In the Shadow of the Wolf 3 - Splintered Lies by RJ Scott, Diane Adams Read Free Book Online

the window and his head spinning with what-ifs and maybes. Nick was the one driving, Joe wasn't sure he could have managed the driving even if he'd tried. Every thought he had was filled with grief and anger. Not a good mix. What had just happened between them was the last thing that should have happened. Fuck . He was destroying Mara's memory by giving in to his overwhelming lust for Nick. That was all it could be. All he would allow it to be. Lust. Pushing away thoughts of more with his best friend, of a future of any sort, he concentrated on the case at hand.
    Rob had agreed it was best to talk away from the office and they decided to meet at Rob's apartment. Dan answered the door and immediately pulled Joe into a hug. Dan's expression showed that he had been given all the information about Mara and the baby. He looked devastated, shocked, and furious. Joe shook his head as Dan opened his mouth to speak. He didn't want to talk about his wife and what had happened. Dan simply nodded. He understood and he didn't push it. Instead he sat at Rob's wide table, pulled out a sheaf of papers, and spread it out. He passed down mugs of steaming coffee to both Joe and Nick, and if they smelled of sex, Dan wisely didn't say a word. Instead he waited for Rob to take over the direction of what they were discussing.
"Okay, so what do we have on the senator?"
    Dan summarized in a few words. "Chase VaughnHyland, fifty-three, married, a Yale graduate, made his own money in textiles, but his family background is in pharmaceuticals. His grandparents were part of an initial team of chemists and marketers who created Ardenvale Pharmaceuticals. They grew in the sixties off the back of contraception. Chase's parents had the reins until nineteen ninety-nine when they were killed in a car accident. The whole place was bought out by shareholders and is now run by a husband and wife team—"
    "We met the wife," Nick commented.
"Susan Young," Dan said.
"Cold as ice and twice as tight." Joe shuddered
    inwardly. She had looked right through him with her fixed stare. So damn polite but still closed off to Joe's natural empathy with people.
    "Looks to me like the husband is nothing but a figurehead. The research is where it's at. There's something here—" Dan paused and rifled through the papers until he found a printed image of a newspaper cutting. The headline said 'pharmaceutical giant probed by senate ethics committee'. "Appears our Senator Vaughn-Hyland was on that committee as a newbie."
    "That's wrong. If he has connections to Ardenvale then how did he get on that committee?" Nick asked.
Joe thought that was a very good question.
Dan shrugged. "We checked. He has no income from Ardenvale. He sold all his shares, so I guess he was cleared."
"We need to get his financials—"
"We can't without a warrant, Joe." Nick sighed. "And let's face it, we have nothing to support a warrant except one e-mail mentioning a senator, supposition, and coincidence. We can only go on what is made public."
Joe's temper spiked. Rob placed a firm hand on Joe's arm and even though Joe shrugged the touch away he had been warned. Fuck . All he wanted to do was go and rip someone's heart out. May as well start with the senator if there was one single shred of evidence pointing his way. Politicians were a waste of space anyhow.
"There is something else." Dan's voice broke the tension. "Just after the parents died there was some kind of problem with their other son, Chase's brother. He was killed in the shifter riots of ninety-three."
"Shit." Nick vocalized what Joe was thinking. That had been a bad time and part of the reason why the human/wolf liaison team existed now. Tension between humans and wolves had been high in the poorer areas of the city and things had ended up bloody before agreement was reached for sit-down talks.
"The senator lost a brother. Was anyone arrested?" By anyone Nick meant a wolf. Over fifty humans and six wolves had been lost in the riots that lasted