It was nearly midnight when the plane landed at the closest airport to Washday. I still had another two hours of driving, so I immediately got a rental car and took off. The road wasn’t bad and my bear night vision was excellent, but the twists and turns added time. This was one of those occasions when I wished I could just shift and go.
But we knew from unpleasant experience that humans didn’t trust people who showed up without vehicles. Like it or not, cars showed social status. It made humans uncomfortable not to have that marker, so we complied when we could.
A good bear, I complied now, no matter how much it chafed to have to follow every single winding of the road instead of loping cross country. I didn’t know the situation in Washday yet, and I didn’t want to take a chance on spooking Sarah. Assuming, of course, she hadn’t already run like she did after the Vancouver mauling.
There were only two motels in Washday, both of them on the main road into town. Locating the one where Bear’s assistant had booked a room for me, I parked. After checking in, I dropped off my overnight bag and immediately headed across the parking lot to the restaurant.
I pushed through the glass door. At the cash register a bony woman in her late fifties was wiping down menus. She grabbed one from the clean stack and led me to a booth directly across from the register. At a big booth at the end of the room, five college-age people were talking loudly.
“This okay?” She eyed me with a mixture of curiosity and admiration.
That look could be a little embarrassing sometimes, but useful when it came to asking questions. Most women, that little flicker in their eyes didn’t mean anything. They were just looking. The waitress tonight, for instance, was wearing a wedding ring with a sizable diamond.
“It’s fine.” I took the menu.
Standard coffee shop fare. I ordered a deluxe hamburger with fries. If that didn’t fill me up, I’d order more.
A laugh burst out from the corner booth.
“Coffee, sir?” The waitress held out the coffeepot.
I shook my head. “No thanks.”
She took the coffeepot over to the corner booth. There was some joking back and forth about swimming out on a river of coffee. When she passed my booth again, the pot was nearly empty. Catching my eye, she smiled.
I smiled back. No one liked to talk to an asshole, and talking to people was my job.
The waitress—Eileen, her name tag said—brought out my hamburger. It had been several hours since I’d eaten, and I inhaled my meal. Afterward I was ready for that cup of coffee.
She was filling my cup when I casually nodded over at the corner booth. “Not much for kids to do around here, is there?”
“Not at night,” she admitted. “But in the day there’s hiking and rafting. If you like horseback riding, there’s a ranch at the north end of town. And there’s always the movies.”
“I like hiking. What’s the wildlife like here? Anything to worry about?”
She hesitated. “Not usually,” she said reluctantly. “But I’m not going to lie to you, there can be problems sometimes. We just lost someone to a bear. The nicest boy, but he wasn’t much of a hiker. I was surprised Denny was even out on the trail.”
“Denny?” I asked, even though I recognized the name from the newspaper article.
“Denny Smith. He used to work here,” she confided. Her face scrunched up for a minute.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. It’s just such a shame a nice boy like that died.”
“His family must miss him.”
“They do.”
“What about his friends? Did he have a girlfriend?”
“Now that’s interesting.” She set the pot down and leaned against the table. “He didn’t have a girlfriend, but there was this girl he liked. We’d tease him sometimes when she came in, but there wasn’t anything between them. At least that’s what we thought. But she quit her job and left town the very day Denny died.” She lowered her voice. “I suspect Denny was upset about her leaving and that’s why he was out on the trail by himself.”
I made a noise of sympathy. At least, that’s how I intended it to sound. I was instantly certain the girl Denny had liked was Sarah Miller, and the thought of him being involved in the slightest with her ruffled my fur.
There was a rumble of noise from the corner. The kids started piling out from the booth.
Eileen picked up the coffeepot. “Gotta mind the register.”
I nodded, and stared into my coffee as the kids paid their bills and left. I’d have to get my irrational reactions under control. Tomorrow I’d go see the victim’s family and find out what they knew.
After the kids were gone, I went up to the register.
“I was just getting ready to bring you your bill,” Eileen said. “Was everything okay?”
“My hamburger was delicious. Really hit the spot.” I handed over my credit card. “I was wondering, who was the girl Denny Smith liked?”
She looked at me with a trace of suspicion. “It doesn’t matter now. The poor girl had nothing to do with it.”
“Probably not.” She returned my credit card. I put it away and took out my Bruin Security Services ID. “I’m looking for a girl.”
I held it out while she took her time reading the entire card. When she looked up, I returned the card to my wallet.
“She seemed like a real good girl.” Her voice wobbled with uncertainty. “What do you want with her?”
I didn’t even have to lie. “Her brother is looking for her. They were adopted out to different families, and he just now learned of her existence.”
Her face cleared up. “Oh, that poor child. No wonder she was so shy.”
I filed away that bit of info. “So you knew Sarah Miller.”
“Oh no,” she said. “The girl Denny liked was Stacey Jacob.”
I reached back into my wallet. “This girl?”
She peered at a cropped blowup of the grand opening photo. “Yes,” she said without hesitation. “That’s her.”
