by Jess Haines
Dillon looked back and forth between us before shrugging and taking up a protective stance at my side, lingering a little too close for my comfort. I wasn’t used to having a bodyguard, but he looked ready and determined to take a bullet or arrow for me if necessary. Weird. On the bright side, Chaz had confidence in me, if not necessarily for the reasons I would’ve wanted. That much was comforting.
Several of the shifted Weres were sniffing around the edges of the parking lot, moving through the trees in the general direction they thought the arrow had come from. Chaz called out when we got closer, though it was probably more for my sake than theirs.
“Find anything?”
“No,” someone replied, puzzled. “There’s no spoor. Not a hint of anyone’s having been out here except for the kids earlier.”
“The hell?” Nick muttered. “There must be something.”
Frowning, Dillon looked up in the trees. “Did anyone check for any sign up there?”
“No. Why?”
Dillon pointed upward, and though I looked, I couldn’t see anything. The others around me muttered curses and exclaimed softly as they saw something I couldn’t make out in the shadowed limbs above our heads.
“What is it?” I asked, momentarily annoyed at being handicapped by my paltry human senses.
Nick stomped over to a particular tree, and one of the shifted Weres came too and stared upward, holding out a clawed hand to catch Nick if he slipped as he started climbing. It was strange, but somehow right. I knew the wild-looking beast in front of me would never hurt one of his own. I was a different story. The way those feral golden eyes watched me when I came closer was just plain creepy.
“There’s some equipment or something tucked into the branches up there. Hold on a second,” Nick called down, probably more for my sake than anybody else’s.
The others gathered around the base of the tree. Chaz was looking better, and he slid his good arm around my shoulders, head tilted up like the rest of us to watch Nick climb.
A few moments later he shimmied back down, landing in a crouch much more like a feral beast than a man. He had a grim look on his face as he showed a scrap of torn cloth and an arrow he’d tied it around, along with a thick branch he’d obviously broken off. There were claw marks embedded in the wood, big and deep enough to show they weren’t from any ordinary bird or tree-dwelling animal. No bear or other forest creature large enough to make such marks would venture so far up, practically to the top of the tree, where the limbs would be too thin to carry its weight. That was why Nick had climbed up there instead of one of the shifted Weres.
“I don’t recognize the scent on the cloth or the branch. What about you, Armina?”
Armina? That meant the big black and gray Were beside us was Seth’s mom. I sorely hoped she was more trustworthy than her son, though I wasn’t exactly holding my breath.
The great shaggy Were leaned forward, nostrils flaring as it took in the scent of the cloth, arrow, and tree branch. Shaking its—no, her—head, she settled back on her haunches and spread her clawed hands in a remarkably human gesture of puzzlement. She didn’t know who or what it was from either. It was difficult to tell her thoughts on the matter considering she couldn’t talk in her current form, and the rapid shift would prevent her from turning back for a while. Most likely she wouldn’t be able to talk about it until tomorrow, after the full moon had set and she’d gotten some sleep.
Did she not find anything because she was covering for her son? No, I didn’t think so. There were other shifted Weres out here too, and they’d pick up what she missed—or covered up.
Some of the others came forward, pressing their faces close to the cloth or tree branch that Nick held out before him. Even Chaz took a cursory sniff, though none of them seemed to know what the scent was. Their inability to recognize it pissed Chaz off even more. I was alarmed to note his eyes were reflecting the last dying rays of sunlight filtering through the trees, cat-like in these shadows.
“This is un-fucking-believable. What the hell is out here? It’s not one of us. It’s not a Were-cat. What the hell is it?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said, fists clenched tightly around the items in his hands. “If I knew, I would tell you. It’s Were-something, I just don’t know what.”
“Can I give it a whiff?” Mr. Cassidy asked, startling me. I hadn’t seen him among the others earlier. Too busy getting blood on my hands and yanking arrows out of my boyfriend, I suppose. Mrs. Cassidy and George were also there, a little apart from the others. It struck me as an unspoken show of their being different from, but supportive of, the Sunstrikers.
