Free Web NovelChapter 83: THE UNKNOWN MAN
DANE’S POV
I set the camera up at half past eleven at night.
It was a small thing, barely visible against the dark frame of the doorway across from Vanessa’s room. I had used them before for border surveillance and they were good— motion activated, clear enough in low light, battery that lasted eighteen hours without issue. I positioned it, checked the angle, confirmed it had a clean line of sight to her door and the corridor in both directions and left it there.
Then I followed Elder Declan.
Vanessa’s father was staying in the guest quarters on the west wing and he left at a quarter past midnight which was an interesting hour for a man his age to be taking a walk. I kept a distance that was large enough to look like nothing but also small enough to see where he was going as he moved through the estate, unaware that I was trailing him.
Where was he going?
Osric joined him at the east boundary gate.
I stopped in my tracks.
Osric and her Dad? Why?
They had come from different directions and met at the gate like it had been planned and they stood there talking in voices that were too low to carry. I moved closer, using the tree line, and got within maybe thirty meters and could make out the shape of the conversation without the content.
I stayed where I was and waited.
Twelve minutes later a third person arrived.
He came from outside the boundary. Not from the estate. He came from beyond the gate, from the path that ran along the outer edge of the pack grounds, and he slipped through a gap in the fence very easily.
I looked at him from where I hid.
He was tall and broad, a grey coat draped over his frame.
There he was.
He joined the other two and the conversation continued but I was too far to hear anything useful and moving closer would have risked being seen and I couldn’t afford that yet so I stayed in the tree line and watched.
They dispersed twenty minutes later. The unknown man slipped back out through the gap in the fence and disappeared into the dark beyond the boundary and Osric and Declan went back toward their respective quarters by different routes.
I went back for the camera.
In my quarters I sat at my desk and watched the footage from the night.
Vanessa’s door stayed closed until half past two in the morning. Then it opened and the unknown man stood in the doorway for about thirty seconds speaking to her through the gap before she let him in. He was inside for eleven minutes before he came back out, looked both ways down the corridor, and left.
The same man who had met with Osric and Declan at the boundary gate. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Who had been inside Vanessa’s room at half past two in the morning.
Who matched exactly what Keisha had described on the path that night in her pajamas but now donned a grey coat instead of a black one.
I picked up my phone.
Callum answered on the second ring. "What did you find?"
"The unknown man." I said. "He’s the connection to everything." I told him everything. The midnight meeting, the boundary gap, the camera footage, Vanessa’s door opening at half past two for the man even though she always detested visitors. "He has the same build as the person Keisha saw at her window. He knows the gap in the east boundary fence which means he’s been on this estate before and someone showed him where it was."
Callum was quiet for a moment. "Osric or Declan." He muttered.
"Or Vanessa." I said. "She let him into her room at two in the morning. She knows him."
"Can you identify him?" Callum asked.
"Not yet." I said. "I need a face. The angle isn’t good enough in the footage."
"Get a face." Callum ordered. "And when you have him we bring him in." A pause followed. "Quietly. I don’t need anyone in the pack knowing."
"Done." I said.
We talked through the approach for a few more minutes and then I ended the call and sat back in my chair and looked at the paused frame on my screen. The unknown man’s back to the camera, broad shoulders in the dark coat, hand raised to knock on Vanessa’s door.
I needed a face.
I got up and went back to the border.
The guards on the late rotation were running on fumes by the time I got there. They had been out since ten and it showed — their posture was dropping, eyes lazy with sleep. freёwebnovel.com
"Go." I said to the two nearest me.
They looked up. "Sir, rotation isn’t—"
"I’ll cover it." I frowned at them, my voice hard. "Go rest. Two hours. Then come back."
They exchanged a look.
"Go." I said again with a growl. "Both of you."
They went immediately.
I stood at the northeast checkpoint in the cold and looked out at the dark boundary line.
This was why I was Beta.
It was not about the paperwork or the meetings or the administrative weight of running a pack’s day to day security. It was this. Standing in the cold at three in the morning because the people under my watch needed rest and the boundary needed covering and there was nobody else I trusted to do both at once.
I stood there until the guards came back.
Then I went home and slept for four hours and got up and started again.
.
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Author’s Note
Hi, lovely readers! 🌸
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