CheckMate

Chapter 7

The next morning Philip heads out early and Gregory walks him out to the elevator to finalize details.

“You’re sure you want to do this?”

Philip nods.  “Positive.  My nose is not broken, there is something weird about her and I need to figure out what it is.  One wrong word in her presence could be life altering for either of us right now.  I can’t have that.”

Gregory nods in agreement.  “Understood.  H.R.  is usually better at hiring just wolves though.  You’re sure she’s not of blood, just doesn’t have a wolf ?”

Philip shakes his head.  “She’s not anything, least of all a werewolf without a wolf.  Think back to the day you were released at the hospital.  Who did you smell?”

“Besides all the sick and dying people?”  They both pull a face.  Being blessed with a super sniffer isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when you enter a hospital or rest home.  “I smelled you’re ugly mug and Sam. Then you shoved me in the car.  I didn’t get a chance to sniff her she was in her car.”

Philip stabs him in the chest with his finger.  “Wrong.  She was standing right behind me when Sam helped me put you in the car.  She’s who took the wheelchair out from under you.”

Greg raises an eyebrow.  “Really?  Wow.  I thought she was still in her car.”

“Do you see what I mean?  I knew she was there but because I couldn’t smell her, I totally forgot about her until Sam wanted to be introduced.”

“You definitely have a point.”  Gregory slaps him on the back, “Let me know what we need to take care of with her or if you need anything else.  I’m headed back to snuggle up to my mate.”

Philip rolls his eyes.  “Goddess I'm happy to be leaving.  You two are beginning to make me physically sick.  You’re too lovey dovey for me.”  He shivers, “Just EW.  I’d tell you to get a room but I made the mistake of giving you one.”

Gregory laughs and winks at him as he turns and heads back.  To his back Philip quietly whispers, “You damn lucky dog.”

 ***

Traveling to the construction site took just under two hours.  Everyone was working and didn’t even seem to notice him pull up in his fancy car.  He steps out in his power suit and heads to the construction trailer.  Upon entering he shakes hands with the site and oversight managers.  They are two of his own men that are overseeing this project.  

“How’s everything?”  He asks quietly.

“Good sir.  Right on schedule.  No one suspects a thing.”

 “Perfect.  Shall we get going?”

“Yes, sir.”  The site manager says and hands him a hard hat.  He grabs another and they all head out the door.

As they leave the trailer Tabitha is just getting out of her car.  Philip raises an eyebrow, squinting his eyes in indecision at her.

She walks over quickly, trying to catch her breath.

“I’m sorry I’m late sir.  I didn’t realize traffic would be so bad at this time of day.  I hope my being late didn’t set you back.”

He folds his arms and stares in her direction.  “Ms. Faeleen, just what are you doing here?”

She stops for a minute looking genuinely puzzled.  “You sent a text last night requesting my presence so that I could take notes.”

As he starts shaking his head no, her eyes grow wide and she pulls out her phone.  After scrolling for a minute she hands it to him.

“Isn’t this your number sir?”

He takes it from her and looks down.  Indeed it is his phone number.  He opens up the messages, seeing the last text he remembers sending about it being a surprise inspection.  However, directly under it, sent at midnight last night, is a new message.

PHILIP:  Ms. Faeleen I’ll need you at the site tomorrow,  be prompt at ten am.  There may be notes you’ll need to take as I don’t have my recorder.

He stares at it a moment, then hands the phone back to her.  He pulls his own phone out and quickly scrolls to her name.

Pulling up his texts to her, he shows them to her.  The last text sent being the one about telling no one.  There's nothing after that.  He puts his phone away.

"I believe around midnight we were finishing up Phantom of the Opera.  I was with two other people if you would like to verify."

She takes a step back, confused and upset.  “I don’t understand sir.   If you didn’t send me the text then who did?  No one else knew about the meeting this morning.”

“Someone didn’t just happen to overhear you on the phone making the calls?”

She shakes her head vigorously.  “No sir.  You said it was a secret, a surprise inspection so I went into the conference room and used that phone.  The door was closed and locked; no one was in there with me.”

Philip immediately turns to his two men, his Alpha voice coming out.  “Explain, NOW.”

Both men bow their heads in submission but neither of them speak.   He tries again, “Did either of you have anything to do with this?”

Through the pack link he commands them to answer through mentally as Ms. Faeleen isn’t a wolf.   He receives back two different, “No Alpha”’s.  He turns back to Ms. Faeleen and takes a deep breath assessing the situation.

He takes the hard hat from the site manager and places it on her head.  Takes a minute to look her up and down, then turns and begins heading over to the work site. 

“Very well, you’ll stick close with us and not get lost.  This isn’t a playground.  At least you wore appropriate shoes.”

The two men follow after him and she runs behind with one hand on her too big hard hat and her other arm clasping her clipboard.

The entire inspection takes just under two hours.  Philip and Gregory had once built homes from the ground up.  He knows exactly what to look for to see if there is any foul play or if anything falls short of the code.  He feels sufficiently satisfied and they head back to the trailer.  This time he makes Tabitha lead the way.  He can’t keep an eye on her if she’s behind him; hell, he’s more than likely to forget she’s even there.

As they pass the parked trucks, one of the dump trucks immediately begins to lift and dump its load of soil.  Philip moves quickly to pull Tabitha out of its way.  No sooner has he grabbed her and pulled her to him than a barrel of oil behind them explodes.  He tackles her, covering her fully with his body and dropping to the ground.  When he looks down, he's looking into her terrified eyes, her glasses having flown off in the tackle.

For a moment he thinks he sees them flash a bright green, but it’s there and gone in the blink of an eye.  The change in her eyes has startled him.   When he comes back to himself  he glances over his shoulder to check on his men.  Both the site manager and the oversite manager are on the ground not moving.   They were behind him and closer to the barrel.  

He looks back to Tabitha asking quickly, “Are you alright?”

She nods as she swallows the lump in her throat.  He quickly lifts himself up, locates her glasses and hands them back to her.  He runs over to his men to check on them.  Site workers are now busy with fire extinguishers trying to contain the fire before it roams to the other barrels.  His men are knocked out cold.  He checks for pulses and immediately drags them away to safety.  It’s a good thing that they’re lycan, he thinks to himself.  This will simply be an evening of healing for both of them.  Thank you Goddess, he says lowering his head for a moment.  The men aren’t burned, there are just a few scrapes and scratches, possible concussions.

The fire trucks roll in and he motions the ambulance over to the area.  As they begin treating his two men, he walks over to the dump truck, knowing what he'll find.  As he suspected, the door is open, the keys are in the ignition, but no one is around.  He scans the area, looking for anything suspicious. This was the first distraction.  Why?  To ensure that Ms. Faeleen wouldn't be hurt?  

His eyes are immediately drawn back to Tabitha.  Would she deliberately put herself in harms way to eliminate herself as a suspect?  The paramedics have taken her over to the ambulance to look her over.  He rubs his chin as he ponders everything that just happened.  The fear in her eyes was real.  She was terrified and for that brief second, I could feel that.  No, that wasn’t acting.  Perhaps she didn’t know what was going to happen?  Is she being set up or is she part of the set up?  None of this is making any sense and the more he thinks about it, the more confused he becomes.  Is she a mole or isn’t she?  He now has more questions than he had before.