“Don’t go in alone to confront her. But check the bathrooms. There might be blood. Hairs. The child she killed was blonde.”
At this point, Grace broke into my instructions. “Tell your mother how to suck eggs.” I could only hope that meant she’d obey.
Next up was Justice. Or, I dialed Justice. Who I got was Luke.
“Justice’s phone.”
I didn’t realize I was still panting from my earlier exertions until his voice curled around me. It was almost as if he’d stroked my fur. The hairs lowered on the nape of my neck.
“This is Honor.” I waited for him to say something, anything. But he didn’t snarl at me. Just waited in silence as I hiccuped my way through the mea culpa a second time.
“I’m going to check out the crime scene,” I finished. “See what I can smell.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
His voice brooked no argument. But I argued anyway.
“Bastion...”
“Is awake. Justice is with him. They’ll be fine together.”
He didn’t wait for my agreement before hanging up the phone.
MY PAWS WERE SORE FROM crossing miles of pavement. Still, when I reached the park, I didn’t sprint forward onto soft soil. Caution was mandatory now that I knew something dark and predatory lurked within.
And despite all that, I didn’t see the shape spinning toward me out of the shadows until it was nearly upon me.
Luke. I recognized him one second before his shoulder bumped mine, just a little harder than was friendly. But that was all. He didn’t try to stop me. Instead, he fell in behind as I headed deeper into the dark.
The crime scene, I’d read, was a mile from this entrance, close to the end where the park butted up against a housing complex. But I didn’t need Slim’s cell phone to guide me. Not with woelfin senses catching the chatter of investigators then the flicker of flashlights moving between massive trees.
Luke growled. One second later, the hum of a halogen spotlight stilled my footsteps. We couldn’t travel any closer or we’d be sighted.
For a moment, we sat with sides pressed together and watched the bustle. Nostrils flared. Ears twitched in synchrony. Then I caught Luke’s eye and jerked my head left.
We’d circle the perimeter and find the murderer’s path using superior lupine nose-power. At previous sites, there’d either been too many people muddying the scent trail or time and weather to contend with. But it should be a simple matter this time to figure out where the culprit had come and gone.
A human partner agreeing with my logic would have nodded. Luke merely flicked his tail sideways in the tiniest wag before following my instructions and veering off to the left. I curved the other way, looping away from the path and into the forest, providing the officers with a very wide berth.
Despite the distance, words came to me whole and fully understandable. “Hey, come on. You’ve gotta give me something.”
My ears pricked at the familiar voice. That was Slim. He’d gotten here before me. And, if I guessed correctly, he was trying to wheedle information out of his official contact.
“No, I really don’t.” The woman who answered didn’t even look up from her tablet. But Slim did.
He stared into the darkness, almost as if he sensed me. Despite myself, the barest hint of a growl emerged from my chest.
Slim was thirty feet away and his ears were entirely human. My growl had been library appropriate. He shouldn’t have heard anything.
Still, he raised his flashlight...
...and I squeezed my eyelids shut one second too late.
Chapter 26
“Did you see that?”
“What?”
“Eyes. They glowed yellow.”
The female officer’s negation followed as I turned tail and fled deeper into the forest. Slid on my belly through brush until even the spotlight’s glare was gone.
All that linked me to the crime scene now was the subtle char of moth wings making contact with the halogen. That...and the distant but unmistakable aroma of wild fur.
Of course, this was a forest. Animals—both domesticated and native—had been through here frequently.
But this furriness was familiar. I’d smelled it on myself every time I shifted from lupine to human. Wild and warm and faintly electric. The aroma of a woelfin’s pelt.
The scent was so strong I half expected to trip over Bastion’s fur. Not that the murderer would have discarded such a precious possession. Still, I followed my nose so intently I walked straight into a patch of briars. Without fingers to disentangle myself, I accepted scratches and pushed on through.
On the other side, the forest opened. No more bushes, no more undergrowth. This was a continuation of the path Luke and I had come in on. An obvious route of travel for someone possessing only human feet.
No wonder the reek of woelfin pelt strengthened here until it grew overwhelming. I sneezed, then jumped as warmth pressed up against my flank.
Luke. He’d scouted the other half of the perimeter before being drawn to the same spot I’d ended up in. His nose dropped to the ground. Mine mirrored the descent.
I’d expected to be able to confirm that Mrs. Smythewhite was our murderer once I found her access point. But the ground was hard and dry despite the brief thunderstorm a few days earlier. No footprints were evident, and the scent profile was so deeply overwhelmed by Bastion’s pelt that I could smell nothing else.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. Beneath the furry scent was something rotten and unpleasant. The killer’s intent to harm a small child. The killer’s glee in her fatal success.
The reek was so vile I found myself running away from the crime scene, following the path backwards. Surely at some point the rot would lessen.
It did not. This was the way the killer had both come and gone.
I found myself panting, not from exertion but from a vain attempt to breathe without smelling. It was a relief when we reached a parking lot and the scent trail ran dry.
A relief...then a profound disappointment. The murderer had gotten into a car just like Jimmy English had. She’d gotten in a car and taken her rotten, furry scent away while leaving no evidence behind.
