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“You don’t have anything here that we didn’t already know at the council, so no.” Ash wrinkled her nose at the crime scenephoto closest to her coffee. “I am curious how you obtained these pictures, though. An informant in the council?”
“The council isn’t the only organization investigating these crimes,” Mason replied, counting off on his fingers. “Local police from three different jurisdictions, state, tribal, even the feds are looking into them.”
“All the more reason for us to find the actual culprit before the humans stumble into something the council can’t keep them from sharing.” Ash sipped from her mug, staring at the evidence covering Mason’s desk. “You have to have theories. I know I do, and I’m not the target. You’ll have a better idea, I hope.”
Ash wasn’t the target. He was. Now, though, that had changed. They were mates. The beast within him growled a warning. Taking her and making her his had painted the same target on her. Whoever wanted to take him down wouldn’t shed a tear if they had to kill her to force him into their plans.
“You do have theories, yes?” Ash replied to his silence.
“I do.” Mason blinked away from his morbid thoughts. “Whoever is behind this is targeting me because I’m the alpha. They want someone else in my position. Having another leader has to benefit them somehow. Nobody would go to this trouble without a big windfall in the end.”
“Revenge can motivate a person to move mountains.” Ash tilted her head as she thought, then shrugged. “No. That’s an instinctual motive. Wolves don’t play with their food. If it is only about revenge, they’d just kill you. It has to be something more.”
Mason stepped close, standing behind her. He leaned over, studying the evidence he’d acquired while fighting a losing battle to ignore Ash’s intoxicating scent. Business before pleasure was never harder to follow.
“As I said, they want a new leader,” he said, “You’ve seen some of the wolves I have to deal with. Dante and Jason are still wallowing in the cells in the bunker, but there has to be more.Without me at the reins, there will be blood. Either someone in the pack wants to return to the gory good old days, or …”
“Or someone outside the pack wants to take it down,” Ash finished his thought. “If some of your wolves went feral without you in charge, the council would take every measure necessary to ensure the peace.”
Her words sounded clinical and detached, but Mason heard the truths between them. In the end, the council only cared about keeping the truth of shifters from the human population. They put feral shifters down like they were rabid dogs, swiftly and with minimal empathy.
“And with the pack pacified, one of the others would be in a perfect position to swoop in,” Mason said, then waved his hand toward the windows and the forests beyond. “And take all that once belonged to my pack.”
“Both are plausible.” Ash scrunched her brows. “This Puppeteer those two were talking about meeting might be from another pack. They didn’t recognize him, and with a wolf’s senses, they should have. Then again, they didn’t even notice me in the gym when they discussed it, so they aren’t exactly shining examples of shifter kind.”
They were traitors. The beast inside Mason demanded their death. He’d get it in the end, but not yet. They hadn’t known anything more than the name, but they might have some information that could prove critical in the end.
“There hasn’t been a pack war here in decades. I wouldn’t put it past any of the alphas for taking advantage of the situation for their benefit, but to attack me so openly? I don’t know about that.”
“They aren’t coming at you in the open, though.” Ash tapped a photo from the latest attack. “They are trying to pin attacks on you. They want the council to take you down.”
The last line came out in a growl. Mason couldn’t tell if the fact he was the target or the council’s unknowing involvement offended her more.
“Then we need them to think it is working, at least for the moment,” Mason said. “You need to still act like you are undercover. Nobody else can know the truth.”
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” Ash said in a deadpan, rolling her eyes. “Telling you is one thing, given the circumstances.” Her cheeks darkened. “You are the only person outside the council I trust.”
“I don’t exactly trust the council,” Mason admitted.
“If I were in your position, I might feel the same way. All the more reason for us to find the bastard behind this.” Ash turned her attention back to the evidence. “From the information I’ve seen, there haven’t been similar attacks targeting any other pack. If it is an outsider, they might target more than one pack.”
“Easy for a wolf to fall to greed.” Mason nodded. “With an attack like this, manipulating things from behind the scenes, I could see an alpha trying to take out more than one rival. However, I haven’t heard any whispers worth listening to.”
Ash tilted her head again, looking thoughtful. She twitched back and forth. Mason guessed she was deep in some internal debate. He waited, knowing she would share her thoughts, and she did.
“I know a guy,” she said, sighing. “He’s got his ear to the ground. Always seems to know the oddest things. Wouldn’t put it past him to have info on other packs, maybe even some undercurrents from a few of your least savory men. I can give him a call, but I’ll have to meet him alone.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” Mason replied.
“Figured you’d say that.” Ash still picked her phone up from the desk. “Hopefully, he won’t clam up.”
An hour later,Mason pulled up to the ten-foot-tall corrugated metal gates of a scrapyard. Rusted-out husks of cars were stacked high enough along the fence to be visible. He glanced at Ash in the passenger seat. She shrugged and motioned toward the number pad outside the window.
“Hey, he’s a scavenger. He roots through all this scrap for gold, sometimes literally. He does the same with info,” Ash said.
Mason kept his objections to himself and punched in the code Ash gave him. The gate in front of them rumbled into action, sliding out of the way. The pavement gave way to a dirt drive, pocked with deep ruts and potholes filled with muddy water. The husks of cars lined the drive leading toward a squat cement building with multiple garage doors, the farthest one open.
He pulled up next to a boxy tow truck that looked to have been bright green at some point. He judged it to be as old as him, if not older, and likely to have seen its last wash before he was born, too.
