Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

I t had taken her years to get this far, to get this close. Six years and eight months to be exact. She had started plotting and planning as soon as her grief had allowed her a chance to breathe. She had spent years working her way towards her goal, ignoring anything and everything that might distract her. She had been a one-woman, justice seeking missile and now, she was finally going to uncover the truth of what had happened to her sister.

Wren Culvert had imagined this moment a thousand times but none of her daydreams lived up to the real thing. Her heart was racing. Her blood rushed through her ears so fast and hard it was deafening. Her mouth was dry and when she raised her fingers to her lips she found her hands were shaking with the burst of adrenaline and anticipation.

If there was proof that the Kemp family was responsible for Lark's death, if the Pack Alpha had helped his son cover up her murder, odds were good the proof was somewhere in his private office.

She'd worked her ass off to get the secretarial job in Alpha Kemp's office when it became available. She had bribed others not to apply. She had threatened even more. She had played the role of an awed young pack member grateful simply to be in the presence of a great leader and hidden her inner disgust for the gross old man who looked down her shirt and always found ways to brush up against her.

She'd ignored his innuendos. She'd laughed off his slimy remarks. She had smiled and preened instead of baring her teeth and ripping his throat out. And she'd done it all with nothing but the hope that someday she would get this chance, that he would leave her alone in the office without locking the inner door, and she'd be able to scour his private files for the proof she needed to confirm what she'd always known.

Logan Kemp had murdered her sister.

The story coming out of the Kemp house had been that Lark snuck over to be with Logan that night, which Wren knew to be a fact since her sister had told her she was going to see her boyfriend. It hadn't been an odd occurrence, not until the next morning when Wren woke up and Lark still wasn't home. That was when the story had stopped making sense to her because the Kemps had said Lark drowned in the pool but Wren knew her sister had been a strong swimmer. There was no way she could have simply drowned in a shallow pool, and if she'd jumped in and hit her head like some people said, then where had Logan been and why hadn't he pulled her out and called for help? Why had nobody noticed Lark floating in the pool until the next morning? It didn't make sense.

The Kemp family had been covering something up. She was sure of it. And Logan leaving town immediately after the funeral had only confirmed his guilt in Wren's eyes. He had done something to her sister. His father had covered it up. And he'd run away like a scared little boy to keep his secret from ever coming out. But he couldn't run forever and when she found her proof, she was going to track him down and make him pay for ruining her family.

When Alpha Kemp had gone storming out of the office earlier, she couldn't believe her luck. She'd been trying to find evidence of what really happened that night for years but she'd only been the Alpha's secretary for seven months. In that time he had never once left her alone in the office without locking his door behind him and though she'd like to think that she had won his trust she assumed the open door had more to do with his rush to get home because he wasn't feeling well than anything.

The Alpha was sick. She'd been listening to his hacking coughs and wheezing breaths for months now. She'd watched as he lost weight and his color turned blue-gray. She'd noted the changes in him and wondered why he wasn't healing, how he was sick at all when most shifters never got so much as a cold due to their healing powers. But if anyone else in the pack had noticed they weren't saying anything so she'd kept her mouth shut and her head down, only stopping to wonder if whatever he had was contagious when she was halfway through scouring his file cabinet.

If what he had was catching, she'd probably end up with it too after being in his office, going through his things, but she couldn't force herself to worry about a possible life-threatening illness right now, not when she finally found a locked drawer in the bottom of the Alpha's desk.

"Jackpot." she muttered to herself as she pulled at the handle repeatedly before releasing it.

As much as she wanted to, she couldn't risk using her enhanced shifter strength to break the lock on the drawer. If what she was looking for wasn't in there, she'd be screwed. She couldn't have the Alpha realizing she had been in his office when he was out or she'd be fired on the spot and lose any chance of ever getting close enough to keep searching for answers

So far, she'd been very careful to leave everything exactly as she'd found it. If the Alpha returned and he noticed a paper or two moved, he'd chalk it up to his own rush to get out of the office. A broken drawer couldn't be explained away as easily, especially when it was the only drawer in the entire office that had been locked in the first place.

She'd just have to find the key and if Alpha Kemp was anything like the elder generation she knew, he'd have it tucked somewhere nearby so he wouldn't lose it.

Wren pulled open the small drawer in the center of the desk and rummaged through it. Pens, paperclips, extra staples, it appeared to be mostly office supplies so she shut it again and moved to the top drawer on the right side of the desk. There was a stack of mail and a letter opener inside. She immediately reached for the sharp, knife-like object before catching herself. Picking the lock would be just as obvious and wouldn't help her keep a low profile. She sighed and put the letter opener back but the paper on top of the pile slid sideways to reveal a moon shaped insignia and her curiosity got the better of her.

