Moon Sworn

Chapter 9

Murderer. The word seemed to echo around my aching brain with a resonance that was both familiar and frightening.

Was I a murderer?

No, something inside said. Then, frighteningly, yes.

I grabbed my coffee with a hand that was shaking, and wasn’t entirely sure whether it was due to the weakness still washing through my body or that whispered revelation. I finished the coffee in one quick gulp that scalded my throat, then pushed to my feet. The room spun violently, and it was only my grip on the table that kept me upright.

“Am I under arrest?” I said, through gritted teeth.

“Not yet.” He leaned back in his chair and continued to study me through slightly narrowed eyes. “But you and your brother should consider yourselves to be persons of interest.”

“If you do the damn check, you’ll discover we shouldn’t be.” I spun and headed for the front door.

A chair scraped backward, then footsteps followed me up the hall. “One more question,” he said, as I flung open the front door.

“What?” I said it without looking back or even stopping.

“There’s very little blood on your car and the damage—though extensive—doesn’t look recent. Also, if you hit the roo hard enough to roll the car several times, why isn’t its body anywhere in the immediate vicinity?”

Interesting observations, both of them. “Can I see the car?”

“No. And don’t leave town, Hanna.” He said it softly, but his words seemed to echo across the night as I retreated down the street.

I was a suspect.

And the worst of it was, even I wasn’t so sure that I shouldn’t be. Everything was so screwed up—both this situation and my mind—that right now, anything seemed possible.

I hit the main street and turned to head back to the villa, then paused.

Harris had said that Evin used the phone in the pub. Why would he do that when there was a perfectly usable phone at the villa?

With curiosity stirring, I spun around and headed for the pub. It was easy enough to find. All you had to do was follow the noise. Music and laughter ran riot through the air, and the aromas of wolves, beer, sweat, and humanity overlapped one another—a mix that was both enticing and repellant.

The building reminded me of something you’d see in an old Western. It might have been constructed out of red brick rather than wood, but it was two stories, with wide verandas on both levels and old-fashioned swinging doors.

Obviously, no one was worried about security in this place. But then, if this was a werewolf town, it’d be a brave soul that tried to steal anything.

I pushed through the doors and stepped into the main bar. The place was packed, and it was hard to see the bar let alone Evin or a phone.

I looked around for a moment, then approached a group of women standing to the left of the doorway. Three were wolves, the other two human.

“Excuse me,” I said, catching the eye of the tallest woman. She had dark skin, dark hair, and a somewhat broad nose, and she reminded me a little of Harris, except that her eyes were a warm brown. “Can you tell me if there’s a public phone here?” I had to raise my voice to be heard above the din.

“At the back,” she shouted, pointing with her glass.

I waved her a thanks and headed that way. Everyone was so tightly packed it was difficult to get past anyone without actually touching them, and while the experience wasn’t exactly unpleasant, it wasn’t really exciting, either. Which was weird. I mean, I was a female werewolf without a mate, and this bar was full of males in the prime—and not so prime—of their lives. Once upon a time, I would have been dancing and flirting, and generally having a good time as I squished past them all. But my soul mate was dead and it felt like a chore. Like something I had to put up with, then escape.

No, that little voice inside whispered, it’s not that. Ben lost his soul mate, and he still desires. He can still enjoy sex and the company of others.

I didn’t even bother trying to recall who Ben was. My memories were obviously going to take their own sweet time returning.

I eventually found the phones at the rear of the room near the two bathrooms, but Evin wasn’t there. Maybe he’d made his call and was somewhere else in this cauldron of humanity and wolves. I couldn’t smell him, but that wasn’t really surprising given the sheer number of male wolves in the room.

I found a spare chair in the corner and stepped up, looking out over the sea of dark heads in an attempt to find a red-gold one. There were several blonds and the occasional brown, but no redheads. Maybe he’d gone back to the villa.

I stepped down and pushed my way back through the crowd. But I was barely halfway across the room when I ran nose first into a rather solid-looking chest. It felt like I was hitting a brick wall.

“Ouch,” I said, rubbing my nose as I stepped back and looked up. And up. Christ, he had to be at least six and a half feet tall.