THE ROAD THAT THIS parking lot branched off of was empty. Trees lined both sides. We’d traveled to the outskirts of town.
Perhaps that’s why Luke felt comfortable unfolding himself into humanity. Long limbs turned into even longer limbs. Ears and snout receded. Barrel chest broadened and flattened while fur fled.
Well, most of his fur fled. A curl flopped down onto his forehead and he brushed it back absently. Smaller curls V’ed down to a spot where I really shouldn’t have had the temerity to look.
I turned away, sliding my pelt forward as it fell from my body. Hunching over to hide it from view, I felt more naked than I’d ever been.
Behind me stood a skinless whom I’d sniped at for the terrible crime of being who he was...and who’d come when I called anyway. I cleared my throat, hunting for an apology, but Luke interrupted before I could begin.
“Your pack doesn’t shift much, does it?”
“No.” I shook my head, wishing I could share the details. Back when our parents had been alive, the eight of us had played together in one big jumble of woelfin high spirits. We’d transformed back and forth, to and from humanity, without concern for human prudishness.
But that was years ago. Justice dressed for his law internship in a suit and tie now. Grace spent her time designing high-end clothing. I’d shifted in front of my pack out of desperation while hunting Bastion’s pelt. Most of the time, though, being lupine in front of woelfin so entrenched in their humanity felt like applying a slap to each beloved face.
Luke, on the other hand, was a werewolf. A skinless and packless one, but still quite familiar with naked humanity.
Apologies don’t always have to be verbal. I let my pelt slide further down to my side until it was hidden by darkness. Then I swallowed my shyness and
turned around.
LUKE’S GAZE DIDN’T drop below my clavicle. His smile was warmer than the night.
I closed my eyes for one split second, blocking out the way my body yearned to lean closer and closer. Instead, I stuck to business. “I could definitely smell Bastion’s pelt. But not who was carrying it. Could you?”
He shook his head, and I waited. After all, Luke was an alpha werewolf. He’d want to lead the chase.
“Your hunt, your plan,” he said at last.
Like a stopper removed from a bathtub, his answer unleashed words I hadn’t realized were pent up inside. “The murderer hunted tonight, so we have most of the day to catch her,” I mused, letting my thoughts ramble as I would have with Bastion. “We can’t count on it being Mrs. Smythewhite, though. I learned that lesson the hard way. So we’ll keep tabs on everyone who’s come in contact with me while also attempting to reel the killer in.”
Luke nodded and his simple acceptance warmed me. “Who have you touched?”
“You.” He’d rubbed up against me in wolf form after all. “Slim. Bastion....”
“And Clarence.” Luke’s flaring nostrils were the only sign that it was hard for him to second-guess himself. “I was wrong. He might not be a wolf after all. The scent....”
“Yeah.” I cut him off before he could explain that he’d mistaken Bastion’s pelt for a soon-to-be-shifted werewolf. I’d guessed that already. “I’ll have Grace continue watching him, just in case he does shift randomly. Justice can stay with Bastion.”
“And you want me to keep an eye on Slim.”
I tensed, expecting rejection as I turned an alpha werewolf into a bit player in this life-or-death drama. Instead, Luke reached forward. I didn’t realize what he was going for until his fingers hesitated one inch away from my pelt.
“May I?”
I should have hidden it. I should never have shifted. I should have....
I swallowed recriminations and nodded silently. Released my pelt and tried not to quiver as the skinless drew my most precious possession out of my hands.
His touch was fire and icicles. Goosebumps rose along my forearms as Luke wound my fur around his torso like a towel. Heat bit into my belly as he slid the leather side back and forth against his bare skin.
“What are you doing?” Even to my own ears, my voice sounded high-pitched and syncopated. I could hardly breathe.
His voice rumbled between us. “Making sure I’m the biggest target.”
Task completed, he lifted my hair and slipped the pelt back over my shoulders. As if he hadn’t just proven he knew I was a woelfin. As if he hadn’t utilized my pelt’s magic just as I’d always been told would happen if I let down my guard around a skinless...only his purpose was nothing like the destructive selfishness I’d been led to expect.
I had questions but no time to ask them. Just a werewolf before me and a pelt around my shoulders. The warmth of the latter soothed me, as if Luke’s arm rather than my own skin lay there.
“The biggest target after you, of course,” Luke continued. His eyes bored into me. “Take care of yourself, Honor. I want to be part of your next hunt.”
Chapter 27
Once again, Luke had offered his vehicle, telling me where he’d stashed the keys not far from the parking lot. So I stepped out of the trees with metal dangling out of my lupine mouth like a gangster’s cigarette...then hesitated as my own scent wafted toward me from a different side of the lot.
Slim’s car. I padded closer, hesitating when the streetlight directly above his old clunker created a circle of illumination on the pavement. No one was here—the crime scene still held everyone’s attention—but something told me not to step into the light.
Instead, I backpedaled until I could come at his car from a different direction. A police van was pressed up close against the driver’s side and I slunk amidst shadows to wedge myself into the gap between. There, I rose onto my hind legs, pressing forepaws against the rim of the window. Only then did I peer inside.
