Chapter 24

Moose pulled up into his driveway, looking a little surprised to see Dane and his brothers, and Jacqueline and hers. Wendy was also riding in the car with him.

He didn’t smile and Wendy was frowning. He pulled the vehicle into the garage and then the two left the car and walked out of the garage.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked Matt, since he was Dane’s older brother.

“Lucilla told me a hunter set me up so she could take me down. But instead of her killing me like the hunter hoped, she turned me,” Dane said.

“Yeah?” Moose said. “What has that got to do with me?”

“You use Green as an informant like me. One good thing about being a vampire is I can question a human and get the truth out of them.”

Moose’s eyes widened. Wendy stared at Moose, her jaw dropped.

“Yeah, so all we need to know is why you would work with a rogue vampire and an informant you and I both use to have me ambushed,” Dane said.

Jacqueline hoped his bluff would work and Moose would come clean. But he knew he would be eliminated for such an act of sabotage so it behooved him to keep the secret, if he truly had been behind all this.

“Uh, Green must have been confused when he said I had anything to do with it. I mean, like you said, I’ve worked with him any number of times.”

“That’s the thing about using vampiric persuasion,” Dane said. “The person you question can’t lie to you.”

Moose glanced at the other hunters. He shoved his hands in his pockets. He looked and smelled uncomfortable. Sweat beaded up on his forehead. His heart was beating like crazy. There wasn’t any reason for him to be scared unless it was all true. Though Wendy’s reaction mirrored Moose’s.

“Well, I didn’t do whatever he said, but I want to clear my name. I need to use the bathroom and then we can go to League headquarters,” Moose said.

“We’re taking you into custody,” Matt said. “You can use the bathroom there.”

Jacqueline was glad that Matt said that because she was afraid he was going to try and get away if he went into the house.

“I’ll take you there,” Dane said, then told Jacqueline, “I’ll return for you.”

She knew that Dane was going to take Moose the vampiric way to headquarters. She gave him a hug and kiss and he hugged her back and then kissed her. “See you soon.”

Then to everyone but Jacqueline’s surprise, Dane grabbed Moose’s wrist and vanished. She just hoped that the League would put Moose in custody and wouldn’t let him go. And that they weren’t upset that Dane had arrived in a vampire’s way with Moose in his grasp.

* * *

Dane figuredthe best way to take Moose before the council was to just do it in the vampiric way. It would make a statement. This was what Moose had deliberately done to him. Well, most likely Moose had wanted him dead and that hadn’t worked out like he had planned.

He was surprised to see Tobias there and he hurried to meet with them. “Jacqueline told Adonis you were bringing Moose in and what the charges were for, and he notified me. Come on, Moose, we have a cell for you until we sort this all out.”

Dane sure hoped the guy wouldn’t get away with it. He had to make sure that everyone believed that Green had told them the whole story. From Moose’s own comments, he hadn’t realized that Lucilla had wiped Green’s mind. But when Green would be questioned in court, he would probably tell the hunters that he didn’t even know who Dane was.

This would be a bust, but he was certain that Moose was involved. He just needed to get someone to verify it, or some other proof. A confession wouldn’t hurt.

Then Dane got a telepathic communication from Adonis. “Hey, bud, we’re looking into this business with Moose. I mean, everyone. We’ve got your back. No hunter who sabotages another hunter will get away with it.”

“Hell, thanks to everyone. As long as someone is watching out for Jacqueline. I need to swear out a statement to Tobias.”

“Yeah, her brother and one of your brothers is with her. She’s speaking with Green.”

Dane wondered what was up with that. If Green didn’t have any memory of Dane, maybe she was filling his mind with knowing all about Dane and what had happened. Dane still would feel better if they had other evidence before they eliminated Moose for the crime.

“When you say you’re looking into it?—”

“We’re checking his cell records, his and Green’s bank transactions, Green’s cell records, Lucilla’s, all of it. If we can find a connection between the three, we’ve got him. Before this, we didn’t know he was involved. But the fact he was saying that Green got the story mixed up and not that Moose hadn’t done such a horrendous deed says everything,”Adonis said.

“Okay, thanks, man.”

“Yeah, we got you.”

Then Dane sat down with Tobias and told him everything he knew, even Lucilla’s taunting him with the notion that a hunter had helped set up the ambush. And he mentioned how she had said someone close to him was also involved. Even though he couldn’t rely on Lucilla’s comments completely because rogue vampires were notorious liars, he believed she had been telling him the truth.

Tobias said, “We’re keeping him in custody.”

