“You think the guy in jail is the one who arranged the kidnapping to set you up then?” Tori asked.

  “Yeah, I do,” Sierra said.

  “We’ll nail his cohorts and send them to jail so they can join him,” Tori promised.

  “Good. I’m all for doing what I can to put the rest of them behind bars,” Sierra said.

  “You’ve done it once. I have faith in you doing it again, but I would rather you weren’t the actual eyewitness to the event this time,” Adam said.

  “Well, they’re putting me in the crosshairs,” Sierra said. “If I could, I would just turn into my wolf and take care of them.”

  “I can’t believe you took the chance to turn into your wolf at your hotel room and show yourself. You have guts,” Tori said in a good way.

  “I had to protect myself in some way. I just didn’t think he would have a gun.”

  “That could have been a problem,” Tori said.

  “I figure they tried to set me up over the kidnapping and then kill the dog at the same time for Dover,” Sierra said.

  “I agree.” Adam didn’t know what to think, but he sure didn’t like Sierra staying at the house alone if Dover was going to have his cohorts or henchmen continue to harass her at her place.

  “What are we on schedule to do next?” Tori asked.

  “We need to get started on the kidnapping paperwork. Take the sketches Sierra drew and get them out. I’m going to take Sierra to see the man about the stolen boat he purchased so she can do a sketch of the man who sold it to him.”

  “Do you know of anybody who has been convicted of selling boats or parts of boats that’s currently out of jail in the area? Maybe we could take some mug shots and see if he recognizes any. Maybe he can give me the description, I’ll draw it, and then you can show the mug shots. With our sense of smell, we can tell if he’s lying or not,” Sierra said.

  “She needs to be a detective.” Tori smiled and they got out of the car at the bureau.

  “I’m on the team, just doing a different kind of job that I really love to do,” Sierra said. “I wonder if Dover knows I’m now working for the police bureau.”

  “If he was the one who orchestrated the kidnapping from jail, I would say he knows a lot about you—your car, your house, and probably where you work. I suspect they didn’t think you would be having lunch with a police detective and have the perfect alibi though,” Adam said.

  Chapter 12

  Sierra and Adam climbed into his SUV, and he drove them out to the home of the man who bought the stolen boat.

  “I worry about you being all alone after what happened today,” Adam said to Sierra, truly concerned about her and what Dover and his henchmen would pull next. “Anyone who would go to the lengths that they did to attempt to frame you for a federal crime is dangerous. Especially when their leader is in jail but that doesn’t seem to be stopping him.”

  “So catch the rest of the bad guys and put them away. They are not going to keep me from living at my place. I’ll only stay with you tonight because it’s a crime scene. But once my window is replaced in the laundry room and the police have finished their business there, I’m returning home.”

  Maybe Sierra just preferred sleeping in her own bed, but he still felt she wasn’t safe. “You don’t have security cameras or an alarm system set up at your place. I can always camp out at your home if you feel you need some protection. Don’t tell me you’ll just sleep as a wolf. If they catch you at home in your fur coat, they’ll shoot you for sure.”

  “If I have more trouble, I’ll decide then. For now, I’m just staying at your place for the night.”

  “Tori could stay with you.” He wondered if Sierra was afraid pack members would get the wrong impression if they learned he was staying at her house, or vice versa, when they weren’t even dating. Since Tori’s place was in disarray with her recent move, Sierra probably couldn’t stay there.

  Sierra gave him a look that said to leave the topic alone.

  He shrugged. “Or you could stay with Josh and his mate since he’s my former partner and could watch over you. I’m just trying to help.”

  “I could return to the pack and stay there. Stay with my brother and his mate even. But I’m not going to. I’m closer to work here. And I’m not going to overreact.”

  “If I stayed at your place, you could serve as bait.”

  She laughed.

  He was glad he could make her laugh, though he still felt the situation was serious.

