Chapter 12

12

F isher glanced at Kira sleeping soundly in the bed and then looked back out the window. He wondered if the men had left the area. He called the motel owner, and a man answered this time. "Hi, this is Fisher Greystoke working on this case with the other wolves and jaguars to take down the kidnappers who checked into one of your rooms. Several of us have been watching the room to see if they would return, but no one has. Are there any bars here open this late?"

"My wife informed me of everything that's going on. I can't believe I was out fishing and missed all the excitement. As to your question, no, sir. We had maid service clean the room earlier. Once we learned there was some problem with the men, I checked with her to see if she had seen anything unusual in the room. She said that they had slept in the beds, used the shower, but didn't leave any bags in the room," Calvin Dixon said.

"Hell, so they might not be returning," Fisher said.

"Or they're just afraid to have someone possibly go through their bags while they're out and about. They didn't cancel the rest of their stay."

"Okay, I'll let the others know in case the wolves have left here for good." Fisher glanced at Kira, but she was still sound asleep. He called Everett next and relayed the information.

"Aw, hell, so they may have left."

"Right. I'll call Tanner and let him know."

"We'll stay here though, just in case they turn up. We don't have any other leads to check on and if they haven't cancelled their reservation, they may still be in the area," Everett said.

"Alright." Then Fisher called Tanner.

"I wish we'd known that earlier," Tanner said.

"It wouldn't have made any difference. They might just be paranoid about leaving their bags in the room, knowing they're guilty of crimes and don't want to leave anything behind while a maid cleaned the room. Then if they actually return, we would have been gone."

"True."

Then someone pulled into the motel parking lot by a tree.

"Someone just pulled up, but it's not a black Chevrolet Suburban," Tanner said.

"Yeah, it's a black pickup," Fisher said.

"I'll ask Everett if he can check on the license plate to see who the truck belongs to," Fisher said.

"Okay. There are three men exiting the truck. Are they anyone you recognize?" Tanner asked.

"I can't tell. But if they go in the room that we're watching, or even if we go to the vehicle and those are the men, I'll recognize their scents," Fisher said.

"Yeah, me too," Tanner said. "Okay, they're going into the room that was assigned to the kidnappers. I'm rousing everyone."

"Doing the same here." Fisher called Everett, then got off the phone and said to Kira, "Three men are going into the room."

She opened her eyes and said, "What?"

"Three men went into the room we're watching."

"Oh, God, okay." She jumped out of the bed, removing her pajamas, and then pulled on her clothes. Once she had her boots on, she and Fisher headed out of the room.

"I want to check out the scents around that black pickup," he said.

"No black Suburban now?"

"Apparently not."

All of them ended up outside of their rooms, moving quietly, silently. But as soon as Fisher, his brothers and cousin and Kira moved toward the pickup, they could smell that the men were humans, and not the wolves they were seeking. Which explained why they were driving the black pickup. Everett and Demetria were now standing with their guns readied at the door to the kidnappers' room.

"But they went into the motel room that was registered to the kidnappers," Fisher said.

"Could the kidnappers have bribed someone to go to their room?" Kira asked.

"If that's the case, the kidnappers could know we're after them," Fisher said.

"Or they're trying to cover their tracks."

As soon as everyone was in place, Everett banged on the door with his fist. "Police, open up!"

One of the men opened the door. He was a redhead with a bushy beard, and he said, "What the hell."

"Come out of the room. All three of you," Everett said.

"What's this all about?" the redhaired guy asked.

"Hell, I told you those guys were up to something," a dark-haired guy with him said.

"We didn't know," another man said, standing taller than the other two. "They gave us the keys to this room and a hundred dollars each to stay the night here. We were on our way to Denver and met them at a convenience store. We were tired, and Denver was too far to drive, so we thought it was a great opportunity that had fallen in our lap."

"Yeah, and I told you it was too good to be true," the dark-haired guy said.

Everett asked to see their ID. "You're from Panama City, Florida."

"Right. We have relatives in Denver. That's where we're from originally, but we wanted to be near the beaches in Florida, so we all ended up getting jobs there. We're good friends and grew up together."

"Tell us what the men looked like," Fisher said.

They gave the descriptions of Reggie and his friends.

"Do you know what they were driving?" Kira asked.

"A black Chevrolet Suburban," the redhead said. "Who are these guys? What did they do?"

"Which direction did they go in?" Demetria asked.

"West," the redhead said.

"Did they give you a reason why they would give up their room and pay you for sleeping there?" The men weren't wolves, so Fisher didn't believe they were in collusion with the kidnappers, but still, he couldn't believe they wouldn't suspect something was really wrong with the whole scenario.

The redhead shared glances with the other men. Then they nodded, and the redhead rubbed the back of his neck. "The one guy said that his ex-girlfriend was stalking him. He thought if she followed him to his motel room, she would find he would be long gone, and all she would discover was us. They warned us she had been physically abusive toward him."

"Which is what clued me in that something wasn't right. All three men were physically fit and looked like they could handle any trouble that came their way," the dark-haired guy said. "So they were wanted by the police."

