looked up at him as if trying to read some message in his action.
Bjornolf and Anna were going to have a devil of a time getting to the kids and Dottie without Helen witnessing their arrival on the basement stairs.
Bjornolf was concentrating so hard that he didn’t realize Anna wasn’t close behind him any longer. He turned and saw she was gone.
Then he saw her inside the house at the top of the basement stairs. The wall hid her from everyone in the room, but Bjornolf had a clear view of her. “Shit,” he said again, this time under his breath.
Weapon ready, Anna was already moving down the stairs. She carefully placed a boot on one step after another, using Helen’s screaming and Dottie’s crying to cover her approach.
Bjornolf’s heart was racing as he held his weapon. He was preparing to shoot through the window and target Helen, but he was afraid the bullet might hit someone else, since she was pacing in front of Dottie and the kids.
Helen shrieked, “I can’t believe it was you who had the affair with my husband the first time. And then started it back up! But that wasn’t enough, was it? No… you had to be in on this scheme to get rid of me and the kids. You couldn’t just divorce Roger. And William couldn’t just divorce me. You had to plan my murder! And the kids’! How could you? After you’d lost your own baby!” Helen choked up.
Dottie wiped away tears. “You’re wrong. William said he’d ask you for a divorce.”
“You weren’t mall shopping that day when your daughter was killed,” Helen said as if she hadn’t heard her. “William said he was on a business trip. But you were together. He arranged to have your baby murdered because it was his baby, too.”
Dottie sobbed. “He wouldn’t have.”
“If I had learned he was having an affair with you, I would have taken him to the cleaners. He knew that. His father loved Roger and would have cut William out of the will if he’d known he was screwing you. William had to get rid of the baby. The proof you two were having an affair. He arranged for the nanny, didn’t he?”
Dottie just stared at her as if she was in shock.
“He cut off the affair. Or you did after you lost the baby. Then last year you and he started it back up again. Right after William cut Roger out of the will. That’s when William starting acting cold toward me again. Being married to Roger was fine until the will was read, and he only got a dollar from his father. You wanted what William got. You think he would have let her live?” Helen asked, motioning the gun at Jessica. “He never wanted kids.”
Dottie quickly looked at Jessica and shook her head. “No. She was going away to college.”
“You think so? You think that if William had no trouble having his own kids killed, he wouldn’t have Jessica murdered once he got rid of me? He only had to get rid of Roger. He’d used him to kill the couple who owned the tree farm. Once Roger killed the DEA agents, if he got caught, he’d permanently be out of the picture this time.”
Four more steps. The stair Anna stepped on creaked. With their wolf hearing, both Jessica and Nathan turned their heads slightly toward the stairs. Anna immediately stopped.
Dottie and Helen were too wrapped up in their own drama to hear her.
“Roger tries to kill a woman. The two dead DEA agents are unearthed. Another couple was killed, the owners of
“William said the baby needed a home. I took her in. That’s all!” Dottie shouted.
Bjornolf heard a truck pull up out front.
Helen turned her head toward the stairs. “Showtime.”
Bjornolf frowned. His people wouldn’t drive up that close to the house, alerting Helen that they had arrived and set her off.
“Front door’s locked, Jessica. Get it, won’t you? Don’t think of running or telling anyone what’s going on here or your boyfriend gets it. Okay?” Helen said.
Jessica looked at Nathan. He nodded, kissed her cheek quickly, and let go of her.
Her whole body trembling, she headed for the stairs. As soon as she turned the corner and put her foot on the first step, she covered a startled gasp and froze, staring up at Anna.
Bjornolf prayed she wouldn’t give Anna away.
Then, as if she realized her mistake, she dashed up the stairs, gave Anna a really quick hug, then slid past her to the landing.
Bjornolf didn’t want Jessica to get hurt. But he didn’t want to leave Anna, either. He had no choice. Anna was trained for this kind of work and was armed. Jessica wasn’t.
He raced for the front of the house.
William was at the front door, gun in hand, finger on the trigger, safety off, waiting like a wolf who was about to pounce on the unsuspecting.
Bjornolf slammed into him. William fired off several rounds as he went down. Bullets hit the door, the door frame, and the siding of the house before Bjornolf wrested the gun away.
Gunshots rang out inside the house at the basement level, and Bjornolf’s blood went cold.
Chapter 27
Shots rang out at the front door, and Helen turned toward the stairs. Nathan jumped up from the couch, tearing her attention away from there.
“You want to be shot? Just pull that again…” That’s all Helen got out as Anna leaped from the stairs.
Anna tackled her so hard that Helen’s gun went off, a bullet striking the ceiling. The weapon went flying. Dottie dove for it.
Nathan scrambled to get it. He fought her over it and socked her in the jaw, apologizing as he did: “My mother taught me never to hit a woman, but if you go for the gun again, I’m going to have to forget that lesson.”
“Don’t get up,” Anna ordered Helen, as she pinned her to the floor. Anna held her arm against her back, threatening to break it if she moved. “Everything’s under control down here!” she shouted up to Bjornolf, hoping he was all right.
“We’re good up here!” Bjornolf answered from the front porch.
Anna let out her breath with relief.
“I don’t understand why my parents had to die.” Jessica raced down the stairs and glowered at Helen.
“A long time ago, I overheard William talking to Jeff about a new find in the Amazon that they’d gotten from some people in Oregon,” Helen said. “Shortly thereafter, Dottie and Roger moved to the Christmas tree farm and had a new baby. I didn’t think anything of it. I never connected the dots. Not until the trip to the Amazon, the so- called kidnapping, and then Roger’s arrest.”
The Silverstones were only trying to find a werewolf cure, Anna thought grimly.
“What about the DEA agents?” Anna asked.
“They had been snooping around William’s businesses for some months. He swore he wasn’t doing anything illegal. I believed him. Or… at least I wanted to. They must have visited Roger to learn if he knew anything about William. Big mistake.” Helen let out a breath. “Dottie had to be in on it. She wanted the baby.”
“I was not,” Dottie screamed at her, but she was seated again on the couch.
Nathan watched her closely with the gun in his hand. “Why wreck the Christmas decorations? That’s what I don’t get.”
Dottie pointed at Anna. “She and that man were trying to take Jessica away from me.”
Well they did do that, but not for a reason Dottie could ever guess. As a she-wolf, Jessica had to be with a pack.
Vehicles roared into the parking area next to the house and Anna sighed. The cavalry was a little late, but they had arrived.