His skin, like that of many of the wolves in the room, was dark, and his face was flat and broad of nose. His mouth was small and pinched looking, and his eyes …

Something within me shivered.

His eyes were brown, but there was little warmth in them, little humanity.

“Little lady, you just spilled my drink.”

“Sorry.” Then I glanced at his hands and realized he wasn’t even holding a glass. My gaze shot up to his again. There was something snakelike about his smile. “Would you mind moving out of my way?”

There were several men behind him, watching the two of us and smiling in anticipation. I had a feeling that this—whatever this was—was a game they’d played often.

“I’m afraid I can’t move until I get a kiss in replacement for my drink.” He reached for my waist, but I slapped his hand away.

Something flickered in his eyes. He didn’t like being rejected. Well, tough.

“Move,” I said. “Or I will make you move.”

He laughed and glanced over his shoulder. “Hear that? You think I should be scared?”

“Please,” I said, with the barest hint of a growl running through my voice. “Just move.”

He grabbed me, moving so fast I didn’t have time to stop him, and dragged me against his body. He smelled of old sweat and rotting grass. Not a pleasant combination.

“Kiss me,” he said, as the men behind him began to egg him on, “and then you can go. Just one little kiss.”

“Over my dead body.”

“It would be my pleasure,” he whispered, and swooped.

I shifted my face so that the kiss landed on my cheek rather than my lips then reached back, grabbing his fingers and yanking them backward as hard as I could. Bone snapped and he hissed in pain. But pleasure flicked through his eyes and his excitement surged around me, thick and hungry.

He got off on pain. Great.

So I gave him something else to get happy about, and kneed him in the nuts as hard as I could. And apparently I was stronger than I knew, because he went down like a ton of bricks. His friends—charmers that they were—

jumped out of the way rather than trying to help him.

“I did ask you nicely to move,” I said, then looked up as the crowd parted and footsteps approached, to meet the gaze of an unhappy-looking Harris. The man obviously had a nose for trouble.

He looked from me to the man-mountain writhing on the floor, and I swear a slight smile touched his lips. But when his gaze met mine again, his expression was all dour and businesslike.

“I guess I should have also warned you to stay out of trouble,” he said, voice heavy.

I held up my hands. “Hey, he grabbed me and wouldn’t let go, even though I did ask nicely.”

He glanced down at the man unconscious on the floor, then motioned to the two men who’d let their friend fall.

“Get him out of here.”

They scrambled to obey, dragging their unconscious friend out the door. It was interesting to note that no one seemed too worried about the fact that he’d been felled by a stranger.

Harris’s gaze came back to me. There was little emotion to be seen in the blue of his eyes, and once again it reminded me of someone else. I wished I could remember who.

“I think you’d better come with me.” His gravelly voice was firm, and it was obvious he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Of course, part of me wanted to say just that, but it wasn’t exactly the wisest course of action when I had no idea what the hell was going on. So I blew out a frustrated breath and followed him out of the bar. At least I didn’t have to fight my way through—the crowd parted for Harris as easily as the sea for Moses.

“I’ll escort you home,” he said, once we were out the door. “Just to ensure you don’t get yourself into any more trouble.”

“I can handle myself.” I rubbed my arms lightly. The night air seemed a lot cooler now than it had when I’d entered the bar. Maybe my sunburn was finally starting to heal.

“You probably can, but Denny doesn’t like being taken down by anyone, let alone by a woman.” His blue gaze met mine, assessing, calculating. A wolf undecided whether I was friend or foe. It was mutual. “Watch yourself, because he’s likely to seek retribution.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So warn him off.”

“I will. But it won’t make a blind bit of difference. And until he actually tries something, I can’t do anything.”

“If he tries to get back at me, he’ll regret it.”

He didn’t smile. Didn’t frown. Didn’t really react in any way at all, in fact. It made me wonder at the reasons for the tight control.

“His dad is the pack second,” he said evenly. “He’s well connected, so watch how you react.”

Don’t damage him too much, in other words. I smiled grimly and shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “So what pack runs this town?”

“West. Remy West is the leader, although you won’t often see him in town. He dislikes tourists.”