“Sure, be my guest,” Chaz muttered sourly. The luminescence in his eyes seemed to be fading now that he was more irritated than outright angry.
Mr. Cassidy came forward, extending his hand for the cloth and the arrow. Nick handed them over, careful not to let the silver arrowhead brush against any exposed skin. The old man lifted it up, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply through his nose. His eyes flashed open, and he looked down in surprise, then anger. “I know this scent. This was a guest, a recent one.”
“Who was it?” Chaz demanded.
“He goes by Hawk. I have a hard time believing he’s the one who did this, though. I’d like to speak with him myself, but he checked out earlier today. So did the other two boys he was here with.”
Crap. “Did you get their contact information when they arrived? Like an address attached to a credit card, a cell phone number, anything like that?” I asked.
He shook his head, frowning. “Maybe. I’d have to check my records.”
“Check them, and let us know what you find,” Chaz said.
“I can’t just give out his information. Really, let me try to contact him first; then I’ll let you know what comes of it.”
“Hey, I’m a P.I.,” I said. “I can call my partner back in the city and have her run a trace on the guy if you can give me any information about him.”
Mr. Cassidy gave me a thoroughly disapproving look, handing the stuff back to Nick while he spoke to me. “Young lady, I’m not in the business of telling the secrets of my patrons. If he really was responsible for this, I can guarantee you I won’t let him get away with it, but I’m not going to start a witch hunt based on a scent. There’s a chance I’m wrong, that it was somebody else, and I’d like to make sure before you all go jumping to conclusions and do something we’ll all regret later.”
Chaz growled softly, though I knew he was struggling mightily to keep his temper in check. He liked the Cassidy family and this retreat, so I doubted he wanted to do something to get himself banned from returning. “Look, we just want to ask him a few questions, too. We’re not going to kill him unless he tries something like this again.”
“Sonny, you listen up, and you listen good. This is my territory. You’re here by my invitation, and I will revoke it if you abuse my hospitality and good will. Give me the opportunity to find out what’s going on in my own damned territory before you start horning in, got it?”
I’d never seen Chaz look so sullenly submissive as he did right at that moment. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Mr. Cassidy relaxed a little, some of the tension filtering out of his brawny frame. “I’ll find the boy and let you know what he says as soon as I hear from him.”
Chapter 15
Chaz was in a terrible mood after dealing with Mr. Cassidy. He didn’t want to go back to the cabin. He didn’t want to be hovered over. He didn’t want to hang around the lodge. He didn’t want to let any of the rest of the pack wander around alone. Basically, he was being an uptight pain in the ass.
After a little while, between the efforts of Simon, Nick, Dillon, Sean, and myself, we convinced Chaz to come back to the cabin and rest up so he wouldn’t be completely strung out when he was forced to shift at moonrise. It took some effort but, once the guys left, he finally agreed to lie down. He sprawled on his stomach on the bed while I rubbed some of the tension out of his shou
lders. He seemed to enjoy the fact I was straddling him more than the back rub.
“I don’t understand it, Shia,” he said, grunting a little as I dug into a knot in his lower back. “Why is that old fart protecting the guy who did this? You’d think he’d want it taken care of.”
“He does. You heard him. He wants to handle it himself.”
“I know. I just don’t get why. It’s not like he was the one who got shot.”
“No,” I said, “but he’s got more to lose than you do if the guy gets away. No one will think this place is safe anymore if he doesn’t do something about it personally. Give him a chance to deal with it.”
“I guess,” he grumbled, quieting as I leaned forward to ruffle his hair and place a kiss on his uninjured shoulder. A sigh escaped him as I rolled over to one side to lie back on the bed, folding my hands over my stomach as I looked at him.
“Honey, nothing else is going to happen on it tonight. Can you just try to relax and get some sleep? I promise I’ll use some handy-dandy detecting skills tomorrow to track the guy down for you.”
