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Kristine watched his face as Quinn squinted at the small print that came up. “Couple of agencies are involved in this investigation,” he said. “There’s some speculation about what kinds of animals could be involved. Species that still have habitats around there include foxes, coyotes, bobcats and black bears. Used to be mountain lions, too—and gray wolves.”
Wolves. The word hung in the air this time.
“Not Grace and Simon,” Kristine whispered, hoping it was true. She put her hand on Quinn’s shoulder—whether to reassure him or convince him, she wasn’t sure.
The touch was like a bolt of lightning, making her even more cognizant of his hot and alluring presence. But she wasn’t a wimp. She had courage—of all kinds. She let her hand rest there … for now.
Even when he turned his head a little and looked at her with those golden eyes.
“So what do you think?” she asked him.
“What do you think?” he countered. “You willing to go there to help me investigate—in any form I need to be? Your commanding officers—our commanding officers—apparently have to act dead set against our being there.”
He’d used the word dead. Like the two mutilated tourists.
Like Alpha Force would be, if the perpetrators really were Grace and Simon, and that got out to the world.
Kristine understood why the muckety-mucks like General Yarrow and that guy Olivante from the Department of Defense’s Defense Special Projects Agency were so concerned.
Not everyone, even in the military, knew about Alpha Force. But if it were ever shown that the killings were done by shapeshifters, and that those shapeshifters were not just part of some grotesque horror story but members of a very covert and elite U.S. military force, the repercussions could be terrible.
Terrible to the U.S. Armed Forces.
And potentially devastating—fatal—to the existence of Alpha Force.
What would happen to its members then—especially its shapeshifter members?
They’d be humiliated at the least. Outed. Paraded as absurd freaks through the media.
They would never be able to use their very special, unique and amazing abilities to help with national security ever again.
The people like General Yarrow and Team Leader Olivante would be out to do the best damage control they could.
If that meant dealing with Grace and Simon in some terrible way, they’d do it—even the general, who clearly loved Alpha Force. If they needed scapegoats—scapewolves—they’d do what they had to.
But both Quinn and she would have different agendas. His might be different from hers, as well.
She wanted to learn the truth. Protect Grace and Simon if they were innocent, which she prayed they were.
But she would protect Alpha Force, too.
Quinn? Well, his main agenda might be to help his brother and sister-in-law, no matter what.
She would work with him, at least until their agendas diverged. Then, she would see.
“Let’s do it,” she said.
“Good.” He paused, then stood. She couldn’t read the expression on his face, but it seemed challenging. With a touch of humor added? “Here’s what we’ll do, then. We’ll go to Bar Harbor tomorrow, undercover. And know what our cover IDs will be?”
“No,” she said, sure she wouldn’t like the response.
“To get the most information about our missing honeymoon couple—” he paused dramatically, then grinned “—you and I will be there on our honeymoon, too.”
“What?” Kristine froze. What was he talking about?
And why did the words send the tiniest shiver of anticipation through her?
She shrugged it off. She knew what he meant. But—
“With assumed identities, of course,” he said curtly. “Like I said, undercover.” Although when she dared to look at him she saw not only humor, but also challenge, in his expression. “That’ll help us get the most information possible as we investigate.”
“Of course. Great idea.” She attempted to sound nonchalant. “We’ll try to follow Grace and Simon’s trail as much as possible. We’ll find and clear them.
You’ll see.”
Chapter 4
The hotel was charming, a converted Victorian mansion right in the heart of Bar Harbor. From what Kristine had seen of it so far, the downtown area was a small, charismatic collection of stores and restaurants, inns and parks and churches, mostly near the water, since the town was located on Mount Desert Island.
A wonderful place for a honeymoon, she thought—if the lovers stayed in their rooms and out of trouble.
But these new, false honeymooners—Quinn and her? They would soon be out and about and looking for trouble … looking for what had happened to their real newlywed counterparts.
“You ready for this?” Quinn sat in the driver’s seat of the sedan they had rented after flying into Bangor, about fifty miles away. This was the first time she had seen him out of his uniform since the wedding … unless she counted when she had seen him in nothing at all.
The thought shot a plume of fire through her insides—from anxiety, she told herself. That was all. Before they had left Ft. Lukman, they had talked their plans over with Drew Connell. Since they were here very unofficially, he had agreed that it was better for them to really go undercover, take on alternate identities. Act as if they had nothing to do with the military. Or Alpha Force.
Honeymooners? He’d raised his eyebrows at that but hadn’t objected. In fact, he seemed to support the idea.
