“So I ask you again what you’re doing here,” Darien said, finally taking over the discussion again. “Are you seeking to learn what happened to your aunt and uncle, or were you hoping to take over the hotel?”

Stanton sat back in his chair and smiled a little. His brothers were watching him, waiting for his response.

CJ was certain they had discussed the matter among themselves and knew just what their brother had planned to say.

“I hadn’t even considered that Silver Town Inn might rightfully be ours, at first.”

CJ didn’t believe the man for a moment. “So you wait until the MacTire women renovate the hotel, then step in and claim it’s yours? You can’t. We had to pay the taxes on it. The pack owned it until they sold it to the MacTire women.”

“I suppose we would have to pay them fair compensation for fixing up the place. But we never authorized their work on the hotel, so I’m not sure something like that would be legally binding. We might have just decided to tear it down and rebuild.”

Darien shook his head. “You’re missing the point. The hotel isn’t yours to claim. If the MacTires hadn’t already bought it, you might have been able to buy it, but we have town ordinances against building anything new that doesn’t fit in with the look and feel of the historical district. The hotel is part of our heritage,” Darien said. Which meant he wouldn’t approve anything else they designed, and everyone in the pack would vote Darien’s way.

“Your heritage? And that includes murder.” Stanton arched his brows.

“Inconclusive. If you have some evidence, I’d love to see it.”

“In good faith, we would be willing to pay for some material cost—within reason,” Stanton said, referring to the hotel again.

“You would have to prove you are indeed related to the brother and sister, and that the property had been left to your father,” Darien said. “And that you have a receipt for paying the taxes on the property for all those years.”

CJ smiled a little.

Stanton narrowed his eyes at Darien. “So you’re trying to say we’re not entitled? Hell.” Then he straightened a little under Darien’s scrutiny. “One or more of your pack members had to do with their disappearances. We’ll prove it, and that the property belongs to us. I’m sure we can find tax receipts for the property.”

“As long as you don’t break any laws or create problems for our pack members, you’re welcome to try,” Darien said.

But CJ was certain Stanton would attempt to cause trouble for them.

“What I don’t understand is how your father, who was estranged from his brother, would know that Warren was seeing a woman in our pack and having trouble with a male pack member over it,” Darien said.

“They talked right before he disappeared.”

“Here? Your father came to see him here?”

“I don’t know for sure.”

“And your father’s name?” Darien asked.

“John Wernicke.”

“Okay, and you’re from…?”

“Raleigh, North Carolina.”

“And your dad died there two weeks ago?”

Trevor was taking notes, CJ realized.

“Correct.”

“Now that we know why you’re here, more or less,” CJ said, “you don’t still want to stay at the hotel, do you? I’m certain the management will refund your money and you can go about your business.”

“Of course we want to stay there,” Stanton said. “It’s a shame we have to pay for the rooms when we by rights should be the real owners of the hotel—but we’ll remedy that soon. If that’s all, gentlemen, we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Oh, and do we have your permission to run as wolves where your pack runs? We don’t want to be chased down again as if we were common criminals.” Stanton tilted his chin up a bit.

Darien bowed his head a little bit in agreement. “I will permit it and let the rest of the pack know that you are allowed to run in our territory.”

“Thank you.”

Stanton and his brothers rose from their seats. “See you tomorrow at the grand opening.” Jake quickly escorted them outside to their van.

Darien directed his comment to CJ. “Ask Laurel to join us, will you?”

CJ hurried out of the room but practically ran into Lelandi and Laurel as they headed for the conference room.

Lelandi said, “Now that the Wernicke brothers have had their say, Laurel wants to talk to you all about the disappearance of her aunt.”

* * *

“Why didn’t you tell me about your aunt? Or tell any of us? Darien? Lelandi? Before tonight?” CJ asked, driving Laurel home in what had become a blinding snowstorm, the windshield wipers barely clearing the glass before it was covered again. Everything was coated in white—the road, the trees, and every space in between.

“I’m sorry, CJ. I know you’re angry with me now. But how could we tell anyone why we were here?”

“I’m annoyed that we had to learn the truth from the Wernicke brothers. Why couldn’t you have told us?”

“Anyone in the pack could have made her disappear! Who could we have trusted?”

“Even me?” He let out his breath. “Okay, I get it. You don’t know us that well, so it’s easy to see how you would be wary of any of us. Sure, pack loyalty means a lot to us. But if anyone had murdered your aunt, that person would pay the price, no matter how many years have passed.”

He paused, hating to tell her anything about his father’s misdeeds. What if she thought that he or his brothers might turn out to be like their father? But given the circumstances, he thought it was important to tell her before she learned about it from someone else. “You might have heard that my father, Sheridan, was sheriff of Silver Town until a couple of years ago.”

“My mother said he looked into her allegations that her sister died, but there was nothing to it. And that he died a while back, so we couldn’t even question him.”

CJ was glad that Darien hadn’t told the sisters what Sheridan had done. He wanted to be the one to tell her.

“Lelandi said that he wanted to tear down the old hotel.”

CJ frowned. He’d never heard his father say that. “Are you sure? I guess if Lelandi knew, then it was for certain. I never heard him say that. Not that we were real close. My dad always felt as though he should have been the pack leader. The pack decided otherwise.”

“Darien seems like a fair leader.”

“He is. But my dad was disgruntled about it. I’ve got something to tell you about my father. It doesn’t reflect on me or my brothers, but I just want you to know in case you hear about it from others. I’m glad that no one has mentioned it so that I could share this with you, since he was my father.”

CJ explained that his father had murdered Darien’s first mate because she betrayed the pack by having an adulterous affair. There had been more to it than that. CJ felt for now that was enough to explain without overwhelming her with the details of all the people who had been involved in the murder. “Darien was forced to fight my father to the death. My brothers and I left the pack after that and only recently returned. My father was wrong in doing what he did. But it’s no reflection on my brothers and me.”

He waited to hear what Laurel had to say, hoping that she wouldn’t see him as anything like his father had been.

They were still only about halfway to her house when she shouted, “Stop the truck.”

He was afraid she meant to bolt from him. He opened his mouth to object, because he wasn’t letting her out here to make her way home on her own in the wilderness in the middle of the snowstorm.

“I saw the ghost wolf! Stop the truck!”

He couldn’t believe it. He’d been concentrating on the blowing snow and trying to make out the edges of the road in the low visibility. Certain she really hadn’t seen anything, he pulled off onto the shoulder, hoping that no one would hit his truck. She immediately threw open the truck door, slammed it shut, and took off running into the woods.