Riley considered that for a moment. “Maybe. We were his closest friends. That would make Shirley the likeliest suspect, but I have to admit that my anger at her could be blinding me a little. I mean, I can’t really imagine her crouched somewhere in the mountains with a rifle. Plus whoever did it has done a good job of evading the Beta and enforcers. Shirley doesn’t strike me as the type who’d know how to cover her tracks so well.”
Makenna tilted her head. “Is there anyone else who would feel that you and Lucy let Wade down?”
“Only his father,” replied Riley. “But he died a long time ago. Wade didn’t have any friends other than me and Lucy.”
“What about the parents of the kids that Wade shot?” asked Jaime. “Do you think the shooter could be one of them, wanting you dead because they resent that you’re alive?”
“None of them seem to feel that way anymore,” said Tao.
“Okay, so let’s go back to the theory that someone could be finishing the job Wade started,” said Dante. “Who should have been there that night?”
“Me, Lucy, Cynthia, Sawyer, and Duncan.”
Ryan looked at Riley. “Do you have personal issues with any of them?”
“You could say that.” Riley told them about her history with Cynthia. “She’s also currently dating—although, honestly, ‘dating’ might be a strong word for it—my ex. Sawyer’s next in line to be Beta, and Cynthia’s always wanted to be Beta.”
“So she could see you as a threat,” said Jaime.
“If Riley still wanted Sawyer, she would be a threat.” Tao was certain of it. “The guy still wants her—even his raven is possessive of her. I think Cynthia’s the type of person who would do what she had to do to ensure she wasn’t knocked off the power ladder.”
“But I’m not sure she’s someone who’d shoot her own sister,” said Riley. “She might not have much time for Lucy or even particularly like her, but she’s still her sister.”
Dante scraped his hand over his jaw. “I don’t know . . . Just because someone’s your sibling doesn’t mean they care for you. Some people just aren’t capable of caring for anyone.”
Knowing that Dante would be thinking of his own brother, Tao nodded. “That’s true.”
“Tell me about Sawyer and Duncan,” said Dante.
Riley took a sip of her coffee. “Sawyer is ambitious, highly dominant, and isn’t rattled by much. Duncan’s very dominant, but he keeps to himself and doesn’t like leaving his territory. Oh, and he’s got personal history with Cynthia. She actually dated him the longest out of all the guys she slept with, and I think she even cares for him a little. She just cares for power more.”
Jaime fiddled with her earring. “Have you ever had any problems with Duncan?”
Riley shook her head. “None whatsoever.”
“This Sawyer guy,” began Makenna, “how long were you and he together?”
Thinking back, Riley said, “Not very long. A few months.”
“Who dumped who?” asked Jaime.
“I ended it,” replied Riley. “But not in a bitchy way.”
Dante drummed his fingers on Jaime’s thigh. “How did he react?”
“About as well as any dominant male reacts to being dumped—it’s a bruise to the ego. But we didn’t have a major fight or anything.” In fact, Riley had gotten the impression he didn’t care all that much.
“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t pissed,” said Ryan, scratching at his palm.
Makenna smiled and touched his arm. “Ooh, you’re going to get money soon.”
Ryan scowled at his mate. “What?”
“If the palm of your right hand itches, it means you’ll get money soon.”
Ryan stared at her. “Tell me you don’t truly believe that.”
She waved a hand. “Fine, be pessimistic.”
“I’m not being pessimistic, I’m being realistic. Try it sometime.”
Makenna huffed. “I don’t know why you insist on thinking there’s no substance in superstitions. I told Riley not to go traveling on a Friday because it brings misfortune, but she didn’t heed the warning and look what happened.”
“You honestly think all this happened because she came here on a Friday?”
Makenna lifted her chin. “I don’t care for your tone.”
“I don’t have a tone.”
Smiling, Riley drained her cup and stood. “I need a refill.”