That raised my eyebrows. “Then why open the town for tourism? If these lands are pack owned, you have the legal right to restrict entry.”

He snorted softly. “Not if the land has some significant natural feature. In such cases, the government insists it be available for all.”

“And Dunedan has a significant natural feature other than red dust, heat, and ocean?”

Amusement briefly twitched his lips and lent his stern features a surprising amount of warmth. “We have what is known as a fringing reef, which means the coral starts right at the water’s edge. It’s rare, and therefore significant.”

“I’m guessing the pack makes a whole lot of money from that significant feature.”

“We all live rather comfortably,” he agreed.

I studied him for a moment, then said, “You don’t look like the rest of the pack. Why’s that?”

He slanted me a sideways glance. “You don’t mind getting personal, do you?”

I shrugged. “When you can’t remember anything of importance, you quickly learn to ask questions, personal or not.”

He was silent for a moment, but his gaze roamed across the darkness and there was an alertness about him that suggested he was ready for trouble. If that trouble was Denny, then he could relax. Werewolf or not, I didn’t think he’d be capable of walking for a day or so. I really had hit him hard.

“My mother came from a different pack, hence the blue eyes and lighter skin.”

“And I’m guessing the pack never let you forget that you weren’t entirely one of them.”

His gaze flicked to me. “What makes you think that?”

“Because I know what it feels like to be unwanted by the pack.”

“That’s an odd statement,” he said, “given your brother has been heard to say that his upbringing was happy.”

I shrugged. “That doesn’t mean mine was.”

“Indeed.” But again, I got the impression he just didn’t believe me.

The caravan park came into view. Few lights were on and the caravans were little more than hulking shapes in the darkness. The perfect place for an ambush, except the cool air was free of any scent. The only people out in this darkness were Harris and myself.

“I can make it the rest of the way by myself,” I said. “You don’t need to baby-sit me.”

“I’m protecting my packmates, not you.” It was said as flatly as he said everything else, but this time, the teasing hint of amusement touching his lips also reached his eyes.

I smiled. “Good night, Officer Harris. I daresay I’ll be seeing you around.”

“Not in any official capacity, I hope.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Does that mean you’re open to unofficial approaches?”

“No. It simply means stay out of trouble.”

“I’m not sure I’m capable of doing that.” And the truth of that statement echoed right through my very being.

Trouble and I were old mates. Of that I was sure.

“Good night, Hanna,” he said, then turned and loped off into the darkness. I watched him disappear, then headed past the caravans and to the villa.

Evin was sitting on the sofa drinking a beer, his bare feet up on the coffee table. “There’s more in the fridge,”

he said, as I entered the room and closed the glass sliding door.

“Thanks, but I’m more a champagne person.” And why wouldn’t my own brother know that? I dropped down on the other sofa and crossed my legs. “So tell me about our pack.”

He raised a pale eyebrow. “Why? You’ll remember it soon enough.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” I hesitated, then added, “You had a happy childhood?”

“Why?”

“Because I feel like I didn’t. When you mentioned Mom before, I had this very weird feeling.” I hesitated. “And yet if you were happy, why wasn’t I?”

He suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Well, you did have the tendency to get into trouble. Some of the stories about you and—”

He stopped dead and confusion crossed his face.

“Me and who?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, and took a long drink of beer.

And again I wondered if he was telling the truth. He seemed to be, but that didn’t mean he actually was.

Was I always this damn suspicious of my own brother? Because I did believe he was my brother—even if he wasn’t the one I remembered or wanted—but there was little else coming out of his mouth that appeared to be the truth.

“Tell me about our family, then.”

“There’s really not much point when you’ll remember soon enough.”

It was said with just a touch of impatience, and I raised my eyebrows. “There’s no harm in humoring me, is there?”

“I honestly don’t know. I guess not.”

Which, as comments went, was odd. There seemed to be a lot of that going around.

He took another long drink of beer, then crushed the can and lobbed it toward the trash. “We’re a fairly large family unit for our pack. Mom met Dad fairly late, but she made up for it. Beside me, there’s a younger brother and a set of twins. Two girls.”

