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“I just got some information right before you called me. The man who made the reservation was named Durham Manning.”
“Okay, so that’s the name the man gave me who said he’s coming to pick up the keys.” She explained what was bothering her about this man’s claim. “Maybe I’m just reading too much into this.”
“I don’t blame you. I do the same thing. On another topic, is there anything special you’d like to eat at the cabin?”
“No, nothing special. You know what I like, and that will be fine. Just whatever we usually eat.”
“All right. Now that I know a Durham Manning reserved the room, I’ll look into who he is as much as I can in the meantime. And give you any information on him that I can find.”
“Thanks, Nate. I sure appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
They ended the call, and she went out to speak with Blake. “Nate said the guy’s name is Durham Manning, which is what the guy coming in for the keys said his name was over the phone. Butbecause of my concerns, Nate’s going to look into the man further.”
“Good show. If he can get a picture of him, we’ll know if it’s the same guy who shows up.”
“Okay, sounds good.” She went back to working on winter promo ideas. It wasn’t long before Nate sent her a picture of Durham Manning that he’d found on Facebook. Ohmigod, that was the muscular, black-haired, and bearded man she and Roxie had seen when they’d run as wolves the one day, speaking to another man, trespassing on their land. She printed the picture out and shared it with Blake. “Roxie and I saw this man and a blond-haired guy talking on our land when we came upon them as wolves.”
Blake stared at her in disbelief. “And you didn’t tell Landon or me?”
She sighed. “They would have been gone by the time we returned home, dressed, and called anyone. Besides, we scared them off, and they were having a discussion, like they wanted to get away to somewhere private.”
“You should have told us.”
And then he and Landon would have left their mates to run with Roxie and Kayla from then on when they could have been needed at home. “We never saw them again. Just the one time.”
Blake still looked disgruntled. “You still should have told us. You went running the next day, correct? What if they’d been there again?”
“They weren’t. But we were cautious.”
Blake scoffed. “Next time—”
“We’ll tell you.” Kayla conceded only because she knew he’d tell Landon and the two of them would give her and Roxie grief.
“All right. We’ll tape the picture right here with a note to verify the identity of Manning when he shows up.” Blake was already writing a note to their clerks and the siblings, though only the siblings—as management and owners of the lodge—would actually hand the keys over to the owner due to liability issues. “What exactly were they talking about?”
“A job, I think.” Kayla shrugged a shoulder. “Nothing really specific.” She gave Blake the description of the other man, and he wrote it down. “I’ll come to back you up as soon as the man arrives to get the keys,” Kayla said. She returned to the office, but before she could thank Nate for the photo, she got a slew of attachments from him. She began opening them up, then printed them out.
Then she got a call from Nate, and he sounded worried. “This Durham Manning has committed a number of armed robberies of jewelry stores.”
“Are you sure this is the same Durham Manning who rented the room? What if it’s some other?” But now she was thinking that the “job” the men had been talking about in the woods had to do with a robbery.
“Yeah. It’s the same man.”
“But they released him from prison? Or he’s never been caught?”
“He was in prison for eight years. And now he’s out and wanted for questioning about the new armed robberies.”
Kayla’s jaw dropped. “You mean he might be involved in the armed robbery in Green Valley?”
“He could be.”
“And he stayed here at the lodge?” That was the thing about having a lodge like this. They had no idea who was staying here—good guys or bad. Though most of the time they were just everyday normal people on a vacation. Silver Town and the ski resort weren’t on any of the major highways—which was just the way the wolf pack wanted it—so they didn’t often get folks who were driving through to somewhere else unless they were taking a more scenic route.
“It appears that way.”
“Okay, well, I need to call Peter.” Sheriff Peter Jorgenson had sworn in Landon and Blake as reserve deputies when he needed more deputies while pursuing criminals, so technically, they could arrest the man. But with prior warning like this, they needed to tell Peter what was going on and let him handle it with his full-time deputies.
