While she’d never been in love before, she was definitely feeling something amazing, something that made her heart beat fast all the time. And as for what was impossible, it was difficult to ignore the fact that until a few days ago, she’d thought being a werewolf was impossible, too.
Selena gazed at Jayden, wondering if he could possibly feel the same way about her. She opened her mouth to tell him that she was falling for him—that maybe she’d already fallen—but movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She found herself looking that way, not knowing why but following her instincts.
At first, she didn’t see anything unusual. Max and Lana were making the rounds, talking and laughing with their friends as guests slowly streamed out of the tent into the night, heading for the cars parked all over the place outside the perimeter fence.
Then a gray-haired man stopped in front of the newlyweds to wish them well. Lana’s face paled, her body going rigid, and Selena heard the woman’s heart suddenly begin beating like crazy. Whoever the guy was, Lana clearly didn’t like him.
Jayden had introduced Selena to a lot of people today, but the gray-haired man hadn’t been one of them. She supposed he could be a cop, but with that fancy suit, he looked more like a politician.
Halfway across the tent, Lana was shaking the man’s hand. Knowing it was probably a horrible thing to do, Selena turned her head a little, straining to hear what they were saying. She’d been able to eavesdrop easily in the club after Scott had OD’d, but unlike her nose, which seemed to work all the time whether she wanted it to or not, her ears were a little tougher to control.
She was able to pick up enough to hear the man congratulating Max and Lana and wishing them well as they started their life together. While it seemed sweet, Lana looked like she’d swallowed a lemon.
Selena turned to Jayden, expecting to see him staring at Max and Lana as hard as she had, but instead, he was focused on the entrance of the tent and the two werewolves who’d just walked in. Becker and the woman with him weren’t exactly dressed for a wedding. In fact, the jeans and T-shirts they wore looked like they’d slept in them. Becker and the blond woman, on the other hand, looked like they hadn’t slept in days.
“Why wasn’t Becker at the wedding?” Selena asked.
“He and his mate, Jayna, have been digging into the prison break nonstop since Wednesday, trying to see if someone in the Dallas PD might have been involved. Come on.”
Taking her hand, Jayden led her across the tent to intercept Becker and Jayna. They caught up with them in the far corner where Gage, his human wife, Mac, Zane, and Lana’s parents were all talking.
“It’s Curtis,” Becker said to Gage.
Selena didn’t know who Curtis was or why he was important, but everyone else did if the stunned disbelief on their faces was any indication.
“Are you sure?” Gage demanded, his dark eyes intent on Becker. “I mean, positively-absolutely-you-can’t-be-wrong-about-this sure?”
Becker nodded. “It’s him. Remember those suspects I was looking into who work at the prison? It took some time, but I narrowed it down to three guards and one IT specialist. The three guards were on duty the morning of the escape and were assigned to the security checkpoints Oliver and the other inmates went through. More incriminating than that, though, was that someone with serious computer skills had gone out of their way to make it look like those three guards were working somewhere else in the prison that day. He changed duty rosters, altered the entries in the security system that records when and where guards swipe their ID cards, even snipped out small sections of various security camera footage to make sure you couldn’t see the inmates on any videos they shouldn’t have been on. It was actually some high-quality work. It took over a day for me to figure out what was missing, but once I realized I was dealing with a top-of-the-line hacker, it led me straight to the computer geek in IT.”
“Becker,” Gage growled, making Selena jump. “Stop all this damn techie talk, and get to the point. You found the four people responsible for the prison break—great. What the hell does any of this have to do with Curtis?”
Becker made a face at being interrupted. “Jayna and I have been going nonstop for the past eighty hours straight, living on nothing but Doritos and Mountain Dew, probably breaking hundreds of state and federal laws, and you want me to skip the best parts and get to the point?”
Gage glowered at him. “Yes.”
Crap.Jayden’s boss definitely had an intimidating voice when he wanted to.
“Who’s Curtis?” Selena whispered close to Jayden’s ear, interested in knowing but not wanting to interrupt the others.
“Randy Curtis,” he whispered back, not taking his eyes off Becker and Jayna. “Chief of police.”
Selena’s eyes widened. Sweet cheese and crackers. The chief of police was involved with the hunters? And he’d broken them out of prison? How was that even possible?
“Fine,” Becker grumbled. “It turns out that all four of these guys used to work for the North Central Division Investigative Team about ten years ago. That’s quite the coincidence, but not nearly as interesting as who their lieutenant was.”
“Curtis,” Gage said.
“Yup,” Becker said. “Real long story short, most of the team was dirty, skimming stolen property from residential and business burglaries. Nobody ratted on Curtis, so he came out looking clean and ended up getting a promotion out of it. In return, he got the guys hired on at Coffield. They’ve been loyal to him ever since.”
“Do you have anything solid pinning Curtis to the prison break?” Gage asked. “Beyond the fact that these dirty prison employees used to work for him a decade ago?”
It was Jayna who answered. “Curtis was careful to avoid calling any of the men himself, and apparently, he wouldn’t let them call him, either.” She tucked her long hair behind her ear. “We know that for sure, because Eric tapped his home phone and cloned the SIM card on his cell. The four guys from the prison weren’t as careful. They’ve been calling, texting, and emailing each other for the past two weeks.” She shook her head. “You’d think a bunch of ex-cops would be smarter than to put stuff out there like that, but then again, they did get caught for stealing stolen property from their own evidence room. So I guess they’re not that bright.”
“Regardless,” Becker added, “we have more than enough evidence to directly connect these four—and Curtis—to the prison break. I’ve already made sure the U.S. Marshals stumble across everything we found in a way that will make it completely legal in court. As soon as those four guys are picked up by the feds, one of them is going to flip on the others and hopefully on Curtis, too.”
“That’s all great,” Zane said. “But did you find anything that will lead us back to the hunters?”
Jayden had told Selena that Zane had been injured by the hunters. He wouldn’t give her any details, saying that was Zane’s story to tell, but she knew the British werewolf hated the hunters and wanted them to pay for what they’d done.
