In the Shadow of the Wolf 3 - Splintered Lies Read Online Free PDF Page A

when you had the bottle in your hands? I don't give a shit what she's hiding, but whatever it is, whether it has to do with the drugs or not, we will arrest her ass."
Nick didn't tell his partner to get in the car again. He just climbed in and started the engine. Joe paced for a short while, muttering and cursing. Then, appearing to come to some sort of decision in his head, he too climbed in the car.
"She was a wolf," Nick began. "She didn't scent like a wolf. There was deadness about her. Vanilla. There was a scent similar to vanilla, but some note under it was vile." Nick shuddered.
"You think it was perfume or was she hiding her shifter status?"
"When a female wolf wears perfume it's not to mask, they use it to enhance scent," Nick said. He wasn't an expert about women or perfume, but he knew that much.
"Then we need to find out what was wrong. Who she is. What she does." Joe punctuated each word with the flat of his palm against his thigh.
"And what the company is about," Nick said simply.
"Agreed."
He began to drive and in Nick's head they were going to his place. Yes, Mark was there and Joe and Mark weren't exactly the best of friends, but his computer was as good as anyone else's. He couldn't face going to back to Joe's house just yet. They were nearly there, a little under thirty minutes later, when his cell phone sounded. He put it on loudspeaker.
"Who did you piss off?" Rob's voice was deceptively calm but Nick could sense the tension that underlined the question.
"Why?"
"I just had the governor call me directly asking about an unscheduled visit to a place called Ardenvale Pharmaceuticals. Can one of you hazard a guess as to why the governor bypassed official channels and dumped his irate shit on me?"
Nick wondered how he was going to answer this tactfully. As usual Joe jumped in with both feet.
"Ardenvale manufactured and supplied the prenatal vitamins that Mara was taking," he said. "We were running with the idea that the vitamins were engineered with the chemical inside. We left them with Keith for testing. We just wanted to rattle a few cages while waiting for the results. Woman in charge wasn't very cooperative."
"Seems she went to the boss and he came to me. I told him you would go through official channels from now on," Rob said dryly.
Nick knew what Rob had said was a convenient lie.
"We don't know for sure but the reaction of the woman who said she was in charge confirmed that she is hiding something at Ardenvale." Nick paused in his explanation, wondering just how to word this. "Whatever comes of all of this, we should put the company on our radar."
"As a wolf/human case?" Rob sounded intrigued.
"Something was weird," Joe interrupted. "She smelled wrong." He looked at Nick, who nodded.
"Agreed," Nick said. "I couldn't get the scent of her; she's wolf but…" His voice trailed off and he shrugged at Joe.
"I'll cover your backs at this end," Rob offered without provisos. "Where are you at with the tests?"
Nick looked at the clock on the dash. "Couple of hours and Keith should have something for us."
"Do me a favor, guys."
"What?"
"I don't give one shit about what you're doing. You're on sick leave and vacation respectively. Just don't poke too many hornet nests without backup. Remember Dan and I have your backs if you need us."
"I'm not pulling anyone else into this," Joe said instantly. He stared at Nick, who met his gaze with a level one of his own. They both knew how this was going to end for each of them if it all went south.
Joe would die for his wife and unborn child.
And Nick?
Nick would die for Joe.
    At Nick's house, on his state-of-the-art computer, Google returned so many hits on Ardenvale Pharmaceuticals that it was near impossible to pull the wheat from the chaff. The woman they had met, while being director of New Technologies, wasn't the CEO; that honor fell to Derek Young, who appeared, for all intents and purposes, to run his part of the company out of New York. The place they had visited