Investigation

Randall Meechum’s POV

LaCrosse Pack House

Tania, the poor child who had been taken captive at fourteen and suffered four years of unspeakable hell, was my little brother’s mate.

Fuck.

He had to come back here, we needed to talk. “Come back here, we need to tell them about this and I’m not going to do it.” I looked over at the room. “Bobby went for a run. His wolf gets upset when we talk about what happened and he needed to let it out.”

Alpha Clark stood up, his wolf was forward as well. “I think it would be good if all our wolves got out for a few minutes. Please, join me for a short run. We have much more to talk about, and my wolf is making it difficult because he just wants to run to Tomah and kill that bastard right now.”

I followed him and his leadership out of the room, and we pulled off our clothes and stacked them on the porch before shifting. My wolf shook out his fur, he was silver-grey with a black saddle and muzzle. Bobby ran up as I jumped off the porch, his wolf had more black coloration, but it was clear we were brothers. The Alphas took off for the woods, setting a fast pace. As guests, we ran in the middle behind the Alphas and Beta pair. We ran hard for about thirty minutes before we returned to the home and dressed again.

We all felt better as we returned to the conference room and closed the door. “What do you need to find out what happened, Randall,” the Alpha asked as we sat down.

“I want to interview as many people as I can who were around Tania at that time. I also want to interview each of you about what you remember about those days surrounding her disappearance through Talia’s exile. Essentially, I’m treating this like a cold case, taking a fresh look at all the evidence and re-interviewing all the witnesses to see if I can find anything new.”

“You’ll have our full cooperation,” the Alpha said. “Beta Lori, please set him up with a room and clear your schedule, you’ll be working with him while he is here. I need you to ensure he gets access to any Pack members he needs.”

“If I may, Alphas,” I interrupted. “The last thing I need is for word to get out on what I am investigating. I would request that all of those who are interviewed be given an Alpha order not to talk about it, and we have a cover story for what I am doing.”

“We can do that. Any ideas for a cover story?”

“It’s not unheard of for Packs to arrange for exchanges of people, you can be here to determine if such an exchange would be profitable between our Packs,” Luna Teri said.

“That would work,” I said. “Especially if it was six months long and we came up from May to October, and your wolves came down from November to April. It would be easier to get volunteers in each Pack that way. We could be interviewing young people and leadership on what they would like to see in such an exchange.”

“I’ll handle that part,” Bobby said. “I’ll make it a real project, and once Randall is done with them I will take over. That way if they are asked what we talked about, they can answer honestly.”

There were a few more things we talked through, and I handed the Alpha a list of the people I already knew I wanted to interview. “If you know anyone else who would be of help, please add them,” I said.

He looked at the list. “Michelle joined my Pack a few months after Todd took over along with her family, she is going to the University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse now. Everyone else works on Pack lands, so they won’t be a problem, except Erica. She was outcast as a traitor, and we haven’t seen…”

Luna Teri was glaring at him. “They need to know,” she said.

They carried on a conversation over the bond before he let out a long breath and looked at us again. “Beta Brad will take you to see her while his mate works with Bobby to set up an office.”

I suspected they were helping her somehow, despite Council Laws about those expelled as traitors, and I was glad for it. “Was a missing-person report filed with human authorities?”

“I filed one three days after she disappeared,” her grandfather said. “The detective came out and interviewed some people, but nothing ever came of it.”

“That’s curious,” I said. “Did they take DNA and fingerprint evidence as part of the investigation?”

“I’m sure they did, why?”

I took a deep breath, this was deeper than I thought. “When we ran Tania’s fingerprints from the room she was in, they didn’t come up in the FBI database. If a missing person report was filed, her DNA and fingerprints would set off all kinds of alarm bells.”

“That FUCKER!” Her grandfather figured it out first. “He paid someone off!”

“Or he swapped out the fingerprints and DNA with someone else,” I said. “This is good for me, I’ll swing by the local Sheriff and find out about this case. I can say I’m following up on the missing woman from my Dallas case.”

“What do you need from us, Randall,” the Alpha said.

“Let me do my job and uncover evidence that can prove who did this. Only then can we capture and try the people responsible. If you go after Todd now, you could spark a war.”

“It will be so,” he said as he looked at his leadership. “We don’t do anything or say anything until he’s had his chance.”

I had one more thing they needed to know, and it wasn’t mine to say to I linked Bobby. “Tell them who Tania is to you,” I said. “There is one more thing you should be aware of.” I turned and looked back at Bobby.

“I apologize for running off earlier, but I was more than a little shocked. When I scented Tania’s clothing, I recognized her as my mate.”

“Oh Selene,” Luna Teri said before breaking into a wide smile. “Oh my, the Goddess has been busy. Two brothers mated to two sisters.”

Bobby grinned, thrilled to know who his mate was. “Yes, I am certain of it. I would humbly ask to be allowed to stay here, because if Tania returns to a Pack it will be here with her remaining family. I want to be here for her if she shows up.”

“She’s human,” Beta Brad said. “Your brother confirmed it in Fort Worth. You recognized the wolf in her scent from when she still had one, will she still be your mate without a wolf?”

“My wolf does not care,” he said. “He has recognized her, he wants her, and he wants blood on his teeth as well for what happened to her. If she cannot fight for her revenge, he will do it for her.”

“I will have to speak to your Alpha,” Clark said. “You should talk to him first.”

“I am calling him as soon as we are done here,” I said.

Luna Teri looked at the clock. “Lunch is in ten minutes, you should join us there. We will let the Pack know about your cover story. I think everything else, including your mates, should stay quiet.” Lunch was a quiet affair, but the potential for an exchange to spend winter in Texas was well received. I’d told my father about it in our short conversation, and he could see a few Texas pack members wanting to escape the summer heat to go to Wisconsin. He’d been shocked to hear about Bobby’s mate, and it made my own investigation even more important to my Pack.

