Scratch the Surface (Wolf Within)

by Amy Lee Burgess

  Another reason for the road trip was to get me comfortable riding in a car again.

  After the accident I had avoided cars, taxis and buses—anything on four wheels with an engine. I’d made sure to find a job within walking distance of my condo and, if I really had to, I took the bus as it was the least like a car, but I sat there in rigid fear until my stop, where I couldn’t get off fast enough.

  I still wouldn’t drive, although Murphy asked me if I wanted to at least three times a week. I always refused. It was the one thing I wouldn’t do to please him. I did everything else I could think of that I knew or suspected would make him happy. I wasn’t ready to drive. I wasn’t sure I ever would be.

  It was a two-hour trip and I wished I could read in the car, but I couldn’t relax enough to do that. I constantly scanned the road ahead for obstacles and accidents.

  Murphy and I sometimes got lost in conversation and that’s the only time I really even slightly relaxed. Today we didn’t talk. Instead, we sat side by side as the miles melted behind us like dirty snow.

  I played with a strand of my hair, winding it around one finger and letting it spring free, before repeating the process.

  Things started to look familiar just past the state border.

  “Want to stop for a minute?” Murphy asked. He was always quick to find a rest stop for me to stretch my legs when he thought the road was getting to me.

  A large sign welcomed us to Connecticut, and off the exit, a small brick building had been erected that contained rest rooms, vending machines and brochures about attractions. This was typical across the country. We’d stopped at many of these just past the border rest stops from state to state.

  I nodded and Murphy merged onto the exit, guiding the Prelude off the interstate into the parking lot.

  Snow stacked up in a grubby pile at the end of the lot where the plows had pushed it. Some of the parking spaces were covered with patches of black water that would ice over at night but now, at just past one in the afternoon, were melted, cold puddles.

  Murphy parked the car over one of them, but left the space where we’d exit the car clear.

  The cold air invaded my nostrils and throat the second I opened the door. Murphy waited for me on the sidewalk. It was dotted with bits of sand and salt put down so people wouldn’t slip on ice on their way to the rest room.

  Our car was one of three in the lot. The other two were filthy and old. Ours was a prince among paupers. Murphy took good care of that car. He washed it every week, vacuumed it out and patiently picked up all the fast food bags and wrappers I carelessly let fall to the floor mats.

  I’d heard once that Irish men treated their cars the way their forebears had treated their horses and I could believe it. If Murphy could have fed the Prelude oats and mash, and curried it down in the stall at the end of each day, he would have. Instead, he took it to by-hand car washes and spent two hours buffing, waxing and scrubbing dirt and grime from the hubcaps and windshield.

  I helped him, but my help was half-assed, at least according to him, and so most of the time I sat on a bench or in the car and read a book or a magazine. Murphy was about the car the way I was about shoes. He didn’t see it that way but it was true. Nobody needed to wash their car every damn week. Or spend two hours doing it himself instead of going through an automatic car wash where it would have taken ten minutes. Only suggest to him that we do that and it was enough to send him into a fifteen minute tirade about how those automatic car washes were for shit and scratched the paint job and didn’t get the undercarriage and how the hell can you even suggest a thing like that, Constance. Don’t even think such sacrilege, please.

  I did suggest it about once a week because I secretly laughed my ass off at how frothed at the mouth the man would get. Like clockwork. Every single time.

  He was waiting for me by the vending machines outside the ladies’ room. The day after shifting was hell on the bladder. We drank tons of water before we shifted because if we didn’t, the muscle cramps the next day were severe.

  Instead of walking to the car, I went in the other direction, toward a small stand of maple trees and what, in spring and summer, would be a flower bed. Right now it was a sullen brown pile of half-frozen mud.

  Murphy fell into step with me and we walked together without speaking. I wanted to hold his hand because I wanted the contact and the comfort but I was too fragile. Murphy didn’t like to be touched first. When I forgot and did reach out to him, he invariably froze for a second before relaxing. He wouldn’t take his hand away from mine, but he would freeze at first and I knew I’d take it way too personally today so I didn’t risk it.

