To Love a Wolf Read online

  Cooper looked over his shoulder to see Dennis peeking around the corner.

  He swore. “It’s a can of didn’t-I-tell-you-to-stay-behind-the-wall.”

  “I am behind the wall. Most of me, anyway,” he added. “Seriously, what’s in the can?”

  Cooper didn’t bother to answer. It would only prompt more questions. Instead, he popped the top of the can, then pointed it in the right direction and pressed the button on the top down hard, shooting a long line of solvent string all the way down the dark corridor.

  “You’re shitting me,” Dennis grumbled. “You yank us out of the hallway so you can play with Silly String? Um…Cooper, why is that stuff hanging in midair like that?”

  Cooper frowned at the long piece of dayglow pink string hanging magically two feet in the air at the far end of the hallway, then turned and looked at his friend.

  “That’s the trip wire you and your partner almost walked into. You know—the one that’s probably hooked to an explosive device of some kind.”

  * * *

  It took nearly three hours to clear the barn, even if Cooper ultimately found only two devices in there—the trip wire in the hallway attached to a homemade grenade hidden inside the wall, and a device attached to the main door. That one had been slightly more complicated since it was designed to set off a big cluster of black powder-filled pipe bombs if a small switch outside the barn wasn’t flipped before trying to swing either of the big doors open.

  Dennis was damn lucky, and he knew it. If either device had gone off while he and Karl had been in there, they’d be dead. Cooper was pretty sure neither one of them would let their curiosity get them into trouble again.

  Cooper and his teammates were still looking around the interior of the barn’s main room when Dennis came in. He’d gone out to the cruisers to talk to Jed and his brothers because they weren’t finding anything in here. The back rooms were empty or full of fifty-year-old crap that hadn’t been touched in forever, and the main area didn’t seem to be hiding anything suspicious, either. It looked like a good old boy’s home garage, complete with toolboxes galore, car parts everywhere, a busted up Chevy big-block V8 engine sitting in the middle of the floor, and a big chain hoist attached to the roof beams.

  “None of the Burke brothers are talking,” Dennis said, frustration clear in his voice. “They claim there’s nothing here to find.”

  “Then why the booby traps?” Alex asked sarcastically.

  “To protect their tools, or so they claim.” Dennis shook his head. “Look, at any other time, these guys would be looking at serious jail time just for shooting at us. The improvised devices in the barn would be the icing on the cake. But right now, my bosses are looking for people selling military explosives, not a bunch of rednecks building homemade pipe bombs. My informant swore there were military explosives here, and we haven’t found squat.”

  Cooper and the others were about to walk out when Alex stopped by the engine block on the floor. “What the hell? What am I smelling over here?”

  Dennis looked at Alex like he was on crack. “What does anyone smell in an old barn? Crap?”

  Brooks and Remy moved back to the engine and started sniffing, ignoring Dennis, who was saying he couldn’t smell a damn thing. Cooper joined them, even though his nose wasn’t much better than Dennis’s at the moment.

  “It’s coffee,” Remy said suddenly.

  Brooks nodded. “It’s faint, but I smell it too.”

  Remy, Brooks, and Alex dropped to their knees, looking for a trap door. But everything around the engine sounded just as solid as the rest of the barn.

  Cooper looked around, frowning as he realized the gears of the hoist were shiny with fresh oil. “Wait a minute. Why is the hoist so well taken care of, but that engine block looks like it hasn’t been worked on in twenty years?”

  His teammates stopped and looked at each other.

  “Shit,” Remy muttered. “We’re not smelling coffee around the engine—we’re smelling it under the engine. That big hunk of metal is a cover, like a rug over a trapdoor to a cellar. It just takes a hoist to move this particular rug.”

  “Get that chain around the engine,” Dennis said excitedly. “Let’s move it out of the way!”

  “Forget that,” Brooks said. “Get out of the way.”

  Cooper had half a second to wonder if maybe he should point out that there was an FBI agent standing right in their midst who had no idea they were werewolves. But before he could, Brooks grabbed the big old V8 engine with those equally big hands, jerking the thing up and tossing it to the side.