Pulling the letter out of the drawer, Wren unfolded the sheet of paper so she could see the emblem better. She sucked in a surprised gasp as recognition hit her square in the chest. Most wolf packs were insular by nature so normally she'd have no way of knowing what mark represented what pack but this one was familiar to her.

This was the symbol of the Crescent Pack wolves of Louisiana.

Wren's cousin, Gia, still spoke often about her birth pack despite being forced to flee when she was only a child. Gia's father had died in the fighting but one of his friends had gotten Gia, her little sister, Ella, and their mother out of Crescent Pack territory. They'd run all the way to Oklahoma, to the Shadow Pines Pack, because Gia's mother and Wren's mother were sisters. Wren's family had welcomed them into the pack and she'd grown up hearing Gia talk of the powerful pack to the south, and the Enforcer who had saved them.

Wren scanned the letter quickly and then, uncertain she'd read it correctly she slowed down and read it again. Knowing she couldn't risk taking the letter, Wren pulled her phone from her pocket and opened the camera. She took a picture of the letter, the whole thing, top to bottom and then she took a closer shot of the name signed at the bottom of the page and one more of the pack insignia for good measure. She didn't pause to worry about the ramifications if anyone found out she'd been snooping through official pack mail.

This was too important and Gia needed to see it.

She was just about to tuck the phone away and get back to searching for the key to the drawer when the device buzzed in her hand and she let out a squeak of surprise. She jumped, nearly fumbling the phone to the ground before gaining a hold on it again. She looked at the name on the screen and grit her teeth before swiping to answer.

"What?"

"Hey, where are you?"

"Working late. Why?" Wren put the phone between her ear and shoulder and hurriedly folded the letter and put it back in the desk drawer.

Her younger sister snorted on the other end of the phone, "Uhm, because I'm standing outside the front door and it's locked and I don't see you in your chair. So, where are you really at, you big, ol' liar?"

"What? You're here?" Wren cursed under her breath. "Hold on."

She hung the phone up before her sister could annoy her any further and quickly pushed the drawer shut. She moved the desk chair back into place and gave the office one last longing glance, wishing she'd had more time. She couldn't be sure when, or if, she'd get another chance like this. She took a deep, calming breath, smoothed her hair and clothes and then casually walked out into the main office to unlock the front door and allow her sister to step inside.

"What are you up to?" Raven did a circle, looking around and taking everything in.

"What do you mean, what am I up to?" Wren scowled, "I'm working late, just like I told you."

"You're a really terrible liar." Raven raised an eyebrow. "Don't ever play poker, sis. You get this line between your eyebrows when you're thinking too hard."

Her sister started to reach out and touch her face but Wren smacked her hand away, "Stop that. I do not."

"Do too."

"Well, I'm not lying. I'm here, at work, which you can see perfectly well for yourself."

Raven's dark eyes narrowed, "Maybe, but you're up to something, otherwise why was the door locked and why did you come out of the Alpha's office?"

"Not that it's any of your business but I was putting some papers on his desk for him to sign tomorrow and I don't like being here alone after dark so I locked the door."

"There's that line again." Raven rolled her eyes and Wren seriously considered strangling her baby sister before pulling another deep, calming breath into her lungs.

"What are you doing here?"

Raven shrugged, "I was heading home and saw the lights on in here. I figured if you were about done, we could walk together."

"Oh…" Wren nodded, "Yeah. Okay. Just let me grab my purse and lock up. Thanks."

"Sure."

Raven stayed where she was and Wren tried not to grit her teeth as she went to her desk to retrieve her things. With her suspicious little sister hovering she couldn't go back into the Alpha's office and double check she'd left things in pristine order. She definitely couldn't finish snooping around so she kicked off the high heels that the Alpha insisted she wear when working for him, slipped on her flip flops from her bag, stashed the heels in their place and then motioned for Raven to go ahead of her so she could lock the door behind them.

Once she fell into step beside Raven, Wren realized just how late it had gotten. The sun had set and only an orange glow on the horizon remained. It wasn't completely dark yet but she should have been home by now and couldn't help but wonder if Raven had come searching for her when she didn't show at her usual time or if her sister had really just been passing by.

Raven might be the youngest of the family but she was no more immune to the anxiety of someone not being where they were supposed to be than Wren was after what had happened to Lark.

As if to prove Wren right, her sister shot her a sideways glance and broached the subject again, "Are you really not going to tell me what you were doing back there?"

