Kaci’s dad was still alive? If so, what the hell was she doing here alone?
Michael took a deep breath, then launched into an explanation he’d obviously already given the others. “On August 28, Roger Dillon came home from work to find his wife and sixteen-year-old daughter dead in their backyard. Mauled by an animal. Kaci was missing.”
Cold waves of shock washed over me, combining with the frigid air to numb me from head to toe. My fingers throbbed with each painful beat of my heart. “How could we not know about this?” My voice sounded hollow, fuzzy.
My father sighed, clearly frustrated, and rubbed one hand across his creased forehead. “I’m sure the Canadian council knew. Has anyone ever heard of a Canadian Alpha named Dillon?” Heads shook silently, and my father’s frown deepened. “If there is one, this could very well be a strike from a rival Pride. A play for more territory.”
“That would explain why they left Kaci alive,” Blackwell said, already nodding as he tightened his grip on his cane. “Take the land and the daughter.”
“What about the sister?” I asked, bothered by such an obvious hole in the theory.
Malone shrugged, arms crossed over his chest. “Accidents happen.”
Yeah, right. But that wasn’t what I meant. “What kind of dam has two daughters and no sons?”
“That is unusual, but not really impossible,” my father insisted.
“It’s unheard of.” I propped one boot on an exposed root at the foot of the tree and stretched to reach the branch over my head, just to have something to do with my free hand. “A werecat family structure like that would be big news all over the world, from the moment that first daughter was born. We’d all have heard of them.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Unless the council tried to keep it quiet, to avoid just such an attack from an enemy Pride.” Uncle Rick pointed at the printout I still held, and I handed it back to Michael.
Okay, that made pretty good sense. A tabby was her Pride’s greatest resource, and rivals would be jealous of any Pride with two tabbies. But…
“Even if it were possible for one Alpha to have two daughters, what about the father? Wouldn’t he be the primary target of such an attack? Why strike before he gets home? And what about the enforcers? The attackers would have had to go through at least half a dozen to even get to the wife and daughters. Right? But no other bodies were found. Which reminds me, why in he—” Oops. “I mean, why on earth would the father call the human authorities into a werecat matter? That’s just asking for trouble from all involved. There would be questions, and biological evidence, and—”