Tao wasn’t surprised when Makenna and Jaime trailed after her into the kitchen. Or when the sound of a scuffle was quickly followed by the swish of the patio door’s opening and closing. The girls had no doubt dragged Riley outside to interrogate her in private about what was going on between her and Tao. After all, the cabin smelled of sex and he and Riley wore each other’s scents, so there was really no way to hide it.
Dante sank deeper into the sofa. “It’s about damn time you two stopped dancing around each other. Are you going to pretend that it’s just sex?”
“No.”
“Good.” Dante pointed at him. “Don’t mess this one up, Tao.”
“I’m not sure I could if I tried. She mostly just rolls her eyes when I piss her off.”
“Consider yourself lucky. Jaime puts all my CDs in the wrong cases when I annoy her.” And since Dante had an OCD streak, that was akin to a nightmare for him.
“Kenna makes me go shopping,” grumbled Ryan. “Have you ever been shopping with a devout bargain hunter? It’s painful.”
“She took Jaime with her the other day, so I went along,” said Dante. “They kept going all day. Searched every shelf and rack, and had the shop assistants searching the stockrooms for stuff. Once they found what they wanted, they compared prices on websites, found out where the items were cheaper, and then hauled ass there.”
Tao smiled a little smugly. “Riley doesn’t like the mall, she only shops online.”
Dante gaped. “Dude, do not let her go. Like ever. Seriously, a woman who doesn’t like the mall is a gift from God—accept that gift with gratitude and grace.”
Ryan grunted. “Let’s hope Riley will rub off on Kenna.”
Thinking of the times he’d seen Makenna come back from shopping with dozens of bags and a euphoric smile on her face, Tao twisted his mouth. “Yeah, I really don’t see that happening.”
Ryan sighed, grim. “Yeah, neither do I.”
Out on the deck, Makenna slid the patio door closed. “Well? Is Tao good in bed? I have to know.” She held up a hand. “Don’t say nothing happened. You reek of each other.”
“I wasn’t going to deny it,” said Riley. “And, yes, he knows his way around the bedroom.”
Jaime joined her hands. “Is it just sex between you, or . . . ?”
Honestly, it was starting to feel like more than that for Riley, but she simply said, “We agreed to a fling.”
Jaime dropped her hands. “No, this has to be more than a fling. If you mate with Tao, you won’t leave the pack. I like that idea.”
Riley rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to leave the pack and we all know it.”
“Yeah, but mating with Tao would provide me with extra insurance.”
“Do you think it’s possible that you’re true mates?” asked Makenna.
Was she kidding?
“Tao and I don’t suit each other.”
Jaime waved a hand. “Sure you do. Tao’s never had a good relationship. He’s very intense and stubborn, and he can’t hold in his emotions or opinions. It rubs a lot of dominant females the wrong way and leads to argument after argument. But you roll your eyes at his mood swings. You ignore his tantrums. You smile at his insults. You say what you think and give him no choice but to accept it. That’s what he needs—someone who isn’t threatened or challenged by his need to vent. If anything, you find it funny.”
Yeah, she did. “I’ve just never known anyone so easily riled.”
“Although you aren’t an obvious couple, you work.”
Makenna nodded in agreement. “Let’s f
ace it, Riley: you don’t like people getting too close. He won’t stand for that shit, and only someone as determined and hardheaded as Tao could truly cope with that and get through to you. You need someone who isn’t controlling. Tao might be a pain in the ass who shoves his way into your business, but he isn’t controlling—which is rare for a dominant male. He’s also complex enough to hold your attention. Be honest; you have a short concentration span and get bored pretty easily. He’ll keep things interesting.”
Blowing out a breath, Riley sat on the porch swing.
Head tilted, Jaime looked down at her. “You’ve never looked at things that way before, have you?”
“No. Like you said, we’re not an obvious couple.”
“Neither are me and Ryan,” said Makenna. “He doesn’t believe in fate, and I’m as superstitious as they come. I like working with people and helping them. Ryan doesn’t like people, period. But we work.”
