Embraced by Darkness (4 page)

I flicked through the files, scanning the information. Not all the women lived in Melbourne—one lived in Ballarat, a regional city in the heart of Victoria, and the other lived in Yarrawonga, a city on the border of Victoria and New South Wales.

And despite what Blake had said, all four women had actually disappeared at different times
after
their return home. The first victim had disappeared close to eight days after, and the other two at day three and day five. Adrienne had the shortest time gap—she’d vanished straightaway. None of the women had been seen since, and there’d been no credit or banking activity in any of their accounts.

The other women were remarkably similar in looks, too. They were all tall and athletic—the sort that looked as if they could run twenty miles without a drop of sweat marring their makeup—and all three had blond hair, and either blue or green eyes. Adrienne was the odd one out in that her hair was red and her eyes gray, but it wasn’t the classical red of our pack, more a wispy, dark-strawberry blond.

Which suggested Adrienne’s mom wasn’t red pack. Once upon a time, that would not have been possible, but just before we’d been kicked out of the pack, our grandfather had overturned the age-old policy that forbade the red pack breeding with anyone other than red pack members—a policy meant to maintain the so-called purity of the pack he and past alphas had prized so much—and had finally allowed the intermingling with other packs and colors. In an effort, of course, to counter the pack’s increasingly problematic fertility issues and the declining birthrate. It was a policy Blake had obviously allowed to continue if the pack was now prosperous.

I leaned back in the chair and stared at the screen. Was there something going on here? Or was Blake reading more into the situation than there really was? Okay, the women had seemingly disappeared, but the only thing all four had in common was the fact that they’d spent time on this island. But a lot of single women came through this place, so why would these four be the ones to disappear?

And why would the kidnappers wait rather than doing the deed when the women were on holiday far from family, friends, and their regular schedule?

It made no sense.

I frowned and rechecked the file for dates. One a month for the last three months. Adrienne was again the aberration, disappearing two weeks after the third woman. But that itself meant nothing. People disappeared every day, every hour, the world over, and many of them for reasons other than foul play.

I clicked back to the photos, and again was struck by their similarities. And Adrienne’s differences.

I tapped my fingers against the desk, intrigued despite myself. As much as I hated the man, I very much doubted Blake was crying wolf. Not when his own get was involved. Something
had
to be happening, no matter how unlikely it seemed from reading these files.

I needed to question the parents of the other women. Blake might have questioned one lot already, but he had an emotional investment in this whole mess and probably wouldn’t have been listening to the responses with a critical ear. He was a tyrant, not an investigator.

I closed the file and unhooked my phone from the USB port. What next? I scrubbed my hand across my eyes, then looked down at the time. Nearly four. I should try to sleep, but adrenaline was still pumping through my veins and the itch to move, to dance, skittered across my skin. And not human-type dancing, either.

While wolf clubs weren’t permitted on the island, they did have twenty-four-hour bars, complete with music—which, at this hour, was little more than an old man at a piano. There probably wasn’t going to be many people there right now, but going to the bar was a better option than going back to my villa and drinking alone. At the very least, I could talk to the bartender. He might even recognize the picture Blake had sent me.

I shoved my phone into my pocket, then pushed back my chair and rose. My footsteps echoed as I walked across the empty lobby, but the concierge still didn’t come out to greet me. Maybe he was asleep in his little back office.

Soft piano music greeted me as I entered the semidarkness of the bar, but underneath the tinkling rode the murmur of conversation. I stopped on the top step, allowing my eyes to adjust as I looked around. This particular bar was one of the smaller ones, but it was right on the beach and had one whole wall that could be opened up. On nice nights, patrons could spread out into the sand or stroll through the waves. Tonight that wall was closed—probably because the weathermen were predicting storms—but the floor-to-ceiling windows offered little obstruction to the view. Surprisingly, there were at least a dozen people in here. Most of them were couples who cuddled in the cozy booths that ringed the remaining walls, but there were at least five others who sat by themselves and sipped drinks. Probably staff who’d just finished, I thought, as I clattered down the stairs and walked across to the bar. They had that “over-it-all” expression that workers around the world seemed to get after a long shift.

The bartender wandered down from the other end and gave me a somewhat bored-looking smile—his usual expression, from what I’d seen in my time here on the island. “You’re up late, Ms. Jenson.”

“Got an emergency phone call from a relative’s mother,” I said, fudging the truth only a little. “Apparently my cousin hasn’t reported in for more than a week, and the mother is panicking.”

“Mothers tend to do that,” he said. “Would you like a drink?”

“Just a beer, thanks.” I waited until he poured the drink, then added, “My cousin apparently met a man here. Mom seems to think if I find that man, I’ll find her daughter.”

“You didn’t know she was here?”

I shook my head, then crossed my arms and leaned casually against his bar. With the low cut of my T-shirt, more than a small amount of breast was now on show. His gaze almost instantly wandered down. I might not want to play with him, but I wasn’t above using a few tricks to keep his thoughts on my assets rather than making sense of what I was saying.

“He was a tall, blond man with gray eyes and big ears. His name was Jim. Jimmy Denton, I think.”

He frowned, and his gaze rose briefly to mine. “That’s me.”

I looked him up and down. He was portly and middle-aged, and while he seemed like a nice man, I just couldn’t imagine someone as young and as vibrant as Adrienne wanting to dance with someone like this. Though stranger things
did
happen when the moon lust was upon us. “Ummm, you’re neither blond nor big-eared.”

He grinned. It was the first real expression I’d seen. “Thankfully. You sure your friend’s mom got the right name?”