And despite Kristine’s deep misgivings, the pretense actually did make sense. They might get the same kinds of responses to their questions that the missing couple had been given. Be treated similarly by people they ran into here.
Learn something faster than if they pretended just to be acquaintances vacationing together.
They would therefore sleep in the same room. They would pretend, outside that room, to be lovey-dovey. Sexually attracted to one another.
One major problem, Kristine thought, was that it would be too easy for her to feign the latter …
“Sure. Let’s go in.” She responded to Quinn’s question with an assumed bravado.
She jumped out of the car, opened the door to the backseat and pulled out her backpack, which contained mostly clothes. It would have been hard to hide the Alpha Force elixir and light in carry-on baggage, so she had packed them in a suitcase and checked it. Even so, they had identified themselves as military to the Transportation Security Administration folks at the airport. These days, checked luggage screening looked for anything that could be turned into a terrorist bomb. An intense light might not get anyone’s attention, but the quantity of elixir might. So might the weapons they had packed.
They had given no explanation of their travel plans to the TSA people who had checked them out. Fortunately, no one had questioned them too closely. Not that they’d admit what they were up to—or that one of the tools they would take advantage of here, as soon as possible, was Quinn’s shapeshifting ability.
“I’ll take that, honey.”
Quinn’s deep voice behind her made her jump. Honey? The word shouldn’t give her shivers—at least not of pleasure. No, it was the harbinger of the night before them.
“No, thank you, dear.” She turned and gave him a couple of bats of her eyelashes, concurrently lifting her chin as if challenging him. “I can handle this, as long as you get our large bags out of the trunk and take care of them.”
“They’re on wheels.” His voice was no longer syrupy sweet. He evidently didn’t like her contradicting him. “You can pull yours.”
Too bad.
“I appreciate the offer, sweetheart, but as you know, I’m used to carrying my own backpack.” She reached over, patted his cheek that suggested the initial coarseness from the black shadow of a beard, then maneuvered the pack onto her shoulders. She started toward the door of the hotel without making sure he was dealing with the bags. She knew he would do just fine.
He caught up with her as she reached the registration desk. Amazingly, in only the short amount of time they’d had after making their decision and heading here, Quinn had already obtained fake IDs for them, including driver’s licenses and credit cards.
He had obviously maintained his contacts as a private investigator despite enlisting in the military—and not just his online skills and passwords. Maybe he intended his enlistment to be temporary. Very temporary.
She just hoped that would be the right thing for Alpha Force.
She, on the other hand, considered herself all military despite the civilian roles they played now.
“Hi,” she said to the woman behind the desk, who was clad in a brown suit and weary smile. “We’re the Scotts.” The first names on their ID cards matched their real ones, for ease of remembering them, but they’d taken on a false surname for their investigation. “Kristine and Quinn. Do you have our reservation?”
The woman, with a pin on her lapel that said she was Betty from Newport, began typing on a computer on the desk in front of her, and then her grin widened. “Yes, we do.” She ran through the formalities of taking a credit card—with their newly acquired IDs—and putting together key cards for their room. “Enjoy your stay,” she said.
“I’m sure we will.” Kristine made herself gush, even though she wasn’t a gushy person. Then she leaned toward Betty conspiratorially. “Do many other people come here on their honeymoon?”
“Why, yes.” By then Betty was beaming. “Another newlywed couple even checked in a few days ago. They’re gone now, though.”
“Did they have a good time?” Quinn asked from beside Kristine.
“I’ll bet they did, although I didn’t see them again. Anyway, I hope you enjoy your stay.”
On their way to the elevator, Kristine said, “Your seeing their credit card charge doesn’t mean anything. The way checking out is handled now at most hotels, with bills just slipped under the door during the last night of a reservation, there wasn’t anything suspicious about how Simon and Grace disappeared, except—”
“Except that word might have gotten around to the staff if they’d failed to take their belongings.”
“Right. So they apparently took their stuff. If so—”
“Where are they?” he finished.
Quinn had pretended not to notice Kristine’s dismay when they reached their quaint room with antique furnishings that suited the character of the converted mansion—and found only one queen-size bed in it. She hadn’t said anything except to thank him for hefting her suitcase onto one of the folding luggage stands.
They had already decided to unpack quickly, then leave right away to grab dinner at whatever spot the concierge at the inn said was the place he recommended most often to guests.
That meant it could be the place where he’d sent Simon and Grace.
Quinn and Kristine were there now, sitting at a table with a red checked tablecloth in the center of the main room. The BarHar Bistro was crowded, including the anterooms off to the sides. Apparently their concierge wasn’t the only one to recommend it—or locals already knew about, and frequented, the place. There wasn’t much space for the waitstaff to maneuver between tables, and the elbow room for diners was limited, as well.
