"A truckload of shit is what's been happening," I replied. "But the first thing you need to know is the fact that there's whole chunks of my memories missing. I know who you all are, but I can't for the life of me remember your names. In fact, until a moment ago, I couldn't even remember my own name."
"What?" my brother said.
"It's all part of the plot," Evin said. He was sitting on the edge of the desk, his stance suggesting he was ready to fight. He wasn't about to trust the three men in my life - and I couldn't entirely blame him. Not with the dark and dangerous look my brother was flinging his way.
Evin added, "According to her driver's license, she's Hanna London. I'm her brother, Evin. We were supposed to be here for a week."
"So you're part of it?" My twin stepped forward, anger practically oozing from every pore. He wanted someone to blame - someone to take his frustration out on - very badly indeed.
I grabbed his arm. "Not willingly. And would you mind introducing yourselves? I can't exactly do it."
He glanced at me. "I'm Rhoan, that's Jack over near the door, and Quinn is the brooding presence behind us."
I looked over my shoulder and gave him a smile. And noticed for the first time the fading scar down the side of his face. I reached out and touched it gently. Saw again the truck hitting the black car, that car rolling over and over, and shivered inwardly. He was lucky to be alive. I guess we both were.
He caught my fingers and kissed them gently. "Do you know why your memories are so sketchy? Was it the accident, or was it deliberate?"
"Deliberate."
He touched my temple with his free hand and power washed around me, warm and familiar. "I can feel the imprint of another. We might be able to undo it."
"Good. But not right now." I turned around and looked at Jack. "We've had two murders here in Dunedan, both revenge killings very similar to the one I was investigating in Melbourne. This time, Harris and I managed to capture the killer and the helicopter pilot who was coming to pick him up."
Jack shook his head. "Even kidnapped, you still manage to find yourself in the middle of a murder investigation."
"Even when she was repeatedly told to keep her nose out of it," Harris murmured, humor touching his lips as his gaze met mine.
"Ah, well." Jack walked across the room and helped himself to some coffee. "I've been her boss for years and, let me tell you, getting her to obey orders is impossible."
"But in this case, it was a good thing." I leaned back against Quinn. His warmth and his smell soaked through my pores, filling a void I hadn't even been aware of until now. "Because it was the similarities of the murders here to the ones I'd been investigating in Melbourne that began triggering memories."
"Probably because whoever was doing the memory rearranging didn't know enough about your life to make it stick."
With the back of my head resting against Quinn's chest, his voice seemed to rumble right through me. It was a wonderful sensation.
"That makes sense, because the stuff they didn't know about - like my seagull shape and clairvoyance skills - I could access, but my wolf shape, and the knowledge of who and what I was, I couldn't."
"So why didn't they erase your mind completely?" Harris asked. "That would have been a whole lot easier, surely?"
"It would have," Jack said, "but Riley has extremely strong shields. Most vampires wouldn't break past more than the first few layers of memories."
He could, as could Quinn, but even they were no longer able to dive deep into my subconscious. I'd grown too strong over the past year.
The thought made me smile. It was nice to actually remember.
"Which is why you've lost the everyday stuff and not most of the deeper, instinctive information," Rhoan said. His gaze went to my ear. "Have you been wearing a set of those nulling implants like the ones that Kye placed on you several months ago? Because I haven't been able to feel your presence, and Quinn wasn't able to sense you."
"Not until about an hour ago," Quinn added. His lips brushed the top of my head. "You have no idea just how much of a relief that was."
I smiled and placed my hands over his. "We took the implants out about then." I glanced at my brother. "When I disappeared, did you go talk to Blake?"
His thin cold smile said it all. "Yes. He claimed to know nothing."
"And you believed him?"
"No. But I couldn't kill him, either - not until we found out where you were. He's still under surveillance."
"Blake?" Evin said, sitting up a little straighter. "You mean our Blake? The leader of the Jenson pack?"
"The very one," Rhoan said, still eyeing Evin critically. "With that hair color, I take it you're from the Jenson pack?"
"Yes." He was staring at the two of us with an odd sort of expression. "You're Riley and Rhoan Jenson, aren't you?"
I raised an eyebrow at the edge in his voice. "I think we've already established that."
"No," he said, almost savagely, then added, "I mean, you don't understand. My father is Vernon Jenson, and he married Rayanne Jenson in a human civil ceremony some ten years ago."
I stared at him. "Your father married our mother? That means - "
"That I was right. I am your brother. By marriage, granted, but kin all the same." He smiled. "And you have a brother and two sisters you really need to meet."
"What?" Rhoan's gaze jumped between me and Evin. "Mum wouldn't do that."
Evin raised an eyebrow. "Why wouldn't she?"
"Because she swore never to have any more children after the way we were treated. And a civil ceremony? That means they're not soul mates - "
"But they love each other all the same. It may not be the deep, forever connection of a wolf mate, but it's still there and still real. And we have siblings to prove it."
"Fuck," Rhoan said, and thrust a hand through his short hair. But when he glanced at me, his eyes were bright and shiny. "We have brothers and sisters."
And underneath those words ran one joyous sentiment: We are no longer alone.
We had siblings. We might not know them, nor they us, but we had blood kin. We were a part of a family unit. And for wolves who had been so alone for so long, that was a powerful realization.
"But why the hell would Mom swear such a thing? And why would Blake want to kill you?" Evin asked.
