Beneath a Blood Moon (62 page)

“What are they?”

“Phone records,” I informed him with a smug smile.

Richard sat up, his brown eyes wide, brightening to yellow. “Phone records. Whose phone records?”

“Seattle pack’s.”

Laughing, Richard shook his head. “You asked for the phone records?”

“I merely suggested if they could use phone records on cop shows on television, why couldn’t we? The only people who knew we were going to the greenhouse were in Seattle’s pack. They had to contact the other pack somehow. So, phone records. I guess the Shadow Pope thought I should go through them since it was my idea.”

My mate made a grab for the papers, his eyes burning a brilliant amber. Once again, I smacked him with the sheets. “
Mine
.”

Whining, he relented. “That’s not fair.”

“From their Inquisition phones?” Richard asked.

“No, all of their phones. I informed him if he could marry me without my prior knowledge and do a broad assortment of other crimes, he could get phone records.”

“Your mate is ruthless,” Richard said, shaking his head. “I like her. Nicolina, can we steal her?”

“No. Father would kill us both—you for trying to yank Sanders out from under his nose, and me for letting you try it. Suffer. You can’t steal them. You had your chance years ago and lost it.”

Sanders laughed. “He almost got away with it, the rat.”

Puzzled, I stared at my mate. “Got away with what?”

“Subjugating me. He tried it once and only once. I take a great amount of joy in ribbing him over it. Not quite a match for Daddy are you, Richard?”

Richard scowled. “That’s horrifying, Sanders. Stop that.”

Pulling out her phone, Nicolina tapped at the screen a few times. “Well-aimed, Sanders. Father has been trying to get Richard to call him Dad for months without any success. He tricked Alex into it yesterday. Lisa laughed herself hoarse. She called me, snickering so hard she couldn’t explain what was going on while Father was in the background crowing his triumph over Richard’s little brother. Mom finally had to fill me in on what was going on.”

“I regret missing that phone call,” my mate replied.

“You were passed out by then, sorry. You needed the sleep.” Holding the phone to her ear, Nicolina hummed a few notes. “Hey, Father. Sara’s a hell of a lot smarter than the rest of us. Bring your people over and come see what she did. Dustin let her out of her cage.”

Without waiting for an answer, she hung up and returned her phone to her pocket. When it rang, she ignored it. “Father likes being in control of everything. It’s easier to get him to do what you want when you tell him what you want him to do and proceed to ignore him.”

“She enjoys yanking his tail almost as much as I do,” Richard said, smiling at his mate.

Within two minutes, there was a knock at the door, and Richard hopped to his feet to answer it, showing no signs of having been shocked by his mate. Wendy paused long enough to kiss Richard’s cheek before pouncing in my direction. She slid onto the armchair with me, wrapped her arms around my neck, and buried her nose against my throat. One of her feet struck the back of my mate’s head, and whining his protests, he scooted away from the chair.

“Neither one of you will apologize for anything,” Desmond ordered, coming to a halt at Richard’s side, making enough space for Alex, Lisa, and Amber to file into the room. “If you apologize again, Wendy, I’m going to go right off the deep end.”

“Our suite has been a special sort of hell I would not wish on anyone. Want to trade, Nicole? Sanders can’t be nearly as bad as Dad.”

“Worse,” Nicolina reported. “You’d think the world was ending with how he was carrying on. At least he would leave her alone for short intervals so long as one of us was standing in the doorway to watch and make sure she didn’t decide to wake up and run off.”

“How’s the puppy?” Wendy demanded, placing her hand on my stomach.

My mate made a happy noise in his throat. “The puppy seems to be fine. Sara’s a little worse for wear, but that’s nothing food and sleep won’t fix, so says Dustin.”

“I’m—”

“Wendy, please stop apologizing to everyone over everything,” Desmond grumbled. “Sara, she’s very sorry she got all territorial, she’s very sorry she snapped at you, and she’s very sorry about stealing your fish. She’s also sorry about a wide assortment of other things, including leaving you to face shark-infested waters on your own.”

“She didn’t steal my fish. I shared,” I protested. “Well, okay, there was that one fish she yanked out of my throat on the boat. That was not nice, Wendy.”

Wendy relaxed against me, softly laughing. “You were going to choke on it. You’re just like my Richard. A small enough fish comes your way, and all of your common sense dribbles right out of your furry ears.”

“Wendy!” Richard protested. “I’m not that bad.”

The way Nicolina glared at her mate promised a world of pain and suffering. “Yes, actually, you are.”

“Crap,” he muttered, holding his hands up in surrender. “Fine, I’m that bad. I can’t help it.”

“You could, but you’re too stupid to.”

Richard sighed, bowing his head. With a smirk, Desmond captured his son-in-law around the neck, yanking him close. “Ah, Richard. You lowered your guard at last.”

“What do you want, Desmond?”

“A simple Dad will suffice for the moment.”

“You have a new puppy on the way. You don’t need me calling you any sort of disgustingly sweet name,” Yellowknife’s Alpha grumbled, although he made no efforts to pull away from Desmond. I watched with interest, as did Wendy. “I don’t know what wicked evil you pulled on my brother, but I’m not falling for it.”

“I’ll forgive you for stealing my precious daughter out from under me if you do.”

“So, Sara,” Wendy said, pointing at the papers still in my hands. “Charles started wailing in disbelief you outsmarted them, the big Alpha males they are. What did you do?”

“We all deserve to go to our rooms for this oversight,” Nicolina stated. “Father, please stop harassing my mate. I’m sure one day he’ll call you something nice if you stop bothering him about it. Maybe.”

