Bear Naked and Bite Marks (15 page)

 
“So
what are you going to do about Manny?” Ary asked on the other end of the phone.
Melissa finished filing some paperwork and then leaned back in her seat. The
office had been closed for the last few hours, but she had so much work to
catch up on that she had stayed late.

“I don’t know. I dropped his car off
this morning, and he looked like shit. He also wasn’t acting like himself. It
isn’t like I didn’t know he had feelings for me, but you should have seen the
way he acted the last couple of times I saw him. It was like a totally
different person from the guy we went to high school with.” Melissa exhaled and
stared at the ceiling. “I feel like this is
all my
fault because I knew how he felt for me.”

“Melissa, we all knew how he felt for
you, but I certainly wouldn’t have ever thought he would have done any of that
shit.” The sound of the clock on the wall ticking down the seconds seemed so
loud.

“I know talking to him won’t do any
good, but I also think putting some distance between us is the best thing right
now. I mean, I tried to explain everything to him over the phone, hoped he got
it this time, but I also think that we can’t have a friendship anymore. He just
is too invested in his feelings for me to be happy that I’ve found my mate. I
don’t want him hurt, but I also want to start my life.” The sound of
Ary’s
kids laughing had Melissa smiling.

“He may have been a nice guy, or at
least we all thought that, but he was also creepy in the way he vied for your
attention.” There was shuffling on the other end and then kids screaming and
the sound of fighting proceeding. Ary sighed heavily. “See what you’ll have
soon.” Melissa wanted that. She wanted the kids screaming and fighting, the
chaos that came with that, and just having a house full of life.

“Can’t wait.”
Ary chuckled, but Melissa knew her friend probably thought she was being sarcastic.
Melissa had never expressed her desire for all of that, but she hoped now that
she found her mate she could finally have it. But it was still very early in
her mating, and a lot of things could change. She and Declan still needed to
get to know each other. “Listen, it sounds like World War Three is about to hit
your house, so I’ll let you go.”
As if to prove her point
Cole yelled something at his sister.

“Yeah, that might be best. If I don’t
get control of these two I might end up having a mental breakdown.”

Once they were off the phone Melissa sat
there and thought about everything that had transpired over the last few days.
The mark Declan had given her throbbed as if to solidify the fact that she was
really mated. After she had dropped off Manny’s car this morning before work
she had sensed something volatile brewing within Manny. It wasn’t just that he
was hung-over, which had been pretty damn clear. It was the way he had looked
at her, as if he was seeing right into her very soul. To say it was a little
unnerving was an understatement. She looked at the clock, saw she had to meet
Declan at the steak house about ten minutes from the office, and knew she
needed to get her ass in gear or she’d be late. She stood, grabbed her purse,
and right when she reached for her cell a text came through.

Manny
:
Let’s straighten things out soon. I think
we both deserve to be happy.

The text wasn’t really anything
specific, almost kind of cryptic in a way, and she contemplated responding. But
Melissa didn’t really know what to say to it. Instead she sent a text to Declan
saying she’d be there in fifteen, put her phone in her purse, and headed out
the front door. She locked up and headed around the side of the building and to
the employee parking lot. Grabbing her keys from her purse, she saw her cell light
up with another incoming text.

Declan
:
Good, because I’m about ready to gnaw off
my own arm.

Melissa laughed out loud and sent him a
quick smiley face before shoving her phone in her purse and unlocking the driver’s
side door, but her wolf rose up violently, growling and clawing at the feeling
of danger that slammed into her from behind. The scent that slammed into her
was familiar, and shock as well as betrayal filled her. But before she could
turn around and deliver the promise of her wolf tearing some shit up, someone
reached around her, pressed a cloth to her nose, and held it there tightly.
Melissa inadvertently sucked in a huge breath at the thought of suffocation,
and a sickly sweet smell filled her nose. She struggled, but it didn’t take
long for her limbs to feel like they were made of steel and her head to become
too heavy for her to hold up any longer as darkness swept over and took her
under.

****

Maverick stood behind Declan as he
hacked into various businesses around Sweet Water, trying to find out any
information on the supplier of the drug being distributed. “I’ve brought up the
lab that supplies the pharmacy in Sweet Water and some of the surrounding
cities. They are the most likely focal points. They have the set up needed to
cook everything up, but then again we could be dealing with someone working out
of a trailer in the middle of nowhere.” He looked over his shoulder at
Maverick.

“This isn’t an episode of
Breaking Bad
.” Maverick’s expression was
stern and hard, but this situation was far from funny. Dead bodies were
involved, children of residents of Sweet Water, and they wanted justice. Declan
had been assigned this task to find the bastards involved in this, but he
wouldn’t be the one delivering justice. It was up to the residents of this
town, the ones that had lost their loved ones, to handle this. Even if Declan
wanted to fuck up the ones responsible for this, to keep Melissa safe, he was
stepping back when the time came to handle business.

He turned back around and hacked into
the mainframe of the pharmaceutical company that had recently taken over some
property at the edge of town last year. Declan pulled up employee records,
shipment accounts, and supply receipts, trying to figure out if anything was
out of the ordinary. But the employee image that came up had recognition
slamming into Declan. He scanned the profile for Robert Phillip Martin. And it
was when Declan got to the next of kin section that he saw why this Robert male
was so familiar.

“You know that guy or something? You’re
checking out his details pretty thoroughly.” Maverick moved from behind him to
take a seat beside Declan.

