Claiming Treasure

Spider Monkey’s POV

I-5 North of San Francisco

I stayed in the back seat while Vic drove, keeping my computer equipment going as we drove north. The Prospect who drove our car and trailer from Las Vegas had met us yesterday in San Jose. He helped us store our motorcycles and more of my stuff from the storage garage into the enclosed trailer. We repacked everything so Heather’s Harley and her things closer to the doors. We dropped the prospect off at the airport for the flight back, then continued up the coast towards Heather’s new home in Washington state.

Rori had called Vic and asked us to cut our vacation short. The news about her grandfather Charles, though not unexpected, had hit her hard. The coroner had released the body yesterday, and they cremated his body immediately.

Rori and Chase wanted to go to New York for his funeral and asked if we could come back to help run things. When I asked why we were needed, Vic just said that Ron and Teri had to travel on business and weren’t available. It took all of my control to avoid blurting out that they were trying to figure out how the Werewolf Council server was compromised. Or that it was the Adirondack Pack, and as Alphas, they needed to be there.

I’d learned so much in the last week or so since I got into the Council server. I marveled at how well they hid their nature; Vic couldn’t say no to me, but he never let on anything about it. The same went for Rori and the Pack; I had seen them as another Club, like the Brotherhood chapters I’d been a part of for decades. Their facilities were resort quality, and the parties epic, but I never saw or heard anything to hint they were all WEREWOLVES.

I’d even seen one shift, as the cellphone video of Tatiana shifting and attacking Heather was on the server.

I looked up at the profile of Vic at the wheel and wondered what his wolf looked like. I imagined his wolf would be like him. Tall, black fur with streaks of gray around the muzzle, broad-shouldered, deep chest, tapering to a trim waist and powerful thighs. My big dog nickname was prophetic. I smiled as another thought came to mind. If his body is proportional, his wolfie wiener would almost be dragging on the ground!

I knew the Council had discovered the hack, but I’d left a worm behind to hide the evidence. I hoped they had good backups of their data because the program would turn their servers into expensive doorstops in just a few minutes. I wasn’t worried about them finding me; the hacking server routed the files through servers in two other countries, and the file transfers were untraceable. Just to be safe, I activated a program on my hacking server that erased all the files there, overwriting them several times, so there was no chance of recovery. I didn’t need them anyway, as I had already been sent the updated data each night. The hacked files were on removable hard drives connected to my laptop, along with the hard drives I’d removed from my clean server. I made it a habit to remove and lock up my data in a fireproof safe, but for this trip, I brought it all with me.

“What’s the plan when we get to Carson’s place,” I asked him.

“It’s going to be dark by the time we arrive, so we’ll unload her stuff into the garage and stay the night,” he said. “We can get going in the morning. It will take us two days to get home with me driving,” he said.

I didn’t like driving with a big trailer behind me, especially in the mountains. The seat only adjusted so far for a tiny thing like me. “Is that going to be fast enough? I thought Chase and Rori needed to leave tomorrow night.”

“It’s as fast as I can drive safely,” he said. “And that’s weather permitting. Can you check the travel forecast?”

I minimized the window for the audio files I was playing, all recordings of the Werewolf Council members calling out from their headquarters. I had been working backward from the most recent communications, taking notes on each file and its contents. I was pulling up Intellicast’s page when my phone rang. It was the alarm company for my home. “Hello?”

“Miss King, this is First Security Alarm Company with an alert. We are showing a door open alarm on the front entrance door. Can you confirm if this alarm is valid?”

“I’m twelve hundred miles away,” I said. “No one is supposed to be in my home.” Before we left, Vic arranged for some of his people to clean the carpets and repaint two rooms, but they had finished up days ago.

“We are contacting the police, oh, wait… I have a fire alarm, as well. Contacting 911 in your area, please stay on the line.” I told Vic what was happening as I waited for the operator to come back on the line. He immediately called the security center at Arrowhead to tell them what was going on.

It was a long thirty seconds. “Miss King, I have multiple fire alarms in the home now. Can you confirm if there are any pets or occupants in the home?”

“Nothing,” I said. I didn’t even have a fish.

“Emergency services are on their way to your home, and I have provided the 911 operator with your contact information,” she said. “Thank you for using First Security,” she said before hanging up.

“Our home is on fire!”

“I know.” He had an earphone in, so I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. “The house is completely engulfed. Someone broke in and torched it.”

“Shit.” I looked over at the bag on my seat where the hard drives were. Everything else in my computer room I could replace. “I hope that safe we buried in the basement is as fireproof and waterproof as they say.”

“It’s bolted to the floor of the panic room, and it would take them a lot longer than two minutes to breach the room and break into the safe,” he said. “Your money should be safe.” I’d kept about a quarter-million in cash from the Sons of Tezcatlipoca heist, after processing the money I needed to buy and refurbish our home. I didn’t trust banks with everything.

