In the middle of the night, Dylan woke, sat up in bed, wondered where he was, and realized again that he was at the clinic in Silver Town. He ran his hands through his hair and settled back against the pillow. He hoped he would be able to get out of here shortly so he could head out on the search for the hunters. Though he suspected by now Jim had picked up his friends and the elk and hightailed out of there, if the sheriff and his men hadn’t already arrested them.
He closed his eyes, thinking it would never be daytime, but before he knew it, Dr. Summerfield was looking at his chart, the nurse on duty was checking Dylan’s vital signs, and Sheriff Peter Jorgenson was getting ready to send out search parties. He was standing at the foot of the bed with his hands on his hips, eager for the doctor’s verdict.
Hell, Dylan felt fine and sat up in bed, but then he got dizzy and fought cursing out loud. Dr. Summerfield raised a brow and Dylan suspected then he’d voiced the curse for everyone to hear, despite his best intentions.
“How are you feeling?” Dr. Summerfield asked. “Your vital signs look good.”
“I’m ready to search for the guys I was after before the one got the best of me,” Dylan said.
“You appear to still be having a headache. We’ll give you something for it, and I believe Peter wants to talk to you,” the doctor said.
“I do too,” a man said, coming into the room and looking like he was in charge. “I’m Darien Silver. My mate, Lelandi, and I run the pack here. Well, the whole town actually. My brother Jake, my second-in-command, and my brother Tom, my third-in-command, will be searching with you. One of them will be with you at all times in case you have any residual effects from the injuries you suffered.”
Dylan really had thought he’d do this on his own—with search parties, sure, but not…with them. From the firmness of Darien’s voice, Dylan knew the plan was nonnegotiable. “Yeah, sure.” He understood why the pack leaders set the rules. They wanted to make sure that no one was hurt unnecessarily while under their charge.
He suspected Darien was already steamed over Dylan nearly being killed at the lodge swimming pool. Since no one was budging, Dylan didn’t wait for anyone to leave. He climbed out of bed, grabbed his boxer briefs out of a storage closet for the patient’s belongings, and pulled them on under his gown. His clothes smelled like they’d been washed, no chlorine smell.
“I’ll wait for you in the waiting area.” The sheriff left the room.
Another man joined them. He looked similar to Darien, with dark hair, dark eyes, and the same tall stature. “This is my brother Jake. I’m serious about Jake and Tom sticking with you,” Darien said.
Dylan pulled off his gown and slipped on his pants. He assumed that Darien wasn’t as worried that he might collapse from his injuries as he was worried that the attacker who attempted to kill Dylan would try to finish the job. Especially if Jim knew Dylan had recognized him when he struck the special agent at the pool.
Darien said, “I’ll leave you in good hands. Welcome to Silver Town.” Then he left.
“If you have any dizziness or feel otherwise poorly, get in touch with my nurses or me,” Dr. Summerfield advised, and then he left.
The nurse finished her paperwork and followed him out.
Jake said, “Sorry for such a poor welcome to the town.”
“It has nothing to do with your town and all to do with the men I’m after. So think nothing of it.” Dylan slipped his sweater over his head, then sat down on the chair to pull on his socks and boots.
“Well, your savior, Roxie Wolff, is coming with us too. She’s bringing her family’s avalanche rescue dog, Rosco. He actually lay down with you to keep you warm while she went to get help.”
“Oh, I guess that’s why I smelled of dog and chlorine too. I figure Jim was gone by the time Roxie found me in the pool.” When Dylan had gained consciousness poolside, he had worried that Jim could have still been there, and she could have been a victim too.
“Apparently she was swimming in the pool indoors when Jim attacked you. When she swam into the outside pool, she saw you sinking facedown and rescued you,” Jake said.
Dylan frowned. He realized she had to have been freezing when she dragged him out of the pool. He kept rethinking the whole situation over and over again, trying to recall the spotty details of what had happened.
“She kept you warm too.”
“She was wearing a wet bathing suit at the time?” He had thought she was wearing sweats when he saw her. But everything had been a bit hazy while his head had been splitting in two.
