Page 39 of Wolf Bound

“No black Suburban now?”

“Apparently not.”

All of them ended up outside of their rooms, moving quietly, silently. But as soon as Fisher, his brothers and cousin and Kira moved toward the pickup, they could smell that the men were humans, and not the wolves they were seeking. Which explained why they were driving the black pickup. Everett and Demetria were now standing with their guns readied at the door to the kidnappers’ room.

“But they went into the motel room that was registered to the kidnappers,” Fisher said.

“Could the kidnappers have bribed someone to go to their room?” Kira asked.

“If that’s the case, the kidnappers could know we’re after them,” Fisher said.

“Or they’re trying to cover their tracks.”

As soon as everyone was in place, Everett banged on the door with his fist. “Police, open up!”

One of the men opened the door. He was a redhead with a bushy beard, and he said, “What the hell.”

“Come out of the room. All three of you,” Everett said.

“What’s this all about?” the redhaired guy asked.

“Hell, I told you those guys were up to something,” a dark-haired guy with him said.

“We didn’t know,” another man said, standing taller than the other two. “They gave us the keys to this room and a hundred dollars each to stay the night here. We were on our way to Denver and met them at a convenience store. We were tired, and Denver was too far to drive, so we thought it was a great opportunity that had fallen in our lap.”

“Yeah, and I told you it was too good to be true,” the dark-haired guy said.

Everett asked to see their ID. “You’re from Panama City, Florida.”

“Right. We have relatives in Denver. That’s where we’re from originally, but we wanted to be near the beaches in Florida, so we all ended up getting jobs there. We’re good friends and grew up together.”

“Tell us what the men looked like,” Fisher said.

They gave the descriptions of Reggie and his friends.

“Do you know what they were driving?” Kira asked.

“A black Chevrolet Suburban,” the redhead said. “Who are these guys? What did they do?”

“Which direction did they go in?” Demetria asked.

“West,” the redhead said.

“Did they give you a reason why they would give up their room and pay you for sleeping there?” The men weren’t wolves, so Fisher didn’t believe they were in collusion with the kidnappers, but still, he couldn’t believe they wouldn’t suspect something was really wrong with the whole scenario.

The redhead shared glances with the other men. Then they nodded, and the redhead rubbed the back of his neck. “The one guy said that his ex-girlfriend was stalking him. He thought if she followed him to his motel room, she would find he would be long gone, and all she would discover was us. They warned us she had been physically abusive toward him.”

“Which is what clued me in that something wasn’t right. All three men were physically fit and looked like they could handle any trouble that came their way,” the dark-haired guy said. “So they were wanted by the police.”

“Yeah, but despite being concerned about it, you still took their money and the room.” But neither Kira nor any of the others would tell them what they were suspected of.

“I hope we’re not under arrest,” the redheaded man said.

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Demetria said.

“Do you mind if I take a look around in your room to see if they had accidentally left anything behind?” Fisher asked.

“No, be my guest, though as far as we saw, they didn’t leave anything in the room,” the redhead said.

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