Free Pack Investigator by Crissy Smith Page A

probably shouldn’t mention that to Julie.
    “Forget I asked,” Julie grinned while waving her hand in the air.
     
    * * * *
     
    Garrett watched as more Pack members showed up at Haas’ office to help with the search that they were heading up. Cooper and his partner, Josiah, had been the first to arrive, followed closely by the Alpha, Beta and several guards. It was lucky that the Clear Creek police and fire departments had so many shifters in their employment. But he wasn’t certain that would’ve mattered anyway. He had a feeling that the Pack would have shown up either way. Garrett spotted Steve entering the office and rose to check in with his friend.
    “Tom’s going to stay at your sister’s house to make sure she and the kid are safe. The social worker is over there too. Hopefully by the time we get through with this that boy will have his dad to go home with,” Steve told him.
    He had to hope. Garrett didn’t know how most of the cases like this turned out but he wanted Nick to go home even if Garrett would miss him. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Nick that Garrett would be around. Now that he’d spent time with the boy he had an interest in ensuring that Nick remained happy and healthy. He was going to do his best for the child. Since they were Pack and Garrett was allowed to mingle and attend Pack functions due to his sister, he wouldn’t lose track of Nick.
    “I don’t want to get his hopes up but I really think we’ll find Randy on this property,” Garrett confessed. “It just makes the most sense.”
    “So we’re not dealing with shifters? And this threat isn’t to shifters, just to Randy specifically?” Tom asked.
    “From all the intel we gathered, Randy has been the target the entire time. Ralph Money went up against him in court. He’d been injured and tried to sue his employer. He’d been hurt on a camping trip with some friends. Randy interviewed those guys and that’s when he first met Rodney Hampton and Alex Franks.”
    “How’d they go from a lawsuit to arson and kidnapping?” Steve questioned.
    “We’re guessing they set the fire to keep the company in California from buying up the property. If the property was damaged it wouldn’t be worth as much. He didn’t want to sell while his brother did,” Garrett explained.
    “Okay, I can see that,” Steve agreed.
    “Moving to the next fire we come across Alex’s motive to help. Alex is estranged from his family so we assume the house fire was to hurt his parents. His parents found a journal from a long time ago that Alex had written several posts in about wanting to purposely burn down the house. They’d given it to Randy to hold since Randy was handling all their legal papers. Alex’s parents thought right away that their son might be responsible. Randy had the journal in case the cops wanted it later. The file we found from Randy’s place makes it appear that Randy was collecting evidence against Alex.”
    “Once you know who all the players are it isn’t difficult to connect,” Steve said.
    “Yeah, they were going to get caught one way or another. They made too many mistakes. Still, I don’t think they’re the sharpest guys. One name led to another to the next. They all went against Randy at some point. Add in that each one was involved in the place that the fires happened and it just clicks together. Not sure what they thought would happen after they kidnapped Randy,” Garrett replied.
    “Maybe they were going to blame the fires on Randy?” Steve guessed.
    Garrett shook his head. “I don’t think so. They would have had to make sure Randy didn’t have an alibi for each one. I don’t think these guys are that organized.”
    “Huh.” Tom scratched the top of his head. “Money?”
    “That’s a possibility,” Garrett said. “Or maybe they just hated him and wanted to make sure he disappeared. I don’t think they planned on the Pack getting involved.”
    “Then they don’t know anything