Yeah, that sounded like Marc. An odd pang of pride and pain rang through me, as I hoped fervently that he was still alive to repeat that performance someday.
“What about the other one?”
“Side of his head’s caved in. Looks like someone took a rung-back chair to ‘im.”
“Okay, now I need you to sniff around. Concentrate. Do you smell any scents that don’t belong to either Marc or the dead strays? Did anyone else bleed in there recently? Or sweat? Or touch anything? Sniff the doorknobs first, then anything that might have been used as a weapon. Did you touch the doorknob?”
“Only from the outside of the door.” There was a pause on his end, and I thought I heard floorboards groan as he knelt. Or stood. “Yeah, there’s another scent on the front door. The wood and the knob. It’s another stray, but no one I know.”
“Good.” I was walking again, my feet whispering on concrete, my hand trailing over the long bar on the bench press. That scent belonged to the last person who’d touched the doorknob—presumably whoever had taken Marc. “Don’t touch the knob. We’ll need to smell that scent.”
I didn’t hear what he said next because of the footsteps thundering toward me from the kitchen. My dad jerked open the door and jogged down the steps, breathing deeply from exertion, his eyes wide with alarm. I’d rarely seen him so flustered, and it meant the world to me that Marc meant so much to him.
My father wore no coat other than his usual suit jacket, and only once I noticed that his cheeks were flushed from the cold did I realize that I was completely covered with chill bumps, and that I was actually shivering.
Now that I was done exercising, my sweat had dried to leave me cold in the basement chill.
“What happened?” Moving briskly, my father stepped over the corner of the mat and snatched the blanket from Kaci’s chair.
“Hang on a second, Dan,” I said into the mouthpiece, while my father draped the blanket over my shoulders. “Daniel Painter found two dead strays in Marc’s living room. Marc’s missing, and a trail of his blood leads out the house and to the driveway, where it looks like he was loaded into a car. At least one other stray was there, based on the scent on the doorknob.”
My Alpha’s expression grew bleaker with each word I spoke. “How much blood did he lose?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, just as Painter said, “A lot.” My heart thumped harder, aching within my chest at the thought of how much blood he’d lost, and my father motioned for me to sit in the chair Kaci had vacated.
“Are these dead strays in cat form or human form?” he asked, knowing Painter would hear him.
“Human form.” Painter sighed, and when springs squealed over the phone, I pictured him sinking wearily onto Marc’s couch. A couch I’d never sat on, or even seen.
My father frowned, and I shared his confusion. Why would werecats attack someone they obviously meant to kill, based on the earlier ambush, without the use of their best weapons—claws and canines? For that matter, why attack Marc at all? Weren’t Manx and I the original targets? Wasn’t the objective the usual: kidnap the women and kill the men? If so, why go after Marc when Manx and I weren’t even there?
My phone was getting hot, so I switched to my other ear.
“Are the dead men carrying anything?” My dad dug in his inside coat pocket and pulled out his own cell phone, scrolling through the menu as he spoke. “Wallets? Checkbooks? Phones? Anything that might identify them?”
“I don’t know.” More springs groaned as Painter stood again. “Want me to search ‘em?”
Instead of answering Painter, my father turned to me with his free hand outstretched. “Give me the phone.”
I hesitated, even though my father—not to mention my Alpha—had given me a direct order, because handing over my phone felt like giving up my link to Marc. Or at least to the man currently in the best position to help him. But after a second, I obeyed.
“Painter?” my father barked. His concern came through as gruffness. But then, that’s how most of his strong emotions sounded. “This is Greg Sanders, Alpha of the south-central Pride. Thank you for alerting us. Can you stay there until my team arrives?”“Yeah, sure,” Painter said, and I pictured him nodding eagerly, pleased to be needed, in spite of the circumstances.
My concern for Painter paled in comparison to my fear for Marc, but I still didn’t want him to get hurt, especially trying to help us. “What if they come back to clean up the rest of their mess?”