  When they reached the house where they needed to speak to the man about the stolen boat, Mr. Rivers came outside to talk with them. He was frowning, looking annoyed, his blond hair disheveled, his blue eyes narrowed. “What do you want now? I talked to that woman detective when you had to take off for other business.”

  Adam figured the guy wouldn’t like it that he’d returned to question him all over again. But he needed to actually see Mr. Rivers’s responses and smell his scent to watch for his reactions to questions. It really helped being a wolf in the police business.

  “This is Sierra Redding, the bureau’s sketch artist. I mentioned she would be coming here to get your description of the man who sold the boat to you. If you could walk us through meeting up with him and the exchange you had, we would be grateful.”

  “I gave the other woman the description. Can’t you use that?” Mr. Rivers asked.

  Why didn’t he just give them the description again? Was he afraid he wouldn’t remember the same details? Adam didn’t trust the man entirely. He always had to consider that if someone was in the possession of stolen goods and hadn’t reported it, the person could have been involved in the theft.

  “Sometimes I can help a witness provide more details that I need for a sketch,” Sierra said in an attempt to get Mr. Rivers to cooperate.

  “Fine. What do you want to know exactly?” Mr. Rivers folded his arms in a defensive manner.

  “Everything,” Sierra said.

  “I don’t see how this has anything do with the description of the men there.”

  “It helps if I can see the scene in my mind’s eye when I’m drawing the sketches.”

  Mr. Rivers let out his breath. “All right, so three men were there, and one of the three was in charge. The other two acted like bodyguards or something.”

  “Had you bought anything from the man before?” Adam asked.

  “No.”

  “How did you learn about the boat being for sale?” Even though Adam knew very well that Tori had asked all these questions of the boat buyer, as thorough as she was when questioning a suspect, it helped to ask the person to describe the events that took place again to see if he altered the testimony.

  “Craigslist. I told the other detective that. I thought it was legitimate.”

  “No bill of sale? The price was too good to be true, but the hull number was painted over. Not paying attention to something like that is a big mistake.” If Mr. Rivers was innocent of any wrongdoing, Adam had an obligation to tell him what could get him into trouble if he was buying property that might be stolen. “If you ever find a boat where the hull number is missing or has obscured numbers, be wary. Unless it can be proven that it’s not a stolen boat, don’t buy it. You can see here that the number one was turned into a seven and the five was turned into an eight. The numbers should be clear and distinct.” Adam glanced at Sierra who was patiently waiting to sketch the guy. “So what did the guy in charge look like?”

  “The guy who sold me the boat—which, like I told the other detective, means I’m out $30,000 when I had to forfeit the boat—had shoulder-length blond hair and pale-blue eyes, a long face, and ears that stuck out. He was wearing torn jeans and a T-shirt and sneakers. He was, I’d say, around forty and had a potbelly.”

  Adam could smell the man’s deception, fear, and sweat and saw his forehead perspiring. “Did it ever cross your mind that the boat was stolen?” The engine number was also what gave the boat away. It hadn’t been changed or removed.

  “Of course not. If I had, I wouldn’t have bought it.”

  “The blue-book value of the Monterey Bowrider is nearly $64,000. You paid cash for less than half the value of the boat,” Adam said.

  “Yeah, so? I didn’t know it was stolen or worth that much.”

  Adam didn’t believe the man wouldn’t have checked on the value of the boat. Most anyone would to make sure they weren’t getting a bad deal. Especially when paying that much for a boat.

  “Can you give me a description of the other two men?” Sierra asked.

  “One was muscular, blond, his hair cropped short. I couldn’t tell the color of his eyes. He was too far away. I don’t know. Shorter than the seller. Maybe five six. He was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt, boots, I think. The other guy I gave even less of a glance at. Dark hair, shaggy, he was probably the tallest, leanest of the two.”

  “Okay, thanks. On the shorter man, spread of eyes? Together, apart? Bushy brows?” Sierra asked.

