Filed To Story: Secret Shifters Next Door Series PDF Free
“Fine. I get the feeling this isn’t a casual call.”
“Right to the point. I like it. Anyway, remember that young hunter girl I told you about?”
I sighed. “Yeah. What’s happened?”
“Well, I told you our plan was to frame her for one of the murders, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, drawing the word out, confused about where this was going.
“We had a change of heart. Decided she was more valuable in our care than the local cops. We’ve kept her prisoner and tried to get more info out of her.”
“Holy shit. You kept a fucking prisoner of war, for Christ’s sake?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, call it what you will. We aren’t waterboarding her or anything. The opposite actually. The saying ‘you catch more flies with honey than vinegar’ seems to be true. Today, she remembered something else about her training facility.”
My heart rate spiked. A tremor of excitement surged through me. I waved frantically at Tate to close the office door. He did and leaned in to hear what Donovan was saying.
“All right. What made her so compliant all of a sudden? You can be nice to a prisoner, but she’s still a prisoner.”
“That’s the thing.” Donovan chuckled. “It was your mom.”
“What?” The word sputtered out of my mouth.
“She basically took the kid in. She’s been caring for her. I didn’t feel right about harming a kid who was being cooperative.”
“I need you to go back to the part where a hunter is living in my parents’ house,” I said, anger boiling to the surface again.
“Easy, Miles. We understand the safety issue. We’ve got it under control. There’s a guard in the house with them at all times. Her door is locked at night. We’re pretty sure that’s a moot point, though. Having your parents nurture her has really turned her around. I don’t know if it’s some type of Stockholm syndrome or whatever, but she’s helping us.”
“And you’re sure she isn’t some spy or something?”
“No cell phone, no internet access. She doesn’t even have access to a landline. But, again, we’re a hundred percent sure she’s done with the hunter organization. They more or less led her and her team into a blood bath and left her to die. It’s safe. Or as safe as it can possibly be.”
It still didn’t sit well with me, but I also knew my dad wouldn’t let a strange girl into his house—especially not an ex-hunter—unless he was completely sure she was harmless. “All right, what was this info she gave?”
“Well, she was bussed into the training facility. The windows were blacked out, so she had no clue where it was, but once she was there, she caught sight of the exterior before she was led inside. The thing she remembered was that there were tons of trees around. Not like landscaping, but more like overgrowth, maybe on the edge of a forest. And there was a red sign out front. It was weather-worn and faded, and all she could see was the side of it, so she never saw any of the letters. I thought that was better than nothing.”
I nodded, trying to figure out how we could use that information. “Thanks. We’ll see what we can turn up.”
“Okay. Let me know if I can help anymore. Bye, Miles.”
I hung up and looked at Tate. “A lead?”
Tate shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Only one way to find out.”
We walked back to Blayne’s office, and I found him slumped over his keyboard, asleep. I chuckled and shook my head as I shook him awake.
“What? What? What did I do?” Blayne sputtered.
“Sleeping on the job,” Tate said. “I’m afraid the penalty is death.”
Blayne rubbed his eyes. “Perfect. At least then I could rest.”
I relayed the info I’d gotten from the alpha, and Blayne’s eyes lit up. He spun around and clicked through a half dozen pictures. Most were overhead satellite images pulled up from online maps; others were real-estate photos. He finally found what he was looking for and brought it up on the screen.
“It rang a bell as soon as you described it,” Blayne said, pointing at the screen.
Tate and I leaned in to look at the image. It was an old warehouse or factory of some sort on the outskirts of the city and nestled in a grove of trees. The front of the building was overgrown and semi-covered in vines and shrubs. The kicker was the old, faded sign. What used to be bright red letters read:
Standard Toys.
“He’s got it disguised as a toy factory?” Tate whispered.
“Unassuming, unthreatening, and unlikely anyone will go poking around. Who gives a shit about a toy factory?” Blayne asked. “Well, anyone over the age of twelve.”
“Let me get the address to my PI friend. He can do some digging before we jump the gun,” I said.
I stepped into the hallway and called my friend while Tate and Blayne worked on getting more images of the place we could use when we worked out a plan. If this really was the place, we