“Everything okay up here?” I asked August’s mom.
“Everything’s great, sweetie. We got a couple reservations for the weekend and a birthday dinner on Friday for a party of twenty. I checked in with Evelyn and placed a grocery order, and I was just now updating the wine list. Oh, and someone left a hotel bike out front. I found it when I greeted some new arrivals. I didn’t know where to put it, so I wheeled it inside the office.” She gestured behind her while clicking through an excel spreadsheet-I supposed, the inn’s wine list.
When I entered the office, my body went as stiff and cold as a block of marble. A nametag tied around the handlebar flapped in the cool air blasting from the revolving fan in the corner. Spit jamming up my throat, I snagged the tag and popped it off its string, hoping beyond hope Isobel had tied it.
In dark marker was written: So you can stop by again.
A chill crawled up my already icy spine.
“Did you see who dropped it off?” I asked, hoping my voice didn’t betray my nerves.
“No. I just found it at the bottom of the driveway.”
Had Aidan delivered it? Considering the injuries Lucas had inflicted to the bastard’s neck the night he’d shot Liam, I doubted the hunter was strolling around Boulder, transporting bikes. He’d probably had his driver bring it over.
I crumpled the tag and tossed it into the bin.
Like hell I would pay the creep a visit.
I guided the bike out the inn doors and down the driveway toward the stockroom where Lucy and Jeb stowed the hiking gear, kayaks, fishing poles, and other paraphernalia they made available to guests.
As I walked back up, I squinted down the driveway into the bright sunlight, looking for Aidan’s chauffeured limo, but if it had been here, it was long gone.
Meeting at eight tonight at the inn to discuss Everest Clark’s fate. Every pack member convened.
Liam’s voice was so sharp and clear I swiveled my head, expecting to see him, but not a soul stood next to me. After I got over the shock of hearing him, I focused on what he’d just said: Everest Clark’s fate. My pulse picked up, thumping against my eardrums. I peeked at the first floor. Behind one of the windows lay my uncle. Had he heard Liam’s call too, or had Liam excluded him?
I went back inside the inn, grabbed the master key, then climbed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I knocked before entering my uncle’s room.
“Jeb?” I called out. When I saw the comforter shake and heard a muted sniffle, I hurried to his side.
“Liam will… he will… kill my son.” Jeb’s voice was as thick as the syrup I’d ladled over his pancakes. “My only child.”
So he had heard Liam. “He said discuss. Maybe-”
“You don’t know the ways of the pack, Ness. You’ve been part of it for what? Twenty-four hours? Wolves have no mercy.”
I bristled from his condescending tone. “I may not know as much as you do, Jeb, but they didn’t avenge my father’s death. Maybe they won’t kill Everest.”
“He strangled Heath and left him floating in his pool. You think Liam will forgive my son? Oh, dear girl, you have so much to learn… ”
I pressed my lips together. Even though my urge to walk out was strong, I stifled it. “Can I get you anything, Jeb?” I asked stiffly.
Without glancing away from the Flatirons beyond his bay window, he whispered, “Why did he have to go and kill him? Did you ask him to do it?”
My vertebrae locked up. “How could you even think that?”
“Because of what he did to Maggie.”
“In case you forgot, Heath also raped Becca. Maybe she asked Everest to kill Heath.”
“She was in a coma.”
My throat locked up like my spine. I swallowed. “Before she tried to take her life and fell into a coma.”
My uncle’s reddened gaze drifted toward me before returning to the panorama of mountains. In a way-unknowingly-I’d been an accomplice to Heath’s murder, but if I’d meant to kill him, I would’ve done it. I would never have asked someone to do my dirty business. How could my uncle think so poorly of me?
“Call me,” I whispered, backing away from his bedside. “If you need anything, call me.” I wheeled around and clambered back down the stairs.
Isobel looked up from the computer monitor she was checking. “Is everything okay?”
I nodded. “Concerned about Jeb, that’s all.”
Isobel didn’t respond, but I could feel her studying me.
I went out onto the wrap-around deck to clear my mind. Instead, the dense forest reminded me of Aidan and of the strange note he’d sent. I tried phoning Liam to tell him about it, but my call went to voicemail.
The pack meeting was in a few hours. Informing him could surely wait until then. It wasn’t as though it was a threat. You didn’t threaten people with invitations. Then again, Aidan Michaels was a crafty man. Maybe it was an underhanded threat. A reminder that he knew how to get to me… how to get under my skin.
I pushed away from the knotted wood railing my father and the Watts had crafted. I wanted someone else’s opinion on the matter and since Liam wasn’t answering, I decided to seek out my “roommate.”
I knocked on Lucas’s bedroom door and didn’t stop until he drew it open.
“Geez. Give a man a minute.” Lucas stood there barefoot, sporting a pair of low-riding sweatpants that displayed too much boxers and a wifebeater that showed off too much biceps. Although I wanted to tell him to pull up his pants, I hadn’t come to police his poor taste in fashion.
I strode into the room, kicking the door shut.
“I usually don’t turn down booty calls, but-”
“Oh my God, get over yourself.” I rolled my eyes. “If you were the last man on Earth, I would still never get with you.”
He smiled. “That’s cold, Clark.”
“I’m here because I got a strange delivery.”
His smile vanished. “I’m listening.”
“The night I went to Aidan Michaels’s house, the night he shot Liam, well, I used one of the inn bikes to get there, and it was returned to me just now with a note saying, So you can stop by again.” I said this all in one breath.
Lucas’s eyes darkened. “Who returned it?”
“I don’t know. Isobel found it in the driveway.”
“How do you know it was the same bike?”
“I don’t, but-”
“Maybe the note was meant for someone else.”