My clothes. My guns. The dagger from my uncle. All sitting on the passenger seat as if I’d left them there rather than under a bush in a suburban neighborhood. Was it coincidence that the passenger-side window but no other was cracked? That my underwear sat on top of the stack where its scent trail would be most likely to waft out the gap between window and frame?
My snout had smudged a wet spot on the glass by the time I noticed the other half of the trap. A tiny camera affixed to the pole of the streetlight. Angled just right to catch me if I took the bait and attempted to regain my gear.
Slim was clever. He knew from Bastion’s stories—and likely from his own experience—that breaking into a car with a slitted window was child’s play for an experienced bounty hunter. Did he also know how naked I felt without my weapons, never mind the actual nakedness that I’d soon cover with the jogging pants and t-shirt stashed in Luke’s trunk?
And, yes, I could rip the camera off the pole. But I’d played with cameras like that one. They sent data wirelessly to an external backup. It might take me all night to hunt down the storage system if I started tearing Slim’s car apart.
I breathed out through my nose, teeth clinging to keys so I wouldn’t lose them. I could handle a little nakedness. When it came down to it, Slim’s trap was insultingly basic.
Only then did I notice the envelope curled into the cupholder. Grace’s lipstick on the exterior. My confession inside it.
A threat and a promise. I shivered.
But those future problems were personal. Bastion and the rest of my family were more important.
Without another glance at the envelope, I retreated to the too-large clothes waiting for me in the seclusion of Luke’s car.
I’D DONE THE RIGHT thing in the parking lot, but it was as if seeing that letter had knocked my entire plan off kilter. Because my attempt to scout the Smythewhite house in wolf form was thrown out the window by the lights and bustle evident even from the road.
“It’s 4 AM. What’s everyone doing here?” I asked the air inside Luke’s vehicle. Outside, car after car turned in through the open front gate.
A rap on glass proved that tiredness was throwing me off my game. Clipboard lady raised her eyebrows, waiting for me to roll down the window. Reluctantly, I obeyed.
I’d never caught this woman’s name, but I’d come to understand her role in the household. She made things happen safely, with an emphasis on the final word. Something that was really only necessary when strangers entered the premises in groups.
Which suggested.... “Is there going to be a party today?”
Clipboard lady eyed me, considering why I wouldn’t know what I likely should have been debriefed about the previous evening. I could see the moment when annoyance at my ineptitude overcame her caution. She shrugged and answered. “DAR brunch.”
I kept my head partially turned away to shield my eyes, but my confusion must have been obvious anyway. Whatever the reason, she elaborated. “Daughters of the American Revolution. Ladies in white gloves. Clarence will not be expected to attend.”
And, just like that, I was dismissed from her presence and her interest. Sent to park around back where Luke’s car wouldn’t block attendees.
There, I hesitated once again, wanting to check for scent trails in wolf form but knowing I couldn’t risk it. Instead, I strode through the kitchen door as if I owned the place, making my way through the press of temporary staff to the now-familiar servant stairs.
Silence fell the instant I closed the downstairs door behind me. There might be a party brewing, but the owners of the house intended to sleep in regardless.
They likely needed the rest, too, after a night spent on philandery and murder. I climbed the stairs slowly, flaring my nostrils but finding it impossible to catch any incriminating scent in human form.
At the top, I eased the door open. Found the hallway dark and quiet with only the stairwell bulb providing illumination. Every door was closed.
I took a single step...then froze as a cold hand settled across the nape of my neck.
“IT’S NOT THERE.”
I relaxed as my twin’s voice informed me of her identity. But her expression as I swiveled to face her suggested I’d let down my guard too soon.
“Your necklace,” Grace elaborated, jerking her hand away as if it was sweater season and an electric charge had built up on my skin to zap her. “You tossed it.”
“I didn’t!” The accusation was so outlandish I was tempted to place my hand on her forehead to check for a fever. Had someone started using her stolen pelt?
“Then how did it end up around the neck of a dead kid?” Grace waved her phone at me so furiously I was barely able to catch the title of the local newspaper. Still, I flinched, knowing what would be in that timely article.
A dead kid in the forest. Either an image or a description of the necklace around her neck.
What the reporter wouldn’t know was how that jewelry came to be in the kid’s possession. Luckily, I could fill in those blanks.
“She stole it while I was....” I swallowed. Grace hated it when I mentioned my lupine half.
Rather than responding immediately, my twin’s features smoothed. With anyone else, that would have been a good sign. But I knew my sister. She was preparing to say something so scathing it would cut the legs right out from under me.
I tensed...and was saved by the voice of a murderer.
“Do I need to remind you that some of us are sleeping?” The hall light flared on above us, revealing Mrs. Smythewhite in a high-necked dressing gown. Her cheek was imprinted with the fabric print of a lace-edged pillow, as if she’d gone directly to bed after killing that child. But her eyes weren’t the least bit sleepy as she took us in.
For our parts, Grace and I acted in tandem. We might have been in the middle of a relationship-destroying argument, but we were still twins.
Moon Stalked Page 12
