“You know what they say—in for a penny, in for a pound.” He smiled. “A cliché I’m allowed to use, by the by, since I’m British.”
Alyssa snorted but didn’t point out all the laws he and his pack mates were breaking with their illegal wiretaps and listening devices. If it wasn’t for the fact that none of her cases seemed to ever reach a courtroom, Zane would have been worried their actions would torpedo any case the feds put together against Stefan. That raised the question as to what the FBI planned to do with the guy, assuming Alyssa ever found those missing girls. Considering all those dead bodies she seemed to leave in her wake, maybe Stefan would simply end up in an unmarked grave somewhere.
Then again, maybe Alyssa was lying about being in LA to find those missing girls. Maybe she was really here to confirm Zane and his pack mates were werewolves—maybe those twins, too. Then all five of them would end up in an unmarked grave somewhere.
Wasn’t that a cheery thought?
He was still imagining the trouble Alyssa would have stuffing him, Rachel, and Diego in the boot of her rental car to dispose of the bodies when she spoke.
“Those two girls Christine took to the hospital are okay. But for some reason, they want to talk to you. In fact, Christine said they were insistent about it, threatening to take off if I didn’t bring you to see them.”
The girls must have figured out he was a werewolf, he mused as Alyssa pulled the box of donuts closer. Or maybe the one who’d woken up for a few seconds had smelled something familiar and wanted to talk about it.
“Are they still in the hospital?” he asked.
Alyssa scanned the selection. She glanced at his sprinkled-covered one enviously, then settled for the plain glazed. He didn’t get that. What good was a donut if it didn’t have cream, frosting, and/or sprinkles? Maybe plain glazed was the diet version or something.
Donutsanddiet. Fairly close together in the dictionary. Miles apart in reality.
“Yeah. They slept straight through the night, not coming to until early this morning. Christine is in the process of moving them to a hotel as we speak, but from the text she sent to me a little while before you showed up, those girls freaked out when they realized they’d been drugged and nearly kidnapped.”
“I take it Christine was able to keep it all quiet without anyone reporting it to the police?”
If some random cop decided to pay Stefan a visit, asking why his security team tried to kidnap two girls, that could tip him off he was being watched.
“No police report,” Alyssa confirmed. “The girls were scared and more than a little pissed that Stefan played them with some stupid line about being a Hollywood producer, but more than anything, it seems they want to put this incident behind them. Other than talking to you, of course. Not sure what that’s about.”
He smiled. “Probably the accent. It does it for everyone. So what’d you get from the tracking device you put on their car?”
Surprise flashed in her eyes. What, did she think he’d forgotten?
“Truthfully, I haven’t had a chance to check yet,” she said. “Let’s take a look,”
Setting her donut down on a napkin, she got up and walked across the room to grab her laptop from the desk where it had been charging. Coming back over to stand beside his chair, she set the computer on the table, then opened the lid and booted it up. There was a map of the city on the screen with a little, blinking, green light sitting off of South Broadway, halfway in between New Downtown and Little Tokyo.
“What am I looking at?” he asked.
He wasn’t familiar enough with the city to know where exactly the car was. All he could say for sure was that the car wasn’t parked in the middle of LAX or the Pacific Ocean.
She used her long, nimble fingers to enlarge that part of the map on the screen. “The car is in a parking garage near the middle of town, where it’s been sitting since about three o’clock this morning.”
Zane leaned closer to her, trying hard to ignore the mouthwatering scent she put off. He wondered if he could get away with licking her neck. He could say he was trying to clean a bit of glaze from the donut off…
She’d probably shoot him. Shehadbeen quick to remind him that she had a gun and knew how to use it.
“You think they abandoned the car there?” he asked, deciding to keep his tongue in his mouth where it belonged. Getting shot hurt at the best of times. If Alyssa shot him, it would hurt even more.
She nodded as if she’d been thinking the same thing. “Likely.”
He sighed. “There’s only one way to know for sure. We could go check on it after we see the girls, if that’s okay with you? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“We?” She regarded him thoughtfully. “You honestly think it’s a good idea for us to work together?”
“Why not?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer. “That was why you asked me to come over here this morning.”
“Why not?” Alyssa snorted. “I think Dr. Phil would say it’s because we have trust issues. Maybe it would be better if I check out the car on my own and call you when I learn something.”
The thought of Alyssa going anywhere near Stefan and his crew without backup made his inner wolf howl. He knew she could handle herself—all those awards and commendations Becker had told him about, not to mention the way he’d seen her move last night, proved that—but the idea of her being in danger made his chest tighten up so much it was hard to even breathe.