“Good. I’m going to help Adonis and the others find more evidence against him.”

“So who else would be close to you who might target you?”

“Not my brothers. Maybe a hunter friend? I don’t know.”

“Good luck.”

That was the thing about the hunter league. They had different legal rules. If a hunter was suspected to be involved in putting a hit on another hunter, they were taken into custody so that they wouldn’t do that to another hunter. Hunters understood that was the way it was, so it wasn’t like they would feel their rights were violated. They were well taken care of and paid remuneration if they were detained and were found not guilty.

Then Dane vanished and ended up back at Moose’s house. Everyone was gone, including Wendy. He wondered if she had changed her mind about dating Moose. Which would be a good thing if he was found guilty.

“Hey, where are you?”he asked Jacqueline, still wanting to be with her and keeping her safe, not sure why he thought she might be in danger.

“I’m with my brother and your brother Trey, looking into the bank records of Lucilla, Green, and Moose. You wouldn’t believe that they all three banked at the same place, and yes, we found a connection between all three of them. Transfers of money were made between Moose and Lucilla and Green. He paid Green a thousand dollars, and Lucilla twenty thousand.”

“Which bank?”

“First National.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Is Moose confined?”

“Yes, they put him in lockup.” Then Dane drove to the bank that was also the one he used! He couldn’t believe it. He’d seen Moose in there before. He was surprised Green and Lucilla also banked there.

He smiled to see Jacqueline coming out to meet him. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. He just felt good whenever he reconnected with her. There was no one more special than she was.

“Hey, we’re doing great putting together the puzzle pieces and sequence of events,” she said. “The dates of the payouts all match up with the time that you were ambushed. Michael and Danai are talking to the phone company about any phone calls that were made.”

“You talked to Green.”

“I vampirically gave him some memories of you. He was so excited to remember working with you.”

“Wow, that’s great. What about the money from Moose?”

“Yes. I reminded him that Moose paid him a thousand dollars to send you into an ambush.”

“What if he hadn’t though?”

“Moose wrote the checks and paid both Lucilla and Green. And then you are ambushed that very night? Too much of a coincidence,” Jacqueline said. “Besides, Lucilla was a known rogue vampiress. Moose had no legal reason to be paying her any sum of money.”

“Yeah, I agree,” Dane said.

Robert and Trey came outside of the bank with all the paperwork from their investigation. Michael called Dane then and when he answered the phone, he put it on speaker so everyone could hear it.

“So what did you learn, Michael?” Dane asked.

“Good news. Well, it’s good as far as proving where everyone was at the time of the ambush, and also who was talking to whom. That’s one advantage vampires have. They don’t have to use phones. But Lucilla couldn’t talk to Green or Moose that way. It’s bad news for Moose because it proves he was in contact with Lucilla and Green before you were attacked. Moose speaking to Green was one thing, but Moose shouldn’t have been talking to Lucilla. He should have been eliminating her. There’s no way he can explain that away. Your brothers killed Lucilla before she could tell Moose that she had turned you instead of killing you or that she had wiped Green’s mind of you or Moose’s involvement in any of this.”

“That’s good news,” Dane said.

“Moose was also near where you were turned. His cell pinged off the cell tower right there,” Michael said.

“Damn,” Dane said.

“Yeah, the hunter is a bastard,” Michael agreed.

“He did this all so he could date Wendy?” Dane couldn’t believe anyone would put his life on the line just to date a woman.

“He didn’t have any insurance policies on you, did he?” Michael asked.

Dane laughed. “He better not have.”

“We’ll look into that,” Trey said. But then he filled Michael in on the payments that Moose made to Lucilla and Green.”

“Hell. Okay, I’m out of here. Tobias and a team of hunters are going to have Moose’s house searched for any incriminating evidence,” Michael said.

“Good. Jacqueline, do you want to go there to see what they discover?” Dane asked.

“Yes. I sure do. I want this finished, to learn for sure one way or another, though it sounds like there’s enough evidence to prove he was involved in your ambush,” Jacqueline said. “You don’t think Wendy had anything to do with this, do you? Or her parents?”

“I really don’t think so. I think she was duped like the rest of us,” Dane said. “As for her parents, they were welcoming me into the family until I was turned.”

When they arrived at Moose’s house, hunters who were investigators, and Tobias were just leaving it.

“Did you find any evidence at his place?” Dane asked.

