"Do you have a good way to reach Samuel or Bran?"
"No." She hesitated. "Yes. I know where they are - in Montana. I can drive."
"Okay," I said. "Take Phin's car, it'll be harder to trace." Phin drove an older Subaru, built before the days of GPS and electronic surveillance. Our enemy might not be the government, but they had access to government-level spy equipment.
"Is it safe for us to leave?" I asked. "Or do you need a few more minutes?"
Safe for us, not for her. I didn't want to do anything to provoke her - and Jesse had been right, never let predators think that you might be running away.
"I will go upstairs," she said. "Don't move until after I have closed the door."
Ben, who'd completed his change and stood in full-werewolf form, quivered when she walked behind him, but he didn't turn to look at her. It spoke of his willpower - it is hard to have someone who might harm you where you cannot see them. But he managed.
She stopped on the stairway. "Be careful, Mercedes. There are people who would mourn if you took hurt."
"Always am," I said, and she laughed. But she didn't look at us, just kept climbing.
When I heard the door close upstairs, I led the way out the door, with Ben taking rear guard. I eased the door open slowly, but there were no suspicious cars awaiting us.
Even so, I didn't breathe easily again until we were on the highway headed back toward Kennewick.
"Where are we going?" asked Gabriel.
"I need to stow you and Jesse somewhere safe," I told him. "There are too many big bad things out there that would love to get their hands on the two of you."
He shrugged. "Not me, Mercy. I'm just your hired hand. It's Jesse they want."
I glanced at him. "You planning on going back to the trailer and waiting to see what happens to her?"
He growled. Pretty good growl for a human.
"That's what I thought," I said. "So I need somewhere safe for you both."
"You have someplace in mind?" asked Jesse tightly. I heard the rebellion in her voice and didn't blame her - how often had I been told to take the sidelines because a coyote wasn't in the same weight class as a werewolf? It sucked. But if they took her, too - I think that Adam would sacrifice the world for his daughter.
"I have a place in mind," I said.
"Where?" asked Jesse, but Gabriel guessed.
"Oh hell, no," he said.
Gabriel was still arguing when we drove into the apartment complex in east Kennewick where his mother and sisters lived.
"Look," I said, not for the first time, "if they know all of the pack, then they know about you and Jesse, and they can guess I've stashed you with her. They'll also know that you and your mother haven't spoken a word since before last Christmas. They will know her feelings on the werewolves."
Sylvia Sandoval had been interviewed by the local paper when Adam and I had gotten married a few months ago because her son worked for me, and Adam was a local celebrity. She had been quite clear on how she felt about the werewolves.
"They'd never believe that she'd give the Alpha's daughter shelter," I told him.
"She won't," he said.
I smiled at him. "If I'm right, you get to clean the bathroom at the shop next. If you are, I'll do it."
He closed his eyes, shook his head.
"She loves you," I told him, getting out of the car. "Or she wouldn't be so stubborn about being mad."
I didn't need to tell him about the conversation Sylvia and I had had right before he finished high school. This was different - this time it wasn't Sylvia versus the werewolves. This time I would be more diplomatic and wouldn't leave yelling, "Fine. If you're too proud to say you're sorry - I'll keep him!" at the top of my lungs.