He stayed quiet for a moment, mulling it over before giving reluctant agreement. “Okay. Promise me you won’t search for this guy alone? I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Sure,” I said, inwardly cringing. As soon as he left to hunt in the woods, I was going to sneak up to the lodge to see what I could find out about Mr. Cassidy’s mysterious guests.
Chaz stayed as he was, hands tucked under his cheek as he lay still and quiet on his stomach. I reached out to run my fingers through his short blond hair. It was a little stiff from being gelled up into spikes. Gradually, his eyes closed, and I could see the tension trickling out of his muscles little by little as he tried to relax.
I kept up with the soothing stroking of my fingertips over his scalp until the alarm on the table buzzed a ten minute warning. Chaz groaned and rolled to his feet, rubbing his hand across his face.
“Will you be gone all night?”
He glanced at me over his shoulder before heading to the door, expression troubled. “I’ll be back before dawn. Stay inside. I don’t want Ethan to have any reason to be lured back to the cabins. You can watch from the window while we shift if you want, but don’t set foot outside until daybreak.”
Fur was already sprouting on his back. He paused at the door as I called his name.
“Be careful. Please, for me?”
“You got it, love,” he replied, giving me a grin that bared a few too many sharp teeth before he sprinted out into the night, the door swinging shut behind him. I got off the bed and hurried to the window just in time to catch a glimpse of him being swallowed up by the shadows in the trees.
Since I’d fallen asleep last night and missed it, I was hoping to see the pack shift tonight. Watching Seth quick-shift didn’t hold the same majesty as watching the entire pack be taken by whatever it is in the phases of the moon that makes them all change at the same time. I’d seen the entire pack go through the process of turning into their half-man, half-wolf forms once before, but that had been in a dark alley when I was more afraid of being eaten or killed than interested in watching them change.
Though I watched for them, gaze darting over every shifting shadow between the cabins and the trees, I was disappointed when I heard a lone wolf howl grow into two, three, then dozens joining in chorus—somewhere deep in the woods. The pack had shifted far beyond my line of sight and moved well away from the cabins already. Probably for the best; I wasn’t the only one who could potentially be hurt by Ethan if he broke from the ranks and came charging back this way. With a guilty start, I recalled Billy and his playmate. If they carried the gene, they wouldn’t shift until puberty, so were at risk of being attacked. No doubt there must have been a few other humans who had come along to watch over the kids, though I hadn’t taken note of who they were in all the whirlwind introductions.
I waited by the window for a while, listening carefully for calls that would give me any hints as to the whereabouts of the pack. Since I couldn’t hear much of anything out there, I figured I’d brew a cup of coffee. By the time I was done with it, the caffeine infusion should keep me alert during my search, and the pack should be long gone, deep into the wilds.
Neither Chaz nor I had bothered to check the kitchen when we came in. There was a note on the counter just like the one that had been pinned to the door of our cabin yesterday morning. The thick scrawl was becoming annoyingly familiar, despite the odd spelling and weird words or acronyms they were using.
ATTN: THE THICK-SKULLED ASSHOLE IN CABIN 27
WE TOLD U TO GTFO! GO BACK TO THE CITY!
Well, this was a peachy development. I swept the paper aside and made my java, considering the implications of this latest note. I couldn’t recall seeing it when we came back from the woods, so someone had put it in the cabin between the time we left to pick up the pizza and when Chaz got shot with the arrow. Whoever this was either had access to the cabins or was among the group that had joined us after Chaz fought Seth, possibly leaving it on the counter on his or her way out. Could it be we had two separate threats to deal with—in addition to Seth and his lackeys? It was possible that one person or group was writing the childish, hostile notes, and another was resorting to violence using the silver-tipped arrow.
By the time I finished my coffee, put on a jacket, and crept outside, only one other cabin nearby still had lights on. I waited a few feet from the door, listening carefully for any large predator, or fifty, rustling through the underbrush, but there was nothing out of the ordinary I could detect other than the tentative chirp of a few late season crickets.
