Lydia blinked and saw the wolf lying on its side, suffering. “Did you know they were poisoning the animals.” She looked over her shoulder. “Did you?”

C.P. Phalen’s brows went together. “No, I did not. Which is why I believed you when you said it was the hotel.”

“You’re lying,” Lydia snapped. “Rick ordered the poison and administered it, and he was doing it for you.”

“No, he wasn’t.” The woman leaned forward in her leather seat. “That was never part of the agreement. What we injected into those wolves was intended to strengthen their immune systems. It was otherwise harmless—”

“Bullshit!”

C.P. Phalen shook her head. “I did not have a program that involved poisoning the wolves.”

The woman’s eyes were so direct, so steady, she was either the best liar on the planet or—

“So who else were they working with?” C.P. Phalen said softly. “Who the fuck else was paying them.”

 

Hours and hours later, dawn light came across C.P. Phalen’s backyard and illuminated the newly created brick walkways, the pool that was in the process of being dug, the rear terrace. As Lydia sat in a window and stared across the vista, a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast was placed in front of her by a butler.

On the other side of the circular table, C.P. Phalen was likewise staring out over the landscape.

“It’s a ghost. A goddamn ghost,” C.P. said.

Lydia looked back at the laptop she’d been working on for the last two hours. She couldn’t say she exactly trusted the other woman. But she did trust the facts as she knew them: None of the science being done in that underground lab had anything to do with trying to create another species. She’d spent all night reviewing the data, which had, in fact, been generated out of Rick’s clinic at the WSP. She knew this, because identical reports had been in his binder.

Along with others that were clearly unrelated to what C.P. was doing.

“I know what I saw in Rick’s documents,” Lydia murmured. “Your experiments were in there. But there was so much more.”

“I believe you.”

Glancing across the table, she started eating. “Why are you trusting me with all this?”

C.P. sipped coffee out of a porcelain cup. “I told you, I’m not scared of anything. Trust only comes into play when somebody else can hurt you. No offense, but you can’t touch me.”

Lydia thought it over. Then shrugged. “Fair enough.”

The food didn’t taste like anything, but then the whole world felt like it was a dream. Maybe it was the exhaustion. The heartache. The disbelief.

The deaths.

“It all started for me six years ago,” C.P. said remotely.

“What did?”

“This whole … wild goose chase.” The woman pushed her own full plate away. “I was diagnosed with leukemia. I’d never thought about death—ironic, right, for somebody in the pharmaceutical business. I just decided … I had to save myself. The kind I have is going to come back. It’s inevitable. So if I find a way of prolonging life, I may have a chance at a future.”

“You’re sick?”

“Not at the moment. But I will be at some point. All the money in the world, and I’ve still got a grave waiting for me.” C.P. jogged her coffee cup to punctuate her point. “But I’m going down with a fight. That’s my nature, and who knows, maybe I can save some others and win a Nobel Prize in the process.”

“But what about the illegalities?”

“Details. Just details. You’re telling me the robber barons were legal? The steel industry? Big Tech in the present? Please. Don’t be naive. And don’t get me started with the U.S. government.”

Lydia fell silent and finished what was on her plate.

“Hybrids,” C.P. murmured as if she were deep in thought. “I wonder if that’s even possible. A human and a wolf.”

“I think you’re working on enough, don’t you?” Lydia said dryly.

“Yes.” C.P. smiled a little. “You’re probably right.”

Did she know about the vampire experiments? Lydia wondered.

“We’re going to find out who the fuck else they were doing business with,” C.P. announced. “One way or the other, we’re going to get to the bottom of all this. Are you in?”

Lydia stared out at the dawn light. And thought about the wolves that had been killed.

“Yes,” she answered grimly. “I am.”

DANIEL WORKED HIS way through the trees of the preserve, moving as silently as he could, staying behind trunks when he was able. The pack on his back was weighted down with tools for the job, as well as explosives, and his body was strung with weapons. In spite of his grim purpose, however, his feet were heavy in a way that had nothing to do with what he’d strapped on to himself. Fucking hell, he felt like he was pulling a car behind him.

And yet he kept going across the mountain, currently on a slight decline.

Overhead, the sky was cloudy, and soon enough, rain started to fall, but it was the lazy kind, just drops floating down that he ignored even when they got in his eyes. He just really didn’t give a crap about anything.

Which made him a bad bet, didn’t it.

People with nothing to lose were very unreliable. Then again, he did have one thing to care about, didn’t he.

Sad as fuck that he’d already lost her.

As he continued along, the path he followed was a trail of deliberation that purposely made no sense, his forward progress full of double backs and random turns. With his thousand-pound boots, he was adhering to good tracking protocol for no other reason than habit—and as he took his own sweet time getting to his final destination, he really wasn’t in a hurry.

With “final” being the operant word.

He was going to take a page out of Rick’s book, just without the chain-link fence—or the interruptions.

And there was one, and only one, thing he could count on. Just like they would kill Lydia if he didn’t do this … if he followed through as he planned, she would, in fact, be safe. Fuck Blade’s honor bullshit. The more dead bodies, the more possibility for exposure, and with what Daniel was about to do, he was going to cast a whole lot of attention on exactly what they were trying to deal with discreetly. After his little boom-boom firework show here? There was going to be so much follow-up by the regular authorities that when it came to Lydia Susi, it was going to be in Blade’s best interest to leave her alone. Otherwise, the man would be risking too much scrutiny and a loss of anonymity and autonomy.

Lydia would be safe because actions had ramifications, even for those existing outside of the law.

God, he was ready for this to be over.

Pausing, he looked through the trees. He was halfway up the mountain, and if his memory was correct—and it never failed him—he didn’t have far to go.

Goddamn, he was so close.

As his legs started up again, his body went along for the ride and took his mind with it, the latter nestled in the stagecoach of his skull. And it wasn’t much farther until the line of “No Trespassing” signs made an appearance, everything exactly as he remembered—