Page 114 of Her Wolf

He’d forgotten to ask if the girl had lived there, or if she’d just been dumped there.

Bailey crossed the street, making sure no one else was out to see him slip around the back of the Duncan’s house.

The back door was ajar, and he went inside, easily tracking Lars through the noise the man made as he tossed out drawers. One of those drawers almost hit Bailey on the head when he rounded a corner.

“Fuck it, Lars!” Bailey ducked and slammed his back into the wall. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“With me?” Lars yelled, and then winced violently. He put fingers to his temples, glaring at Bailey for a second before going back to rummaging through a drawer.

Most of the desk’s contents were strewn on the floor—papers and files and a few thumb drives.

“How are we going to find anything—?”

Lars cut him off with a bark of a laugh. “There’s nothing to find.” Lars snatched a brochure off the desk. “Unless you’re interested in vacationing somewhere off the Gulf of Mexico, of course. Best rates. Free fucking wi-fi.”

“Hey, relax,” Bailey said, coming up behind Lars and laying a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s just work through this systematically.”

“Did you guys hear that?” Ana asked, walking past their doorway. Where she had been was anyone’s guess, but at least she wasn’t ransacking the place and possibly burying anything useful in a sea of travel brochures.

Duncan was obviously long overdue for a vacation.

Bailey stooped to pick up a pamphlet advertising a bi-plane offering specialized tours. He dropped it again, grimacing when Lars upended the last drawer onto the pile in the middle of the small study.

“We’ll never find anything like this,” Bailey said, working his way around Lars. “Did you check the computer?”

“Password,” was all Lars said.

Maybe it was the drugs making him so damn irritable. Bailey’s head pounded, but at least he was keeping his fucking cool. Lars was obviously pissed off at something—or someone—and was taking it out on Duncan’s study.

Bailey glanced around the room. Sometimes, people left their passwords in plain sight. Duncan hadn’t been that careless.

He clicked the mouse, and was greeted with a login. When he clicked on ‘hint’, four asterisks popped up.

“Hey, what was the pin number for Duncan’s phone?”

“Two double digits,” Lars muttered. “Three and two. Three and four. Something like that.”

Bailey tried 4433. The log in screen vanished, replaced with a Windows desktop so cluttered, he grimaced at the screen.

“Hey, I got—”

Ana’s scream cut him off.

. . .

Lars was already through the door by the time Ana’s yell cut off. He had just enough presence of mind to yank his pistol from his belt before rounding the corner and coming face-to-face with Neo.

Neo glared at him, lifted a gun, and pulled the trigger.

The bullet tore a hole through Lars’s sleeve, and missed his chest by less than an inch.

Surprise widened Neo’s eyes, and then incredulity when Lars launched himself forward. He struck Neo in the chest, sending them both toppling to the ground.

Ana let out another yell. Desperate. Panicked.

Bailey shot past Neo and Lars, giving Lars a brief once-over as if trying to determine who was winning before he turned the corner.

They wrestled on the carpet in the middle of Duncan’s hallway, Neo on top and then Lars, raining kicks and punches on each other until they were both breathless.

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