“Yeah, when she pulled you out. But she returned for her sweats, grabbed her jacket, and covered you up with it. You don’t remember any of this?” Jake looked worried that maybe they shouldn’t take him on the search for the hunters.
“Vaguely.” But Dylan was going no matter what.
As soon as he was dressed and ready to go, Jake gave him his gun, and he and Tom drove Dylan to the lodge. Several search parties had already gathered, and then Dylan showed them the way. Everyone could smell the way that Jim had gone initially to the lodge. Dylan smelled a fainter scent of the other three men, most likely when they’d left the lodge and gone out hunting. But they hadn’t returned this way.
He didn’t see any sign of anyone’s tracks in the snow. Plenty of snow had fallen since then to fill in all the tracks.
Then he saw Roxie standing with the Saint Bernard and a group of men. With dark hair and dark-brown eyes, Roxie was striking, wearing a bright-blue jacket, black pants, and blue snow boots, and looking ready to get to work. Since she’d saved his life, he thought it only right that he buy her lunch or dinner at a local restaurant. Then again, she could be mated, and her mate might not like that. Well, then he’d buy them both a meal. He wasn’t going to give up on thanking her in some way for saving his life when she could have suffered from the cold like he had and hadn’t even been wearing as many clothes as him.
She saw him then, her eyes widening, and she frowned. He was hoping for a smile of recognition, that she was glad to see him even. Maybe she didn’t believe he should be out on the hunt for the men after what he’d gone through.
He walked straight through the gathered groups to see her. She petted Rosco, arching a brow as she watched Dylan approach.
“I thought the doctor would give you bed rest for longer. Certainly not allow you to go on the search like this,” she said.
“Other than a mild headache, I’m fine. I know the men’s scents. I need to show everyone the way,” Dylan said.
“I’m sure we can find the humans’ scents. Wherever the one who nearly killed you at the swimming pool had been, the others’ scents should be close by. Right?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah.” But that didn’t mean Dylan was going to relegate his work to the good citizens of Silver Town. “I’ll take you to where they killed the elk first.”
Then he led the pack. Jake and Tom Silver were nearby, watching out for him, but Dylan was sticking close to Roxie and her dog, watching out for her.
They walked for about four miles and found the scent of the elk the men had killed, but it was buried under snow now. So Jim and his hunter friends hadn’t removed the evidence like Dylan thought they would. But maybe they had returned for it and couldn’t find it. A couple of the men dug the frozen elk out of the snow, documented the kill, and collected a spent casing. “We’ll send the elk to a big cat rescue reserve,” Jake said, while Dylan headed toward the area where he’d smelled the men before they split up. Jake and Tom were nearby, searching the area too.
About one hundred and fifty yards from there, Dylan smelled the distinctive odor of death, though it was not all that potent yet because of the freezing weather. By the serious looks on their faces, the others had smelled it too. Dylan frowned. It wasn’t an animal but a human’s scent. He was smelling that only the four men had been right in this vicinity. This wasn’t good.
“A dead body is located near here,” Tom said and radioed it to the other searchers to let them know they had even more trouble than they’d bargained for.
The first thing Dylan thought of was that one of Jim’s companions had succumbed to hypothermia. He could understand if they’d left him behind to find help. Then again, no one had called for help. Though maybe they hadn’t had any cell phone reception. But…Jim had been in this vicinity too. He would have known his friend, if that was who this was, had been suffering. If that was the reason he had returned to the lodge, he should have told them at once that his friends were missing, one near death or dead. Not tried to kill Dylan. No. Something was off about this whole business.
Several people began digging around in the snow, and Rosco was helping them, like he would for an avalanche victim. Dylan wanted to keep searching for the other men, but he had to know who they’d find buried in the snow here.
That was when a man said, “I found the body.”
“That’s Michael Hoffman,” Jake said. “He’s retired army special forces. You met his wife, Carmela, the clinic’s office manager.”
“Oh, sure.” Dylan shook Michael’s hand.
Then Michael, Tom, and Jake pulled the body free of the snow and discovered the man had been shot dead, straight through the head.
