Page 54 of What a Wolf Wants

Ethan had set his phone alarm to go off twenty minutes before Noah was to arrive at two in the morning. When the time came, he kissed a sleepy Charlene. She kissed him backand wrapped her arms around him. “Good luck on your surveillance and don’t let Noah give you any guff.”

Ethan chuckled. “I won’t. Get some sleep. I’ll join you later.” Then he left the bed, dressed, and made some coffee to fill his thermos.

He heard Noah’s car drive up and quickly went to the door to wave at Noah to let him know he was about ready. He didn’t want Noah to ring the doorbell or knock on the door and wake Charlene if she had managed to fall back asleep. He grabbed his backpack, his thermos, and his gun, then headed out to Noah’s car.

Noah was also armed with a thermos of coffee. “Morning.”

“Morning. Surveillance is one of the jobs I dislike the most.” Ethan shut the car door and buckled in.

“Yeah, me too. Lots of sitting and waiting and not much in the line of results. But sometimes we hit the jackpot.”

“I agree.”

“Aren’t you going to miss this kind of work once you’re done with this mission?” Noah asked as he drove them to Shelby Bay.

“I had thought I might. Solving crimes. Bringing in the bad guys. Testifying against them. Now that I have Charlene in my life, no. I’m so glad to be here.” That was the truth and Noah might not want to hear it, but Ethan had to be honest about it, though he didn’t want to rub it in that he was with Charlene and Noah wasn’t.

“Now that I’m in the new job, I’ll probably work there for about a decade.”

“Yeah, as long as we live, it helps to move to a new job onoccasion so no one notices that we aren’t aging like regular humans,” Ethan said.

“True.” Noah finally reached Shelby Bay and drove by Oakley’s house. He found a good place to park so they could watch the house surreptitiously.

Then they sat in silence and immediately saw a car drive by. At this time of morning, it was quiet, except for the lone car. It drove to Oakley’s house and Ethan and Noah perked up.

“It’s not the car we saw before,” Ethan said.

“Buying drugs or delivering them maybe. Watch for a license plate number.”

“Got it. Red Chevrolet Camaro.” Ethan called it in to Tori because he didn’t want to alert anyone in the department that he and Noah were working on the case.

“Oh man, it’s two thirty in the morning. I was sound asleep,” Tori said.

“Yeah, I know, but you love it.” Ethan gave Tori the make and model and license plate number on the vehicle. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” He knew she loved helping him. She was a good trooper. “Hey, hold on. Here’s another.” A blue Kia Rio drove up. The Camaro had already driven off. He gave her the number to the other one.

“I take it you’re doing surveillance,” Tori said.

“Yeah, with Noah. We’re at Oakley’s house.”

“Okay, well, I’m looking into this. Just call me if you have any other license plate numbers.”

“Will do.” Then they ended their call.

“You have a good working relationship with Tori,” Noah said.

“Yeah, we need Tori and Adam, and Sierra too, as part of our law enforcement team. Of course Grainger doesn’t know I’m using them as a resource because of the mole we think is in the organization.”

“That’s really helpful. I’ve never worked with wolves before on the job.”

“If you like socializing with other wolves at all, you’ll love going to the pack activities at the ranch. You’ll meet other single she-wolves too.”

They watched as more cars stopped by the house. They would go inside for a few minutes and leave again. Tori sounded really tired the last time Ethan had to call her, but she was getting the information back to him about each of the car owners.

“Oh no,” Tori said. “That last car? It belongs to Renault.”

“No way,” Ethan said.

Noah frowned at Ethan. “He couldn’t be the mole. Maybe he’s investigating the situation on his own.”