“Dante loves control,” said Jaime. “I love doing whatever I want. He’s a total neat freak, and I find order in chaos. But we’re happy.”
Riley leaned back. “But if Tao was my true mate, wouldn’t I sense it on some level?”
“Not necessarily,” said Jaime. “I had no idea Dante was my true mate. I’d known him for years, but I hadn’t sensed it. We both had too many issues jamming the frequency of the mating bond. If you and Tao build something, you might just resolve your own issues. Maybe a mating bond will snap into place, maybe it won’t. It might take imprinting to—” She cut off as the patio door slid open and the males stepped out.
“You girls done gossiping yet?” asked Dante.
Jaime lifted her chin, looking affronted. “We don’t gossip.”
Her mate snickered. “Sure you don’t.”
“So, what now?” Riley asked him.
“You and Tao will stay here while the rest of us question the other people who should have been at the party that night,” Dante replied. “We need to know why they weren’t there, because it’s possible someone didn’t go because they knew what was going to happen.”
“You think that one of them could have put Wade up to it and they’re now finishing the job?” Riley asked.
“Possibly,” said Dante. “We have a few theories that we need to explore.”
“What Wade did was totally out of character for him, but he wasn’t himself back then,” said Riley. “People do strange and even awful things when they’re depressed like that. I honestly don’t think anyone was behind it.”
Dante leaned against the porch post. “You’re probably right, but I’d still like to speak with them. There is still the possibility that one of them is responsible for the recent shootings.”
“They may not talk to us,” said Makenna.
“Sage assured me that he’d tell his flock mates to cooperate with you,” said Tao. “Hopefully, that will be enough to make them do so.”
“Don’t come across as accusatory, or it will put them on the defensive,” Riley told Dante.
The Beta gave her a shark’s grin. “Don’t worry, this isn’t my first round of interrogations.”
“Oh yeah, I know all about your version of interrogations.” He was quite the merciless master at them. “That’s what’s worrying me.”
“I say we split up to do the interviews,” Dante proposed. “Jaime and I will talk to Sawyer, since I think he’s more likely to talk to a Beta, since he’s so eager to be one. We’ll also have a chat with Shirley.” Dante turned to Makenna. “You’re good at getting people to open up, so you go see Cynthia and Duncan with Ryan.”
At Makenna’s nod, Dante straightened. “Then let’s get going.”
Shirley’s cabin was close by, so Dante decided they should speak with her first. Fingers linked with Jaime’s, he made his way to the small building that was almost an exact image of their guest cabin.
Shirley took her sweet time opening the front door. Then she stood in the doorway, arms folded, peering down at them like a princess glaring down at the peasants. His wolf growled.
Still, he offered her a cordial smile. “I’m Dante, and this is—”
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
“I’m sure your Alpha warned you that we would,” said Dante.
Shirley leaned a little toward him. “I’ll tell you what I told him. I don’t believe that anyone from the flock is the gunman. Your pack mate’s original theory is the only one that makes sense.”
“From what I’ve heard,” began Dante, “you’ve always felt that someone manipulated your son into shooting those ravens four years ago.”
Shirley straightened, face softening slightly. “My Wade was a gentle boy. Caring. He didn’t have an aggressive bone in his body. Even if he was depressed, I don’t believe he went through the trouble of finding himself a gun to kill all those people. No way.” She shook her head, adamant. “If it was someone from the flock, it could only have been Riley.”
Dante bit back a growl. Riley was his pack mate, whether she was prepared to accept it or not, and he didn’t like hearing someone make such an accusation about her. Apparently, neither did Jaime, because her hand was clenching his tightly. “Why?”
“Because he let her live.”
She said it as if that were proof. Dante forced himself to speak calmly. “Maybe he let her live because that caring part of Wade reared its head just enough to recognize that, unlike the others, she was his friend.”
Shirley looked away.
“If you’re right and someone gave your son that gun, it could be that they’re now intent on finishing the job. Don’t you want to know who it is? Don’t you want to know who might have done that to Wade?”