Dylan just gaped at him. “That’s Eddie Jones, one of the men I’ve been after. He owns a western-store chain and he’s a longtime friend of Fennel, Xander, and Jim.” What the hell had happened? Dylan had heard two shots fired, one that must have taken down the elk and the other fired a short time after that some distance from there. When Dylan had found the dead elk, he thought they’d just gone after more prey and were shooting something else, not killing one of their own. Unless someone else had accidentally shot Eddie. Their scent trail had led away from the elk and Eddie, so he’d followed that.
Eddie had been hastily buried with branches. Add to that the recent snowfall and they wouldn’t have found him for a good long while—if they hadn’t had their enhanced sense of smell. The scene appeared to have been a deliberate cover-up.
“He doesn’t have any ID on him,” Jake said, searching through the dead man’s pockets.
“Do you think one of the other men shot him?” Tom asked.
“Unless someone else was in the woods, I do. I don’t smell any other scents right here, just the four men,” Dylan said. “From the trauma to the head, it appears Eddie had to have been shot at close range. It’s unlikely that the shooter wouldn’t have recognized that he was shooting a man and not an elk or deer. I heard two shots fired. I thought they’d killed two animals, not the elk and one of their own friends.”
Jake got on his phone. “Dr. Featherston, we’ve got a human body out here. I’ll have someone bring you here to check it out. Okay, thanks. I’m calling Trevor after this.” Jake said to Dylan, “Dr. Featherston is our medical examiner. He’ll do an autopsy. Trevor Osgood is another one of our deputy sheriffs. He’ll bring him out here to see to the body.”
“Good,” Dylan said.
Jake was on his phone again then. “Hey, Trevor, we need you to pick up Dr. Featherston and bring him out to the crime scene.” He gave him the particulars and the location of the body.
Tom got a radio call from the sheriff and said, “Yeah, we have a dead man by the name of Eddie Jones. He was shot in the head. We’re not sure if it was accidental, but it looks like a homicide. Jake just got ahold of the ME and he’s coming out here with Trevor.”
“I’ve got to keep looking for the other three men,” Dylan said, not being able to do anything about the dead man. “I keep thinking Jim got Eddie’s SUV and then picked his friends up, and they took off from wherever they’d been. I wouldn’t have thought Jim would go so far as to add murder to his criminal activities.” He thought Roxie would stay there with the dog, but she walked right beside him, ready to continue looking for the other men.
Dylan took a deep breath of the chilly air before he turned to Roxie. “Are you mated?” He knew when Roxie’s eyes widened, he’d asked the question in the wrong way. “I mean, I want to buy you dinner or lunch, whatever works, to thank you for what you did for me, and your mate too.”
Jake and Tom were nearby. They glanced at him and smiled.
“My mate,” she said, sounding amused, “didn’t save you.”
Dylan sighed, figuring she’d have one.
“If I had a mate.”
He brightened at once. Not that he was going to be dating her when they lived so far apart, but at least he’d have her all to himself if they shared a meal.
“So yeah, I would like that. Of course, my brothers might not want me dining out with you if you are still a target.”
“Uh, yeah.” He hadn’t thought of it that way.
“But I’m not worried. The whole town of wolves will be watching over us, so we’ll be fine.” She smiled at him.
“Yeah, these guys don’t stand a chance. Everyone who is out here today will smell their scents. The hunters won’t realize we know who was actually out there based on their scents.” That was one good thing for him as a wolf. And, of course, their night vision.
“They thought you saw them commit the murder!” Roxie exclaimed.
Dylan considered that notion for a moment. “Yeah, that could be the reason Jim tried to murder me. I had been out there, and Jim must have realized I was tracking him back to the lodge. I was still so far behind him that I didn’t have a visual of him. I was just following his scent and tracks.”
“That makes this situation even more sinister.”
“Yeah, but hell, I didn’t see what had happened at all with regard to Eddie’s death.” Dylan wished he had or that he’d even been there to stop it. He wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot Jim in the shoulder to stop him from killing Eddie if he’d been there to see it. “Do you smell a wolf’s scent in this area?”
