Free Kiss of the Silver Wolf by Sharon Buchbinder

sighed. “Naturally, she was upset. Defended him. Said I was out to get him. Jealous of his brilliance. When I explained the exact nature of his—his werewolf investigations—she was shocked into silence. Thanked me for my concern. Said she'd speak with him.” His voice broke. “Next thing I knew, they were both dead. A week after the funeral, a Special Agent from the Department of Homeland Security showed up with a warrant and demanded we turn over all his records."
    Charlene flashed on the bus accident and the dark-haired woman. “What was the agent's name?"
    "Solomon. Like the king."
    "Why did Homeland Security want my father's notes?"
    "I have no idea what use his crackpot research could have been to them. I was happy to give her everything we could find and to take all mention of his work off our website.” He stopped speaking.
    "Dr. Hoffman?"
    "Oh, my dear, I've said too much. I'm sorry. I really must go.” He hung up and the dial tone buzzed in her ear like a million angry flies.
    She placed the receiver into the cradle and stared at it for a very long time, not really seeing the phone, the desk or the office.
    One part of her was convinced Hoffman's concern was all self-serving, his unctuous sympathy a ruse to cover his overweening ego and agenda to promote the genetics lab. The other part felt a twinge of guilt for even thinking that about the man. He'd been her father's boss for years. Dad never complained about him. Not once. If they'd been at odds, she would have overhead something, right? Then again, she hadn't been living at home for the past two years.
    Exactly when did her father's obsession drive him away from scientific explanations and into supernatural ones? How long had it been going on? Her mother would have never encouraged him to search for a cure for a disease that her brother did not have. That would have been a waste of time, money—and career suicide.
    What possessed her father to think this tangent was a viable research path? Her mother was a nurse, not prone to flights of fancy. In fact, she'd discouraged Charlene from her occasional forays as a child into any supernatural reading, calling it “irrational, superstitious garbage.” Knowing her mother's animosity toward all things outside the scientific realm, how would her mother have dealt with her father's bizarre quest? Had Hoffman's call to her mother provoked a fight between her parents—and the subsequent car crash?
    And what was Homeland Security looking for, first in her father's notes, now in Eden? What the hell was going on? She pulled the woman's card out of her pocket and stared at the phone number. Should she call Special Agent Solomon? Would the woman tell her the truth? She put the card away. Not now. Not until she had more information.
    Jethro—Grandfather—said Joanna had contacted Jessie when she was pregnant with Charlene. Was she really trying to reconnect with her sister? Or was it an attempt to discover if she carried that elusive recessive gene? Eden wasn't the only place with secrets—but it seemed like a good bet that these other secrets started here. Secrets within secrets within secrets. Joanna stayed in touch with Jessie. And Jessie was friends with—
    She leaped to her feet. The only person she hadn't pressed for more information was the one she'd been sleeping with. If she hadn't been blinded by lust, she would have been on her game—poking at him with her scientific reasoning, asking hard questions. Instead, when she asked about his past, he dazzled her with his smile, neatly side-stepping any real replies. He had to know more than he had told her. One way or another, she was going to get some genuine responses out of Zack.
    She found the charmer rocking on her front porch when she arrived home with Joey. He held a large bouquet of red roses and a bottle of wine. When they locked gazes, his eyes filled with concern. Zack joined her at the bottom of the ramp and placed his hands on her arm.
    "Let me