Then she let go and lifted her chin and howled.

Chapter 22

At the clinic, Darien, CJ, Laurel, Jake, and Doc Weber gathered around Jacob, who had been treated for minor wolf-bite wounds. But for now, he was strapped to the table so they could question him before he was released.

“You’re wearing hunter’s spray,” Darien accused.

“I didn’t do anything wrong. They came out of nowhere and bit me. They should be up on charges of attempted murder.”

“You lied to Laurel and said I was going to the house when everyone knows I would have gone to protect her.”

“I didn’t want her to think I was out there to harm her. She was frightened enough.”

“How come you broke into her sisters’ home and then mine? Were you looking for something in the false bottoms of the drawers? You knew the furniture your father made for Clarinda had false bottoms and how to get into them, but you couldn’t with Meghan watching. You set up the alarm system in the house, so you knew how to disable it. The same with mine. Peter’s checking the furniture, and when he finds what’s hidden in the drawers, the jig will be up. What were you trying to find?”

“I didn’t break into anyone’s place.”

Unfortunately, they had no proof that he had.

“I tried to find the secret compartments when Meghan was watching me and didn’t find any. Every cabinetmaker has his own way of creating them. I told the MacTire sisters that.”

“And you learned cabinetmaking from your father.”

“Yeah, so? Find one piece of furniture I made with my initials on it that’s constructed in the same way as my father’s furniture and has a false bottom.”

“What happened to my aunt?” Laurel asked, her voice soft, but CJ heard the steel behind it.

“I don’t know what happened to your aunt, and that’s the God’s honest truth. Hell, as soon as she bit me, she took off.”

“What?” Laurel said, suddenly looking so pale, CJ took hold of her arm and made her sit in a chair.

“The white wolf that bit me! Who did you think she was?”

“Charity Wernicke.”

“Where did you come up with that idea?”

“She—Charity—said she was keeping house, and then my aunt came to live with Warren and her.”

He gave a sarcastic laugh. “Hell, if Warren had a sister, she wasn’t living there.”

“She was running the hotel. After her brother vanished,” Laurel managed to get out.

“She might have let on that she was his sister, but she was Clarinda O’Brien.”

CJ rested his hand on Laurel’s shoulder, ready to keep her in her seat if she suddenly passed out, she appeared so pale.

“How do you know this for certain?” she asked.

Jacob narrowed his eyes. “Because my father was seeing her, made her the furniture even. Free, because he loved her. But Warren did too. She was perfect for him, did all his housework and kept the books.”

“Are…are you her son?”

“No. My mother had died two years earlier. My father hadn’t looked at another wolf until he laid eyes on her.”

Laurel swallowed hard. “So she mated Warren?”

“She wouldn’t mate either wolf. She wouldn’t say why.”

“Did your father have something to do with Warren’s death?”

“No. He died of a broken heart. He thought, like I did, that Warren left to set up another hotel somewhere else, somewhere that Clarinda was happier, that she managed this hotel, then took off and joined him.”

“Oh, right,” Laurel said, sounding like she didn’t believe him in the least.

CJ got a call on his phone. “Yeah, Peter, what did you find?”

“It’s not good. I’m emailing you a picture so you don’t have to leave there and end your interrogation.”

CJ waited with dreaded anticipation as the picture uploaded. A damn blackmail note? And it looked suspiciously like his father’s handwriting. He was blackmailing Clarinda? For pretending to be Warren’s sister? But Jacob just said she wasn’t pretending.

Every eye was on CJ. “Darien, Laurel, can I see you in Doc Weber’s office for a moment?”

Doc Weber nodded his okay for them to use it.

CJ took hold of Laurel’s arm. She was so shaky, he was worried that she might be going into shock.

When they were in the doc’s office, Darien shut the door. “What did Peter find?”

CJ helped Laurel onto the couch and sat beside her. “A blackmail note from my father, hidden in one of the drawers.”

“Someone needs to catch Clarinda, Charity…whoever she is,” Laurel said, sounding numb.

Looking sympathetic, Darien nodded. “While you were both questioning Jacob, I sent a text to Ryan to have her taken into custody, not as a murder suspect, but to help clear this matter up.”

“Could Jacob be lying?” she asked.

“Could be. We can’t take what either of them say at face value, it seems.” Darien looked over the blackmail note. “It’s Sheridan’s handwriting, all right.”

“If he was blackmailing her, maybe that’s why she disappeared. But why did he blackmail her?” Laurel asked.

Darien glanced at his phone. “Hell, Ryan says they’re looking for her, but she hasn’t returned to her home or store in Green Valley.”

“What if she runs again?” Laurel asked.

“I’ve already put out an alert for her truck. A third of the pack members are out searching in the vicinity where she ran.” Darien’s phone rang. “Yeah? Okay, so she’s running as a wolf still. Good to know. Keep looking until you find her.”

He ended the call and said, “Mason found her truck, and her clothes are inside. She might be headed for home. We’re confiscating her truck.”

“I want to go to my sisters’ house,” Laurel suddenly said.

“All right. Darien, we’ll keep you posted if we learn anything more. Wait, what happened with the Wernicke brothers?”

“They’re royals as far as we can tell. Stanton’s one pissed-off wolf, but he hasn’t shifted yet.”

“Okay, we’ll talk later.” CJ helped Laurel leave the room. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Yes.”

But her voice was toneless, and he had to know what she was feeling. “Laurel, don’t shut me out.”

“What was going on? I want to go to the pit.”

CJ stopped her as they left the clinic. “Why there?”

“I think she loved Warren. I think she couldn’t mate him for some reason. I think Jacob’s father loved her too. And I think she was pretending to be Warren’s sister because she was afraid of someone.”

“But Jacob said—”

“I think Jacob just learned the truth of who she was. Or his father did before he died. And so Jacob knew who she was, but she was gone, so there was no need to say anything to anyone about it. So why wouldn’t she mate either man?”

“Hell, she probably already had a mate! She couldn’t mate Warren because she had a mate and she was scared. He took her in and kept her hidden at his house where she did the books and the household chores.”

“That’s why she loves her ‘brother’ so much,” Laurel said. “She feels guilty that Warren died for loving her. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah. Sounds to me like a good reason. So who killed Warren?” CJ drove her out to the area closest to where the pit was.

“Her abusive mate? And she took care of the hotel for a short while, still pretending to be Warren’s sister after the threat was past, but she couldn’t manage it on her own and probably hated the hotel because it represented the man she lost.”

“So why do you think she’s at the pit?”

Laurel looked out the window. “She goes there when she needs to be comforted. Maybe she feels his spirit there. I don’t know. Maybe he gave her direction in her life and she loved him for it. I’m just grasping at straws here.”

“Why was Jacob trying to find something in the houses?”

“To protect his father, maybe? Thinking that maybe his father did kill Warren? Or maybe he was trying to locate something that would prove his father didn’t have anything to do with it. You know how bad you felt when you learned your father had committed murder. You left the pack. Jacob doesn’t want to live with the pack knowing his father murdered one of its pack members. And he doesn’t want to leave the pack. Just like you and your brothers didn’t really want to.”