Joy to the Wolves (Red Wolf #1) - Terry Spear Page 0,72

widened, and I think he realized our kind work there. I think he would have talked if his dad hadn’t called. I gave Lucas your number, too, since you’re part owner of the reindeer ranch and would probably let him work with the reindeer for community service. I told him we can’t tolerate criminal acts by our kind. That we can’t go to prison.”

“Okay. We need to get him on the right path then. He might even be able to date some of the teen girls in our pack,” Josh said.

“Only if he cleans up his act. The judge said Ty Henson is his best friend,” Adam said.

“He told me that too.”

“Did you want to talk to Ty?” Adam asked.

“I can head on over to his home,” Josh said.

“I was talking to Luke about his whereabouts that night. He said he was seeing Sandy Hicks, his girlfriend, at the park.”

“Right. Maybe she was sitting in the back seat with Jingles.”

“It could be. A female’s scent is in the back seat, though it could be from another time. Then Luke got a call from his dad. It must have been after you talked to him, and the next thing we know, the boy is lawyering up. I gave him my card and told him if he wants to talk to me about anything, not just about the crime but anything, he could call me. I thought he looked like he was dying to know more about us. I would have told him what we do to our kind who won’t toe the line, but his mother came out and told him to go into the house, glowering at me for talking to him. She isn’t one of us either.”

“Maybe something good can come from this.”

“I was thinking of giving him hard labor, once the judge said he and his buddy had already been hacking computers. Hell, the kids were only fifteen at the time.”

Josh laughed.

“Since he’s one of us, that wouldn’t do. The way he’s going, he’ll end up in jail, and we can’t have that. Is Brooke still all right?”

“Yeah, but I’ll give her a call to let her know what’s happening.” Josh was dying to talk to the kid. They needed to convince him of the error of his ways and learn if he was a royal like them, a wolf with roots so far back, he didn’t have any issues with shifting. “Do you have an address for Ty?”

Adam gave the address to him.

“I’m on my way there,” Josh said, glad they were getting somewhere with that case at least.

Chapter 17

As soon as two men walked into her shop, Brooke immediately recognized them from having been here the day Jingles and Cinnamon were in the courtyard. She’d thought the men looked suspicious the first time too. They didn’t look like her usual customers, though she’d had a lot of traffic because of the reindeer calves that she probably wouldn’t have had otherwise. Josh had been outside with the calves, and Adam and Maverick had been having lunch at the house at the time.

The one man had shaggy brown hair, scraggy facial hair, and brown eyes; the other was a blue-eyed blond and wore a beard. Both were dressed in well-worn jeans and open hoodies revealing worn sweatshirts that looked like they’d seen better days. When they’d come that day, they’d said it was to see the reindeer calves everyone was talking about. They’d walked through her entire shop, making her feel they were going to steal something, and had not really been interested in seeing the reindeer. Most of the people who only intended to see the reindeer had gone around through the courtyard gate as a courtesy to those who were interested in buying or at least looking through Brooke’s inventory. She should have asked Josh if the men had gone out to see the reindeer. She’d completely forgotten about it because she’d been swamped with sales.

These guys made her skin crawl. She was placing a price tag on a cast-iron frying pan when the last of her customers left the shop. Alone with these men, she felt even warier. One was lifting things off a shelf, checking prices, and placing the items back on the shelf. He didn’t look like he was truly interested in buying anything. The other sauntered over to her counter, his mouth lifting slightly. The smile didn’t appear genuine in the least.

“Where do you get your stuff from?” the blue-eyed guy asked,