“Plenty. He had written in a journal how he planned to take you out, but you would never know what hit you. And no one in the hunter community would be the wiser,” Tobias said. “He wouldn’t confess the crime at the jail, but his journal laid the whole thing out. Later, after you were turned and your brothers killed Lucilla, he wrote that he was glad she was dead, though he planned to terminate her to clean up loose ends, and to get the bounty for her, but he couldn’t believe you were still alive. Still, Lucilla was dead and that worked well for him. And you being turned had the same effect—that her parents said Wendy couldn’t mate you, and he was free to date her then. Green had either been hanging out with vampires, at vampire clubs, or in general had made himself scarce, or else Moose said he would have terminated him too. The first chance he got, he planned to. Also, his phone had text messages between him, Lucilla and him and Green. He should have deleted them, but he just never thought anyone would believe he had anything to do with the ambush.”

“What happens next?” Dane asked.

“He goes on trial, and once they find him guilty, they eliminate him,” Tobias said. “We can’t allow someone like him to sneakily attack other hunters.” Then he sighed. “Okay, so I have other news. Wendy was also text messaging Moose, and he was texting her back.”

“Before I was ambushed?”

“Yeah, for two weeks. After that also, but she hadn’t been texting him before those two weeks.”

“So something had changed.”

“Right.”

Dane started to think back to the time before he went on the mission to take down Lucilla. “Wendy and I had been having arguments over finances about three weeks before I went after Lucilla. Wendy spent well over what she made on hunting missions, and she was always asking her parents for money. When they cut her off, she expected me to pay for all her extravagances, but I wouldn’t do it. But what if she wanted to get rid of me and save face from having to end our marriage plans?”

“She doesn’t have a life insurance policy on you, does she?” Tobias asked.

“Hell, I don’t know. But that would be a great motivation if she did, I had died, and she got the money for my death.”

“We’re taking her into custody for questioning and we’ll search her financial records and home. We’ll see if she has an insurance policy on you,” Tobias said.

* * *

Jacqueline couldn’t believethat Dane’s own fiancée might have tried to have him killed. She had thought Van ditching her was bad, but this was way worse. She felt so bad for Dane. She squeezed Dane’s hand. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

“It just goes to prove she wasn’t the right one for me. But I hope she gets her just desserts, if she was the one who was responsible for initiating the whole ambush scenario. All I’ve got to say is Lucilla must have been laughing her head off that two hunters wanted me dead, and she wasn’t about to kill me and turned me instead. She would have had the last laugh, if she wasn’t dead.”

“I’m surprised Wendy and Moose didn’t team up to try and kill you in another way to cover their tracks.”

“They might have been planning it. Who knows.”

About twenty minutes later, one of Tobias’s men joined them at Moose’s house waving a piece of paper. “This is a signed life insurance policy we found at Wendy’s home listing her as the beneficiary in the event of Dane’s death.”

“In the amount of?” Dane asked as he read the paperwork and Jacqueline was checking it over too.

“One million dollars?” Jacqueline said. “Ohmigod, I’m really surprised they didn’t try to have you killed again. Motivation-wise, that’s a million reasons to terminate you.”

“Yeah, and it says I signed the paperwork but that’s not my signature,” Dane said.

“They might have been just waiting for another opportunity, but they might have been afraid of coming after you now that you’re a vampire and I’m with you so much. Your brothers also,” Jacqueline said.

Tobias got a call and said, “All right. I’ll be right there.” He ended the call. “One of the hunters who came after you, Dane, and gave up before anyone terminated him is speaking out against those who incited the whole battle at your house.”

“That’s great,” Dane said.

“Wendy and Moose were behind it,” Tobias said.

“Aww, hell,” Dane said. “But it even makes more sense why the other hunters would come after us—maybe Jacqueline first so they didn’t have to fight two of us. Or maybe Wendy was jealous that I was seeing Jacqueline. And the hunters already hated us for being hunters turned.”

“She might have also offered to pay some of the insurance policy money to whoever killed you and me,” Jacqueline said.

“She did,” Tobias said.

“Wow, she didn’t have a life insurance policy on me too, did she?” Jacqueline asked.

“Not that we found, but we’ll be looking into it,” Tobias said.

It didn’t take long for two of the hunters who had come to attack Dane at his house to explain how Wendy, Moose, Felix, and the rest of the gang who were all now labeled rogue hunters had been in on the conspiracy. They would be terminated. The two hunters who had testified against them, were released on probation, but if they got into any more trouble, they could be terminated also.

But Dane and Jacqueline were both so glad they knew who was behind all the crimes against them, that the League was dealing with them in the most terminal way, and now she and Dane were ready to plan their wedding and honeymoon and move on with their life.