  Adam got a call from Tori. “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “The three men who drowned in the Willamette River have been identified. One of the men’s wives called in to say that one of the sketches Sierra had drawn was of her husband, who owned the boat that we now have in custody, and that the sketches of the other two men were good friends of his. They had reservations at a cabin. We had already checked all the cabins in the area, but she told us they weren’t due to arrive there until tomorrow because the cabins had all been rented out for the rest of the time. They were staying at a hotel in the meantime. We found their IDs in their hotel rooms and their truck and boat trailer in the hotel parking lot. A friend in Portland returned the truck and trailer there after dropping them off at the launch site. He was supposed to pick two of the men up tomorrow so they could move their stuff to the cabin. The other one was staying with the boat. The friend hadn’t known they’d run into any trouble.”

  “Okay.”

  “And we have more of a break.”

  That was what Adam liked to hear. “What else?”

  “The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office River Patrol’s Freedom stopped this same boat on the Willamette River when they saw three men cruising in it who didn’t appear to be carrying any life jackets. Everyone onboard a craft has to have a life jacket. When the patrol questioned the captain of the boat to see if he had a safety education card, required for the operator of a craft with a ten-horsepower engine or greater, he didn’t. He was supposed to produce a driver’s license, but he didn’t have it on him. The officer gave him a citation and loaned them three life jackets that were to be turned in when he went to court.”

  “Did the description the officers have of the men on the boat match the drowned men?” Adam asked.

  “Nope. As soon as I had the IDs for the men from their hotel rooms, I ran the info over to speak to the officers. None of the men pictured in the IDs had been on the boat. So the other men must have grabbed the boat after the men drowned or possibly had something to do with the drowning,” Tori said.

  “Well, damn, it’s too bad that they hadn’t had any IDs on them when the river patrol stopped them to question them. But if one of them tried to sell the boat—”

  “Yep, we need to have Sierra draw some sketches based off the river patrol’s eyewitness accounts. It will be interesting to see just how similar they are to the man or men that the boat buyer described, unless the men weren’t the same as the ones who sold him the boat,” Tori said.

  “Okay, thanks, Tori. We’ll head over there next.” Adam ended the call. When he saw that Sierra was still drawing but Mr. Rivers wasn’t adding anything to the account, Adam said to Mr. Rivers, “Three men died on the Willamette River, and the boat you had purchased belonged to one of the men.”

  Mr. Rivers’s eyes widened. Sierra stopped drawing and glanced at Adam, looking just as surprised.

  “It could have been a case of accidental drowning of all three men,” Adam continued. “The current is swift and cold, even in the summer. None of the men were wearing life vests. Or it could be a case of homicide. We haven’t confirmed which yet. Oh, and the good news is that officers with the Multnomah Sheriff’s Department have given us descriptions of the seller of the boat. Now we can match the descriptions you offered us with the ones the officers gave.”

  Sierra quickly hid her smile.

  Mr. Rivers closed his gaping mouth. Then he managed to say, “I had no idea.”

  Adam assumed he hadn’t.

  It didn’t take but a few minutes before Tori called Adam back. “We just found an old case where Mr. Rivers was charged with the possession of a stolen boat in Florida. He got off on a technicality, but the boat was confiscated. Not only that, but the boat he just purchased wasn’t listed on Craigslist.”

  “Thanks, Tori.” Adam ended the call and said to Mr. Rivers, “Sorry, Sierra can get the rest of your descriptions.”

  “Am I…uh, under arrest?”

  “Not at the moment. Detective Rose read you your Miranda rights before I left on another case. Just know that this could be a murder case. That you were in possession of stolen goods. We could conclude that you were involved in a criminal conspiracy.” If Mr. Rivers was feeding Sierra a line of bullshit about what the guys looked like, then he might as well know the consequences of his actions. “Oh, and for the purpose of keeping the chain of evidence in a criminal case, you’ll be asked to autograph the sketches that Sierra is drawing, per your account.”

