It was hard not shaking her head. It had only been three weeks since Louis’s home had burnt to the ground, putting an end to the Butcher case and changing her life forever.
She and Trey had no problem selling their version of reality to the detective in charge of the task force. Yeah, Chief Leclair had been there too, looking more than a little dubious for some reason, but with no physical evidence to prove them wrong because the fire in the basement had burned so hot there hadn’t even been anything left of the bodies, there’d been little choice but to believe their admittedly outlandish story.
As for the vacant position of chief medical examiner, they’d already offered her the job. She’d been thrilled—even if she wasn’t looking forward to all the political stuff that came with the title—and had immediately accepted, much to Hugh’s consternation.
“How was your trip to Alaska?” Bree Harlow asked, dragging Samantha’s attention back to the other people around her at the table. “Diego mentioned it was the second time you and Trey went up there in three weeks.”
Samantha smiled. She and Bree had struck up an easy friendship the moment they’d met. Bree was almost as new to the Pack as Samantha, meeting her mate, Diego, earlier in the summer. While it was incredibly easy to talk to Trey about anything, it was still nice to connect with someone experiencing the same stuff she was. It helped when Bree admitted she’d fallen for her werewolf in less than a week and now couldn’t imagine living without him. It made her whirlwind romance with Trey seem more normal, if that was possible.
“It was wonderful,” Samantha said, thinking of the long weekend she and Trey had spent together up there. “The weather in Homer is perfect this time of the year. Of course, that only made coming back to our hundred-degree heat here in Dallas that much worse.”
“Are your friends getting settled in okay?” Bree asked, sipping her iced tea.
Everyone in the extended Pack was at least somewhat aware of the situation with Kyson and Shaylee, though she doubted Trey had told any of them all the details. It had taken a few days for Samantha and Trey to come up with a new place for Kyson and Shaylee to live where they could get a completely new start. When the idea of letting them use her grandparents’ place up in Homer had first popped into her head, Samantha had almost dismissed it immediately. Who the hell would want to run away and hide in the middle nowhere in a place you had to wear long sleeves year-round?
But it turned out that the answer was obvious. Kyson most definitely would. And Shaylee would go anywhere the man she loved would be happy.
It hadn’t been all that difficult to get the two of them up there and settled into the big home. The hard part had been convincing the army and the VA that Kyson wasn’t dead. But after getting through the military bureaucracy—there was even a damn form for resurrecting a person erroneously deemed deceased—the rest had been a piece of cake. True, her parents weren’t thrilled when they learned she’d given the place to someone they thought of as a stranger, but she wasn’t too concerned about that.
“They’re doing well,” Samantha said, looking over at the volleyball court to see Trey lifting up a little boy so he could whack the ball over the net. The endearing image made her suddenly wonder what their own kids would look like. That out-of-nowhere thought had her suspecting falling in love wasn’t the only thing that happened fast when it came to werewolves.
“Shaylee already has my grandparents’ house looking more like a home than it has in forever,” Samantha added. “And Kyson is getting more involved in the running of the wilderness tourism business every day. I think being in a place like Homer suits him. And Trey even found a VA-certified PTSD therapist in Anchorage who makes house calls. Kyson has seen her twice already. He doesn’t like talking about everything that happened to him, but he’s doing it. That’s all that matters.”
She and Bree continued to talk about what life in Homer would be like for Kyson and Shaylee, with some of the other people around the table occasionally asking questions. Samantha couldn’t help noticing that none of those questions or comments came from Trevor or any of the other werewolves. In fact, it seemed like none of them were even paying attention to the conversation. They all seemed lost in their own thoughts, expressions pensive.
It wasn’t difficult for Samantha to guess why they were so quiet. She and Trey had spent hours talking about the subject last night. Zane and his mate, Alyssa, had gone down to San Antonio to investigate some kind of ritualistic murders about three weeks ago and hadn’t been heard from since. Samantha still didn’t know a thing about this STAT organization that Alyssa worked for, but according to Trey, they dealt with things that went bump in the night. It was shocking to believe anything could have gone wrong, considering Zane was a werewolf, but it was obvious the SWAT team was worried. Despite everyone having fun at the cookout today, Samantha could feel the tension in the air.
Samantha was talking to Bree about her teenage son—who was also a werewolf—when Connor announced the food was ready. The volleyball was on the ground two seconds later as everyone made a beeline for the grills. She got up from the table with Bree and the others, ready to get in the line with Trey, when her phone rang. She considered ignoring it, but then realized it could be the office, which was working understaffed at the moment, and pulled out her phone to at least check and see who it was. She frowned when she saw her sister’s name on the screen.
The urge to stuff the phone back in the pocket of her shorts was hard to resist, especially since she had very little doubt as to why Loralei was calling. Out the corner of her eye, she saw Trey glancing her way with concern clear on his face. No doubt he was picking up on the tension in her muscles, her slightly elevated heart rate, and the way her scent changed when she was anxious. She really wasn’t clear on everything he could do in that regard. It would probably take a while to pick up on everything.
She gave him a small smile and a nod, then thumbed the green button on her phone. “Loralei, hey.”
“Hey,” her sister said. “How was your trip to Homer? Did your friends get moved into Grandma and Grandpa’s house?”
“They did,” Samantha said. “It’s nice to see the place being used as a home again.”
“Yeah, it is. I think Grandma and Grandpa would approve, by the way.”
“Me, too.”
Samantha glanced at Trey to see him loading two plates full of food over by the grill. Even as Trey fixed a burger for her, he kept looking her way every few seconds. She smiled again and waved at him.
“Well, while you and Trey were up in Homer, I checked on the progress of those samples you gave me a few weeks ago, figuring you’d be eager for more info on them, but they weren’t there,” Loralei said. “The results I’d already collected are gone, too.”
Samantha didn’t say anything. She’d wanted to slip into her sister’s lab the day after they’d all escaped from Louis’s demented lab, but she and Trey had been too busy getting ready for the first trip up to Homer with Kyson and Shaylee, so they’d waited until they’d gotten back. It turned out that Trey was exceptionally good at breaking and entering. Knowing all of her sister’s computer passwords had helped, too. Within minutes, they’d taken everything Loralei had come up with.
She and Trey had quickly flipped through the results detailing what kind of prehistoric wolf DNA was blended so perfectly with his and the parts of his DNA strand that were no longer human at all. It was exactly the kind of stuff Louis would have drooled over.
It was also the kind of stuff she’d spent two years looking for.
And they’d burned it all. Every single piece of it.
“Don’t worry about the samples,” she told her sister. “Don’t worry about any of it. In fact, I want you to act like it never happened, okay?”
Loralei was quiet for a moment. “You broke into the lab and took everything, didn’t you?” she asked incredulously. “You know how crazy that is, right? What you’ve uncovered could change the world. Hell, it could make you famous.”
“You’re right. It would make me famous. Probably rich, too,” Samantha replied. “But it would also destroy the life of someone I love. So I’m begging you, Loralei, let this go. For me, please let it go.”