  Instead I kept as close as I could get to him without touching him. Our coat sleeves brushed, but our hands never met.

  We avoided the grubby snow bank by common consent. The bottom edges of it were liberally stained with dog piss. If I concentrated I could smell it. If I really focused I could tell which stains belonged to different dogs and which were made by repeat offenders. I had some dubious talents as Pack and that was one of them.

  The whole damn snow bank depressed me, just like the whole damn thing with Grandfather Tobias and our trip to Connecticut.

  “This sucks,” I announced, apropos of nothing.

  “At least you have the vindication, the satisfaction, of knowing for sure,” he remarked. He’d carefully and considerately avoided talking about the situation, allowing me to go first. The entire hour and a half we’d been in the car, he’d wanted to talk about this but he wouldn’t bring it up unless I did. He’d learned over our road trip that silence drew me out better than direct confrontation.

  “You know the grandfather in your pack rigged Sorcha’s accident too,” I said in a low voice.

  He shrugged and the wind blew his straight blondish-brown hair around. He’d cut his hair very short since Houston, but there was still enough for the winter wind to play with.

  “He hasn’t confessed yet.”

  “Has he been questioned?”

  Murphy looked at me from the corner of his dark eyes. He was hunched against the biting wind and had his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets. His expression was a baffled mix of despair and rage.

  “He’s disappeared. Nobody knows where he is and nobody can find him.”

  I chewed on that for a moment, wondering how long he’d known this fact and hadn’t told me.

  “Since when?”

  “Almost right after the incident in Houston.” His mouth turned up wryly. He was referring to his near-fatal overdose.

  “Someone gave him the heads up?” A cold sliver of disquiet slid down my spine then back up again as the implications hit me.

  “Looks like it.” We stopped where the sidewalk ended, facing each other. The ground beneath the maple trees looked muddy. I had on boots—black winter boots with sheepskin lining. I’d bought them on sale last spring and this was my first chance to wear them. They would have been okay in the mud, but Murphy didn’t seem inclined to wander off the path. He had a pair of dark brown Timberland boots. They were waterproof but, ten to one, he didn’t know that. He hadn’t bought them—I had.

  He saw me examine them critically and shook his head.

  “Don’t even think about it. I like these boots and if they go missing I’m going to hunt them down.”

  “You’ve been wearing them for two weeks, Murphy.”

  “And I’ll be wearing them for two weeks more and two weeks after that probably. I like them.”

  “At least wear one of your other pairs once in a while? Couple times a week? Please?” I begged. The frigid wind blew a strand of hair into my eyes and I brushed it away with impatient fingers.

  He gave me an ironic smile, one that tugged at something inside me. Sometimes when he looked at me, my heart gave a strange little flip.

  “Only if you leave these alone and let me wear them in peace,” he said.

  I lifted a hand in a solemn oath. “I swear,” I said in a serious tone th
at made him roll his eyes.

  “Why didn’t Grandfather Tobias get a warning the same as Grandfather Mick?” We were halfway back to the car when I posed the question. Murphy gave an eloquent shrug.

  “Maybe he did and he chose to disregard it.”

  The Prelude’s lights winked as Murphy unlocked the car with the button on the ignition key. He opened my door for me and I hesitated before getting all the way in.

  “You know something I don’t?” I knew I sounded suspicious, but damn it, sometimes the man could be an oyster.

  He flashed me an enigmatic smile and waited for me to get all the way in before he shut my door. I watched him through the windshield as he crossed in front of the car and got behind the wheel.

  Before he turned the key in the ignition he looked at me and said, “Wanna drive?”

  “Get the hell out of my face, Murphy.” I pulled at the seat belt.

  “Just thought I’d ask.” He turned the key. The Prelude’s engine purred into life.

  “I will never drive this car.” I crossed my arms mutinously as he looked over his shoulder and backed out of the parking space.

  “You are going to drive again someday.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” I advised, and he gave me another ironic smile before putting the car in drive and moving forward.