Sisters. I had sisters. Something twisted in my stomach and an odd sense of sadness and regret rose.

“What are their names?”

“Our brother is Raynham, and was named after my mother. The twins are Jobie and Nelia.” He glanced at me.

“I’m guessing by your expression you don’t remember them.”

“No.” How can you remember someone when you’ve never even met them? The question rose out of the mire of my mind, clear and strong. “What are they like?”

He smiled. “Raynham is the studious type. He likes his books and computers. Nel is the adventurous one. She’s stubborn and strong, and has a nose for trouble. A smaller version of you, basically.”

“And Jobie?”

“A homebody. She’s already saying that when she grows up, she wants nothing more than a soul mate and babies. Lots of babies.”

Which is what I want. And something I’ll never achieve. Not without someone having them for me, anyway. I rubbed my head wearily and wondered if the ache was ever going to fade enough to bring back memories and understanding. Or was this pain, and the fleeting, annoyingly incomplete memories, all I was ever going to get?

Then I frowned as the rest of his words hit. When she grows up? “Just how old are they?”

“Raynham’s seven. The twins are five.”

Shock rippled through me. I was more than twenty years older than any of them. No wonder I didn’t know them—I’d left the pack long before they’d even been born.

My gaze swept Evin. Even he looked younger than me. “How old are you?”

He hesitated. “Twenty-four.”

And that just seemed so wrong I wanted to be sick. My brother shouldn’t be that young. He just shouldn’t.

But it also made him far older than our other siblings. So why didn’t I know him? He might be younger, but he was old enough to have been around during my time with the pack. Surely to God I couldn’t have forgotten my own brother—not to the extent that he seemed a complete and utter stranger.

“You mentioned Raynham being named after our mother, but you haven’t mentioned our father. Why do I have a feeling that I have no father?”

“Maybe because you told him before you left that, as far as you were concerned, he ceased to exist.” His gaze met mine rather than sliding away, but I nevertheless sensed the lie.

I didn’t have a dad. Not a dad that had played a part in my upbringing, anyway. My dad had died long before I was born.

Part of me wanted to grab Evin and shake him, make him tell me the truth. But I couldn’t. I had an odd sense that the web that had been woven around me was elaborately constructed, and while Evin might be a part of it, he wasn’t a controlling part. He was just a player, like me. Hell, for all I knew, he might be as trapped in this mess as I was. Until I knew where all these lies led, I had to remain as I was—confused, angry, and maybe even a little frightened.

Of course, it was also possible that I was crazy. That there was no plot against me, and that my depression over my soul mate’s death was slipping into neurosis.

No, that inner voice said. No!

Evin rose abruptly. “I’m off to bed. You’d best be getting some sleep, too.”

“Probably.” Except that I wasn’t sleepy. “But I think I’ll watch TV for a little bit.”

He shrugged, gave me a sketchy wave goodnight, then disappeared into his bedroom. I leaned across to the sofa and grabbed the remote, idly flipping channels and trying to find something decent on. The news and the shopping channel were about as interesting as it got.

I threw the remote back on the sofa, then got up and made myself a cup of coffee.

What I needed, I thought, as I wrapped my fingers around the mug and leaned back against the counter, was a laptop. With it, I could do some investigating of my own. At the very least, I could do a search for that other murder I was half remembering and uncover whether it was real or just a figment of my twisted imagination.

There wasn’t anything resembling a laptop in the main living room, and I couldn’t remember seeing one in my bedroom. But Evin might have one. It was worth asking, anyway.

“Hey, bro,” I said, not bothering to raise my voice. He’d hear me if he was awake, and given he’d only just gone to bed, I doubted he’d be asleep yet.

“What?” he said, sounding less than pleased.

“Have you got a laptop with you?”

“Why?”

That definitely sounded like something my brother would say. “Because I want to do a search for a killing similar to the one we found today.”

“Why don’t you just let the police do their fucking job and drop the matter?”

Because keeping my mind busy keeps the pain and the anguish at bay, that little voice said. But I couldn’t—

wouldn’t—admit something like that to Evin.

“Because I’m curious, that’s why. I just want to know if there was another killing elsewhere, or whether I’m simply imagining it.”