“Who would do this?”

“Who wouldn’t, if they knew who you were and what you had been doing. The Sons, the Cartels, any of them could be behind it.”

I’d made a lot of enemies. I didn’t think any of them knew who I was. “Bastards.”

He listened and gave me updates. The security cameras could see the back of my house, and he told me when the first Sheriff car arrived. One disadvantage to living where we did was that the closest fire station was a good fifteen minutes away. The first fire trucks showed up five minutes after the roof of our home collapsed. “It’s too late to save the house,” Vic told me. “Our neighbors to the south, their home has caught on fire. The fire department is trying to limit the damage.”

I felt sorry for Mrs. Winters; her husband served her with divorce papers at Christmas, after thirty years of marriage, to marry his twenty-four-year-old secretary. She got the lake house in the settlement. I was relieved to remember she was staying with her daughter in Florida now.

“Well, this sucks,” I said. I got another call, this time from the Sheriff’s Department. I told them what I knew, which wasn’t much. I had a lot of computer equipment, but no other jewelry or valuables. I didn’t know who might have done it. When they hung up, I called my insurance company and gave them the bad news. “I won’t be back in town for several days,” I told the claims adjuster.

“We will speak with the fire investigators and survey the damage,” she told me. “Given the clear indications of arson, this claim will take longer than normal to process.” She gave me more information about filing the claim and what my policy would cover for temporary housing. I was exhausted when I hung up. “Do the Arrowhead cameras show anything?”

“They do, but not in enough detail to make out license plates,” he said. “One vehicle, maybe a Suburban, and four people go in, all wearing ski masks and gloves. Two are carrying gas cans. A man and woman come out, carrying computer stuff or large boxes, they can’t tell. A minute later, the other two come running out as the home goes up in flames.”

“Can you have them provide it to the Sheriff?”

“Already done,” he said.

“What do I go back to if I don’t have a house,” I asked.

“You can stay with Carson for a bit? I have to head back and deal with stuff so that I wouldn’t be around much anyway. If the Sons or Cartel tracked you to our home, I don’t want you anywhere close to it.”

I couldn’t argue with that, as much as I hated the idea of him not being around me. “I suppose I could hang out with Heather for a few days,” I said.

“I’ll make the call.”

I let him do that. Needing to calm down, I went back to the work I was doing, listening to the files. I was listening to Councilman Oscar Millner talking to another male. It was apparent they knew each other, and I was about to skip to the next recording when I heard the name.

My blood ran cold as I listened to the rest of the conversation.

I closed my eyes as I considered the potential consequences of the action I KNEW I had to take. It might destroy my marriage, and it could cost me my life, but could I let this happen?

No. I could not let the Council do this to Heather.

“Vic, I need you to call Carson Nygaard RIGHT NOW and put it on speaker,” I said.

“What do you need-“

“NOW,” I said. “This is an emergency.”

“I don’t have his number,” he said.

“THEN GET IT. NOW.”

He nodded and told his phone to call Chase Nygaard while he pulled off the freeway and parked on the exit ramp. A few rings in, he answered. “Vic? Are you and Spider Monkey safe?”

“Chase, it’s Spider. Carson and Heather are in danger, and I need to talk to them immediately.”

“Hang on.”

I heard some tones, then a female voice came on the line. “Carson Nygaard’s office, this is McKenna,” she said.

“McKenna, this is Chase Nygaard. I need to speak to Carson immediately.”

“I’m sorry, Alpha Chase, but Carson is with Heather in the outer range of our territory. He’s out of link range.”

“Who is the senior person there?”

“Hold for Beta Carl Striker, sir.”

There was a short pause before he picked up. “Alpha Chase, how may I help you?”

“Go ahead, Spider Monkey,” Chase said.

“There’s a threat against Heather Rhodes and your Alpha,” I said. “Councilman Millner hired men to come to your land and wait for Heather to leave the safety of the Pack House. He told them he has an asset in your Pack who would tell them when and where they would be.”

“SHIT.” I heard yelling, and it was thirty seconds before he came back to us. “I know where he’s at, and we’re passing a warning along now. I have to go; my mate is out there with them.” He hung up.

Chase was still on the line. “Now, what is this plan you overheard?” I took the phone from Vic and held it near my laptop’s speaker while I played the call, which lasted almost ten minutes. When it ended, Chase let out a long sigh. “Teri was right,” he groaned out.

“About what,” Vic said.

“Your wife knows about us and what we are. She was the one who hacked the Werewolf Council servers. She’s the one Beta Teri was supposed to find, and the Council figured it out.”

Vic looked over at me, and his eyes filled with fear. “The Council sent those men to our home,” he said. “They will kill you.”