"Yeah, but despite being concerned about it, you still took their money and the room." But neither Kira nor any of the others would tell them what they were suspected of.

"I hope we're not under arrest," the redheaded man said.

"No, you didn't do anything wrong," Demetria said.

"Do you mind if I take a look around in your room to see if they had accidentally left anything behind?" Fisher asked.

"No, be my guest, though as far as we saw, they didn't leave anything in the room," the redhead said.

Demetria, Everett, Kira, and Fisher investigated the room, smelling the three kidnappers' scents. Even though Demetria and Everett hadn't smelled their scent before, they could distinguish them from the three men now occupying the room. Once they found nothing, they left the room.

"Do you need the money they gave us?" the redheaded guy asked.

"No. Just be careful the next time you get an offer that sounds too good to be true," Everett said.

"These guys are armed and dangerous," Kira said.

All three men looked a little paler after that. Then Kira went to the lobby of the motel and told Calvin that the kidnappers seemed to have left and given up their motel to another three men who weren't involved in any of this. Normally, something like that wouldn't be allowed, but the men were tired, and the owners went outside and spoke to them.

"This is highly irregular," Calvin said. "And I'm a retired highway patrolman, so I know something about this. We'll let you stay the rest of the night, but if you want to stay longer, you'll have to pay for the room. Even so, we need you to register your vehicle and your names."

"Uh, yeah, sure," the dark-haired guy said.

The three men went with Calvin to the lobby to fill out the paperwork.

"What do you want to do now?" Everett asked Kira.

"Sleep. Unless we have a new lead now, we all need to sleep." Kira swore everyone looked at Fisher to see if he was going to stay with his brothers or cousins or Kira.

Fisher glanced at Kira.

Kira smiled at him. "No sense in changing any of the arrangements now." Then everyone said goodnight and dispersed to their rooms. "I'm really glad I have someone staying with me."

He locked the door. "Just anyone?"

She laughed. "A special someone."

"I'm sorry we didn't get them."

"Yeah, I know. Me too. But I've worked on twelve cases since I was hired, and all are so different from each other. So you never know what will happen. The first was solved in a day. I went with my partner to trail a wolf who had been accused of stalking a woman. We caught him at it right away, but before we could take him into custody, he broke into her home, and we arrested him. He's incarcerated now. In another case, a wolf had been breaking into homes and stealing any valuables he could find. It took two days to track him down and put him in the jaguar facility also."

"But in this case, it might take a while to find and catch them."

"Yes." She climbed into bed, and she patted the mattress. "Let's get some sleep."

"I'll just take a quick shower and then join you." He was thrilled to be able to stay with her for the rest of the night, not only because he loved being with her but also, she needed someone to help watch her back too.

By the time he left the bathroom and went to the bed, he thought Kira might be asleep, but she was waiting up for him.

Then he removed his towel, and she looked down to check out his package. He smiled.

He pulled on his boxers and climbed into bed. They naturally gravitated toward each other. As some point while they were sound asleep, she stole the bed covers. He could have left the bed and turned up the heat, stripped and shifted into his wolf, or done what he did next. He tucked her against his body and warmed them both up—which was the perfect way to sleep.

When the light was beginning to brighten the room-darkening curtains later that morning, Kira opened her eyes and raised her brows at him, looking a little surprised that he was awake. "Were you cold?" she asked him.

"You stole the covers."

She smiled. "Sorry about that. I'm sort of a restless sleeper." But she didn't appear to be in the least bit sorry and he sure wasn't.

He hadn't dated a wolf in a long time and snuggling with her at night had been a real perk to the job. "You weren't restless once we were together. I think you were cold."

"So were you."

"Absolutely. At the time, it seemed like the best option to me."

Then she got a call on her phone. She groaned. "Here I'm in charge of the case and probably everyone's awake and waiting on me to make a decision about what to do next." She pulled away from him, lifted her phone of the bedside table, answered the call, and put it on speaker. "We're just getting up, Demetria."

"We just woke too. We thought we could all have breakfast at Dan and Addie Steinacker's home, since we don't have any further leads on the whereabouts of the kidnappers, and we don't have to be watching the motel any longer," Demetria said.

"Yes, let's do that then."

"Okay, I'll call Dan. He said they would just wait to hear from us if we were going to have breakfast with them," Demetria said.

"I'll let the others know," Fisher said, wanting to be useful. That was the one thing about this case. He wasn't a USF agent, so he felt he didn't have a whole lot of say in things. But since the others were his brothers and cousin, he knew that was something he could certainly do.

"Thanks, go ahead." Then Kira said to Demetria, "We'll meet you outside when we're dressed and ready."

"Okay, we'll see you in a few."

Fisher removed his sleep boxers, pulled on a fresh pair of boxer briefs and his pants, then called Tanner. "Hey, we're all going to have breakfast at the sheriff's home."

"And then decide where to go from there?" Tanner asked.

"Yeah. We're meeting outside as soon as we're all dressed," Fisher said.

"Good show."

Then they ended the call.

Then she hurried to dress, and he finished dressing. They both packed their bags and headed outside.

He figured they wouldn't be staying here in Yuma Town any further because the kidnappers had moved on. But where would they go to next?