“Do you know who her other friends in town would have been?”
“Oh no. But someone over there would.” She pointed across the parking lot to the motel where I was staying. “She was a housekeeper at the motel.”
After thanking her, I left. Finding Sarah’s trail that quickly was a stroke of luck. Despite her incriminating connection to the mauled man, my heart beat faster with the anticipation of catching up to her soon.
Earlier I’d walked straight from my room through the parking lot. On my way back I angled across to the end of the motel and strolled along the walkway in front of the units. There would have been a lot of foot traffic in the last month, of course, so picking up her scent was a long shot.
What I didn’t expect to find were claw marks on the door frame of one of the units. Bear claw marks up high. They’d been painted over recently. Inside the unit the lights were on, so I was extra quiet when I took out my phone and snapped a photo of unit 29’s door.
I resumed my stroll along the front of the units. Whatever scent the claw marks would have carried was covered by the lingering paint smell, but I had no reason to think there was any shifter but Sarah in town. It bothered me that she marked the door. Civilized shifters didn’t do that.
Passing my door, I continued along to the opposite end of the units. I thought of her gaze in the grand opening photo. Was there a trace of wildness in it? Fear? Desperation? I ached to know the truth.
None of the other doors had been marked. I returned to my room. Logging in at the agency website, I wrote up my notes. They contained only the facts, of course: Sarah had been living under an assumed name, she had been a friend of the dead man, she had worked at the motel where I was now staying, a unit at the motel had been marked by a bear. For that last I also uploaded the photo.
The facts appeared damning. It had been tempting to omit the marking, at least. After all, there was no clear connection to Sarah Miller. But that’s not how we worked. I’d collect all the evidence before discounting any of it. When I caught up to Sarah, she was bound to have a good explanation.
She had to. My bear was certain of it.
The next morning I returned to the restaurant for breakfast, this time sitting at the counter. My server was a dark-haired woman in her midthirties. The restaurant was busy, and she and the other waitress were kept running.
I nursed my Hungry Man Platter until the flapjacks were cold and the grease on the sausages solidified. By then the rush was over, and my server had a minute to take a breath. I signaled her for more coffee.
She was still frazzled when she brought it. “There you go.” She eyed the empty creamer cups, and without my asking got out more.
“Thank you.” I smiled genially.
Her return smile was distant.
I pulled out my ID and Sarah’s photo. “I’m searching for a girl named Sarah Miller. You may know her as Stacey Jacob.”
Her eyes went directly to the photo, skipping over my ID. “Oh, her?”
“You recognize her?”
“Sure. One of the cooks was crazy for her. She only came in once or twice.”
“But you knew he liked her,” I prompted.
“Well yeah. He burned the steak for one of my tables. I had to tell him to keep his mind on his work.” She sighed. “Lost that tip.”
“Did he ever talk about her?”
“You’d have to ask the guys in the kitchen.” Someone waved at her from a booth. “I’ve got to go.”
The manager, a soft guy in a limp white shirt, was at the register. After I paid for my bill, I brought out my ID again.
He scanned it. “So?”
I explained my search for the missing girl, who he claimed not to remember. When I asked to speak to the cooks, he frowned. “Tom will be off at ten. Come back then.”
Thanking him, I left and went directly to the motel.
I’d seen the motel manager the night before when I checked in. She hadn’t been happy at my late arrival, but I’d had a reservation.
The manager was in her office now, a tiny cubby behind the front desk, with a sheaf of receipts in one hand while she typed on the computer keyboard with the other. The wall behind her was covered with a corkboard. Pinned to it was a large diagram of the numbered rooms and fire exits, along with a hand-drawn birthday card, a tiny bag of rice from someone’s wedding in 2012, and several pictures of a long-haired dog.
She looked up with a distracted frown at my knock on the open door. Immediately she stood, a professionally pleasant smile on her face. “How is your room?”
“Fine,” I responded. A hint of some delectable fragrance wafted toward me. Involuntarily I took a step forward.
The manager recoiled, and I caught myself. I tamped down my excitement, forcing my face into businesslike lines and ignoring my bear’s stirring.
Holding the manager’s gaze, I extracted my wallet, showed her my ID, and gave her one of my cards. “I’m here searching for a missing person, a Sarah Miller.”
Looking up from my card, she made a movement of negation. “I’m not going to give you information about our guests without a court order.”
“I believe Sarah was using the name Stacey Jacob.”
“Stacey!” She caught herself. “Why are you looking for her?” Her voice was unfriendly.
“She was adopted. Her twin brother has just learned of her existence and wants to meet her.”
“What proof have you got?”
I showed her Sarah’s high school photo. If that didn’t work, I’d have to get permission from Rory to share more details. I couldn’t talk about clients any more than she could share information about her guests.
The photo was enough. I wouldn’t have accepted it as proof, but then I knew how easy it would have been to obtain it without permission.
Sighing, the manager let her shoulders slump. Her chair squeaked when she leaned back. “Sarah was a good worker. I was real sorry to see her go.”