  Dennis gaped. No doubt wondering how even someone as big as Brooks had picked up an engine that easily weighed over six hundred pounds. Fortunately, the fed was more interested in the metal manhole cover Brooks had uncovered.

  Brooks and Remy pulled the cover away, revealing a dark hole. The smell of coffee coming from it was so strong even Cooper could smell it. Apparently, Dennis could, too.

  “What the hell is going on with the Starbucks coffeehouse aroma?” Dennis asked.

  “Coffee throws off scent dogs.” Alex grinned. “There’s something down there that the Burke boys don’t want a dog picking up on. Drugs, maybe. Or—hopefully—explosives.”

  Cooper reached into his demo bag and came out with two high-intensity light sticks. Ripping them out of their foil packages, he popped the glass vial inside, then gave them a shake and dropped them down the hole. They fell about a dozen feet before bouncing off something and coming to a stop.

  Cooper went down on one knee and stuck his head in the hole. He could easily see the wooden and metal military-style boxes bathed in the green glow coming from the sticks.

  “We have boxes,” he announced.

  Giving the guys a grin, he hopped on the metal rungs set into one side of the concrete-lined hole and slowly moved down them. He didn’t think there was much chance of running into a booby trap down here, but he took his time anyway, checking out each rung of the ladder carefully before putting his weight on it. This time, Dennis didn’t follow until he looked up and gave the all clear.

  Taking out his flashlight, Cooper shined the beam around the twelve-foot-square space. The floor was concrete too, solid and completely dry. And all around the small room stacked to the ceiling were military shipping crates and ammo boxes. He saw labels identifying M4 carbines, matching rifle ammunition, hand grenades, claymore mines, anti-tank rockets, and in one corner, a single, easy-to-recognize, wire-bound box.

  He was pulling back the closure wires on the lid when Dennis joined him. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Cooper lifted the lid and saw exactly what he expected to see nestled in their aluminum foil outer bags—green rectangles one inch thick by two inches wide by almost eleven inches long. The words in yellow on top were clear and distinct. Charge. Demolition. M112.

  “It’s C-4 explosive,” he confirmed.

  Dennis took out his notebook and compared the lot number on the blocks of explosive with the numbers written down. “It’s a match. This stuff is from the same lot the lab techs said was used to make the bomb.”

  Cooper frowned at the half-empty box of explosive charges.

  “Why the hell don’t you look happier?” Dennis asked. “This is the frigging break we were looking for. For all we know, Jed Burke is the person who planted the bomb in that parking garage.”

  Cooper shook his head. “Yeah, it’s a break. But you don’t seriously believe the person who made those low-tech piece of shit devices in the barn also made that complex work of art—the IED you have in your forensic labs—do you?”

  Dennis hesitated, his brow furrowing. “Okay, maybe not. But even if Burke didn’t make the device, he and his brothers provided the explosives to the man who did. Once we put pressure on them, one of those assholes is going to crack and give up the buyer.”

  “Maybe,” Cooper said.

  Dennis swore as he put his notebook away. “What the fuck is up with you? Can you at
least be happy we have a solid lead?”

  Cooper jabbed a finger at the box. “How many blocks of C-4 do you see in there?”

  Dennis looked confused, but then leaned forward to count. “Fifteen.”

  Cooper locked eyes with him in the green glow. “A case of C-4 comes with thirty blocks. The bomber used three to make that bomb at the industrial area. That’s a lot of explosive still left unaccounted for. Enough for another four bombs, the same size as the last—or one really big device that’s four times as deadly.”

  Dennis didn’t say anything. Probably because he was trying to figure out what the chances were that some other psycho had bought the explosives, instead of their psycho. He must not have liked the odds, because his shoulders slumped in defeat.

  “Shit,” Dennis muttered, summing up the situation perfectly.

  “Yeah,” Cooper agreed. “Shit.”