The lodge was a dark blur against the reflected lights from the parking lot on the other side, and I kept to the trail as I worked my way toward it. The tiny solar-powered lights that rimmed the trail didn’t do a lot to steady my nerves. The lights and moonlight flashing through the clouds above kept me from tripping on roots or walking into trees in the dark, but they made for deep, ominous shadows in which any beast of legend might crouch unseen in the underbrush.
I knew I really shouldn’t be doing this. I could get hurt by Ethan. I could get hurt by that Hawk guy. Hell, I could get hurt by falling and breaking my ass in the mud. However, I was worried about Chaz, and would do anything in my power to prevent anything else bad from happening to him. To accomplish that, we needed to find Hawk, track him down, and confront whatever his issue was so he’d leave us the hell alone.
So I crept out into the night, feeling like I was playing “secret agent man” all over again. I prayed this time I wouldn’t stumble into one of the pack, that I’d go unnoticed. So far, so good. There was nothing but the low burble of the creek and the smell of herbs and wood smoke on the chill night air. The boards of the bridge groaned a little under my weight, but otherwise I was pretty proud of my stealth.
When I tugged the lodge door, it opened easily. All of the lights in the lodge had been dimmed. Everyone but the shifters in the family must have gone to bed. There was enough light to make my way by, and I crept along as quietly as I could, straining to detect signs of anyone awake and moving around. Nothing.
When I reached the end of the hall, the dining area to my left was empty and dark. I peered very, very slowly and quietly around the edge of the doorway to my right, checking for anyone at the front desk. That room was also empty, only one light glowing by the front door. Somebody could’ve been hiding in the shadows, I suppose, but unless they were practicing their Navy SEAL moves, I’m pretty sure I was the only one creeping around like a dork in the dark.
There was a sign set up on the desk that directed RING BELL FOR ASSISTANCE, THANKS!—THE MANAGEMENT. No, thank you, I’ll just help myself.
I straightened and moved over to the desk, pleased to see that there was no computer, only a registry book under some papers. Thank God for technophobes. I opened it up and skimmed through the most recent entries. Mr. Cassidy must have put Chaz’s name down at some point after we’d first
showed up, as I found his name neatly scrawled as the last guest to arrive. I was grateful to see the Cassidys meticulously filled in the name of one guest per cabin, probably the one paying the bill, followed by how many people were sharing the room, the date of arrival, and the date of departure. I skimmed over the list, noting the ones marked as having checked out.
After scanning over the columns, I came across the only one noted as having left the lodge yesterday. The writing was neat and concise, unmistakable. Howard Thomas + 2 guests, Cabin 3. Great. So our culprit was Howard Thomas or one of his guests. The registry didn’t make note of any addresses or phone numbers, and the records for whatever payment was accepted must have been kept somewhere else.
I put the book back and pulled open the desk drawers to see if they kept receipts or anything else up here. The only things I could find in the drawers were a lot of pens, Post-it Notes, manila folders with inventories and order forms for stuff in the dining hall and cabins, and lots of dust. Yuck. Nothing useful, nothing that gave me any more clues how to track down Howard Thomas.
Damn. It had been a long shot—most people aren’t trusting enough to leave anything related to business finances out in the open—but I’d really been hoping to find something up here. The full name was better than nothing. I’d call Sara in the morning and ask her to run a trace.
Just as I had carefully tidied up so nothing would look disturbed when the Cassidys came out in the morning, George’s voice drifted from the hallway opposite the dining area. As quietly as I could, I ducked back down, squeezing under the desk in hopes of going overlooked.
“… and they don’t know who you are. No, Pops kept quiet; he’s just really concerned you’re going to pull that cowboy shit again. Stay away until they’re gone, okay?”
What the hell was this?
“No, genius, they already suspect he’s covering for you. Stay out of sight until they’ve gone back to the city, okay?”