“Did she give two weeks’ notice?”
“Not exactly.”
I raised my eyebrow.
“She left a note at the end of her shift.”
“Was it like her to leave without saying anything?”
“Not at all. She was real reliable.”
“Do you have any idea why she left?”
“Not really. I mean, I kind of wondered—” She frowned in confusion.
“Wondered what?”
“Nothing. There couldn’t have been any connection. She’d already quit before it happened.”
“What happened?”
“Someone got attacked by a bear. I knew Sarah was scared of bears, and it was such a freak thing to happen that the two things got mixed together in my head. I even wondered if the bear got Sarah too, but no one ever found her if it did.”
“How did you know she was scared of bears?”
“Oh, just something she said one day, I can’t remember what exactly. Something about not arguing with bears, I think. She laughed, but there was a terrified look in her eyes.”
That gave me pause. If her bear was a killer and she couldn’t control it— I managed to get the next question out despite my churning thoughts. “Do you know where she went?”
“No.”
“Any idea where she might have gone?”
She shook her head. “I tried to call her and find out where to send her last paycheck, but she never answered and never called back.”
I asked for Sarah’s phone number and her address.
“She’s not there anymore,” the manager said. “I mailed her check and it came back.”
“I’d like to look at it anyway.”
Shaking her head, she pulled out a file and started copying onto a scratch pad.
“By the way,” I said casually, “I saw what looked like scratches from a bear claw outside one of the rooms, number 29, I think.”
“That’s what Del thought too. The handyman,” she explained at my questioning look. She ripped off the top sheet of the scratch pad and handed it to me. “That was another reason I thought Sarah might have left, because of seeing a bear at the motel.”
“Someone saw the bear?” I questioned sharply.
“If they did, they didn’t tell me. It wasn’t in Sarah’s note either. But Hilda, the other housekeeper, she found the claw mark after Sarah left.”
“So Sarah might have seen it?” Or Sarah might have made it.
“Could be. But like I said…” Standing, she reached over to the corkboard and unpinned an envelope printed with the motel’s return address.
I froze, very deliberately making no movement. Otherwise I was afraid I’d lunge across the desk and snatch the envelope from the manager’s hands, the envelope that bore the scent I’d smelled earlier, the delicious scent of an unmated female bear.
I controlled myself so well the manager didn’t notice anything, and I kept an iron grip on myself as she pulled out a piece of notepaper and the scent grew more powerful.
The manager read the note to herself. “No, nothing about bears.”
“May I have the note?”
“I guess,” she sighed. “I was just keeping it as a reminder anyway. You know, that you can’t count on even the reliable ones.” She tucked it back in the envelope and handed both to me.
My fingers burned to lift the envelope to my nose. Instead I carefully put it and the piece of paper with the address and phone number in my pocket. “Thank you. You’ve got my card. If you hear from her, I’d appreciate your letting me know.”
“Sure,” she said without conviction.
I went back to my room to read the note in privacy.
On the way I saw the housekeeper’s cart on the walkway. Harnessing my impatience to be alone, I waited until the housekeeper ducked out of the room with dirty towels.
“Excuse me.” I smiled. “Are you Hilda?”
She shoved the towels in a cloth bag. “I did your room already.”
“Thank you. I wanted to ask you about something else.”
She stared up at me, her face blank.
“Do you know Stacey Jacob?”
“She doesn’t work here anymore.”
“Did you ever talk to her when she did?”
“Hi. Bye. That’s all.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“Gotta finish this room. Sorry.” She disappeared through the doorway.
There, I’d done my part to be the responsible investigator who left no witness unquestioned.
Entering my room, I locked the door behind me.
My hand shook when I took the envelope out of my pocket. My hand shouldn’t tremble. It was just paper.
Carefully, reverently, I drew the note out of the envelope and unfolded it.
Immediately the scent flooded my senses. I breathed in deeply. The scent was relaxing, like a soothing finger stroking my every nerve to calmness. My world came into balance.
At the same time the scent excited me. My blood pulsed through my body, thrumming through my veins. My cock hardened into a tight bulge thrusting against my trousers.
I had to find the source of that scent. I wouldn’t be whole until I joined with her. My bear whined complete agreement.
But that thought brought me up short.
I tossed the note and envelope on the bed. Going to the bathroom sink, I ran cold water. I splashed my face, and that wasn’t enough to calm the thrum of my blood. Bending, I let the cold water run over my head, soaking my hair, running down my neck in rivulets when I straightened. I couldn’t let my emotions run away with me.
My job was to find Sarah Miller, who might be feral. Who’d maimed a man in Canada. Who almost certainly had killed Denny Smith. If she was a threat to shifters, it was my responsibility to put her down.
Towel draped around my neck, I returned to the bedroom. The note stared up at me, the scent it bore alarmingly seductive.
I frowned at it, steeling myself against its lure. I had a job to do. A crucial job. My failure could endanger the lives of thousands of shifters.
It didn’t matter that the paper carried the scent of my mate.