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So did his wolf.
NINE
CAROLINE
Caroline thought about sharing all of her information with Ryland for all of two seconds, but no sooner was he gone than she thought better of it.
She didn’t want to be sidelined, and what had the man done? He left her in his apartment while he went off to some museum without her.
No matter what happened, she couldn’t let him hide her away. Joan wanted her to get this story, and her entire career was in the balance.
Her life too.
If she gave Ryland all of the information she had, he would send her away. The intel she had was her only bargaining chip, and she wasn’t about to let it go without a fight.
Resolved, Caroline began to snoop. One of the first rooms she found was Ryland’s home office. It was sparsely decorated, but there was a computer. One she could snoop to her heart’s desire.
She sat behind the shiny … and expensive … desktop. When the massive screen turned on, it cast an eerie blue glow on everything. She went through the computer, but there was nothing of interest on it. Ryland kept all of his files locked behind a password. He was clever.
With nothing else to do, she pulled up a search engine. Caroline quickly found what she was looking for: the last known location of the three missing vases. A lot of it was conjecture, and there was no real proof that these still existed, but she had to try to find the owners if such people existed. She couldn’t let someone die because she hadn’t tried hard enough.
Finding the information she required wasn’t easy, however. Caroline thought it best to give Joan a call and warn her.
The Vases of Destiny were a bigger problem than they had thought.
Joan was not impressed. “I didn’t send you to the Blood Moon Agency so you could cower and forget all about our deal.”
“Then why send me there at all?”
Joan snickered. “I need you alive and digging into this story. And if you want to keep theotherstory out of the public eye …” Joan paused for a terrible beat to really let the threat sink in.
Caroline shivered, as trapped as an animal during hunting season. She could nearly hear the smile in Joan’s tone as the other woman went on.
“Good. Then you will do as I say. Convince Ryland to let you stay. No matter what. I don’t care what you need to do. You know that your brother’s life hangs in the balance.” Joan ended the call before Caroline could respond.
Her mood was now at an all-time low. Caroline went into the kitchen in search of something sweet to boost her morale. She stopped on the way when she spotted Ryland.
He was back from his museum errand. He sat on the couch, gulping down mouthful after mouthful of scotch. He didn’t look up at her as she walked into the living room. His eyes were fixed on the wall, lost in his thoughts.
“If you keep drinking like that,” she said with a tense laugh, “you’ll be drunk and completely useless to me.”
“I don’t think it matters how useless I am.”
Caroline pursed her lips at him. “You go visit one museum, and this is how you act? Like it’s the end of the world? I’m sure it wasn’tthatboring.”
“I’m moping.”
“Manly.”
“You’ve met my brother Wilder. He mopes. He’s manly.”
She shrugged. “I thought you had more zest. More pep.”
He laughed, the sound seeming to shock him. “Remind me to tell Wilder he has no zest or pep. I’m sure he’ll love that.”
“What did you find out?”
“Nothing good.”