"I did tell you." Wren maintained her lie.

"I'm not a little kid anymore and I worry about you working in the Alpha's office." Raven held up a hand when Wren opened her mouth to speak. "And don't tell me there's no reason to worry. We both know why you took that job and it's not some sense of duty to the pack. You think you're going to find something incriminating about the Kemp family in there, don't you?"

Thoroughly called out, she sighed, as she shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe."

"Wren…"

"Don't start, Ray. Please. It's a job and in this town, those are getting hard to come by. Sure, I'm hoping I can find something that will prove the Kemps lied about what happened to Lark but in the meantime, that job is keeping food on the table and the electricity on at Mom and Dad's house."

"Okay. Fine." Raven held her hands up after Wren finished her tirade, "I won't pester you about it if you'll promise me two things."

"Two?"

"Yes."

"Let's hear it."

"First, you promise you're being careful, like beyond careful, because if you get caught sticking your nose in the Alpha's business, I don't want to think about what might happen to you." Raven frowned, "I can't lose you, Wren."

Her heart clenched, "I promise I'm being careful."

"You say that but if I'd been the Alpha coming back to the office tonight, you'd have been caught red handed."

"He wasn't coming back tonight."

"You can't know that."

Wren didn't want to delve into the news that the Alpha was sick because it would only earn her more questions so she swirled her finger in the air to indicate Raven should move on, "And number two?"

Raven was still frowning but she kept her eyes on the street in front of them, "Promise me that if you do find something suspicious, you'll bring it to me before you do anything else with it."

Wren scoffed, "Why would I do that?"

"Because you don't think rationally when it comes to the Kemp family and Lark's death."

"Oh, and you do?"

"I was just a kid when Lark died. She was my big sister too and I loved her but I wasn't close the way you two were being only a year apart. You were always more like twins."

"Eleven months."

"What?"

"We were born eleven months apart, so we were Irish twins."

"Okay. That's not my point." Raven sighed, "You were sixteen when we lost Lark. I was only twelve. I wasn't close to her the way you were so yes; I think I'm more rational when it comes to her death than you are. So please, promise me that you'll come to me if you think you find something on the Kemps so I can look at it logically and decide what to do with it."

Wren rubbed her forehead because she could feel a headache coming on, "You think I'm going to go off half-cocked and something terrible is going to happen to me too."

"I worry. That's all."

She knew that her little sister had a point. Wren wasn't rational or reasonable when it came to her suspicions about Lark's death. It had been more than six years but she was still angry. She wanted to make the people responsible for taking Lark from her hurt as much as they'd hurt their family. She also knew Raven well enough to know that if she didn't agree, her sister would worry herself into an ulcer.

"Yeah. Okay." She bumped her shoulder against Raven's as they walked. "I'll bring whatever I find to you first. Promise."

"Thank you." Raven's entire demeanor seemed to relax at her agreement and Wren smiled to herself as they turned towards the little house they'd shared since moving out of the family home.

Wren liked having Raven close. It reassured her own urge to worry. Plus, getting Raven out of their parents' house as a teenager had been the best thing for all of them. Even two years after Lark's death when Wren had turned eighteen, their parents had been in no shape to adequately parent another teenager. Wren's little house had become a sanctuary for Raven to run to and eventually she'd simply moved all her things in and never left which had been fine by all of them.

Wren missed Lark every day but even she could admit that she and Raven looked out for each other far more than Lark had ever bothered as the eldest sister.

Sure they'd been close all their lives but Lark had always been headstrong and independent. Near the end of her life, she'd also turned secretive and suspicious. She'd been downright mean when Wren tried to pry information out of her and all she knew for sure was that the changes in her sister had started when she began dating Logan Kemp.

Everything circled back to him.

Lark had been dating Logan. She'd snuck out to go see him. She'd died at his house. And then Logan had left town immediately after the funeral, taking his younger sister Vivian with him, and neither of them had ever been seen again.

Whatever had happened that night, Logan Kemp was responsible. She knew it. Just like she knew that his father being Pack Alpha meant that he'd had the means and opportunity to cover it all up. And then he'd gotten to ride out of town and start a new life for himself while her sister rotted in the ground.

The Kemp family had ruined the Culvert family. They'd taken the person that Wren loved most in the world and so she'd made it her mission to take what they loved most from them. Power. Authority. The prestige that came with leading the pack and their very last name.

She would be careful, just like she'd promised Raven, but she wouldn't stop digging, not until she finally uncovered the truth and ruined Logan Kemp's life in return for the one he had taken.