“What does it matter if there was?” Footsteps echoed lightly. He might be arguing, but he was getting up, which meant he did indeed have a laptop.

“It doesn’t matter, but it will solve my curiosity.”

“You know the old saying about curiosity and the cat,” he said, as he entered the living area with the laptop tucked under one arm.

“Then it’s just as well I’m a werewolf, isn’t it?”

He snorted softly. “And I’m guessing that if I didn’t have a laptop, you’d just go out and find yourself one.”

I grinned. “You’re learning, little brother.”

“I certainly am,” he muttered, and handed me the computer. “Promise me you’ll drop the matter if you don’t find anything.”

“If I don’t find anything, I will.”

“And if you do find something, talk to Harris. Let him handle it.”

“I’ll talk to Harris.” Whether I let him handle it without sticking my nose in it was another thing entirely.

Evin grunted and half turned away, then paused. “Why is this so important to you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, honestly enough. “It just feels like unfinished business, for some reason.”

He shook his head. “Hanna, we work security for the pack. We roam boundaries and keep rabble off pack lands. Murder, in any way, shape, or form, does not enter our realm of experience.”

I worked for the pack? That seemed so damn unlikely that laughter bubbled up inside of me. It didn’t escape, but only because of an extreme effort of will.

“Look, I may have simply read about it in the newspaper. If that’s the case, then Harris will be more than aware of the connection, and I can let it slide.”

“Then that’s what I’m hoping for. We’re here to relax and recuperate, not chase after ghosts and get caught up in murder investigations.”

“So tomorrow I’ll relax.”

He snorted again—but this time it was a sound of disbelief. “I’m beginning to think that’s not in your nature.”

I had a vague suspicion he was right. “Night, little brother.”

He half waved as he headed back to his bedroom. I fired up the laptop as I walked across to the sofa and sat down, then waited for it to pick up the Internet connection. When Google finally appeared on the screen, I typed in “murder” and “red-horned devil” in the search area.

And discovered there were apparently hundreds of murders committed by red-horned devils the world over. I refined the search area, hitting the Australia-only button, and reduced the number of murders down to only a couple. One in Brisbane and two in Sydney.

I clicked the links and checked out the newspaper articles related to both murders. Of the two Sydney murders, one was a woman who’d been found hanged in the closet of her home, and the other a man who been woodchipped. Apparently, both methods of murders reflected crimes they’d spent time in prison for. The Brisbane murder was a little different, in that the woman never spent time behind bars. She was the victim of a hit-andrun—the very crime she’d been acquitted of several months previously.

None of the murders was the one that sat like a bad smell at the back of my mind. I leaned back against the sofa and frowned at the computer.

There were definitely similarities in all three crimes, and I had no doubt that there was a connection between them all. But what about my crime? Why wasn’t that in the news?

Maybe I needed to refine the search more. By state, for instance—only my memory failed to come up with where I lived. I shoved the laptop on the sofa beside me, then jumped up and walked to the bedroom. I grabbed my wallet and dragged out my license, this time actually taking the time to look at the address.

Cona Creek, Queensland.

Not a place that sounded or felt right.

I tucked the license back into the wallet then headed back to the laptop. A search for Cona Creek revealed very little about the place—even Google maps didn’t show a whole lot, with the satellite pics revealing little more than dirt and trees. Although I supposed if it was pack land, then there may not be a town, as such. Many packs preferred the scattered approached to communal living rather than the clustered development favored by humans and packs like the one that owned Dunedan.

None of which helped me get any closer to uncovering the who and what behind the murder that was lurking in the recesses of memory.

I tried variations of the search but still came up empty-handed. Maybe a kill order had been placed on the story—but why would they do that when the other stories were already out there?

Once again, I just didn’t know.

It was a fucking frustrating sensation.

I gave up and turned off the computer. Maybe what I needed was sleep. With any sort of luck, tomorrow would bring new ideas and fresh memories.

S omeone was knocking heavily. Bam, bam, bam it went, relentless and loud. It took me a few minutes to realize the noise was outside my head rather than inside, and I opened a bleary eye.

