“All right. We’ll wait for you to arrive. They’re all still inside. I’m sure Kintail has something planned.”
“Okay,” Cameron said. “We’re on our way. Hans is coming with us.”
“Can you trust him?” David asked.
“I think he’s being sincere.”
“Okay, gotcha. We don’t want to hurt him and undo all the goodwill we have with his parents.” David could just imagine that backfiring on them.
Not long after, Cameron and Gavin arrived with Hans. Sheri didn’t want to speak with him, and he was just as irritated with her. But again, that was a problem for another day. Sheri’s problem, not his.
David said, “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
“No, you and Owen watch over everyone else. We’ll let you know when the men leave the cabin. I doubt they’ll want to try anything until tonight though.”
“Which is just what Kintail will think you’ll believe,” Hans warned.
David shared a look with Cameron.
Hans saw it and interpreted it correctly. “I’m on your side. Maybe not by choice,” he said, “but I’m trying to do the right thing now.” He ran a hand through his hair, the strands sticking up in every direction. “I thought I was doing the right thing before, what my parents would have wanted even, but they made it clear I was dead wrong.” He turned toward Sheri. “It may not mean much now, but I’m sorry.”
Sheri didn’t seem quite ready to forgive and forget, and David suspected Hans’s about-face was more that he was afraid his parents would disown him if he didn’t come around, but if that’s what it took, then fine.
And maybe the older couple could convince Kintail he was making a mistake. Unfortunately, it sounded like it might be a little while before Sheri’s parents arrived, and all signs were pointing to the fact Kintail was putting a dangerous plan into motion as they spoke.
Chapter 26
David drove his surveillance team—Elizabeth, Sheri, and Owen—to the office. He’d barely sat down when he got a call from Gavin.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Nothing with Kincaid. It’s about the Moore case. The signature signing over the loan to the partner is a forgery. The handwriting expert reviewing it says it’s definitely not Mr. Moore’s signature. Seems Mr. Moore was savvy enough to understand something was up, medicated or not. Unfortunately, that might have been what caused his death.”
“What do you mean?” David said. “His death wasn’t natural?”
“Well, there is growing evidence that someone tampered with the dosage of his medication, and all signs point to the partner. I’d say yeah, we are looking at a murder case.”
“Ah, damn it.” David closed his eyes. He hated cases that took a turn like this.
“Yeah,” Gavin said. “It looked like Mr. Moore wasn’t dying fast enough to suit Cooper. I’m turning over everything we’ve found to Ms. Moore, and she’s passing it along to the police.”
“Okay, good.” When they ended the call, David let Elizabeth and Sheri know what’d happened.
“Oh, wow,” Sheri said. “Poor Ms. Moore.”
“Poor Mr. Moore,” Elizabeth added. “I guess you never know what you might dig up when investigating a case.”
“Yeah,” David said. “Sometimes it’s really straightforward. Sometimes it’s a shot in the dark. Then we see the light.”
Candice came out of Owen’s office smiling. “Heads up! Uncle Strom is arriving here in about fifteen minutes with old friends of ours, the Andersons, and some other jaguars in the United Shifter Force, and one human, Rowdy Sanderson, who was dying to meet us. They are bringing camping supplies if we don’t have enough room for them.”
Corey ran up the stairs to join them. “Granddaddy and Grandma are coming!” he shouted on repeat, making sure the whole office heard.
Faith and the other kids soon followed, and she ran her hand over Corey’s hair. “My dad and mom and Leidolf and some of his men are arriving in a few minutes. He said they ran into the jaguars at the airport, and Leidolf, being the red pack leader, asked what Uncle Strom and the others were doing there.”
“Had they not met before?” Elizabeth asked.
“Nope. Which is why Uncle Strom asked them what the hell they were doing there. And if they were Kintail’s men, they’d better think twice about being there,” Faith said.
“That’s all we need: a big cat-and-wolf fight between our rescuers,” Gavin said.
“Well, they figured it out, so it’s all good,” Faith said.
“So they’re all coming in at the same time. Good show,” David said. “We will probably need to pick up some more groceries when we can. Or pool what we have if we can’t do that.”
“And plan for sleeping arrangements,” Faith said. “I’ll begin working on that.”
Faith and the kids went back downstairs, Candice returned to Cameron’s office—since he was still with Gavin watching Kintail’s cabin—and David and Owen took some time to review their other open cases.
A short time later, several cars pulled up into the parking lot of the agency. Everyone went still, and it was clear they shared the same concern: Were the jaguars and red wolves joining them? Or had Kintail and his men decided to come to the agency to force the issue with Sheri leaving them and not waiting until dark, like Cameron and the others thought they might?
Candice answered those unasked questions almost as soon as the first car door opened. “It’s Uncle Strom,” she said, coming out of the office. David and Owen hurried outside, smiling widely at Uncle Strom—everyone called him that—and Everett and Demetria Anderson, and Rowdy Sanderson—who David recognized from the search Elizabeth had pulled together to find him—and six other jaguars he didn’t know.
As promised, Leidolf was there too. David recognized him right off the bat. He was joined by Faith’s father and her mother, and five more of Leidolf’s brawny red wolf men. Eighteen able-bodied jaguars and wolves, though Candice’s mom and dad and Everett and Demetria would be better suited to helping Faith with the kids than fighting a wolf battle.
Faith and the kids hurried up the stairs from the basement and joined Candice as they all came outside to greet everyone. It was a huge extended family of jaguars and wolves, both white and red.
“Thanks so much for coming,” Candice said, hugging her uncle.
Hugs were going around all over the place, except for Elizabeth and Sheri, who stood off to the side, smiling but not getting in on all the rest of it. They didn’t know any of these people, yet they were the reason everyone had made the emergency trips here to help out the Cameron pack. David could see how the two women might feel awkward.