“I do and there’s a tent over there,” Roxie said, suddenly spying a small, one-person white tent blending in with the snow and surrounded by snow-covered fir trees. “It’s not that far from the crime scene.”
“Yeah. It’s so hidden back there and covered by snow that I almost missed it.” Dylan was thinking that she had an eagle eye.
Rosco ran to the tent and walked inside as Dylan, Roxie, Jake, and Tom were trying to get to the tent in the powdery snow.
“There are no recent tracks. There’s no sign of anyone in the tent, but the smell of a wolf is all around it. I don’t recognize the wolf’s scent,” Jake said.
“Hell, I bet that’s the teen wolf I saw. I wasn’t sure if he was a wild wolf or a shifter,” Dylan said. “But I smell that the three men have been here.” He rubbed his head, a headache returning. “Jim, Xander, and Fennel’s scents are here. They came across the tent and then—”
“It looks like the three men were together for a while, and then one went to the lodge to get the vehicle while the other two went after the occupant of the tent, maybe worried the person who owned the tent had witnessed the shooting of the hunter,” Roxie said.
“Maybe that’s why they split up. But still, in this snowstorm, they could all have been in trouble. The wolf teen would most likely have been the only one to manage in the snowstorm.” Dylan was glad for that at least.
Jake and Tom were searching inside the tent now, and Tom said, “I found an ID—a Colorado Driver Instruction Permit. It shows a blond-haired, sixteen-year-old boy named Luke Milhouse from Denver, Colorado.”
Tom brought the instruction permit out to show them and then took a picture of the teen and shared it with the rest of the Silver Town wolf pack in case anyone saw him. He could be in the worst sort of danger if he’d witnessed the killing and the hunters were searching for him, planning to tie up loose ends. What was he doing out on his own anyway, without any other wolves to watch out for him?
Now they were on the search for the boy while others in the search party took pictures of the tent and campsite and checked to see if it could also be a crime scene. If Luke had witnessed the murder, they needed to put him in protective custody. They needed to know why he was out here on his own. They needed to learn if he saw what had happened. Or what he had heard, if he hadn’t seen it.
Someone called Jake and he relayed to Dylan and the others with him, “Michael found another male scent and tracks near where Eddie was shot. He was downwind of us and took off in another direction.”
“Could he have been the shooter?” Dylan asked.
“Possibly. If Eddie had turned around and the unknown man shot him,” Jake said.
“I want to check it out,” Dylan said, and the four of them, plus Rosco, headed in the direction where Michael had found the other tracks. When they reached the location, Dylan shook his head, recognizing the scent. “He’s a trapper. I’ve never caught up to him to arrest him, but he sets out illegal traps and I’ve located some of those. So I know his scent. But…” Dylan took another whiff of the scents in the area. “Another wolf has been in the area. Do you recognize his scent? What if he’s a shifter and saw the killing too?”
“It’s no one I know. I would think if a wolf was out here and he was a shifter, he’d let us know about it. Okay, so what do you want to do? Try and track the trapper down? Or the hunters?” Jake asked.
Hell, Dylan wanted to go after all of them! The teen wolf included. “The hunters because they’re headed in the wolf’s direction, and I want to save the young wolf if we can.” Dylan figured the trapper hadn’t shot Eddie. One of Eddie’s friends probably had.
“Okay, Michael, you and the others try and locate the trapper, but watch your step in case he has left some lethal traps around,” Jake said.
Dylan and Roxie continued on as before, watching for any sign of Xander and Fennel. Dylan really didn’t believe that Jim would be out here, and he suspected the other two men were also gone. But he was looking for wolf tracks too.
More people arrived to help with the search, and Dylan was surprised to see so many wolf shifters coming out to assist.
Roxie said, “An unknown wolf teen is missing. And we have a murderer or murderers on the loose. If we were just searching for a missing juvenile, some of the searchers would be in their wolf coats. But while armed human hunters could possibly be out there, that’s a different story.”
Dylan totally understood that. “The hunters have been charged with killing wolves too, though they managed to get the charges dropped. These men wouldn’t hesitate to kill a wolf. Since the boy is running as a wolf, that concerns me.” But as a wolf, the boy could run farther, faster, stay warmer, and hide better in the surrounding terrain.