I was still in that small, uninspiring villa bedroom. The nightmare gremlins hadn’t decided to transport me back to my real life, wherever and whatever that was.

“What?” I said, then winced. Speaking seemed to aggravate the daggers in my head. Apparently, I still had my headache, too.

“Harris is here to see you, Hanna. You need to get up.”

“What time is it?” I glared blearily at the clock on the bedside table, but the little numbers weren’t making a whole lot of sense.

“It’s nearly midday. Get dressed. I’ll have a coffee waiting.”

“Right.” I flung off the blanket and sat up. The room spun violently around me, and my stomach reacted to the sensation by leaping up my throat. God, I felt awful, and I had no idea why. It wasn’t as if I’d taken whatever the damn tablet was that Evin had kept insisting I take.

But maybe that was the problem. Maybe this general feeling of crappiness was a result of coming down off whatever the drug was.

I swallowed heavily and pushed carefully to my feet. A glimpse out the window revealed bright sunshine and blue skies, so I grabbed a tank top and a pair of shorts, and padded out barefoot.

Harris was sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter, sipping coffee and eating toast.

“Nice to see you’ve made yourself at home,” I said, looking around for Evin but not seeing him. I did see another coffee cup and two bits of buttered toast waiting on the counter, so I sat down on the stool next to Harris and slid the coffee toward me. “Where’s my brother gone?”

“Into town to grab the paper.” Harris looked at me, amusement touching the corners of his blue eyes. It changed his features from merely handsome to extraordinary. “He did mutter something about needing the break from baby-sitting.”

I was tempted to snort, but it would have hurt my head. I took a sip of coffee, wished it wasn’t so damn bitter, and said, somewhat gingerly, “So why are you here? Not to give my brother a break from the baby-sitting duties, I take it.”

“No.” The amusement fell away from his face. “I made a few inquiries, and it appears you are indeed Hanna London, a border guard and troublemaker from the Cona Creek London pack.”

“You almost sound disappointed.”

“It isn’t often my instincts are wrong.” He shrugged. “I spoke to Tyson London and he backed up everything Evin has said.”

Tyson. Something within me shivered at the sound of that name, so obviously it had once meant something to me. Something unpleasant.

“Did you run any other checks?”

He raised his eyebrows. “The word of a pack leader isn’t enough?”

“Pack leaders aren’t infallible, you know. They lie and scheme as much as the rest of us.”

“You really haven’t got a very high opinion of pack alphas, have you?”

“Apparently not.” I pulled the toast toward me and picked up a piece. “Does this mean I’m no longer a suspect in the crime?”

“No, it simply means you’re not lying about who you are. The whole crime thing is another issue entirely.”

And if he was drinking our coffee and eating toast, then I very much doubted he was here in any official capacity. He seemed the type to be a stickler for rules—written and unwritten—and regular cops didn’t usually sit at a suspect’s kitchen counter eating their toast and drinking their coffee, because any evidence gathered that way would be inadmissible in court.

Which didn’t mean he wasn’t fishing.

“Has the autopsy happened yet?”

He took another drink then shook his head. “These things take a time in this part of the world. I did, however, read about similar crimes in Sydney and Brisbane.”

I nodded. “They’re revenge crimes, just like this one. Which suggests there’s a fairly big organization behind it. There has to be, given they’ve hit people in four places now.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Four?”

“I Googled the murders last night. None of them matched the information my—admittedly faulty—memory is providing.”

“Then how would you even know about it if you didn’t read about it, either online or in the newspapers?”

“I don’t know.” I finished the rest of the toast, then wiped the crumbs off my hands. “Have you sent an information request to the Directorate? This would be their sort of gig.”

“Marcus Landsbury was human, and he was killed by someone wearing a devil mask. That isn’t Directorate territory.”

“It is when the person wearing the mask isn’t human.”

The last hint of friendliness dropped from his gaze. “What makes you say that? There was no scent other than Landsbury’s at the crime scene.”

“And you didn’t find that odd? You’re a wolf. You should have been able to smell the killer given how fresh the kill was.”

