Mated (6 page)

Authors: Desiree Holt

BOOK: Mated

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Cale
raised an eyebrow. “They were there at the same time?”

“Macintyre was in law school. He’s four or five years older. But listen to this.” Luke shuffled the papers on his lap. “After Fisher got bounced from the foundation he was working for there because of his affair, they called in an accountant to check the books and found substantial amounts of money unaccounted for.”

“So he’s done this before?”

“My guess is they were in this together. Fisher’s not in jail only because they couldn’t actually lay it at his door. He was very clever.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t tell the people here about it,”
Cale
commented.

“They couldn’t prove anything and the director whose wife got caught up in the affair was trying to hush things up, anyway.”

Luke’s cell phone rang at that moment.
Cale
listened to him, his side of the conversation consisting mainly of “Yeah,” and “Okay,” and finally, “Sure. I’ll tell him.”

“More news?”
Cale
asked.

“Yup.
That was Drew. He and Ann Marie insisted Jim Franklin step out of his office and meet them for coffee or they’d come into the business and talk to him there.
About Cathy.
He was pretty shaken when they hammered him, but Drew’s convinced he’s not our guy. He said the situation with the former girlfriend had more to it than people think. Drew will tell us about it later, but he says we can write this guy off.”

“Then I damn sure hope we find something at this cabin.”

The place was set way back from the road, at the end of a dirt driveway lined with huge, ancient oaks and sycamores. The cabin itself wasn’t that big, set in the middle of a small clearing. Luke and
Cale
got out of the truck and moved around it, peering into the windows.

“Not more than two rooms,” Luke commented. “It looks empty.”

“And no one’s here,”
Cale
agreed. “It’s not looking good for finding Cathy Porter alive.
Certainly not after all this time.”

“We need to sniff around,” Luke pointed out. “And sharpen our senses first.”

Just in case someone decided to
come
calling, they drove the truck up close to the two-lane country highway and stashed it in a thick copse of trees. Then they stripped, piling their clothes neatly on the front seat, and in seconds had shifted into wolf form, padding silently back to the cabin.

They circled around it, each going in an opposite direction, widening the circle of the search each time. When
Cale
was about fifty yards from the cabin, in the trees and standing on the soft forest floor, his nose alerted him to a differentiation in odours and he froze. He sniffed the area, moving away from the place he’d first picked up the scent, then back again. Cautiously he scraped at the bed of deciduous leaves and rotted wood, stopping when he uncovered something. Lifting his head, he gave a short, sharp howl calling Luke, hoping to hell no one was around to hear him.

Luke raced to his side, skidding to a stop and sniffing the area where
Cale
was standing. He lifted his wolf eyes to
Cale
, nodded. They both knew as humans the chance of catching this scent would be marginal, but their wolf senses never missed.

Then, as if with one mind, they loped further into the woods, eventually finding exactly what they expected.
Cathy Porter’s car, hidden in a thick stand of trees and covered with leaves and branches.
They raced back to the truck, shifted back to their human form and dressed quickly,
Cale
backed out onto the road and they roared away.

“I don’t know if it’s Cathy Porter,” Luke said when they’d driven a couple of miles, “but that’s definitely a body back there in some stage of
decomp
. And that’s her car back there.”

“No shit.”
Cale
ground his teeth, anticipating
Linnea’s
distress. “I wonder if they just expected to leave it there forever. They own all the land around here, so I guess the chance of discovery was pretty slim.”

Luke pulled out his cell. “I’m calling Brian to get everyone who’s around together. We need brainpower on this. We can’t just dig the bodies up without a warrant, and if we take the time to get a warrant they could get wind of what we’re doing.”

Cale
nodded. “Tell Brian we’re a little more than an hour out. We have to move on this. Get him to call Rome and tell him to get his ass over to the office.”

Rome Purcell, another Sentinel, was a top criminal attorney who kept the organisation out of trouble when business forced them to skate on the edge of the law.

“Okay.” He snapped his phone shut after a brief conversation. “He’s on it.”

* * * *

Linnea
was curled in
Cale’s
lap in the big chair in the living room. All the tears she’d been holding back all this time had burst forth and she’d cried until
Cale
worried she’d make herself sick. What they’d found had indeed been Cathy Porter’s body, but there’d also been a bonus—what was left of the woman Gray
Fisher’d
had an affair with before coming to The Gage Foundation. Apparently beneath his too-smooth exterior, he concealed a raging temper. Afraid the woman would come to San Antonio and make trouble for
him,
he’d had her meet him at the cabin and strangled her.

No one had been aware that Cathy had come back to the office the night she disappeared to work on reports for the donors, killing time while she waited to meet her sister for dinner. She had apparently discovered some major discrepancies in cash flow that worried her. Normally she would have waited until the next morning to confront her boss, but he was meeting that night with his good friend Brad McIntyre, so she barged into his office. And two men with everything to lose had killed her and buried her near the cabin.

“It’s just not fair,”
Linnea
said. “She was such a good person. I wish you’d had a chance to know her.”

“I do, too, baby.” He stroked her hair. “But at least the bad guys are in jail and nothing’s going to get them out. And
Texas
has the death penalty.”

“That’s the only thing that makes me feel better,” she sniffed, then pressed her face into his neck.

“You do that again and we’ll have to move this into the bedroom real quick,” he said, only half-teasing.

“I wouldn’t mind.” Her arms stole around his neck and they sat that way for a few moments. Then she let out a huge sigh.
“
Cale
?”

“Yeah,
darlin
’?”

“So what happens now?”

He frowned. “Luke and I might have to testify at the trials but we’re cool about that.”

“No, I mean about…about us.”

“Oh.” He smiled against the softness of her hair. “Well, to start with, I’d like to take you down to see my ranch. Spend a few days there if you can get away.”

“That would be nice.” She cuddled closer. “And then what?”

He knew he had to be careful here. She might not want the same things he did. “I think that depends on you. I know what I want, but you’ve got a great career here, and a beautiful house. And I can’t exactly run my ranch from here.”

She reached up and touched her fingers to his lips. “Details,” she said. “Houses can be sold. Jobs can be moved. What I need to know is if you meant what you’ve been saying. Are we mated,
Cale
?
For real?”

He stood up with her in his arms. “Damn straight. And I’m about to show you just exactly how well.”

About the Author

Desiree Holt has lived a life of excitement that brings the colour to her writing. She was a summer fishing guide, a summer field hand where she was one of only three women working, a member of a beginning ski team that skied in competition (and no, no broken bones!). She spent several years in the music business representing every kind of artist from country singer to heavy metal rock bands. For several years she also ran her own public relations agency handling any client that interested her. She is twice a finalist for an EPIC E-Book Award, a nominee for a Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award, winner of the first 5 Heart Sweetheart of the Year Award at The Romance Studio as well as a CAPA for Best BDSM Book of the Year, winner of two Holt Medallion Awards of Merit, and is published by four different houses. Romance Junkies said of her work: “Desiree Holt is the most amazing erotica author of our time and each story is more fulfilling then the last.”

Email:
www.desireeholt.com

Desiree loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at
http://www.totalebound.com
.

Also by Desiree

Crude Oil

Beg Me

Afternoon Delight

Summer Spice

Down and Dirty

The Sentinels: The Edge of Morning

The Sentinels: Night Moves

The Sentinels: Dark Stranger

The Sentinels: Animal Instinct