The Wolf Code

Because you like him, a voice muttered in her head, but she pushed it away.  Yes, she was attracted to him.  But attraction wasn’t love, and that didn’t mean that they were meant to be together, right?

“Damnit,” she said under her breath.

This was harder than she thought it was going to be.  If Ty hadn’t been so all out handsome and so comfortable in his own skin, she wouldn’t have been so very attracted to him.  Instead, he’d reduced her to arguing with herself over whether she loved him or just lusted after him so hard that she couldn’t tell the difference.  For someone like Senora who liked to be in control of herself, this was bad.

You’re going home now, and you won’t have to worry about it, she thought.  Sure, she would hurt over him for a few days, maybe even weeks.  But she would get over it, and there would be another case dragging her halfway across the country, and there would be no room for fantasies of the sexy werewolf.  She would get through this, and she would start by erasing Ty’s number from her phone’s memory as soon as she stopped.  Rip the Band-Aid off and move on, she thought, laughing to herself at the imagery the words from her childhood had evoked. 

Her phone rang, and she was about to send it to voicemail when she realized it was J.  She pushed the button on her Bluetooth as she fastened it to her ear in one smooth motion and smiled.

“Hi, J,” she said.  “I’m on my way to the airport now.  Did you get the files?”

“I got them all.  Excellent work.”

“I guess I’ll talk to you when I get back, and we can debrief.”

“No,” J said simply, never one to mince words.  “Your flight is canceled.  I have a reservation for you at the hotel at the airport so you can turn in your car and get a good night’s rest tonight.”

“Is there another case?”

“Not in Glen Rose, but yes, there is.  Just outside Odessa.  A young hotel employee has gone missing under suspicious circumstances.”

“Do you think it’s related to the trafficking ring in Glen Rose?”

“It might be, and it might not.  But the area is kind of out of the way and a lot of tourists that are just passing through go missing.”

Senora sighed.  At least it wasn’t Glen Rose. 

“I sent the address to your GPS, but you won’t be driving,” the computerized voice she’d come to associate with J said.  “I’ll send someone to pick you up in the morning.”

“I prefer to work alone,” Senora said, cringing at the unfortunate tone of her words but standing by them.

“I’m aware of that, but the files you sent me suggest that you also play well with others.”

Senora grinned, surprised that J was teasing her.  He was probably referencing something that was said to her in frustration by another agent, but Senora didn’t care.  She didn’t like working with others and had been accused of not playing well with others more times than she could count.  It didn’t bother her one bit.

“I guess, if it’s temporary, I can deal with it.”

“You’re going to be in Texas for a while, but the good news is that fall is just around the corner.”

She noticed that he didn’t speak to whether the partner would be temporary, but she wasn’t going to bring it up.  J was her boss, after all, and she wasn’t in any position to tell him how to run their Task Force.  He let her do a lot of things on her own, and he covered for her any time there was flak from the higher ups.  But when J told her how things were going to go, there was no negotiating his terms. 

“You’ll get a per diem, or course, and field pay.  For anything else, you can submit expense reports as always.”

“Will do,” she said, trying to sound cheerier than she felt. 

She’d been looking forward to going home and sleeping in her own bed.

“I sprang for one of the nicer hotels, so feel free to indulge.  Your ride won’t be there until after noon tomorrow, so you have almost an entire day to yourself.  Rest up and don’t you dare work on the Glen Rose case.  I have my people following up, and they have all the evidence you scanned and submitted.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, and before she could ask for any further instructions, the line went dead in her ear.

She shook her head and popped the Bluetooth piece out of her ear.  J hadn’t given her a chance to tell him about the journal, but she would deal with that when she returned to D.C.  It wouldn’t fit in her mobile scanner and printer bar, so she would have to copy it the old-fashioned way.

Now that she wasn’t catching a plane in a few hours, she actually had time to do it.

When she made it to Cleburne, she took the first exit off the sixty-seven and headed through town.  She drove past a movie theater and a mall that looked mostly deserted, but the further into town she got, the heavier the traffic and the number of businesses got.  It was another mile before she found what she was looking for.

She parked the car in the parking lot and took the journal into the home office store, going straight to the self-serve kiosk and starting to copy the journal face down, two pages at a time.

“Ma’am,” a young man’s voice said from over her shoulder.  “We have to adhere to copyright laws so I’m going to have to check that book.”

She pulled her badge out of her pocket and laid it on the desk beside her, and without another word, the young man stepped away and went to help other customers.  Putting the badge back in her pocket, she made fast work of copying the entire journal, then counted off the pages and went to the counter to pay.

“I’ll need an employee to count those,” the cashier said.

Senora shook her head.

“I can’t let you do that,” she said.

She was about to show her badge again when a surly looking man in his mid-fifties came out with the young man in tow.  He looked at Senora and made an expression she couldn’t place, then went to the cashier and spoke quietly to her.

When he turned to Senora, she was preparing herself for an argument, but that wasn’t what happened.

“No need to pay,” the man said.  “You have a nice day.”

He nodded and left, leaving behind a bewildered cashier whose expression mirrored Senora’s.  Senora shrugged, leaving the store with her copies and wondering what had prompted the man to give her the free copies.  Not that they were more than a few dollars, but it was an odd gesture.

She was still brooding over it when she got into the car and continued on her way toward the airport.  The map showed so many tiny little towns between Cleburne and Dallas that Senora wished she had someone with her to talk to.  She’d come this way on her way out, and the drive was beyond boring, the radio reception spotty.

She settled into the seat and willed herself to head out.  A warm, luxury bed called to her, and if she was lucky, an in-room spa tub would be there to work the kinks out of her tired muscles and make her night a happy one. 

Her hotel confirmation came up on the screen, and Senora couldn’t help but smile.  She didn’t recognize the name of the hotel, but she knew it wasn’t a chain and, according to the brief glimpse she’d gotten of the email, it was ridiculously expensive.  That meant it included every amenity she could want and then some.  She got excited when she realized that J had given her Carte Blanche to treat herself after a rough case, and that meant that she could order Room Service, too.  It was going to be a good night after all, and in the morning, she would be fresh and ready to face working with another agent.  She couldn’t say she was thrilled, but the night of pampering would definitely soften the blow. 

She didn’t doubt that was J’s plan all along.