Except something about the man bothered Kade. Partly the apparent ease of his relationship with Alex, although jealousy wasn't something Kade caved to very often. That didn't keep him from gritting his teeth thinking about the guy, or from wondering if maybe a quick trip back to Harmony just to look in on Alex wasn't in order after all. Picking up where they'd left off in Pete's parking lot was optional. Not to mention sorely tempting.
Before the idea could take root any more than it had already, Kade dismissed it with a curse muttered low under his breath.
Bad f**king news--that's what this entire mission was shaping up to be. With that thought dogging his heels, Kade slipped away from his surveillance of Skeeter Arnold and his new high-security pals, and started off in the direction of his father's Darkhaven a few hours away on foot. He could wait out the daylight there, check in with headquarters in Boston about his findings so far, and see if Gideon could turn up anything of interest on the Coldstream Mining Company. Skeeter Arnold had lost all track of time. He rode in the backseat of the black Hummer, surprised to see the clock on the expensive ride's dashboard up front read 6:00 AM.
He'd been gone all night?
It felt as though he'd just left Pete's tavern a few minutes ago and now here he was, back again. Only now everything was different.
He was different.
He felt it in the way his body sat so straight on the leather seat, his spine erect, shoulders lifted out of their usual heavy slump. He felt empowered somehow, and knew the source of that power was sitting beside him: motionless, silent, radiating dark menace and cool, lethal control. Skeeter didn't know his name. He couldn't even recall if he'd been told. It no longer mattered.
"You will tell no one of what transpired tonight," said the airless voice from within the deep hood of a black-fur parka. "You will go home immediately and destroy all copies of the video footage of the slayings."
Skeeter nodded obediently, eager to please. "Yes, Master." He recalled thinking that when the Hummer driver first approached him about sharing some information with an interested private party, the transaction was sure to involve someone stuffing a sweet amount of cash into his pocket.
He'd been wrong about that.
And when he'd been brought out to the old mining company location to meet the so-called interested private party, he'd been wrong to guess that the tall man in the pricey suit and crisp white shirt was a man at all. He was something more than that.
Something ... other.
Skeeter had been a little afraid as he was escorted via armed guards from the vehicle and through the main building, into a secured area that looked like some kind of research facility, pimped out in shiny stainless steel exam tables and easily a few million bucks in computer equipment. It was all pretty weird, though the biggest head-scratcher had been the large vertical cylinder that seemed to be some kind of cage with thick metal chains and shackles bolted to the floor of it.
As he had tried to make sense of its purpose, the inpidual he was to meet with--the same inpidual seated beside him now--came into the room to question Skeeter about many things. He'd been asked about the cell phone video he'd taken at the Toms settlement. He'd been asked what he knew of the slayings, if he'd witnessed the creature who'd attacked the humans.
Skeeter recalled his confusion over the odd way the questions were phrased, and he worried that he had somehow walked into a situation more dangerous than it seemed. But there had been no opportunity to turn back. He'd walked into something deadly serious. He'd known that, even then. He'd been questioned about Alexandra Maguire, and what the rumors were around town about the killings. When he'd volunteered about the stranger in Harmony, the big, muscular dude with the jet black hair and wolfy eyes who showed up out of the blue just a couple of nights ago asking similar questions of the townsfolk, the air in the room had seemed to grow as thick as fog.
Skeeter recalled the dread he'd felt as the tall man in the expensive-looking suit pulled a satellite phone from a nearby table and left the room for a few minutes.
He remembered being antsy, needing to distract himself from whatever disaster might be waiting for him on the other end of that phone call. He'd asked the laboratory workers what the cage was used for, watching as three of them in white jumpsuits tested some of the fittings and clicked computer controls that operated different functions on the thing.
Skeeter had guessed out loud that it wasn't meant to hold a human. The size of the cell, as well as the size of the table inside and the heavy-duty restraints affixed to it, had seemed designed for something much size of the table inside and the heavy-duty restraints affixed to it, had seemed designed for something much larger than any man. A grizzly, maybe, Skeeter had said, to no reply from any of the workers or the armed guards.
But someone had an answer for him, impossible as it was to believe.
"It was built for one of my kind," the tall man in the expensive-looking suit had said as he'd walked back into the room.
And he had looked different to Skeeter then. Still rich and important, still the same current of lethal power about him, but his face had seemed tighter, his features drawn sharper, more pronounced. Skeeter recalled seeing a sudden spark of amber light flashing in the narrowed gaze that refused to let him squirm, even though every cell in his body was screaming for him to get the hell out of there. He recalled catching a fleeting glimpse of sharp white teeth, recalled thinking that he was only seconds away from dying ... then he felt the full body blow that knocked him completely off his feet. Skeeter could not remember much after that moment of pure terror. Everything slowed down, went black.
But he hadn't died.