After the meal, Brad and I got in his pickup and drove to the southern edge of the territory, where a small cabin overlooked the river valley. The cabin was surrounded by gardens and greenhouses, and the scents of herbs and flowers filled the air. A young woman appeared at the door, her beauty marred by a scarred “T” on her left cheek. “Erica, this is Randall Meechum of the Sulphur River Pack in Texas. The Alphas would ask that you answer some of his questions.”

“Of course, Beta. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Meechum. Please come in.”

“Thank you. Call me Randall, please. It’s an honor to meet you, Erica.” I followed her into the cozy cabin, and as she walked in front of me I could see the crisscross pattern of whip scars on her back and shoulders.

She must have felt me staring. “They don’t bother me, Randall. I don’t regret a one of them, and this Pack has accepted and protected me.” She had us sit on her couch, then brought over a pitcher of lemonade and some glasses. The windows were open, letting the summer breeze through. “No air conditioning here, it’s off-the-grid power only,” she said.

“I’m used to worse humidity in Texas,” I said as I accepted a glass. “You need to know a few things before we start, so you know why you can trust me,” I said. I explained about my job, the murder investigation, and the discovery that Talia was my mate and Tania was my younger brother’s mate.

“Wow,” she said. “Talia rescued her.” She sat back in her chair, trying to process it all. “What do you need?”

“I don’t know how to track down Talia, but I’m trying to figure out what really happened with Tania and their parents. I have my suspicions.”

“You think Beta Todd was behind it all.” I nodded. “Talia didn’t trust him, she thought something was wrong and she didn’t want to mate him ever.” She went through everything, from the day Tania disappeared to the Alpha challenge that resulted in Talia’s exile.

“Why did you help her when the Alpha was clear about how it was forbidden?”

“Talia was getting no help from anyone. The Pack didn’t back her claim to Alpha, the Council dismissed her as a girl, and she didn’t deserve her fate. All I wanted to do was to give her clothing and money so she could get away and make a life. She was my best friend, and I had to help.”

“You’re a loyal wolf,” I said.

“Michelle was too, but her parents would have suffered if she did it. My family was gone, so I took the risk and lost.” She traced the scar on her cheek. “The Alphas collected me from the woods after I was cast out and brought me to their Pack. The healer used a cream to remove as much of the silver from the wounds as possible, but it was only enough to reduce the scarring from how bad it could have been. I stay here mostly, raising my plants and joining the Pack when there are no guests.”

“Did the police talk to you?”

“A detective talked to me and a few other girls who were at the beach, before Talia returned. We didn’t know anything. She did a cool backflip off the rope swing, went back to her towel and we never saw her again.”

“Did you follow her scent?”

“Yes, up to the road, then we lost her. A bunch of us were searching for where it went when Beta Todd showed up in his Suburban. He shifted to wolf form and tracked her to the boundary line where her scent disappeared.”

“Wait, none of you could trail her but he did?”

She nodded. “We could smell her at the border, there were some other wolves that weren’t Pack there. We were too young to leave the Pack lands and search.”

“Do you think Beta Todd could taken Tania and handed her over?”

“Maybe. Talia suspected him but had no evidence.” She finished her lemonade and set it down. “Would you like another glass?”

“No, thank you. Did you ever see Talia again after she was expelled from the Pack?”

“No, never,” she said, but her heartrate picked up and she was looking out the window, not at me.

“Try again, this time with the truth.”

“I am telling you the truth.” She was really panicking now.

“Tell me now, or I bring the Alphas in and we get to the bottom of it officially,” I said.

“NO!” She sank back into her chair. “I promised never to tell anyone, please don’t make me.” She was begging me with her eyes.

“I will not tell anyone, but I need to know everything I can about what happened with my mate in the past four years. Please.”

She let out a sigh and looked at her hands. “The summer after she disappeared, Fourth of July weekend,” she said. “I wasn’t leaving my gardens, there were humans everywhere on the river and the Pack had guests, so I had to stay away. I was sitting on my deck, watching the sun set over the bluffs, when I looked over and she was standing in the treeline. She asked me not to say anything, that no one could ever know she had shown up. I agreed, of course, I was beyond thrilled to see her again. All kinds of things had been going through my mind, wondering if my sacrifice was worth anything in the end.”

“How did she look?”

“She’d grown, and she looked stronger and more dangerous. Her scent was off.”

“How?”

“I don’t really know, her base scent was there, her wolf, but something else. I blamed it on being out of the Pack because she wasn’t marked or mated, I checked that.”

“What did she say to you?”

“She wanted to know what I knew about Tania’s disappearance. She couldn’t risk going to the Tomah Pack, and she had picked up my scent at the border and followed it in. We hugged, she thanked me endlessly and said how sorry she was for what happened to me afterwards.” She started to cry. “I didn’t care. I told her everything I knew, and she gave me a phone number to call her if I learned anything about Tania that could help her find her.” She got up and went to her desk, copying a number onto a Post-it Note. “She said it wasn’t a direct number, but I could leave a message and it would get to her.”

“Did she say anything else that could help me?”

“She said she had taken a blood vow under the full moon to avenge her sister.” A blood vow under the moon’s eye was sacred, it meant nothing else would be done until the vow was fulfilled. No Pack, Alpha, Mate or Family could stand in the way. “She found people who were helping her train, and that when she was strong enough, she would find her and destroy those who took her. Her eyes were distant, like she was dead, it was unnerving.”

“Did she say anything about why she was in Wisconsin again?”

“She was given a job.” I thought about it; on July 10th, the Alpha of a Pack in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan disappeared. His body was found four days later in neutral territory by his Pack.

An ace and king of spades were stuck in his mouth.