  * * *

  Cooper and his teammates hung out at the Burkes’ ranch for the rest of the afternoon along with the crime scene teams, ATF, DPD Bomb Squad, Army Criminal Investigation Division, and a dozen other organizations and offices who rolled on the scene to get their fingers in the pie. While they waited, Dennis and Karl took a run at Jed and his three brothers back at the FBI. Dennis called to report that none of them talked. And once the lawyers got involved, no one would be talking for days, not without grants of immunity and other legal BS that would take forever to iron out. Dennis might like to think they’d finally gotten a break in the case, but in a lot of ways, it didn’t seem like they were any closer than they’d been before.

  In between, Cooper thought about Everly. Damn, that woman was on his mind about every waking minute. She’d texted fifteen minutes ago, saying she was looking forward to seeing him that evening, and hoped he wouldn’t mind if they stopped by her dad’s house on the way to dinner so her family could meet him. He texted back telling her he didn’t mind at all. Funny thing was, he meant it. Granted, he hadn’t met a girlfriend’s parents since high school, but Everly was obviously close with her family. If meeting them was important to her, it was important to him.

  After texting Everly, he called Jim’s cell, but it went straight to an out-of-service message. Cooper frowned. That was weird.

  He Googled the phone number for the Doubletree Hotel where he and Everly had dropped him off the night before. Since Jim would be out hitting interviews, Cooper figured he’d just leave a message, but the woman at the front desk told him there was no Jim Wainwright registered there.

  “When did he check out?” Cooper asked.

  He heard clicking on the other end of the line as the woman tapped her computer keyboard. “I can’t find Jim Wainwright’s name anywhere in our system, sir. Are you sure he was staying here?”

  “I dropped him off there last night. So yeah, I’m sure he was staying there.”

  More clicking. “I’m sorry, but I’m still not finding anything, sir.”

  Cooper thanked the woman and hung up. Maybe Jim had already found a job and checked out early. While that made sense, it didn’t explain why his name wasn’t in the computer.

  Cooper shoved his phone in his pocket. He hoped Jim would call and tell him what the hell was going on because he didn’t like the uneasy feeling churning in his gut right then.

  Chapter 9

  Everly almost laughed at the expression on Landry’s face when he saw all the cars in front of her Dad’s two-story house—a dozen parked bumper-to-bumper in the long driveway, spilling onto the street.

  “I thought we were meeting just your father and brothers,” he said, a hint of alarm on his handsome face.

  She took his hand and tugged him along the walkway toward the front door. “You are, but my three oldest brothers—Armand, Claude, and Giles—are all married and have big families. Armand and his wife have six kids, and usually use two minivans to keep the noise to a minimum. Then there are all my cousins. They moved here about ten years ago. They show up with their families whenever my dad cooks a big meal.”

  “We’re having dinner?” He frowned. “I thought we were going out for dinner.”

  Everly stopped in front of the door, turning to smile at him. “We are. Don’t worry. I already told Dad that we’re not staying. If someone tries to convince you otherwise, just point them in my direction.”

  She closed the distance between them until they were only a few inches apart. His masculine scent was almost overpowering up close, and the urge to pull his head down for a kiss was just as strong. But she resisted. She had no doubt that several of her relatives were probably watching them through the big living room window. She didn’t mind kissing Landry in front of them, but she didn’t want to make that first impression more complicated than necessary.

  “There are going to be a lot of names coming at you in there, but I don’t expect you to remember any of them,” she said. “I’ll point out my brothers, and of course, my dad—Florian. Beyond that, just smile, nod, and shake hands. My brothers will try to crush your hand when they shake, but that obviously isn’t going to be a problem for you. Oh, and my sisters-in-law are huggers. But that just means they like you. It’s when everyone stares at you that you know you have problems.”

  Landry chuckled. “So, this is basically a test, huh?”

  She moved another step closer, letting her breasts press into his strong chest as her fingers entwined with his. “For them—not for me. You’ve already won me over.”

