I also got a call from the Sheriff to meet him at Tom’s house. He had me walk him through my earlier statement, showing me where I was and what I did. When I got done explaining it all, he told me my pistol would be returned once the investigation closed in a few weeks. “Do you or Mark use drugs, Ella?”
I looked at him like he was growing two heads. “What? NO!” I put my hand on my belly. “I’ve never used them.”
“It’s all right if you tell me, I’d rather know now than when your blood tests come back. It’s easier to convince the county attorney if you are up front about it.”
I shook my head. “Not me, and I’ve never seen or heard about Mark doing them. We’ve been friends for a long time, I think I would know.” Suddenly I thought of something. “What’s bringing on this questioning, Sheriff?”
He looked back at the room and sighed. “The Feds are starting to show an interest in this. Drug Enforcement Agency, mainly. Part of it is who the dead guys are, and part what they did.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they think it is drug related. They didn’t take anything, they didn’t even ask Mark any questions, they just came in and started torturing him. We’re searching the databases to see if there is a gang or cartel connection to the URN they carved on him.”
My mouth was gaping open. “I can’t believe it.”
“It happens,” he said. “It’s also possible they got the wrong guy. We’ve searched the house, even had the drug dog come through. We can’t figure out a relationship, and it’s driving me nuts.”
“I don’t know either.” He walked me to the front door. “So now what happens?”
“I finish the investigation, the country attorney should decide not to charge, and your pistol should be returned after that. I don’t think it will be a problem. Between you and me, if you were legal I’d buy you a beer. Society is better off without these in it.” He handed me a couple of mug shots. “Ned and Zed Zimmer. Rap sheets as long as your arm, mostly small time stuff but they’ve done time before. What they are doing coming up here from Chicago, I don’t know.”
I didn’t either, but I kept the sheets. I called Doug as soon as the Sheriff left and gave him the names. He called back the next morning; the guys were rogues, and known to do jobs for Packs for drug money. He was going to see what he could do to tie them to one of the three Alphas, but he didn’t have much hope in proving anything. Not that it mattered, he said, I got hurt and they should have been so afraid of that they wouldn’t risk anything.
The place was a madhouse for the next week or so. The Greens had arrived, and quickly upgraded the security to modern standards. Major changes included a vehicle gate at the only entrance to the private drive, video surveillance with motion capture, motion sensors, and a Pack-wide alarm system. That wasn’t something he had needed before because of the Pack mind link, but my Pack wasn’t like the others. Not only could I not communicate like that without a wolf, but we had people from multiple Packs involved in living and working here.
While he and the boys were busy with that, Theresa and the girls had taken on the safe rooms. Physically, they were in good shape; they did change out some of the batteries with newer technology and changed all the lighting over to LED to extend battery life. Each house had its own small safe room, good for a week or so. The huge Pack safe room under my house was a completely different challenge. Moe wanted it stocked and ready for an extended siege, enough so everyone we had could stay in there for a month or more. The boys bought a panel truck, and Tom set it up so I owned a shell catering company. We started ordering from restaurant supply companies and making huge Sam’s Club runs, and soon had the food storage room filled.
Technology got an upgrade as well. I had the phone company run fiber optic high speed internet lines to each of the houses. Then they ran dedicated lines between the server in my office, Moe’s basement and the Spencer’s basement. Moe set up a high-tech security office in their basement, complete with video screens. This was critical since didn’t have the numbers to keep more than one person on patrol at a time, with another in the basement.
They started patrols immediately, in human form on ATV’s or snowmobiles during the day and in wolf form at night. So far, nothing. We were prepared, though. The Greens had brought half an arsenal of weapons with them, and I bought the other half through a firearms dealer Tom trusted. We made sure each house and safe room was armed and ready.
I talked with Moe about how best to protect Mark’s family, so he set up protection details. We had Tom hire Elizabeth Green as his receptionist; not only did it give her some real-world experience, but it keeps him safe and gives us a wolf in town to monitor for strangers. We also got Luke Green’s mate Katy to enroll in the same college Mark attended; she would provide low-key security for him on campus. I had Moe talk to them all about what it meant to be under their protection, and what he needed from them. They weren’t leaving the neighborhood without at least one werewolf escorting them. They were too important to me.