"Mom's never said much about your reasons for leaving, only that it was for the best. And certainly Blake's never mentioned you."
"He wouldn't, especially after what we did to him last year," Rhoan said. "But I bet he's been plotting his revenge since then."
"A revenge he denies being a part of." I squeezed Quinn's hands then pushed away from his warmth. His grip loosened reluctantly - a reluctance that echoed fiercely within me. I didn't ever want to leave this vampire's side. It was a surprising revelation given how long it had taken me to realize I even loved the damn man. I walked across the room to retrieve my coffee cup. "But we have several avenues to explore to find the link. And I think if we manage to undo whatever has been done to my memories, we'll discover he's very much behind it all. Because it's certainly his voice I keep hearing in my mind, telling me to enjoy my new life while I can."
"Then let's go kill the bastard," Rhoan said, voice flat and deadly.
"Hold the anger in check," Jack snapped. "Riley's safe. The rest of it can wait. We are guardians, and we have the people behind these revenge killings to stop. That has to be our priority."
"Then am I to gather," Harris said, his arms crossed and face as impassive as ever, "that your presence here is the reason why the Perth Directorate has not responded to our request for help?"
"Basically, yes," Jack said. "Although I have to say, there will be some ass-kicking in Perth, because they did not flag your request through to us as soon as they got it."
"We were wondering what was going on. Hanna - " Harris hesitated, then glanced at me with a smile, "Riley kept insisting it should have been a priority-one message, even if the request came from a small-town cop in the middle of nowhere."
"'Should' being the operative word. When we did actually receive it, we accessed your system for details and saw your search for information on one Hanna London. And of course, Hanna London just happened to be the spitting image of our missing guardian. We got out here as soon as we could."
On Quinn's private jet, no doubt. The Directorate wouldn't have been able to move that fast, even if it was to recover a missing guardian. Whatever else it was, the Directorate was still a government department, and they are always bogged down by paperwork.
"How is the investigation actually going?" I asked. "Did you get much information out of the two shifters we caught at the brothel?"
Jack shook his head. "Several contact names - two we tracked down and one we didn't. This organization is like government - lots of different sections that don't know what the other is doing or where it is located."
"Meaning we might not have much better luck with the vamp."
"We can but try."
"We also have the pilot who'd come to pick him up in custody," Harris said. "The helicopter is privately owned by a company listed as Daskill Holdings. I was checking the validity of the licenses when the vamp gained control of my deputy's mind and sidetracked me."
"Daskill? I've heard that name before." Jack frowned. "Rhoan, contact Sal and get her to do a complete background check on that company and its owners."
Rhoan nodded and reached for his phone. As he made his call, I walked across to the machine and made three coffees, sliding one across to Rhoan before picking up the other two and returning to Quinn. After handing him a cup, I turned to face Jack.
"Are you going to interrogate the vamp?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Meaning you don't want to?"
"Well, considering I shot him twice to stop him from hitting me telepathically, I very much doubt he's going to cooperate with me."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "Why didn't you just telepathically hit him back? The vamp in the cell isn't an old one - I can tell that from here - so you'd have the mind strength to restrain him at least."
"I had a silver bullet in my leg. It was breaking my concentration and draining my strength."
"Hence all the blood," Rhoan murmured, briefly putting his hand over the phone receiver. "I did wonder."
"We got it out quickly, so there's no lasting damage." The area around the wound might still be numb, but at least the numbness that had stretched the length of my leg had faded a little.
"But that's not the reason why you don't want to interrogate the vamp, is it?" Jack said. "Give, Riley."
I hesitated. He'd already said he wanted to concentrate on solving these murders first, but I wasn't about to let a possible clue slip through my fingers. Right now there was very little chance of West knowing we suspected him. We needed to grab him - and question him - before he could warn anyone the jig was up.
"We have a possible connection to my kidnapping, but I need to talk to him tonight, before he realizes I've got a whole chunk of memory back."
"If you're talking about West," Harris said, voice flat, "then you're not doing anything without me present. I'm sorry, but I owe the man that much."
I waved a hand. "Fine."
"There is one problem," Evin said. "Like me, West probably has to report in every night. Once you talk to him, then he's going to jump straight on the phone and tell them what is going on."
"Only if he remembers it," Quinn said, amusement in his gaze as he glanced at me. "And considering the memory issues you've been having, maybe I should be the one who tackles his memory adjustment."
"It's not that I can't do it," I said mildly. "It's just that I couldn't remember that I could do it."
"But that still doesn't solve the overall problem," Evin said. "When you disappear, he's going to report it."
"That, too, can be fixed."
"West is a good cop," Harris said adamantly. "I can't - won't - believe he's aware of the true gravity of the situation. At least give him a chance to make amends before you start messing with his mind."
"That we can do," I said, and returned my gaze to Jack.
"Okay," he said heavily. "Do it. Rhoan, you can stay with me. We'll interview the vamp."
Rhoan didn't look happy, but he didn't argue, either. As the two men disappeared into the cell area, I said to Harris, "It's probably best if we confront West here. Are you able to call him in?"
"That very much depends on whether he's decided to answer his cell phone or not."
But he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, holding it away from his ear slightly so we could all hear it. After several rings, West answered. His gruff tones were clear over the speakers.
"Where the fuck have you been, Mike? There's been a second murder and all hell has broken loose. I want you back at headquarters ASAP."
"I'm on my way."
"From where?"
"Just passed the Old Well Road."