If he didn’t want to be found, the hunters wouldn’t be able find him. At least Dylan hoped. He wondered again why the kid would be out here on his own. The kid reminded him of himself at that age, losing his parents and then not wanting to be raised by human foster parents. He’d lived like a mountain man of sixteen for a couple of years, protecting wolves from illegal hunting even in his youth. Which was why, after he had collected his inheritance when he turned eighteen, he went to college, earned a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in criminology, and joined the FWS.
They’d been out there searching for any sign of the men or the teen for two hours when a snowmobile pulling a sleigh showed up with hot cocoa for everyone. “Hey, I’m Roxie’s brother, Landon,” the driver said to Dylan. “I missed all the drama last night. I live in the country with my wife, Gabrielle, at our home next to the veterinary clinic. She’s the vet. You must be Dylan.”
Everyone was coming over to get some hot drinks.
“I am. Good to meet you,” Dylan said, shaking Landon’s outstretched hand. He gave him an update on what they’d discovered.
“That’s not good. We’re going to have a new crew come out to take over so that those of you who have been out for a while can go in and get warmed up,” Landon said.
Dylan didn’t want to go in, but the longer he’d been out here, the more his head began to hurt.
“We’re going in,” Roxie suddenly said very seriously.
He thought Roxie meant that she and Rosco were going in. He wasn’t surprised. Landon had brought the dog some food and water, but the Saint Bernard was probably tired.
Landon frowned at her, looking a little puzzled.
“Dylan can’t be out here any longer. Not after having lost consciousness in the pool only last night.” She put her used paper cup in a trash bag on the sleigh.
Landon looked at Dylan as if he was trying to judge whether he’d go along with it. Dylan didn’t want to leave the search. Roxie appeared to know he was going to disagree with her and quickly said, “Besides, he’s taking me to lunch for saving his life.”
Landon chuckled.
“He offered. I’m not making him do this,” Roxie said defensively to her brother.
Dylan smiled. “No, it was all my idea.”
“Take care of him, Roxie,” Landon said.
“Yeah, I sure will. Come on, let’s go, Dylan.” Roxie took hold of Dylan’s arm as if she was afraid he wasn’t going to go along with the plan if she didn’t force him to.
But he wouldn’t mind taking something for his headache, and he wanted to have lunch with her. “What about the rooms Jim and the others were staying in?”
Overhearing their conversation, Jake and Tom hurried to finish their cups of cocoa and ran after them. “We checked their rooms over thoroughly. Jim must have packed everyone’s bags and taken off after he hit you,” Tom said. “We didn’t find anything left behind.”
“You don’t have to go with us,” Dylan said, assuming they’d want to keep on with the search.
“Are you kidding?” Jake said. “Darien told us to watch your back while you’re out in the wilderness with these guys on the lam, and we’re doing it. Once you’re at the lodge, we’ll head back out.”
Dylan had never been part of a pack, so he wasn’t used to how much they worked together. But he really liked how they did that and got things done.
When they finally reached the lodge, he remembered that Roxie was a co-owner of it, so he really needed to take her somewhere else where he could pay for her meal. “Hey, can I take you to a restaurant where I can get you a meal that I’m paying for?”
She chuckled. “We’re here now and you need to rest. You can have dinner at my place tonight if you aren’t busy or aren’t leaving town already.”
Rosco ambled into the lobby to his giant, faux-fur dog bed next to the two-sided fireplace, which fit in nicely with the decor of the ski lodge. With the fire’s flames flickering and crackling, the bed was nice and warm and toasty. Rosco curled up and went to sleep. The lodge had been decorated in hearts, flowers, and fairy lights—very festive and homey.
Dylan smiled.
“What? You’re not into sweethearts and such?” she asked, sounding amused.
“With no sweetheart to give anything to, not really. By the way, I just wanted you to know that after we found Eddie’s body, I decided I’m sticking around. I want to make sure the teen is found safely too.”
“Can you do that with your other work commitments?”
