Laurie’s Wolves(64)
“Baby?”
She pasted a smile on her face and stepped toward him, patting his chest with her palm as she lifted her gaze to meet his. “Starving.”
The change of subject ended any discussion he might have wanted to have about the black shadowy spirit. Besides, what was there to say? The world was going to hell quicker by the day it seemed. Whatever she’d been doing up to that point to appease the spirit had not worked. She needed to make a change.
∙•∙
Zach took her hand and led her to the kitchen.
Just as she pulled out a chair and sat, his cell rang. It vibrated on the table. Zach grabbed it with a frown. “Who would call at this hour?”
“The precinct,” he muttered as he answered it. “Hello?”
“Zach. This is Sheriff Terrance Bergman.”
“Hi. I’m guessing this isn’t a social call at two thirty in the morning.”
The man sighed. “No. Sorry.”
“Talk to me. There isn’t much you can say to shock me.”
“We’ve had disturbing reports of a group of people meeting with the intention of running you out of town—at any cost.”
“See? That doesn’t shock me at all. Not after someone broke into my condo and filled the place with gas, and not after bricks came through the window at Corbin’s apartment. I assume it’s worse than that and whoever this fucked-up group is, they’d like to see me dead. Me and my mates.” Thank God Bergman was a shifter. Made it easier to express himself openly.
“Well, it’s not hard to figure out who’s organizing this crime. They were trapped last night inside the church. They were forced to call for help when the door froze shut during their meeting.”
Zach chuckled. “Perfect. What church?”
“The Church on the Hill.”
“Of course. Why am I not shocked? That church is the most fundamentalist one in town. But I’m surprised they’d go to such lengths to conspire against me. How do you know that’s what they gathered to discuss?”
“Apparently one of the members is not in complete agreement. She panicked when she realized they were moving from hate to actual crimes. She was the same person who anonymously called in the gas leak.”
Zach sighed. He leaned against the counter and rubbed his temple with his free hand. “Do you know who she is?”
“Nope.”
“But she called again?”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do?”
“There isn’t a lot I can do. My hands are tied. I can’t arrest people for meeting.”
“Even if they threatened my life and that of my mates?”
“I need more solid proof. The woman who called was whispering to our dispatcher, and she hung up before she got into specifics. Trust me, I’ll be on those folks like glue. But in the meantime, I think it would be best if you watched your backs.”
Zach nodded, even though obviously the sheriff couldn’t see him. He met Laurie’s gaze across the room where she sat on her hands with her lips pursed. “Thanks for the warning. We’ll see what we can do.” Zach ended the call and turned to face her.
“Some people are pissed with our arrangement,” she stated, deadpan.
He nodded. “To say the least.”
She lowered her gaze toward the table, picked up her fork, and dove into the spaghetti as though nothing had happened.
Zach watched her eat for several seconds before he came over to sit next to her. “Baby?”
“Yes?” She lifted her brows.
He stared at her. Obviously she wasn’t interested in discussing this issue further. Finally, he dug into his own plate of spaghetti, not the least bit oblivious to the deafening silence filling the room.
»»•««
“When are the cops going to arrive?” Ada asked her husband.
Pastor Edmund paced the front of the church where two dozen members had met late the previous evening. They all still sat there now. It was after four a.m.
Mary was among them. The only reason she had attended this farce was to eavesdrop on their plans. When Florence had called to see if she was coming, she’d hesitated for a moment before accepting. These were not the sort of people she wanted to be involved with. But after the stunt they pulled at the condo, she didn’t see how she could ignore them.
What she needed to do was get to the police station alone and speak with someone. She should have done so already after the fiasco with Zach Masters’s condo. But there hadn’t been time. And she realized it was probably more help to the police that she gather more information than blow her cover yet.
Pastor Edmund gave a long exasperated sigh. “I just called them for the fourth time. You heard me on the phone. They said they’ve had dozens of calls all night long. Since we aren’t in imminent danger, we’re not high on their list.”