Capitol Kidnap: Urban Werewolf Book 1 by Mel Corbett Read Free Book Online Page A

Jeff by the smell of him. Naomi turned back to face him, and recoiled a step. He was much closer than she had expected.
    "What are you going to do? Tell on me?"  
    He shook his head and laughed as if that would be ridiculous. His laugh was warm and inviting. Naomi could imagine him as a wolf, tongue hanging from the side of its mouth, relaxed and open. She smiled.
      "Sounds like you got a ride. Do you have room for one more?" Jeff said.
    "Why?" Just because he laughed at the question, didn't mean he wasn't spying for her mom.
    "Just thought you could use a little help." Jeff shrugged. "Besides, I don't want to sit around your house either."
    "And my mom?" Naomi asked.
    "Doesn't have to go."  
    Okay, she could agree to that. They walked in silence a little while before Naomi began to feel uncomfortable.  
    "What's it like being a detective?" Naomi asked after a while.
    "A lot of paperwork. Getting information from county records and stuff like that. Just fact checking mostly."
    "Sounds like my job. It can't be that boring though." Naomi heard a faint rustle as a deer behind someone's house e caught their scent and bounded away. Jeff and Naomi's eyes met then they both smiled at the thought of the hunt.  
    "Occasionally, I get a stakeout. Cheating husband, that kind of thing. You just have to have a good eye for detail."
    "That's it, really? I have to do that already. Well, mine is staking out a cheater."
    "What do you do at your," he paused for effect dragging out the word, "environmental firm?"  
      "They call it due diligence. Need to make sure that who says they own the land actually does." Naomi shrugged. "That means, I get to dig through musty file rooms accounting records and research paper trails. Pretty boring stuff."
    "For the most part, so is my job." Naomi's phone rang, interrupting him.
      Mindy bitched about being Naomi's personal chauffeur, but agreed to drive them. She just didn't want to get too close, so Naomi told her to meet them at the corner.
    "Vampires, huh?" Jeff said.
    "Yeah, but I think she likes being needed once in a while." Naomi and Jeff walked past the condos towards the noise of Folsom Boulevard. "You now, it's pretty cool to find another wolf who doesn't want the pack to take care of everything."
      Jeff shrugged. "Someone has to take care the pack once in a while."
    Naomi studied him, looking for some sign of a lie since he didn't seem like the team player, but he seemed to mean it.  
    "That's an alpha attitude if I ever heard one," she said.
    "I'm not trying to rise above my place. It's just–this sort of fell into my lap and I decided to handle everything by the book."
    "What happened?"
    "Pretty boy Marcus got all the human girls after him."
    "And?" Naomi asked.
    "And they accused him of… Well, let's just say I proved he was innocent." Jeff clearly didn't want to say more. Mindy pulled up to them in Naomi's bug.
    "Great, just what I need," Mindy said as they open the doors. "Two of you."
    "Thank you Mindy. I appreciate you helping me find my brother."
    "You damn well convinced me they're going to start hunting me down too, if we don't fix this." Mindy peeled out before Jeff and Naomi even buckled their seat belts. "Who's he?"
    "I'm Jeff. I thought maybe you guys could use a little help with the flower shop."
    "A little help, huh?" Mindy looked pointedly at Naomi. "Mother didn't want you alone with me, did she?"  
    Naomi shook her head, no."Mom's kind of gone a little crazy with this."
    "Wouldn't you? Her whole existence is going to be destroyed because her son wasn't careful."
    "He was careful. They used magic–"
    "They had to find out somehow. It was either you or him that wasn't careful."

CHAPTER TWELVE

    T HE FLOWER SHOP WAS IN one of those small brown one-story buildings at the outskirts of downtown. It could have held something like the Sushi Palace or the General Store, but the white and pink sign declared it was Sacramento City Florist. Mindy parked about a block down