Embraced By Darkness (Riley Jenson Guardian 5)

He grinned. It was the first real expression I'd seen. "Thankfully. You sure your friend's mom got the right name?"

Well, no, because I was relying on Blake's report, and who knew how accurate that was? I pressed a button on my phone and retrieved the drawing, "This is a sketch of the man she's looking for."

"No, sorry, I can't remember seeing anyone who looks like that working here." He shrugged, his gaze wandering back down to my boobs, "But I could ask around, see if he was one of the transient workers, if you'd like."

"That would be great." I pressed another button, and retrieved one of the photos of Adrienne. "This is my cousin." I showed him the picture. "Do you remember seeing her at all?"

He studied the photo for a moment, then nodded. "Now her I remember."

I raised my eyebrows at the amusement in his tone. "Why?"

"She was running around, asking all sorts of questions."

"What sort of questions?"

"About some former guests - several women and a man, if I remember correctly. Some of the staff thought she might have been a private investigator, others a reporter. She was taking notes and stuff."

"No one here saw the notes? Read anything she wrote by accident?"

"Not that I'm aware." He paused, then said, "You know Jared Donovan, don't you?"

I held back my smile. How could I not know Jared? The man had been trying to get into my pants for the last three days. And if ever there was a human who could tempt me to look past ingrained prejudices, then he was it. He was tall, blond and athletic, with long strong fingers and a totally wicked smile.

Had he been wolf, I would have jumped his bones in an instant. As it was, I flirted with him probably more than was wise but, as tempting as he was, I just couldn't get past the whole human thing enough to bed him.

"I know him," I said, after a sip of beer. "Why?"

"Well, he likes to chat up all the pretty girls, so there's a good chance he talked to your friend. He might know more than me. I've got a wife, like."

Meaning, obviously, that he was restricted in the bedding department, but Jared the serial flirt was not. Why did humans bother getting married if they resented the vows that kept them together and exclusive? It was a weird way of doing things. At least us wolves didn't have that worry - once we made a vow to the moon, we were together for life. No ifs, buts, or maybes. Which is why we had to be very, very sure we'd found our soul mate before we committed. "Is Jared. on tomorrow at all?"

"I think he's manning the research station boat."

"That service starts up at ten, doesn't it?"

When he nodded, I lowered a shield and reached out psychically, quickly sorting through his thoughts and memories, looking for secrets or lies. There were a couple of odd smudges, as if someone had deliberately blurred certain memories, but it might have been alcohol induced, too. The results tended to look the same.

If someone had been in this man's mind, then they were damn good, because I could find no other trace of them. And certainly there was nothing more to add to the information Jim had already told me.

"Anything else I can help you with, Ms. Jenson?" he said, barely skipping a beat as I withdrew from his thoughts.

"No. But thanks for helping." I finished the rest of my beer, then, with nothing - and no one - else to amuse me, I headed back to my villa and tried to get some sleep. It was a long time coming, but I did eventually drift off, dreaming of bodiless faces who forced me off cliff tops.

I woke sweaty and less than rested. After showering, I got dressed, choosing tight shorts and another low-cut T, then grabbed my phone and wallet, and headed up to the hotel for breakfast and a little staff interrogation.

No one, it seemed, could remember seeing a staff member resembling the sketch Blake had sent. Plenty could remember Adrienne and, as the bartender had mentioned last night, they all seemed to think she was some sort of reporter or private investigator.

And she might have been, for all I knew.

Occupations had been absent from Blake's report, and I wasn't about to ring him and ask. The less contact I had with that bastard, the better.

One interesting point did come out of my questioning, however. Despite Blake's belief that she had danced with someone up here on the island, none of the staff could remember seeing her with anyone at all. She'd simply appeared on the island, stayed for several days questioning everyone who worked here, then left.

Which certainly smacked of reporter-like behavior. So if she was, how did she get onto the disappearances in the first place? The family trait of clairvoyance, perhaps? And had she come to this island investigating the disappearances, only to become a victim herself?

It certainly seemed that way.

But where did the sketch of the man parading as Jim Denton fit in?