Page 47 of Wolf Bound

Kira was looking over Chase’s shoulder, then glanced at Dan’s computer. “They have different addresses.”

As soon as they saw Oscar’s driver’s license photo, both Kira and Fisher said, “That’s the other kidnapper.”

“Yeah, we need to learn if they have other family in the Denver area,” Dan said.

Just then, Leyton walked into the office. “I’ll get a hold of Jack. He, Chet, Travis, and I can go to Denver and check it out. I know Bridget is needed here to learn if your suspect is telling the truth or not.”

“Good show,” Dan said.

“Can you learn what they’re thinking then, even if they’re not talking, Bridget?” Kira thought that was a remarkable ability.

“Yes. I’ll probably grab a chair and sit outside of Royce’s cell and pretend to be guarding him. Maybe I’ll take a book with me and ‘listen’ in on his thoughts,” Bridget said.

“That is the coolest gift. Are you sure you don’t want to work with our agency?” Kira asked.

Travis smiled and shook his head. “She’s invaluable to me, to us. You’ll have to find your own agent to work with who has special talents.” Travis carried a chair to the cell for Bridget while she grabbed a book and headed back there with him.

When Travis returned to the office, he and Leyton told them good luck and headed out.

“Leyton is mated to Kate, the doctor who checked you out, Fisher,” Dan said.

“You have a really tightknit community here.” Fisher sounded impressed. “We’ve been buying land and trying to spread out our pack a bit, but what we wouldn’t give to have a setup like this.”

“Yeah, we know of a wolf pack that runs Silver Town,” Kira said, “and they have a similar situation. But they have wolf pack leaders and subleaders running the pack.”

“We are set up differently, since we don’t operate as a pack,” Dan said.

“It’s interesting that the cougars are self-sufficient and so is the wolf pack run town, but Demetria and I were working a case in Houston where a snow leopard shifter was trying to rescue his buddy incarcerated in the zoo. William Wright was the snow leopard and he told me later he was from White Bear, Alaska, where the polar bear shifters have their own council, but also many other kinds of shifters are friends there and they work together. Wolves, snow leopards, brown bears, polar bears, even Arctic foxes,” Everett said.

“We would welcome other shifters into our pack territory, as long as they followed our rules,” Fisher said.

“We would feel the same way,” Dan said. “We’ve made some shifter friends—some bears and caracals that came into the area, and we do actually have a snow leopard living among us.”

“Now, I’ve never seen a snow leopard shifter before. I would love to see him or her sometime,” Kira said.

“That was what we thought too,” Demetria said, “when we met up with William Wright.”

“You know what? I’m going to join Bridget for a moment.” Kira had to ask Royce if Oscar was his brother or a cousin. Oscar was middle-aged, but too young to be his dad.

Dan opened the door to the cells and Kira headed down the long hall to the only cell that was occupied. Bridget was sitting near the cell and smiled at her.

“Okay, Royce, so we know Oscar Farmington is one of your accomplices,” Kira said, looking into the cell at Royce sitting on the bed, chewing on his lip, appearing glum.

“That’s not true,” Royce said, sounding a little panicked.

Bridget nodded. “You’re right. Oscar is an older cousin.”

“I never said that.” Then his eyes widened. “You caught him?”

Kira smiled as if they had. She sure wished they had! Then she patted Bridget’s shoulder. “Thanks for all your help with this.” She walked back to the locked door to the cells and Dan let her out.

“Oscar is his older cousin,” she said.

Then Royce’s phone rang again in Dan’s pocket. “It’s Oscar calling again.”

Kira thought Oscar was probably worried about what had happened to Royce. Had Oscar reunited with Reggie? Or was he on his own, trying to find a way back to civilization? Still, how did he get his phone if he hadn’t had one possibly in their vehicle? She wondered if they had more bags in their car and therefore clothes to wear. Probably.

It would take Leyton Hill and his team three hours to get to Denver. She hoped they would get some good intel from there. She realized that though they were from different organizations that dealt with shifter issues, in the future, they could now work together when it was mutually beneficial. No longer was the USF organization alone in their efforts to right shifter wrongs.

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