  We were back on the interstate in less than forty-five seconds. Traffic was sparse—it was New Year’s Day and most people were sensibly sleeping off their hangovers and binging on junk food. Not us. We were almost to the safe house in Hartford where I’d have to confront the man who had murdered my bond mates. Happy fucking New Year indeed.

  Chapter 4

  Hartford was a relatively small city dominated by tall buildings which housed insurance companies. The safe house was in the Asylum Hill neighborhood—which was rather apt, I suppose. Located on Farmington Avenue, the Great Pack owned it in conjunction with the Regional Council of New England. It dated back to the late 1800s and had five bedrooms and three baths upstairs, while the downstairs was divided into a large front room, a small kitchen, a half bath, a dining room stuffed with Colonial furniture and two conference rooms, one rather larger than the other.

  I remembered the larger conference room vividly. I’d spent hours there going over the accident with Councilor Allerton and the Regional Council. One awful day had been spent with my pack—and one and all said vicious and hateful things about me. Even Callie, my best friend besides Elena, had not defended me. She had not added any vituperative fuel to the fire, but she’d sat there in a silence that indicated she did not disagree. She had studiously avoided my gaze.

  My pack had painted me as the quintessential party girl, someone who didn’t give a shit about anybody but herself or about anything except the next opportunity to have fun. They said my contributions to the pack funds were minimal because I refused to get a steady job and instead only wanted to play my harp for money. I wouldn’t even go to the parks and play for tips. No, I was too superior for that. I would only play for weddings and business parties. I wouldn’t even deign to teach.

  It didn’t matter that when I did have a gig, which wasn’t as sporadically as Jonathan made out—I brought in more money for four hours’ work than most of the pack brought in for a week’s. They were all in retail, except for Grey and Elena. Elena had gotten Grey a job with the game developers. He had been a beta tester and she, a designer. They had both worked from home. The company was based out of California. I could have been a beta tester too, but Elena and Grey wanted me to spend my time practicing the harp. We’d talked about me teaching, but as Elena had indignantly said every time Jonathan made a snide comment about my work ethic, between us we brought in more than three times than the rest of pack.

  In exchange for my flexible work hours, I was the one who had cooked for our triad and I’d been responsible for most of the housework and laundry. I’d run errands and done the shopping.

  But the way Jonathan characterized it, I had been a lazy-ass bum supported by my hardworking bond mates and the rest of the pack.

  Even Vaughn hadn’t stuck up for me. Vaughn was the only other member of the pack who knew his way around a musical instrument. He was pretty good on the piano and the two of us used to spend many Sunday afternoons playing duets. Sometimes he’d gone on gigs with me and I’d arranged that, but he’d never said a word in my defense. He’d even agreed that my musical contribution to the pack had been negligible. Playing music wasn’t work. It was an indulgence—a hobby.

  I hadn’t played the harp since the accident. I didn’t even own one anymore.

  After the funeral the pack had gotten together for a somber gathering. I had definitely not been invited. I’d taken a cab home, wishing we’d get into an accident even as I’d clung to the little strip of leather above the passenger door, skin coated with a cold sweat of terror. All I’d thought about during the funeral was how I’d wanted to go home and play my harp. I’d wanted to channel my grief and anger through the strings and release some of the more toxic elements of it through the notes. I’d wanted to mourn through music.

  The front door of our rented house in New Britain had been yawning open and inside the living room and the bedrooms had been a shambles. My harp had been strewn around the living room carpet in hacked-up pieces along with Elena’s computers, Grey’s CD collection and nearly everything else we’d owned.

  Upstairs in the master bedroom, the bed pillows and the mattress had been slashed with a knife, stuffing and feathers everywhere. Someone had taken ketchup and mustard and squirted both all over the walls and ceiling. The stains had still been wet and dripping. The damage had been done during the three hours I’d been gone for the funeral.

  My clothes had been ripped to shreds. Even worse, so had been Grey’s and Elena’s.