My dad tilted my phone so that the mouthpiece slanted away from his lips. “Hopefully, he’ll get a good description.” To Painter, he said, “Lock the door and turn off the lights. Then Shift.” Because it would be easier to defend himself that way, should the need arise. “And if they come back, go right out the front door and call Faythe.”
“How’s he supposed to call me in cat form?” I asked, frowning.
My father shrugged, and spoke into the phone, though he was still watching me. “Autodial. If you keep Faythe’s number up on the display, you can call her with the press of one button, using a toe pad, or a claw. I’ve done it before.”
He had? I thought about asking, but decided I didn’t want to know.
“Faythe and her partner will be leaving immediately.” My father eyed me with both eyebrows raised, and I nodded, relieved that I wouldn’t have to argue with him on that point. “Is there any trouble with the neighbors? Did anyone hear or see anything?” He began to pace back and forth across the straw-strewn dirt floor. “Or call the police?”
“Oh. Nah. The nearest neighbor is ‘bout two miles away, and I doubt they coulda heard anything.”
I might have guessed Marc wouldn’t want any close neighbors. He’d lived on our compound for half of his life, and typically wanted little to do with humans.
“Good.” But my father’s face showed no real relief. With Marc missing and likely gravely injured, the news that there had been no witnesses was decidedly bittersweet.
My dad handed my phone back to me. “Thanks, Dan,” I said, suddenly eager to be off the phone and on the road. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I started to say goodbye, but then something else occurred to me. “They broke in the front door, right?”
“Yeah. It’s still on the hinges, but the lock’s busted.” He seemed to know where I was headed with that question.
I sank onto the padded, duct-tape-patched seat of the bench press. “Can you move something in front of the doors? That way if they come back, you’ll at least have some warning before they get in.”
“Um, just a sec.” Painter’s breathing changed as he stood, and footsteps over the line told me he was on the move. “I can push the couch in front of the front door. And the back one looks fine. I’m locking it up now.” A chain rattled, and metal scraped wood softly as he slid the dead bolt home.
“Good, but can you put something in front of that one, too? Just in case?”
“Sure. I’ll see if he’s got anything heavy in the other room.”
“Thanks, Dan.” I hesitated, wishing my gratitude for him wasn’t overshadowed by my fear for Marc. But it was. “I’m leaving now, and it’ll take me about five hours. Call me immediately if anyone shows up.”
“I will.”
I flipped my phone closed and turned to find my father watching me from one corner of the exercise mat. Owen, Ethan, Jace and Parker stood at the bottom of the stairs, breathing hard and waiting for orders.
“Faythe, Parker, get packed.” Parker and I nodded in unison, and my father continued. “Take enough for two days, just in case. But I can’t spare you any longer than that. Not with everything else going on.”
I found myself nodding, but knew in my heart that I wouldn’t leave the free zone before we’d found Marc. Not conscious and walking upright, anyway.
“Sniff around and see what you can find out about the dead strays. Get me names, and I’ll get you addresses. Play it safe, and play it smart. Do not go wandering off through the woods looking for a needle in a haystack. And don’t go anywhere alone. For all we know, this is a trap designed to get you back into the free zone. Check in three times a day. Got it?”
I nodded again, and Parker mimicked me. We were itching to get going.
“And, Faythe?” My father eyed me sternly.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t have any extra backup to send with you, so it’s just you two and Dan Painter. Be careful.”
“Of course,” I said, as if his common warning meant no more this time than it ever had. But that wasn’t the case. Always before, we’d had the advantage of larger numbers, and I was distinctly uncomfortable with having the tables turned.
“Okay, go!” my father ordered. And we went.
Eight
When I got to my room, Kaci was waiting on my bed, propped up on my pillows, and the sense of déjà vu was inescapable as I packed. She’d watched me unpack less than a day earlier, looking much happier than she did at the moment.
She pulled my punching pillow into her lap as if for comfort. But then I was almost amused to see her clench it in both fists, as if she might rip it in two. It was scary sometimes, how much she and I had in common. “What happened?” The tabby’s smooth, beautiful features were twisted in an odd combination of fear and irritation. “No one will tell me anything.”