The human bartender shot Deni a sharp look when she walked in. The other Shifters already there were cagey, but when Deni asked why, they didn’t have an answer. They knew something was up, but they didn’t know what. The trackers had gone into Liam’s office and shut the door, they told her, then all except Liam and Dylan had come out and left the bar. Where the trackers, including Ellison, had gone, no one knew.
Deni had no business confronting Liam, who wasn’t in her family and held plenty of rank over her. His tracker meeting might have nothing to do with her or Jace, or the police. Shit involving Shifters and Shiftertown happened all the time.
One of the groupie girls sat in a booth by herself, talking on her phone. And talking and talking. She’d look around, and then start talking again. If she wasn’t talking, she was texting.
The young woman didn’t look much different from the other groupies. She wore a short, skintight pink dress with mile-high black heels, had short dyed-black hair that had been cut into cute wisps, and she’d painted her face with cat’s eyes and whiskers. Her outfit shouted, Come and get me, Shifter, I like to purr, but her looks and actions spoke of extreme nerves.
After Deni had watched her covertly for a time, she realized another thing that made this woman different. The other groupies were eyeing Shifters hungrily, or sashaying up to them without shame. Most groupies were female, as many of the Shifters here were male, but some young male groupies were eyeing the male Shifters—and Deni—with the same kind of interest.
The young woman in the booth was doing her best not to catch any Shifter’s attention. Which made no sense if she dressed like a groupie and hung out in a Shifter bar.
Deni picked up the bottle of beer the bartender had slid to her and carried it with her to the booth. Deni plunked the bottle onto the table and sat down opposite the young woman.
The young woman jumped as though struck by sparks. Deni held her gaze, the girl trying to evade her eyes.
“That Shifter over there.” Deni pointed. “Broderick. He’s looking for some action.”
Whether Broderick was or not, Deni didn’t know, but the young woman’s reaction was telling. She flinched and didn’t look where Deni indicated. In fact, she moved a little so Deni would block Broderick’s line of sight from her.
“I’m waiting for someone,” the young woman mumbled. “Leave me alone, Shifter.”
“Yeah? Who are you waiting for?”
The woman stared at her. She had light blue eyes and smelled strongly of fear, and even more of anger.
“None of your business.” She had defiance her words and eyes, but her voice shook.
“Interesting,” Deni said. She snatched the woman’s cell phone from her hand and stood up.
The girl shrieked. “Hey, give that back!”
Deni stepped away from her reaching hands and scrolled down her list of recent calls. Only one had been made today, much earlier this afternoon, which meant she’d been faking talking to someone. Stalling. She’d made plenty of calls yesterday, though, and the day before that, and on into the previous week. All to the City of Austin police.
“Don’t think so,” Deni said.
Broderick turned around, scowling, not liking to have his beer drinking with his brothers interrupted. “Who the hell is making all the noise?” Broderick growled.
Deni ignored him. She swung away from the groupie lunging for her phone and went for Liam’s office door. This was too important for respecting Liam’s privacy. “Broderick, don’t let her leave,” Deni said, then was through the door and into the office.
Liam was on the phone at his desk, Dylan hovering next to him, listening. Usually Liam sat back here with his feet up, casually going over billing, invoices, payroll, and the like, but today he sat straight up in his chair, his hand over his eyes, and he was speaking rapidly into the phone.
“Have you pinpointed where?” he asked whoever was on the other end. “Well, damn it, find it.”
“Find what?” Cold washed through Deni, triggering the dizziness she’d been fighting all day. “Liam?”
Dylan came quickly around Deni and closed the door. “Keep it down, lass. We can’t let the world know.”
“Know what? Damn it, tell me.”
Liam glanced up at her, his face strained as he listened to the stream of words coming from his phone. He shot a look at his father and nodded.
Dylan took Deni’s hand between his, pressing warmth into it. “We didn’t want you to know until we were sure, Den. Marlo’s plane went down, somewhere in West Texas. We don’t know where yet, and we don’t know who survived.”
Chapter Twelve
Deni’s world stopped—or maybe it kept spinning, whirling out of control while she froze in one place. She could barely see Dylan as she stared at him, only the blue of his eyes as he held her gaze.
Shock and then panic swept through her, and her wolf started to howl, a grief-stricken, wild howl that only happened with the death of a mate.
“Deni,” Dylan’s voice cut through the noise. “Keep looking at me.”
The voice that came out of Deni’s mouth was snarling and wrong. “Where is he?”
“South of the I-10,” Liam said. “Somewhere between here and Fort Stockton. Great,” he said into the phone. “Covers a hell of a lot of ground.”
Deni heard a voice on the other end—Ronan, she thought, from the deep timbre. “That’s all we know,” Ronan said. “We can’t ask too many questions.”
“Ask,” Deni snarled. “Find him.”
“Lass,” Dylan said.
“Don’t ‘lass’ me. Find him. He’s my mate.”
Both Dylan and Liam focused on her, as the truth of it filled Deni, hurting her and elating her at the same time. My mate. Hurt. Lost. Find!
Deni was growling again, the edges of her world going concave as her eyes changed to her wolf’s. Dylan pried the cell phone she’d taken from the girl out of her hand, which Deni had clamped down on so hard the plastic was starting to crack.
“Where did you get this?” Dylan asked, looking at the smart phone, which no Shifter would carry.
“Spy,” Deni said, forcing out the word. “Broderick has.”
Dylan’s eyes moved as he read the phone numbers, then he gave a furious snarl and shoved his way past Deni, banging out of the office.
Deni yanked Liam’s phone from his hands. “Ronan. You tell me where he is.”