  I remember sinking down to the ketchup-encrusted floor with one of Grey’s flannel shirts. It had been in tatters, but it had still smelled like him. I could smell his hair on the collar and his cologne in the sleeves. I’d rocked and cried like a fucking baby.

  * * * *

  All of this flashed through my mind as we stood on the front steps of the safe house and waited outside the imposing white door with the brass knocker in the shape of a wolf’s head.

  One of the Regional Councilors, a woman named Kathy Manning, answered the door. She was a petite brunette with gray-blue eyes that tilted seductively. Her hair was cut pixie short, lending her a sort of elfish quality. Arrestingly attractive rather than conventionally pretty, she wore a pair of gray wool pants and a white blouse with a gray vest. A long gold chain looped several times around her throat and hung between her breasts. Tiny gold studs winked from her earlobes.

  “Hello, Stanzie,” she said with a real smile. I smiled back, but mine was strictly cordial. Although she’d been one of the more sympathetic members of the Regional Council during my ordeal, she’d voted against me when the time came. I wondered if she regretted that now, although she evinced no guilt, merely friendly welcome.

  She introduced herself to Murphy when I failed to do so and he shook her hand with reserve, obviously taking his cue from me. Nevertheless, he still charmed her. Women usually fawned over him. All he had to do was smile and they were hooked. She came up to the hollow of his throat and had to tilt her head to meet his eyes.

  “Councilor Allerton is in the small conference room. I’m making a pot of coffee. Do you want some?” Her gaze traveled between the two of us.

  I was cold, and coffee did sound good, so I nodded and once I did, Murphy did too.

  An elaborate coat tree stood in the foyer decorated with winter outerwear and Murphy and I hung ours up too. We made sure to wipe our boots on the prim mat in front of the door so as not to track prints on the spotless parquet floor.

  In the front room to the left of the hallway just past the foyer, a massive Christmas tree twinkled with lights in front of the bow window. It was adorned with silver and gold glass balls and a stiff, curled gold bow
sprinkled with silver glitter held pride of place on the top.

  Red poinsettias, six deep, were arranged artfully under the tree and along the shallow shelf beneath the bow window.

  The room was filled with the scent of fresh pine and sap. I also smelled the coffee brewing down the hall in the small kitchen.

  Murphy followed me down the hallway to the open second door on the right just before the formal dining room which, in turn, led to the kitchen.

  Inside the small conference room, three of the four walls were covered with off-white wallpaper flecked with gold. A small crystal chandelier hung suspended over an oval-shaped cherry wood table with carved, scrolled legs. Ten cherry wood ladder-back chairs were arranged around the table. Each had a plush gold cushion for the seat and the back.

  Dark, built-in bookshelves lined the far wall, broken only by a large multi-paned floor to ceiling window that overlooked the side yard and a parking lot for the small, brick office building on the next lot. Massive red velvet curtains were looped back with gold-braided tassels to allow access to the wintry sunlight.

  Flames crackled and leaped behind the grate of a dark-green marble fireplace. Above the mantel hung a somber oil painting depicting a whaling schooner setting off to sea. The sky in the painting was the same ominous gray as the sky outside the house. It was a compelling painting, but it was not comforting.

  Councilor Jason Allerton sat the head of the table with his back to the window. A hardcover book was propped on the table in front of him and his dark head was bent so he could read.

  When he heard us at the door, he deliberately finished the paragraph he’d been absorbed in before he lifted his head to smile at us.

  “Constance, Liam, it’s good to see you.” He rose to his feet, impeccable in a dark-gray Ralph Lauren suit with a white shirt and a subdued, yet powerful red tie. The jacket to the suit was draped across the back of his chair and his tie was loose. His shirt sleeves were rolled to just below his elbow.

  In contrast, I wore a pair of faded Levi’s paired with a black turtleneck sweater I’d bought at Target for twenty bucks. My hair was pulled back into a messy bun. The wind at the rest stop had tugged several strands free and I’d pushed most of them behind my ears rather than redo the bun.