Shirley didn’t say anything, but the hostility seemed to slip out of her expression.
“Did anyone spend a lot of time with Wade before his death?” asked Dante.
Shirley sighed, rubbing her temple. “I don’t know.”
“I understand that this is difficult for you,” Dante began, “but I need you to think real hard. Was there anyone who visited him a lot back then?”
“Riley and Lucy.”
“Anyone else?”
Shirley was about to say no, but then her brow creased. “Sawyer came around here a few times, come to think of it. It surprised me, because they weren’t friends. He hadn’t exactly disliked Wade, but he’d always been aloof toward him at best.”
“Do you know what they talked about?” Dante asked.
Shirley shook her head. “Now that I think about it, Wade used to get a lot of text messages back then too.”
“From who?”
“I’m not sure. I’d ask him who it was, thinking maybe he had a girlfriend, but he’d always mumble, ‘No one’ and walk off.”
After a moment Dante nodded. “Thank you for speaking with us.” Still in possession of Jaime’s hand, he pulled her down the path.
“Delightful woman,” muttered Jaime when she heard the door close. “I agree with Riley. Shirley’s pissed and has a major hard-on for Riley, but she doesn’t have that killer’s edge. So where do we find Sawyer?”
Dante kissed her, just because. “Riley called Hugh before we left; he said that Sawyer is patrolling the southern perimeter.”
“Then let’s head that way.”
It didn’t take long to find Sawyer, and he didn’t seem at all surprised or daunted to see them striding purposefully toward him.
Dante stopped a few feet away. “I’m Dante, and this is my mate, Jaime. We were wondering if you had a few minutes to talk. Like it or not, you’re a possible target of whoever went after Riley and Lucy. We need your help to find out who’s behind this.”
Sawyer studied them intently for a minute. “You’re Betas.”
Dante nodded. “We are.”
That fact alone seemed to be enough to make Sawyer drop his guard. “What do you want to know?”
“Do you know of anyone with a grudge against the ravens in your age-group?”
“Only Wade. I
’m sure Riley told you what it was like for him growing up.”
“She did,” Dante confirmed. “If someone is targeting the few of you who didn’t attend the party, it would suggest that they feel Wade’s actions were justified and that his job was left undone. It could even be that someone gave Wade a little push in that direction four years ago.”
Sawyer’s look was doubtful. “Shirley believes the latter, but that’s only because it’s hard for her to accept that Wade did what he did. But though Wade was a lot of things, he wasn’t weak. Peer pressure never worked on him. And he was a smart kid. If someone had been trying to brainwash him into doing something so against his nature, he would have seen it.”
“Did anyone seem especially eager for you to be at the party that night?”
Sawyer pursed his lips. “No.”
“Did anyone try to persuade you not to go?”
Sawyer seemed surprised by the question. “Cynthia tried to lure me to her house that night. She’d heard Riley and I broke up.”
Dante’s brow lifted. “Did you go to Cynthia’s?”
“No, I went looking for Riley. She’d already left.”
Dante was quiet for a moment. “You allegedly spent a lot of time with Wade before the shootings. Shirley says she found it strange, since you weren’t friends.”
“Riley was worried about him.”
“You thought helping him would impress her?” asked Jaime. “That it might make her go back to you?”
“Maybe, but then I saw just how right she was to be worried,” said Sawyer. “He’d lost a lot of weight, he wasn’t taking care of his hygiene, and there was no drive in him—no motivation to even get out of bed. And he had all these drawings in his room.”
Dante cocked his head. “What kind of drawings?”
“They were dark and violent,” said Sawyer. “Pictures of demon-type monsters, like something out of a nightmare. He only ever used the colors black and red. I asked him about them. He said the demons talked to him; they wanted blood. I thought he meant his own blood—that he had some kind of inner demon he couldn’t face and he wanted to hurt himself.”
“Did you tell anyone?” Jaime asked.