  Mr. Rivers rubbed his chin. “Okay, listen. I’ll talk if I can have immunity from prosecution. I didn’t have anything to do with stealing the boat, dead bodies, none of it.”

  “Okay,” Adam said.

  Mr. Rivers let out his breath. “I met the guy at a bar at a marina. I was wearing my captain’s hat, and this guy pulled up a seat at the bar and asked what kind of a boat I had. All right? Well, I didn’t have a boat. I’d just sold off one for a damn good price and was looking to get another that wasn’t quite so expensive.”

  “We’ll need to see the paperwork on the boat you sold.”

  “Hell, it was legitimate!”

  “Then you won’t mind showing us the paperwork,” Adam said.

  “I’ll be right back,” Mr. Rivers said, sounding exasperated, and went inside the house.

  Adam hoped he would return with legitimate paperwork and that he didn’t try to sneak out the back of the house if he was involved in everything else.

  “I guess it’s good I had gotten the descriptions first from him,” Sierra said.

  “If it’s all lies—”

  “Then you would have him on false testimony. Do you think he lied about the descriptions that he already gave us?”

  “Yeah, I do. That’s the reason he wanted immunity.” Adam called up the district attorney to let him know what the issue was and if they could go forward with a cooperation agreement. Adam told the DA the situation with the witness and owner of the stolen property. “Mr. Rivers agreed to be a cooperating witness.”

  “We need to have the agreement signed if he’s willing to provide competent and truthful testimony. And that he had nothing to do with stealing the boat in the first place or anything to do with the drowned victims.”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t think he’ll tell us what we need to know unless he has immunity from prosecution, and I don’t believe he actually had anything to do with stealing the boat or the drowned men. We’ll bring him downtown and get the paperwork signed.”

  When they ended the call, Mr. Rivers came out with the paperwork for the earlier boat he said he’d just sold. He had actually bought it at a boat dealership so everything looked legitimate, but Adam would still verify it with the dealership.

  “Okay, the DA says we need to sign the deal so that you can be a cooperating witness. You can follow us downtown and we’ll get that done. Then you can finish your story,” Adam said. And give the real descriptions of the men involved in selling him the boat. Hell, maybe even their names.

  Mr. Rivers agreed to it, got into his car, and followed Sierra and Adam to the courthouse.

  “You won’t need me now,” Sierra said.

  “Yeah I do. You still need to finish the sketches of the men he dealt with. Even if he thinks he knows their names, they may be using aliases. After that, I’ll run you over to speak with the River Patrol Unit.” He smiled at her. “What? Do you think I’m holding you hostage so that I get to keep you safe throughout the day?”

  “Are you?” She was wearing a hint of a smile and he knew she was teasing him.

  “Nope. You don’t have a car.”

  “I could have leased one.”

  “I still need you. And when you speak to the River Patrol Unit, I need to learn all I can about what they saw, reactions, et cetera, concerning the men they stopped and gave the citation to.”

  “Okay, admit it. You want to date me, and this is a way of seeing more of me without officially calling it a date.”

  He smiled at her. “Hell yeah.”

  She laughed.

  After they finished with Mr. Rivers and got a much-changed account of what the men looked like, the U.S. Marshals arrived to put him in witness protection. In the meantime, Adam arranged to see the officers on the River Patrol Unit.

  When he and Sierra arrived, the two officers greeted them.

  “Hey, we wish we’d known the boat was stolen,” the blond officer said. “We sure would have done something about it.”

  “Yeah, I wish so too. We didn’t find the body of the man that it belonged to and his companions until almost a week later,” Adam said.

  “Do you suspect foul play?” the officer asked.

  “We don’t have all the facts yet. The coroner’s doing the autopsies now. It’s possible the men accidentally drowned, though we’re still trying to determine how that could have happened.”