Page 81 of Wolf Bane
He rolled his eyes.“Of course.”
Mal, Ethan, Waltrip, and I sat quietly as they let themselves out.Finally, I turned to Ethan.“What the fuck?”
“I’d been avoiding their calls since Wednesday morning,” he admitted.“When you disappeared…”
“I couldn’t get hold of him when you had the accident,” Mal said.“So I called Waltrip.”
“Then Tyler and Justin were taken,” Ethan put in quietly.“That’s how we were able to track you down.Tyler’s a paranoid cuss.He had a tracker on the car Justin had been using.We were able to follow it, find the scene, then go from there.”
“They were taken just an hour or two after you,” Waltrip supplied.“Bitter Root isn’t too far away.It’s an old sanitarium, from the end of the nineteenth century.”He and Ethan exchanged a very speaking look.“A lot of the early residents were weres and shifters suffering from what they used to call moon sickness.”
“Their changes weren’t well controlled,” Ethan picked up.“Usually because they weren’t expecting them.They were part human, for the most part.Their were parents had hidden what they were…”
“So, when it happened, when they told people what they experienced, they were deemed insane,” I whispered more to myself than the others.“Fuck.”
“Well.Looks like it’s not abandoned anymore.”Waltrip sighed.“Eliza and her group have been repurposing it to be the new Bluebonnet.”
“Monk and Hood… that’s her?”
Ethan made a see sawing motion with his hand.“Garrow’s money, her idea to go out into the communities like this.She’s been desperate for a long time…”
Cullen reappeared, shutting my front door with a determined thump just short of a slam.“Good lord, she’s annoying,” he muttered unironically.“Things that could’ve been an email.”He eyed the lot of us, lips pursed.“Currently, Daniel and Eliza are in Chicago in the luxurious prison of a penthouse suite overlooking Lake Michigan.”
“Maybe I should become a criminal,” I suggested.“Sounds nice.”
“They have roommates.Six were guards with submachine guns,” Cullen added.“Just in case they, as you put it, feel froggy.”
“And Garrow?”
No one said anything.
I got to my feet, shuffling to the kitchen.“I need coffee if I’m going to deal with this again,” I announced.“Anyone else?”
It was Waltrip who joined me a few minutes later.“Black, two sugars.”
“Going soft in your middle years?I remember you taking it black.”I glanced up at his near silent huff of amusement.“You look like shit.”
“It’s something new I’m trying.”He watched me measuring out the grounds, obviously on the edge of something.“Garrow’s escape wasn’t so much an escape as a release.”
I paused, mid-scoop.Then the council let him out knowingly?They just didn’t care?No one reported him missing from jail?
“The council wasn’t informed, nearest I can determine.When I went to Fort Worth to start checking in to things after Mal thought he was being watched, I started with the facility we’d tracked Garrow’s adherents to after Colorado.”
“Okay.”
The click and hiss of the coffee machine coming to life was gunshot-loud, making us both still and stare for a moment before Waltrip pressed on.“I used to work with the council.Briefly.About ten years ago.”
He was watching me, expecting a reaction.So I forced a nod and a bemusedoh reallysort of expression that made him roll his eyes.“Sorry.Daniel let that one slip the other day.Honestly, you talk about your personal life so little I wouldn’t be that shocked if one day we all found out you were royalty or something.Had three kids and a wife tucked away in Tulsa.”
Waltrip hesitated, then blew out a breath.“Divorced.No kids.And the ex is in Little Rock with his new husband.Well.They’ve been married six years, so not that new.”
That time I know my face did something complicated because he snorted, almost a laugh, and shook his head.
“Mal’s been on my ass to be more open with y’all.He said…” Waltrip’s lips pursed, then twisted as he thought.“He said that maybe I should stop thinking I was the only one capable of keeping people safe and maybe trust y’all a bit more.”
“I said that you needed to feel safe too,” Mal corrected from the kitchen doorway.He shrugged an apology when we looked his way.“Y’all were taking forever with the coffee and, really Waltrip, your voice carries even when you’re not trying so…” He padded closer, stopping near Waltrip but not quite touching.
Waltrip didn’t quitemelt,but he did go a little soft around the edges, cheeks tinting pink above his beard.“Mal’s been real… chatty.”