“No, I don’t know him personally, but I
know of his brother.” Declan opened another screen and typed out the
information that would bring up Manual Richard Martin’s information. Maverick
leaned forward and scanned the file that was brought up.

“Shit, look at their IQ scores.”
Maverick pointed to first Robert’s information, and then did the same to
Manny’s. “And look at what they studied and excelled at in college.
Chemistry, man.”
Maverick leaned back and crossed his arms
over his chest.

Declan continued to read over Robert’s
employee report. “He’s only been employed with Harrow Pharmaceuticals for the
past year, and in fact was one of their first employees.” Declan continued to
read. “And look at the department he oversees.”

“Drug composition and properties, and
synthesis and drug design.” Yeah, it was fucking Greek to Declan, too, but he
knew enough basic shit to know what that all boiled down to. “The guy has his
hands deep in creating the shit in those labs, Declan.”

Declan minimized the files and pulled up
several cameras that were located around Sweet Water. He had to do some fancy
work to bring up older footage, especially when the city crashed the shit after
a month’s
time,
or at least thought they did. There
was always a way to get the information on the internet. But compared to some
of the things Declan had done, this was child’s play. Sweet Water had implemented
the cameras after the explosion in Kashton, and the news about Trent Sharpe’s
drug organization. He scanned through several days of footage, starting with
when the drugs had first starting making their rounds through Sweet Water. It
was a long, tedious process, but he finally got the first image he had been
looking for: Robert and Manny meeting up at Harrow in the middle of the night and
hauling out boxes from the back of the building. He scanned other dates, and
they always ended up in monthly trips to Harrow. But the last thing he picked
up was the van they packed the boxes in disappearing down Perkins Road, where
the cameras no longer tracked.

“The only thing out there is land.”
Declan looked over at Maverick and nodded. “Man, we need to be positive these
two guys are the ones that have their hands in on this shit. For all we know
they are just supplying the chemicals.” But even Declan could hear the doubt in
Maverick’s words. Declan shook his head.

“No, I know these two are involved.
Their education and background alone is enough to make me sure they are the
ones cooking the fucking shit, but after the way I saw that Manny asshole act
after I claimed Melissa,” Declan shook his head again, “I have no doubts Robert
is just as sick as his brother.” Maverick looked at his watch. “I have a dinner
thing with Melissa, but that works out good because I don’t want her anywhere
near this when it goes down. And it will go down.”

“Where do you plan on taking her to keep
her safe?”

“I have my cabin on the other side of
town, opposite from where I think those assholes are making the drugs. She’ll
be safe there.”

Maverick nodded and stood.
“All right.
Call me when you’re ready to head out, but it
needs to be tonight. Even if they aren’t out there, as long as we can find the
place and verify that that is where the drugs are being created, I’m sure we
can scent out if they are involved.”

“I’ll find out what housing is out
there, and see if either of them owns the property. I’m going to assume it’s
probably located in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

Maverick nodded again. He clapped him on
the back.

“Thanks, brother. I’m not going to tell
Link until we know for sure.”

Declan turned around in his chair.

“He
still wanting
to dish out the punishment?”

They stared at each other for a moment.

“I don’t know, although I know he and
Trace were discussing all of that earlier. He might be leaning towards going
the legal way.” Maverick grabbed his leather jacket and put it on. “He just
wants justice for his kid, but I think he would rather the prick rot in prison
than take the easy way out.”

“Yeah, I know, and I can’t blame him.”
He watched Maverick leave, and turned around to finish getting the information
he needed before he headed out. Declan knew this was going to be one very long,
most likely fucked-up night.

Chapter Twelve

Melissa’s stomach
roiled,
and that must have been what roused her. She slowly opened her eyes, blinking
away the haziness that was her current vision, but when she tried to lift her
hands to rub her eyes she realized she was restrained. Her vision cleared
enough that she was able to actually make out what was in front of her, but
nothing was familiar. Taking inventory of her body, she was thankful nothing
hurt aside from her head, but she assumed that was from whatever Manny had
drugged her with. And she knew it was Manny from the familiar scent of him that
hadn’t been cloaked well enough with the chemical stench that had surrounded
him. She was in a chair, with her arms bound behind her back, and her legs
roped together. She looked around again. She was in a cabin, with a fire blazing
to her left, and the smell of spices coming to her from the right. The pounding
in her head started to become less painful with each breath she took. Raised
voices suddenly came from a backroom, and she tensed when the door opened. But
it was not Manny that stepped out, but his older brother.

“You’re up.” His voice was bland with
disinterest.

“Robert?” She hadn’t seen him since she
had gone to Manny’s college graduation and Robert had been there. He was only a
year older than they were, but he had always had this apathetic personality,
kept to himself in school, and immersed himself in his studies. Both Martin
brothers were intelligent, excelling in high school and at the university. But
she had always felt this detachment with Robert, and it seemed everyone else
got the same vibes around him because they tended to stay away. But Robert
looked different, more controlled even. The brothers looked very alike with
their dark hair parted on the side, their glasses, and this air about them that
had been classified as the “geeks” in school. She had never liked the labels
people put on others, even if they didn’t understand them, but with Robert it
wasn’t just about what was on the outside. As she stared at him right now there
was something dark inside of the meerkat shifter, and even though his animal
was one of the weaker species in the shifter community, her wolf was hesitant
and stayed back. There was something very uncomfortable and uneasy in the way
he watched her, and that had a million different red flags going off inside of
her. Robert faced her and leaned against the counter that separated the kitchen
and living room.