“Yep. Since these guys killed the elk and were illegally hunting, they’re still wanted by the FWS and under my purview.”
“All right.” She led him into the Howling Wolff Bar and Grill. “Do you want to stay at the lodge? You can’t sleep at the clinic tonight unless you get injured on the job again or off it.”
“Yeah, sure.” He and she took a booth that overlooked the pool. “I love this place.”
“I guess you’ve never stayed here before. I hadn’t recognized your scent, though I might have missed seeing you.”
“No, I’ve never been to Silver Town. I didn’t know it was wolf-run. Denver isn’t like that. The wolves there are on their own. There are no organized packs. This is pretty neat, actually.”
“It is. My brothers, my sister, and I were so glad to sell our ski lodge in Vermont to open the ski lodge here where the whole place is wolf-run. We love it. If you’re around still by Valentine’s Day, you can come to the big bash we’re having here.”
“I’ll see if I can make it. I normally don’t go to parties.”
“Lone wolf. I get it.”
He smiled. He didn’t think of himself as a lone wolf. He just wasn’t in a pack.
“So since you’re from Denver, you might know Nicole Grayson. She ran Mile High Investigations as a private investigator there. She and her brother, Nate, run the Silver Town Investigative Services here now. Nate was out on the search today, but you might not have met him. Do you know them?” Roxie asked.
“Uh, he came with another man about the time the emergency crews arrived at the swimming pool, right? I didn’t know him, but I think you said his name, Nate, if he’s the same one.”
“Yeah, it sure was. He’s my brother-in-law, married to my sister, Kayla.”
A female server brought them menus. “Hi, I’m Minx.”
“Dylan Powers.” He reached out to shake her hand.
“Oh, the dead guy in the pool,” Minx said, sounding shaken, then shook his hand.
He laughed. “Revived.” But he was taking some pain medication as soon as he got his drink.
“Oh, Dylan, maybe we should have sat somewhere else, like at one of the booths that has a view of the mountains.” Roxie sounded apologetic that she hadn’t thought of it before that.
“No, this is fine. I’m warm and dry this time, and I’m going to have a fantastic meal with a lovely lady.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
“I am.”
“I’ll be right back with some water and take your orders.” Minx hurried off.
“As to Nicole Grayson, yeah. I know her. Congrats to Nate on mating your sister. I heard he was in the army, and their parents had a stationery store,” Dylan said to Roxie.
“Right. He was an Army Ranger. So he got out of the army and joined Nicole in her PI business. Nicole married my brother Blake.”
Dylan chuckled. “So you keep it all in the family.”
She laughed. “Sort of. I was mentioning them because Nicole had been a PI in Denver and I thought you might know her, both of you being wolves and all.”
Minx came and set glasses of water on the table and then Dylan took his medicine. Of course, Roxie was watching him, and he knew she figured she’d been right in making him return to the lodge.
Minx had her order pad out so Dylan asked for a pulled pork sandwich and fries. Roxie ordered macaroni and cheese and a salad. She asked for Earl Grey tea, and he was having a soda.
“Be right back with your drinks,” Minx said.
A few minutes later, Minx brought them their tea and a soda, then left them alone again.
“Anyway, so I wondered if you had, um, dated Nicole at some point or another.” Roxie took a sip of her water.
He wanted to laugh, but he knew she was being serious, maybe worried he might upset things between her brother and Nicole if he had dated her. Dylan shook his head. “No. I actually ran into her on a case I was working.” Dylan took a swig of his soda. “Nicole saw me while I was conducting surveillance on a man smuggling exotic and endangered birds. I was surprised that Nicole caught me at it.”
Roxie smiled.
“I caught him red-handed with some of the birds, there was a shootout, and I arrested him. Nicole was sure glad that I was a wolf and one of the good guys. From then on, if Nicole discovered anything in her line of work that could help me with mine, she’d tip me off. And vice versa.”
“It sounds like your work can be pretty dangerous.”
“Sure thing. There’s a lot of money to be made in the business, and way too many of the crooks get away with it.”
“Like the hunters you are after.”
“Yeah. Just like them.”