Thirteen (Otherworld 13)

His eye cracked open and he hesitated, as if, like me, he had to take a moment to clear his head and remember. Then he smiled, slid his other arm under me, and pulled me into a slow, delicious kiss.

A phone buzzed. We both bolted up, blinking and looking around.

"Yours," he said.

"Right. So where . . ."

He stretched over the edge of the bed, reached down, and pulled up my jeans. I tugged the phone from the pocket.

I answered. "Hey, Elena. Are we late?" I checked my watch. We'd been gone just over an hour.

"No, but Lester has decided he needs to leave pronto."

"We'll be right there."

As soon as we were through the hotel front doors, we saw the rental car come flying around the corner two blocks down. Clay gunned it. We met him at the curb and jumped in, not even getting the door closed before he peeled away.

He made a quick right--nearly mowing down people using the crosswalk--and roared past two streets before taking the next corner, circling back the way he'd come. I saw the back of Lester's Town Car turn a corner ahead of us.

"Keep back about a hundred feet," Elena said. "There's not enough traffic for us to get closer and we're fairly sure we know where he's going."

"Got it."

"So what happened?" I asked as Clay fell into tailing position.

"We'd moved onto the patio to nurse drinks. We overheard Lester excuse himself. He came outside. He seemed to take a call. A very quick one. Then he went back in and said there was a situation at home."

I remembered the conversation Adam and I had earlier that day. About getting called into work at convenient times.

"You said it was a quick call?"

She nodded. "Very quick."

"Did you hear it ring?"

She shook her head. "I figured it was on vibrate. But I see what you mean. It might have just been an excuse."

Lester did head straight home, though not fast enough to suggest there was any situation there. The tactical team confirmed that--they'd been watching the house since we arrived that afternoon and hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary. Just Lester's wife and college-age son for dinner, then the high-school-age son bringing a friend over to play video games.

After Lester went inside, he seemed to call it a night, meaning we were stuck outside, patrolling the perimeter with a squad of tactical guys who really didn't appreciate our intrusion. Especially when their orders now came from someone who was both female and a werewolf. Elena acted as if she didn't notice their reservations.

As for the house itself, I'd never seen Dallas--it was before my time--but Elena said she once had a foster family whose idea of family time was to watch the show, whether everyone wanted to or not. She was pretty sure Lester had his place modeled after JR's ranch house. Or maybe it was the other way around. It was big. It was boxy. It was blindingly white and shimmered in the Texas heat.

Since the property was a ranch, there was a lot of acreage to be watched. If anyone was planning to break in, though, they weren't hiding in the hay barn, because that's where the tactical team had set up, on the unused second floor, a spot that gave them a good vantage point on the house.

The size of the property meant that while it was difficult for us to monitor, it was just as difficult for Lester to maintain proper security. His fence would deter deer and little else. Two guards were out on patrol. The rest of the security was on the house itself, much of it electronic. Two Cabal technicians had gotten access to the attic. By the time dusk fell, we'd be able to rappel across the narrow gap between the second floor of the barn and a dormer window.

The sultry June evening was perfect for a few beers on the back deck, which would put them in our sight line--but the Lesters didn't seem to share my opinion. They'd all locked themselves in their monstrous house and pulled the blinds.

"The teens are playing a video game with the volume jacked up," Elena said. "The older son is complaining because he's trying to do homework. Sounds like our place, after Uncle Nick bought Kate a drum set. She insists on playing Metallica riffs in the same room where Logan is practicing French."

"Or Logan insists on practicing French in the same room where she's practicing Metallica riffs," Clay said.

"True," Elena said. "They always want to be together. Which would be easier if they shared any common interests besides bunny rabbits. Typical kids."

I grinned. "Yes, typical five-year-olds--playing Metallica and learning French for fun. As for the bunnies, I'm not going there."

"Don't. Anyway, sounds like situation normal at the Lester house tonight. The kids fighting, while Mom's telling them to stop bickering before their dad comes down to chew them out."