.

Shelley knew Duncan wouldn’t have let the wolf live, not after he had tried to kill her, his mate, his to protect. Even if he had only wanted to leave and save his own skin at that point.

Duncan glanced at Shelley, making sure she was okay, that his brother was fine, and that Uncle Ethan wasn’t having any difficulty with Sal. Then he loped into another part of the house. Within minutes, he was stalking back into the living room, wearing a pair of jeans too short for his tall height. Lamps and candy dishes were broken all over the floor. Chairs and couches were overturned. Kenneth and two dead wolves, who had reverted to their human forms, lay sprawled on the floor nearby.

“Enough,” Duncan said to Sal. “It’s over. You’ve taken a wolf clan’s money, which you
will
return. You will also return monies owed to the many others you stole from.”

Sal growled.

“If you do this… although it kills me to make such allowances because I’m certain she’s as guilty as you are, we’ll consent to allowing your mate to live. She’ll be penniless, but she won’t be dead.”

Shelley located Sal’s bedroom, found a closet full of women’s clothes, and willed her wolf’s form to shift into her human one. Then she pulled out a pair of fancy pink sweats trimmed in rhinestones. She wondered if these were Sal’s mistress’s clothes or Carlotta’s. She hurried to dress.

Uncle Ethan and Cearnach remained as wolves, able to attack easier with lethal effect if Sal gave them any more heartburn. Sal had shifted and was now sitting in a bathrobe at his desk in his office with a spectacular view of the beach and pool. Shelley could imagine him accessing and transferring his money with a touch of the keyboard while gloating over the gorgeous view.

Sal snorted and crossed his arms, giving Duncan a steely-eyed glower. “You can’t get the money out of a dead man.”

“Perhaps not.” Duncan motioned to a painting of Carlotta on the wall. “But I have no qualms about going after your mate. The Feds have already stated that they don’t believe she was involved in your crimes. Whether she was or not, she’d have access to the money.”

Shelley thought Duncan was bluffing about Sal’s mate knowing how to get to the money. How would he know for sure?

Sal shook his head. “My mate loved the thrill of the game. Loved wining and dining men with money, wrapping them around her little finger, getting them to agree to grand investment schemes. The greedy bastards were asking for it.”

“She didn’t entertain my brother,” Duncan said hotly.

“Unfortunately, no. If she had, she would have known he was part of a wolf pack and would have left well enough alone.”

“We’ll get our money one way or another. As your mate, she’d have access to all the money, all that has been stolen and in your custody and that which she has control of in the States.”

“I spent a lot of the funds,” Sal said, as if that would get him out of the grave he’d dug for himself.

Neither Duncan nor Shelley believed it. He couldn’t have spent the billions he had purportedly absconded with.

“This reminds me of a time I was in a night class teaching, and all of a sudden all the electricity went out,” Shelley said. “No storms around, nothing to have caused the sudden electrical outage. The next morning I read in the paper how a man had stolen money from a bunch of lawyers, doctors, a judge even, a big-time business man, with a deal that was too good to be true. So all these high rollers invested in his get-rich scheme. Just like yours.

“The thing of it was, ten years earlier, he had murdered his wife, saying she’d just up and decided to leave. Right in the middle of helping her daughter with wedding preparations. He had a mistress and wanted to get rid of his wife. They never found a body, so the police could never pin a murder on him. Everyone knew he had murdered her. The men who had invested in his fraudulent schemes. Even his grown son and daughter knew he’d killed their mother.

“They even went to that show that looks into unsolved murders. But they couldn’t find enough evidence to prove he’d done anything wrong. So disgustingly, he got away with murder. Then a decade later, when he was going to trial for embezzlement and tax evasion and having stolen so many of the local prominent citizens’ money, he couldn’t deal with it. He ran his car into a telephone pole. Killed himself outright so he wouldn’t have to face imprisonment.”

Mouth agape, Sal stared at her. “You think I should commit suicide?”

“Others you’ve ruined financially have done so because of how you’ve destroyed their lives. Their only crime? Believing in your get-rich-quick schemes. Do you feel remorse for any of it? No, you’ve got your beach estate and other residences all over the world, a mistress, God knows how many more, and you’re looking to have another she-wolf for a mate. Do you think Carlotta will be happy about that when she learns of it?”

Sal turned a little gray. For a moment, she wondered if he felt bad about that.

“So after you give up the money, why not do everyone a favor?” Shelley continued.

Sal stared at his computer, a picture of a hammerhead shark prowling the sea filling the screen.

A shark. A predator who was like an eating machine. Who ate the little fish and grew and grew and grew. Who didn’t care about anything or anyone but himself.

“Why did you do it?” Shelley asked. “You were wealthy already. Why would you cheat so many people, make them lose everything they had?”

“They were greedy. None of them had enough. They wanted easy money. They made for easy targets. I wasn’t always well-to-do.” He shook his head. “My dad did the small scams. Taught me everything he knew, then died in a barroom brawl. I wanted to prove that I could do what my dad taught me, except on a much grander scale.” He finally lifted his head and looked Duncan in the eye. “You won’t hurt Carlotta.”

“I give my word,” Duncan said. “She won’t keep any of the money, though. She won’t benefit from your ill deeds or her own. She won’t be hurt unless we learn she’s continuing your scam.”

Uncle Ethan nudged Shelley’s hand. She reached down and petted her uncle’s head, barely breathing, waiting for Sal to touch the keyboard.

“Wire my clan’s money to my brother, Guthrie, who’s in charge of finances. Then, you’ll be wiring the rest of the money to this account and sending an email with attached files containing the information about the accounts you stole from and the amounts,” Duncan said, hovering over Sal. He glanced over his shoulder at Shelley. “The college where you worked also.”

Then as she and Duncan watched Sal work his magic, Duncan used Sal’s phone to call Ian. “Ian…” He hadn’t gotten anything else out when she heard whooping and hollering in the background at Argent Castle as if some huge celebration was taking place.

Ian laughed, then shouted over the din, “Hell, Duncan, what did you do? Guthrie just gave me the word. The news is spreading like wildfire through the pack. We’ve got our money back. Guthrie has already transferred it to another secure account.”

The sound of all the laughter brought home to her how much this meant to Duncan’s pack. She felt caught up in the overwhelming joy with them. For her college, too, and the staff that would also be celebrating once they knew the money had been returned.

“Just a little wolf persuasion, Ian. We’ll be home soon,” Duncan said over the phone.

Ian said, “Expect a warrior’s welcome.” Then the connection went dead.

“What about all the bodies?” Shelley asked.

Cearnach had disappeared, she realized, and she peeked out of the office door to see that he was hauling a body out the door.

“My brother will take care of them. We can’t let anyone find men that have been killed by wolves,” Duncan said.

Her Uncle Ethan hurried out after him and disappeared into Sal’s bedroom. Then he returned, dressed in a pair of shorts, and helped Cearnach with the remaining bodies. More shark food.

“Show me the balances of each of your accounts,” Duncan said to Sal. When they were all zeroed out, he said, “How do you want to handle this?”