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Duncan’s eyes narrowed, searching Benny’s face for why he was asking. “Jameson Campbell,” he said. “His grandfather is the belligerent one.”
“His father wasn’t the one who Jessie just killed?”
Duncan shook his head. “That was a great-uncle. You going to tell me why?”
“Let’s just say, I don’t think we’re staying for dessert,” Benny said, and he headed back into the dining room. He went and stood at Ryder’s shoulder. “We need to go,” he murmured softly in his ear. He saw Jessie nod. She’d heard, or Ryder had passed it on.
“Thank you for sharing a meal with us, tonight,” Ryder said, standing up. “There have been some troubling developments today, and I know that we’re all on edge. Tomorrow night, the pack will gather here to grieve the death of the old Alpha, and for his funeral pyre.”
“Here?” it wasn’t Campbell this time. Spencer, Benny thought.
“I think that’s best,” Ryder said. “The lodge is a ways out, and it’s winter. So here. A bonfire on the beach.”
There was some mutters, but no one challenged it.
“On Friday, we will have a pack meeting at Duncan McKenzie’s house. The yard there is big enough for everyone to come — men, women and children,” Ryder said easily, heading toward the door. “It will be a potluck. Bring something to share. But the barbeque will be on me.”
Benny looked back to make sure Dennis and Duncan were following, and he urged Ryder along faster. Ryder glared at him, and Benny let him slow down. Leaving your own pack at a run was a bit tacky, he acknowledged.
In the entry, Ryder hesitated. “I want to meet the women and children who were sent upstairs," he announced, and headed up the stairs. “Dennis? Will you introduce me to your family?”
Dennis nodded and joined him on the stairs. Benny wanted to protest, but there was nothing to do but follow the two men up to the second floor and to another great room where there were a number of women and children gathered. They all had plates of food, and Benny thought they were having a much better time than the men downstairs.
Benny held everyone in the hallway, allowing Dennis to take Ryder and Jessie through the room and introduce them. Benny sensed a combination of nervousness and pleasure, but no malice.
No grief either. If anyone mourned the death of John McKenzie, he hadn’t met them. Maybe his wife. Maybe.
And he didn’t think Bjorn Hansen was missed at all. He thought of those kidnapped women. Call them what they were, he thought grimly. They were forced to be camp followers for the horde of young men Chen and McKenzie had drafted. Just as there were women in Vancouver. He still didn’t have these women’s story, but he would.
They didn’t stay long. One loop through the room, and then Ryder led the way back down the stairs and outside to their vehicle. He didn’t say anything about what he saw. Neither did Dennis. So Benny let it go. But those women were as battered as the women Hansen had kidnapped for his recruits.
Maybe he needed to find more therapists.
At the Expedition, Benny took the wheel. Ryder got into the front beside him, and it was Dennis who crawled in the way back seat. “Why did you want to leave?” Ryder asked.
“A young girl in the kitchen,” Benny said tersely. “She said, treachery, and fled. We didn’t have enough guards for me to leave your side and go after her. So call me paranoid, but I didn’t think I wanted any chocolate cake that was already dished up. Do you?”
There was silence. Jessie moaned a bit, and Benny looked at her in the rearview mirror. “You OK?”
“Something’s wrong,” she said. “Wrong at the house. We need to get there. How fast can you make this thing go?”
Benny sped up. The road was bare, but it was winding, and the speed limit was 40 kph. He wasn’t sure what that translated into for miles per hour, and he didn’t right care. If he got pulled over, he’d plead ignorant Yankee tourist.
“Talk to me, Jessie,” he said, tersely. “What are you feeling, and why you?”
“I’m getting it from....” She trailed off, and he glanced at her in the rearview mirror.
“Eyes on the road,” Ryder said sharply. Benny nodded and faced forward.
“From Amanda!” she finished triumphantly. “She’s worried about something. I think she’d pulled guard duty upstairs.”
Benny glanced at Ryder who shook his head. He didn’t know what guard duty upstairs meant either.
“The attic,” Duncan explained. “Those dormers up there are for defense.”
“Been attacked before?” Benny asked sardonically.
Duncan snorted, but he didn’t answer.