He didn’t say anything to that, so I continued. “Besides, Landsbury said his killer was small but he moved him easily. That in itself signals nonhuman involvement, because most humans simply couldn’t have lifted a man his size with any sort of ease.”

“But neither of those is the reason you think there’s nonhuman involvement, is it?”

“No.” I hesitated. “I really do have no idea where half this stuff is coming from, but I didn’t kill Landsbury.”

“If I was accusing you of anything, we’d be down at the police station, not sitting here drinking coffee.”

Which didn’t mean he thought I was innocent. “Look, I keep getting this feeling that I was involved in investigating a similar case. Whether that was as someone who has a talent for talking to souls, or in a more official capacity, I can’t say.”

“If this other crime exists, then there’d at least be a record of it somewhere in the system—”

“Not if it’s a Directorate case.”

“True. But if it was a Directorate case, my sending in an official query about a possible copycat would have prompted a response. So far, it hasn’t.”

“The query would be red-flagged. How fast they get back to you depends on what other cases they have ongoing.” I hesitated. “It also might depend on which Directorate office picks it up.”

“It’ll go direct to Perth. That’s our closest main office.”

“Meaning if an Australia-wide alert hasn’t yet gone out, then it’ll be classed as low priority. You may not hear anything back for a few days.”

Curiosity stirred through his expression. “You seem to know a lot about the Directorate for someone who works as a pack border guard.”

“That’s the thing,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning against the countertop. “I really don’t think I’m a border guard.”

“Meaning your brother is lying?”

“No.” I blew out a breath. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“If Evin is lying, that means your pack leader is, also. And that’s one pretty big fabrication.” His gaze slid down my body then rose to meet mine again. I had absolutely no idea what was going on behind those blue eyes. “I’d have to ask, why would they bother?”

His words stung, though I don’t think he meant them to. “That’s what I need to find out. If this is all part of a fabrication, then why me, and why here?”

“Well, Dunedan is the middle of nowhere. If you wanted to get someone away from everything and everyone, then this is a pretty good start.”

I took another sip of coffee and briefly wondered if they sold other brands in the local store. This one, whatever it was, sucked. Although Harris didn’t seem to mind it.

“Dunedan is also wolf owned. For some reason, that strikes me as odd. If my memory loss is due to the machinations of others rather than an accident, then why not erase the memory of being a wolf?”

“Because you may erase the memory, but you can never erase the fact. A wolf—regardless of whether they remember what they are or not—will be affected on the onset of the full moon and will still change shape on the actual night.”

“True.” I took another drink, then winced and shoved the disgusting stuff from me. It was making my headache worse, not better. “But what if the whole object of the fabrication was to destroy and terrify? What if it was an act of vengeance designed solely for that purpose?”

“Then I’d have to say, that person has some pretty powerful enemies.” He studied me intently. “Do you have enemies that powerful?”

I snorted softly. “Are you really expecting an answer to that given the state of my memory?”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I guess not.”

“Good.” My own smile faded. “It makes the whole situation even more frustrating, though. And there’s no guarantee I’ll ever remember everything.”

“I doubt it’s possible to erase someone’s memory so completely. At least, not when that someone is as strongminded as you seem to be.”

I smiled at the jibe. “I think I’ve been called strong-minded—and worse—a few times in my life.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

I laughed. “The thing is, it is possible to erase someone’s memory. It is possible to give that person a completely new identity and life.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’ve witnessed this?”

“No.” I hesitated. “Yes.” I threw up my hands in confusion.

“Either way,” he said, “if all this is planned, then it means that either the erasing wasn’t entirely successful, or it was meant to be half-assed, to add to your frustration.”

I hope you enjoy the week you have remaining, that arrogant voice had said, but I very much doubt you will.

“You could be right,” I said gloomily.

“I usually am.” He finished his coffee and pushed the cup away. “Tell you what—I’ll do a more general search on your identity. I’ll search police, tax, and government records, and see if I can find anything untoward that will help clear up this situation one way or another.”

“That would be great.” At least then I might know whether this was a plot or merely the imaginations of a very sick mind. Mine, specifically. “But do me a favor?”

“That depends on the favor.”

“Don’t tell my brother.”

“Don’t tell your brother what?” Evin said behind us.