Well, no, because I was relying on Blake’s report, and who knew how accurate that was? I pressed a button on my phone and retrieved the drawing. “This is a sketch of the man she’s looking for.”

“No, sorry, I can’t remember seeing anyone who looks like that working here.” He shrugged, his gaze wandering back down to my boobs. “But I could ask around, see if he was one of the transient workers, if you’d like.”

“That would be great.” I pressed another button, and retrieved one of the photos of Adrienne. “This is my cousin.” I showed him the picture. “Do you remember seeing her at all?”

He studied the photo for a moment, then nodded. “Now, her I remember.”

I raised my eyebrows at the amusement in his tone. “Why?”

“She was running around, asking all sorts of questions.”

“What sort of questions?”

“About some former guests—several women and a man, if I remember correctly. Some of the staff thought she might have been a private investigator, others a reporter. She was taking notes and stuff.”

“No one here saw the notes? Read anything she wrote by accident?”

“Not that I’m aware.” He paused, then said, “You know Jared Donovan, don’t you?”

I held back my smile. How could I not know Jared? The man had been trying to get into my pants for the last three days. And if ever there was a human who could tempt me to look past ingrained prejudices, then he was it. He was tall, blond and athletic, with long strong fingers and a totally wicked smile.

Had he been wolf, I would have jumped his bones in an instant. As it was, I flirted with him probably more than was wise but, as tempting as he was, I just couldn’t get past the whole human thing enough to bed him.

“I know him,” I said, after a sip of beer. “Why?”

“Well, he likes to chat up all the pretty girls, so there’s a good chance he talked to your friend. He might know more than me. I’ve got a wife, like.”

Meaning, obviously, that he was restricted in the bedding department, but Jared the serial flirt was not. Why did humans bother getting married if they resented the vows that kept them together and exclusive? It was a weird way of doing things. At least us wolves didn’t have that worry—once we made a vow to the moon, we were together for life. No ifs, buts, or maybes. Which is why we had to be very, very sure we’d found our soul mate before we committed. “Is Jared on tomorrow at all?”

“I think he’s manning the research station boat.”

“That service starts up at ten, doesn’t it?”

When he nodded, I lowered a shield and reached out psychically, quickly sorting through his thoughts and memories, looking for secrets or lies. There were a couple of odd smudges, as if someone had deliberately blurred certain memories, but it might have been alcohol induced, too. The results tended to look the same.

If someone
had
been in this man’s mind, then they were damn good, because I could find no other trace of them. And certainly there was nothing more to add to the information Jim had already told me.

“Anything else I can help you with, Ms. Jenson?” he said, barely skipping a beat as I withdrew from his thoughts.

“No. But thanks for helping.” I finished the rest of my beer, then, with nothing—and no one—else to amuse me, I headed back to my villa and tried to get some sleep. It was a long time coming, but I did eventually drift off, dreaming of bodiless faces who forced me off cliff tops.

I woke sweaty and less than rested. After showering, I got dressed, choosing tight shorts and another low-cut T, then grabbed my phone and wallet, and headed up to the hotel for breakfast and a little staff interrogation.

No one, it seemed, could remember seeing a staff member resembling the sketch Blake had sent. Plenty could remember Adrienne and, as the bartender had mentioned last night, they all seemed to think she was some sort of reporter or private investigator.

And she might have been, for all I knew. Occupations had been absent from Blake’s report, and I wasn’t about to ring him and ask. The less contact I had with that bastard, the better.

One interesting point
did
come out of my questioning, however. Despite Blake’s belief that she had danced with someone up here on the island, none of the staff could remember seeing her with anyone at all. She’d simply appeared on the island, stayed for several days questioning everyone who worked here, then left.

Which certainly smacked of reporter-like behavior. So if she was, how did she get onto the disappearances in the first place? The family trait of clairvoyance, perhaps? And had she come to this island investigating the disappearances, only to become a victim herself?

It certainly seemed that way.

But where did the sketch of the man parading as Jim Denton fit in?

There was the possibility that he was the man the other women had met on the island, and therefore the connection between the three disappearances. But if that were true, you’d think at least one of the staff would remember seeing him. But there wasn’t a glimmer of recognition anywhere.

I leaned back in my chair and studied the ocean foam as it crawled up the sand only feet from my table. The first thing I had to do when I got home was check whether the man the other women had met here matched the description Blake had given me. If he did, then at least I’d uncovered the connection between the man, the other women, and Adrienne. Although it still didn’t explain why no one here could remember him.

I glanced at my watch. It was nearly nine, so I only had an hour to kill before the research center opened to visitors. I ordered another cup of coffee, helped myself to some fruit and Danishes, and watched the cute waiter bustling around the room. My hormones were getting restless. Just as well I was going home to the man I cared about soon.

At ten I rose and wandered across to the little canteen that sold the entry tickets for the research center. Most of the activities on Monitor were included in the overall fees, but the research center and diving trips had to be paid for.

It wasn’t until I’d opened my wallet to grab some cash that I realized my driver’s license was missing. All my credit cards and cash were still there, but my license was gone. And no matter how much I looked in all the other little pockets or slots, I couldn’t see the damn thing.

Either I’d lost it or I’d somehow managed to leave it at home. I rang Rhoan, left a message for him to check the apartment—and to use the Directorate system to report it as missing if it wasn’t there—then walked across to the concierge. No licenses had been handed in, he said, but he’d let me know if it did appear.

With little else to do, I went down to the beach to wait for the little boat that would take me to the island. There was already an older couple waiting, and though they gave me a smile of greeting as I strolled up, they didn’t actually say anything, too wrapped up in each other’s company. Which was nice, I thought. I wondered if I’d ever find anyone to grow old with like that.