  Everly thought he was going to kiss her, but then he tilted his head to the side. “I hear giggling coming from inside. I guess we’re being watched.”

  She hadn’t heard anything, but didn’t doubt that her nieces and nephews were watching. They probably thought the idea of their aunt having a boyfriend was quite hilarious.

  “Shall we go in then?” she asked.

  Everly didn’t bother announcing herself as she led Landry inside. The kids had probably let everyone know they were here.

  As she expected, the whole extended family was in attendance, and they immediately crowded into the foyer to meet Landry. It was hard not to laugh as they all charged forward and gathered around them, but Landry slapped on a smile and greeted each person she introduced. It was like working a reception line at a wedding, but once Everly got Landry through her cousins and their kids, she finally had a chance to introduce one of her brothers.

  “Landry, this is Tristan. He’s the youngest of my brothers.”

  And my favorite, she almost said. But, of course, she couldn’t—even if it was true. That didn’t mean she didn’t like her other three brothers. It was just that they seemed so much older than Tristan—in temperament, if not in years. Of all her brothers, Tristan was the one she hung out with the most, even if he was ten years older than she was.

  “Nice to meet you,” Landry said, extending his hand. “Everly has told me a lot about you.”

  Tristan chuckled as he shook Landry’s hand. “Oh, I doubt that. But that’s okay. I’m just glad to finally have a chance to meet the man who saved her life.” Her brother smiled at her. “As you can imagine, my little sister is very precious to me—to all her brothers. It’s fortunate you were in that bank at the right time.”

  Everly resisted the urge to cringe. She hated when her brothers called her their little sister, like she was still seven years old. And precious? What the hell was she, a ring of power? Her tall, good-looking brother could be such a dweeb.

  “I’m glad I was there too,” Landry said. “I haven’t known Everly nearly as long as you have, but she’s very precious to me as well.”

  Funny how hearing Landry call her precious didn’t seem nearly as corny.

  Even so, she was about to remind Tristan that while she was his little sister, she could still post old photos of him as a goofy teenager all over the Internet. But before she could threaten him, her father walked into the living room followed by her three older brothers.

  The room fell silent as the patriarch of their family came out wiping his han
ds on a dish towel. He still had a few traces of flour up near the tops of his forearms, meaning he’d probably been making fresh pastry crust for a dessert. Her father was magic with desserts.

  He wiped off the last of the flour dust and handed the towel to his youngest granddaughter, Phoebe, asking her to run it back to the kitchen. Then he came closer, studying Landry openly. Her dad was over sixty, but looked younger thanks to few gray hairs and an unlined face. He was still tall and broad-shouldered, too. He wasn’t anywhere near Landry’s size, of course, but she could tell by the way he was eyeing her new boyfriend that he was deciding if he was a man worthy of his daughter. She could have told him that Landry was.

  “Landry, this is my father Florian, and my other three brothers—Armand, Claude, and Giles.” She pointed out each of her brothers as she introduced them. But unlike Tristan, none of them extended a hand in greeting. They simply stood there behind Dad—waiting.

  “You are a very large man, Officer Cooper,” her father finally said in his thick accent. “I can certainly understand now how you were able to deal with those bank robbers while protecting my daughter at the same time. Her mother would have approved as much as I do.”

  Everly blinked. Her dad had always been blunt to the point of rudeness with the guys she’d brought home, but he’d never mentioned her mother to any man she dated. That had to be a good start.

  “I wish I could have met her,” Landry said softly. “From what Everly tells me, your wife must have been an amazing woman.”

  Her father glanced at her, surprise clear in his blue eyes. He might never have mentioned her mother to any of her boyfriends, but neither had she.

  He smiled at Landry. “Yes, she was an amazing woman. Speaking of my wife, where are my manners, I haven’t even welcomed you into our home. The place is nearly a perfect replica of the farmhouse we had in France, with a few improvements. Come. I’ll show you around.”

  Everly followed in shock as her dad led Landry toward the kitchen. He’d never given her previous boyfriends a tour of the house either—first date or not.