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I didn’t find the knife. It must have been disposed of somewhere.
But I did find a cell phone with messages to the Longroad pack. Hunter Green had been sending messages to someone there, telling them all about Amelia. That she slept in the big house so she wasn’t an easy mark. That extra security was always on her son. That she had begun to sleep with the alpha’s brother, embedding herself in our pack like a tick. That she would be hard to take.
Fury blazed hot within me.
“Calm down, Stone.” Teresa had crowded against my elbow, her breath against my shoulder as she studied the text messages. “Hunter’s not the only one. Let’s use this to smoke out whoever he was working with.”
“It seems like too much of a coincidence for this not to be related to Louisa’s death. But why? What did she know? Or what did they need to hide?”
Teresa frowned. “Can we go back to Louisa’s cottage?”
Walking into her empty cottage felt wrong, as if we were violating her privacy. I knew my brothers would’ve told me I was wrong for what I’d done already today. But everything on pack territory was mine. And I had to find the killer, and I had to keep them safe.
My feet crunched over broken grass and stalks of dried herbs, sending fragrance drifting up into the air.
Teresa searched through the ransacked magical ingredients, then looked up at me.
“What are you thinking, Tee?”
“What if they made her make something for them?” she asked. “Well, they tied her up so she couldn’t fight back. But maybe they got her to help them? Maybe they had to cover that up?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But we didn’t find any evidence.”
“They would’ve hidden it like they hid the knife, right? Somewhere else.” She stepped to the doorway, her nostrils flaring as she looked out at the forest. She shook her head.
“There isn’t enough of a trail to follow the knife.” I’d thought of the same thing she had. Our tracking powers were strong, but not strong enough. “I’ll call a pack meeting. Someone will get nervous, and if they’re hiding something, they’ll come out to get it. We’ll follow them then.”
She nodded, but she looked worried. “Cole and I will be watching.”
CHAPTER49
Amelia
The orderfor a pack meeting at dusk swept through the pack. Karissa looked grim-faced when she came to tell me about it, and I had the feeling she’d been arguing with Stone.
This time, it was no family meeting. He pulled the whole pack together, except for those who stayed behind to watch the cubs. I kissed Dylan goodbye once the babysitter arrived, but he barely noticed me going. The little boy who had once clung to me desperately was focused on his sprawling Lego city.
The mess always stressed me out but Karissa assured me she didn’t mind, and neither did the guys. In fact, they often stopped to play or added their own builds during the night, which made Dylan light up.
When we got outside, Cole and Shaw stayed close to me, and it made me nervous. We joined the semicircle of wolves in the dim moonlight, ringing Stone. Stone looked even larger than life than usual as he gazed around at us.
“I like to think of us all as a family.” Stone’s powerful voice rang out, easily reaching everyone in the circle. “An imperfect family, sure, but…I haven’t run into any perfect ones. None of us should expect perfection from each other—only brotherhood, loyalty, safety.”
His gaze seemed to catch on mine. I lifted my chin and stared him down. He hadn’t shown me loyalty or safety. For a few seconds, we stared at each other.
Then he finally looked away, his gaze once again sweeping across the pack, “But one of you has betrayed us all. Or more than one. One of you is plotting with the Longroad pack, and one of you killed Louisa.”
My blood ran cold.
Technically, I was plotting with the Longroad pack. But I definitely hadn’t killed Louisa.
“I’m sure that whoever killed Louisa wanted to make sure I would never again be able to ensure I had the full truth from an… unwilling participant.”
Shaw glanced at Cole and me. “Shit. Where do you think this is going?”
Cole’s head tilted faintly as if he’d heard him, but he didn’t look away from Stone. It would have been disrespectful to take his eyes off the alpha while he was talking.
Stone prowled around the center of the pack. Everyone looked tense.