“But I want him to call me something nice
now
,” Desmond complained.

“It’s the puppies,” Wendy informed me. “Charles becomes obsessed with the perfect family image when there are puppies on the way, and it doesn’t matter whose. In the case of ours, it’ll wear off in eighteen or nineteen years. Sanders, please spare Sara from such idiocy.”

“Puppy,” my mate cooed, shuffling to take his place next to me, hugging my legs.

“So, what are the papers?” Wendy asked.

“Phone records for Seattle’s pack—all phones, not just the Inquisition lines. They’re masked so I don’t know who placed which call, but they’re dated from when Desmond told the pack we had been found up to when we went to the greenhouse,” I explained. “I just thought since they did it on television, maybe it could be done. It was just a suggestion.”

“So what are we looking for?” Wendy grabbed the papers, and I allowed her to take them. Shifting off of me and onto the arm of the chair, she flipped through them. “Nicolina was right. You have outsmarted us. It never crossed my mind to look for call records.”

“They could have e-mailed,” Desmond grumbled, and with a long-suffering sigh, released Richard. “Rotten mangey thief.”

“Your fault for having such a beautiful daughter,” Richard replied, stepping out of Desmond’s reach.

“E-mail is too slow,” Sanders said. “How many sheets are there, Wendy?”

Wendy flipped to the last page. “Two hundred and ten.”

“Well, what are we waiting for? Someone find us some pens, split the stack, and let’s get to work. If there’s anything important in those pages, we’ll find it,” my mate growled, and his lust for the hunt burned bright in his eyes.

Sanders went through every page, making notations beside numbers. While the acquisition of the phone records had been my idea, Wendy split the piles in such a way I didn’t get any of the sheets. I grumbled my complaints under my breath.

“You’ll get them after we all have a chance with them,” my mate promised. “We all know the common numbers. I know our pack’s numbers. You’ll get a turn, don’t worry.”

“Any New York numbers?” I asked.

All of them stared at me as though I had grown a second head. Sighing, Nicolina pulled out her phone. “212, 347, 718, 917, and 929 are New York City area codes.” Pausing, she frowned at her phone before reading off the codes for the rest of the state.

Sanders wrote the numbers down, and with a sigh of his own, he handed me a stack of the sheets. “Smart ass bitch. What are New Jersey’s area codes?”

For such a small state, New Jersey had a lot of area codes, which Nicolina also read off.

My wolf loved the way our mate’s scent sweetened with his affection and approval. Accepting the pages and a pen, I settled in to read through the numbers, setting aside the reference list for New York and New Jersey numbers.

“She’s not a smart ass; we’re just complicating things unnecessarily,” Lisa said, shaking her head as she flipped through her pages. “Nothing from New York in my stack.”

“None in mine either,” Nicolina reported.

Desmond “Two calls to New York numbers here.”

“One here,” Wendy said, lifting up a page.

I took the pages with the New York numbers, setting them aside as I scanned through my portion of the records. Halfway through, I recognized a number. Sucking in a breath, I stared at the entry, my entire body chilling.

My father had several phones, a mix of private and public numbers. The number I knew was a private line, connecting directly to his home office. When I left home, I had done my best to forget it so I wouldn’t be tempted to give up and crawl back to New York.

“What’s wrong, Sara?” my mate demanded, gripping my knee.

Anger, shame, and fear tore at me, and for a long moment, I considered lying so I wouldn’t have to face the fact I was truly the one responsible for what had happened. I sighed, circled the number, flipped the page over, and wrote down the address of the house I used to call home.

Armed with my father’s phone number and address, Desmond called the Shadow Pope. He talked to the Inquisition’s leader in the adjacent bedroom, and his voice deepened with his anger. The acrid stench of his rage clogged my nose.

“Care to enlighten us on what’s going on?” my mate asked, tugging on my knee.

Leaning out of the bedroom, Desmond said, “Leave her alone. I’ll explain in a minute.”

“It’s all my fault,” I mumbled, staring at the sheets still on my lap.

“Sorry, sir. I’ll call you back.” Once he pocketed his phone, Desmond sat on the arm of my chair and took the pile of papers off my lap. With slow, deliberate motions, he rolled them up and smacked the back of my head with them. “You can’t accept the blame for the actions of others. It explains a lot, however. Fenerec are possessive when it comes to blood kin, especially when it comes to their offspring.”

Richard and Alex winced, and Nicolina frowned, staring at her mate.

“That number belongs to someone in your family?” my mate asked, his anxiety tainting his scent.

“My father,” I admitted in a whisper.

“I know this is going to be a difficult question for you, but why did you leave home, Sara?”

I opened my mouth to reply, but instead of the words I meant to say, my throat clenched and I burst into tears. Dislodging Desmond from the arm of my chair, Sanders picked me up and slid beneath me.

“Is this necessary?” my mate growled.

“Alpha and dominant males are rather notorious for their overprotective, controlling tendencies,” Desmond stated, and with dignified grace, he sat on the couch, slipping between Richard and Nicolina. “All I want you to do is nod or shake your head, Sara. Was your father dictating everything you did?”

Burying my face against Sanders’s chest, I forced myself to nod.

“Was he always like that?”

I shook my head.

“Did your leaving have anything to do with your ex-boyfriend?”

Admitting the truth hurt, especially when I worried I would hurt my mate with what had happened in the past. I hesitated, but after drawing several deep breaths, I nodded.