The volunteers from the other Packs had also arrived and were settling in. Melanie Schefter had moved into my old bedroom in the house, and had taken over the walls of the office. Every time I went in there I was amazed at how much information she could find, and the relationships she uncovered. She seemed happy, but was very shy around men, which was understandable. I warned Matthew and John that they should stay away, and they did.
Nadine Anderson had taken over the guest bedroom, and her daughter was staying in the small room next to her. She was working closely with Melanie to map out the Pack membership and relationships. She was starting to show interest in Matthew, even though they weren’t mates. It was good to see her moving forward again.
Richard and Doris Darling took one of the smaller houses, and he was starting to dig into the contracts and alliance data we could find. He was good at finding the human legal system documents that the Packs had to use to blend in.
The final piece was the first to volunteer but the last to arrive, the Spencer family from the Winnepeg pack. Tom had set it up so my ‘research’ company hired him, and arranged for a green card since they were Canadian. They took the house next to the Greens, and Josh set up his computer system in the basement. I don’t have a clue as to what half the stuff was, but it was impressive. He was a talented hacker, and was thrilled to be let loose on this job- especially knowing that the Packs wouldn’t use human law enforcement. His Mom, Angela, was homeschooling him and their daughter Jane, and his father Carl was starting to dig through the financial data we were collecting.
Through all this, I was feeling kind of helpless. I got the cast replaced, and was looking at seven more weeks with it on. Back when I had wolf healing, it would have been healed in a couple days. I missed that, I missed my parents, I missed my Pack, I missed my mate. I might be the Alpha of this group, but I was also the pregnant, hormonal, craving filled eighteen-year-old girl who could break down crying at any moment. Marge and Mabel tag teamed me, forcing me to eat better and sending me off for naps for the first time since my preschool days.
The weeks moved on and on, moving through what I called the Dark Ages of a North Dakota winter. The nights were long and cold, and we would wake up well before sunrise and it would be pitch black outside before dinner. The Pack had come together as a group, and I was pleased with the progress we were making. I had given them a goal- to bankrupt Alpha Goodwin of the St. Cloud Pack by the end of April. So far the oil market was cooperating, prices had gone even lower to $29 a barrel. Oil production in the Bakken fields no longer made sense, and mineral rights were worth little.
I wished I could see his face when his accountant explains his capital gains tax bill to him.
We were working to make things more difficult for him; contracts were being cancelled, insurance rates raised. OSHA inspectors were making unannounced inspections. The insurance company decided to cancel its coverage, and new policies were significantly more expensive. The bank decided not to refinance the balloon mortgage on his warehouse. All of this we did, and watched the results of, thanks to Josh hacking his email server.
As March turned into April, I was heading into my sixth month and my belly was starting to balloon. I felt fat and uncomfortable and I still had a long way to go. It didn’t help that my libido was in overdrive, and my mate was still back in Brainerd. Our Saturday Night Skype was now my favorite time of the whole week. He arranged it so he could have his iPad on in the parking lot of a local restaurant, and he could talk to me without fear of being discovered by his father. “Hi baby, how are you feeling?” I smiled as his face came up on the screen.
I was sitting up in my bed, my iPad perched on my legs and my rounded belly. “I’m feeling like I want my mate with me,” I said. “Well, that and I’m huge. And I have to pee all the time.” As I was talking, one of the boys decided to roll over inside me. The screen shifted as a leg moved under the screen.
“What was that?”
“Here, watch.” I picked it up and pointed the camera down, it looked like a couple of bulldogs fighting under a rug as both babies jockeyed for position. “They’re active tonight, I think they miss you.” Craig had gotten over his anger at Mark for impregnating his mate, eventually, and they had talked about how they were going to make this work. Craig was going to treat them like his own, but Mark would be involved as well.
“I miss you too, you sexy beast you.”
I snorted. “I don’t feel sexy, I feel like I swallowed a basketball.”
“You don’t see like I do. If I was there, the things I’d do…”
“Don’t promise what you can’t deliver, Craig. I’m too horny to mess with right now.”
“Do you trust me, Ella?”
“Of course!”