Quinn hoped that the overcrowding was a sign that the food was good, not just that it was an in place where people dined simply because it was popular.
The place smelled tantalizing to Quinn’s enhanced senses. The acoustics weren’t great, though—probably not even for a regular human with lesser hearing. The undercurrent of voices was a loud, unpleasant hum.
Kristine had been pretending to study the menu, but he saw her eyes darting sideways often.
“What looks good to you, dear?” he asked aloud, then leaned slightly across the table toward her. “I suspect,” he added more softly, “that strangers here wouldn’t be noticed much.”
She nodded glumly. “My thoughts, too.”
A perky blonde in black pants and white shirt sidled around one of the tables nearby and approached them. “Welcome to BarHar. My name is Steph, and I’ll be your server this evening. Can I start you with something to drink?”
Showtime, Quinn thought. “You sure can. Champagne. We’re celebrating.”
“Really?” Steph asked, as Kristine forced a sunny smile onto her face. “What are you celebrating?”
“We just got married,” Kristine chimed in. “Do you recommend any particular champagne to other newlyweds who come in here?”
“That’s assuming we’re not the first,” Quinn added with a laugh.
Steph responded as they’d attempted to program her. “Oh, you’re definitely not the first.”
“But we’re the most recent,” Kristine said. “Aren’t we?”
“Well, yes. At least I don’t know of any others here tonight. But there was at least one other couple here last week.”
“Really? I’ll bet they weren’t as good-looking as us.” Quinn knew he was laying it on too thick. In fact, this might not be a good idea. He was well aware that Simon and he resembled one another—and it might be a bad thing to have anyone associate the two of them, especially if Simon was suspected of committing a crime.
But if Bar Harbor authorities suspected Simon and Grace, that, thankfully, didn’t seem to have gotten out even to the local media, nor had it otherwise been made public.
Yet.
“Maybe not,” Steph said. “But they were good tippers.” She winked at them. “Here’s the champagne I recommended to them.” She pointed to a fairly expensive one on the wine list Quinn had been pretending to study.
“Looks good to me. Did you recommend any entrées to them, too?”
“I did, but I think they both ordered steaks.”
Ah. That was a good indication that the couple were his brother and new sister-in-law. Shifters, at least those who changed into werewolves, ate a lot of red meat to satisfy their feral needs.
He glanced up at Kristine, who nodded slightly. She’d gotten it, too.
“Well, please bring us the same champagne, and we’ll figure out what else to order.” The steak sounded good to Quinn, but Kristine might not yet have decided.
When the server left, Kristine was the one to lean toward Quinn. “Looks like we’re on the right track. But just following … them … won’t necessarily get us the information we need.” He liked how she was being discreet. Not that it was likely for anyone to be eavesdropping on them, but even if someone at a neighboring table was listening in, they wouldn’t be able to follow the underlying meaning of their conversation.
“No, but it’s a start. We’ll be more proactive soon. Although—” Quinn had started doing his own eavesdropping—much more easily, with his abilities, than anyone else in this room was likely to be able to do. He now focused in on who had uttered the words he had been listening for: Acadia and body.
Fortunately, the speakers were at a nearby table, one just behind him. He slid his chair back slightly and said to Kristine, “Excuse me for a minute, dear.” But instead of rising and heading for the restroom, he turned toward the speaker. “Sorry to interrupt, but I couldn’t help hearing you mention those awful deaths that occurred a few nights ago. My wife—” He stopped and grinned at that, as if he was enjoying using the word for nearly the first time. “We just got married and we’re here on our honeymoon, but we almost changed our plans, hearing about such a terrible thing. Wild animals killed some tourists in the park, right?”
There were four young, brawny guys around the table. “That’s right,” said a tall basketball-player sort with spiky hair. “We came here planning to hike through the park but we’ve got second thoughts, too.”
“I live here,” said a young woman at the next table over. “All of us in town are also concerned. But you tourists—well, as long as you’re careful, you should be fine.”
“Spoken like a good local promoter,” Steph, the server, said, joining them. She had their champagne, plus two empty flutes, on a tray. She put them on the table and poured a little into each glass. As Quinn and Kristine both took preliminary sips, she moved around again and continued, “But … well, I enjoy hiking in my spare time, too. I haven’t heard what’s going on with the investigation, except that the thought is like you said, some kind of wild animal got those tourists. No one’s sure, though.”
“Are there many wild animals in Acadia?” Quinn asked. “I mean, I’m sure there are squirrels and rats and such, but what kind might be dangerous enough to kill people?”
