Howl of the Sequoia (Secrets of the Sequoia Book 1)

by Deidre Huesmann

  “You know what this all is? Incompetence. Like there probably aren’t a hundred Sheila Adairs in this state? The staff’s always been crap here. Remember, RayRay, when they told Mom she was just depressed the first time?”

  Sudden cardiac arrest.

  Rachael nodded slowly. Her hands folded demurely and loosely in her lap as she watched her brother push hair out of his face and continue to spew words until his lips took on a grayish hue. With a promise to return, Rachael stepped out into the hallway to look for a coffee stand. The lobby was terribly cold. Maybe they’d have bottled water, too. Jackson looked thirsty.

  She didn’t have much money on her; just an extra few dollars left over from Christmas. At least it was enough to order two drip coffees and a chilled red Gatorade.

  When Rachael walked back, precariously balancing the beverages, her father had returned. Henry loudly rebuked his son for his “so-called conspiracy theories,” provoking a father-son argument that nearly involved security once again. Once the shouting and threats quieted to numbness, Rachael offered the largest cup of coffee to her father.

  Henry accepted, though his expression was distant. He slumped into a worn chair next to Jackson.

  Sudden cardiac arrest. Rachael noticed she had mouthed the words without saying them aloud.

  After a long stretch of silence, accompanied only by the usual bustle and terse voices of a typical emergency room, their father finally spoke. “Jackson, take your sister home.”

  Her brother’s brown eyes were dead and wet. “No. I want to stay.”

  “It’s not up for negotiation,” Henry snapped. He took a large gulp of coffee, tugging on his beard when some of it spilled. “You and Rachael will go home. Stay inside. Wait until I get back. Be in bed by nine. Is that clear?”

  Jackson fumed. Clasping her rapidly cooling drink, Rachael said, “What about dinner? Do you need me to make anything?”

  The way her father blinked spoke volumes of how foreign the concept of food was to him in the moment. He uttered a small curse and reached into his back pocket. Two twenties and a ten were pressed into Rachael’s hand—more money than she’d ever held at one time in her life. Disproportionately stunned, she studied her father for any signs of jest. This much money had to be a joke.

  Dully, he said, “You and your brother get whatever you want on the way home. Lock the doors.”

  The next couple hours passed with a slow-motion quality that left pins and needles in Rachael’s limbs. Jackson didn’t want to eat or even talk anymore. Strong gusts of wind were the only sounds punctuating the ride home. Their house didn’t look familiar, as if there was a gloomy, yawning void shifting the very fabric of reality within those 900 square feet. When Rachael tried to eat the plump blueberries her mother had just bought the day before they turned to baby powder in her mouth in both texture and flavor. What little appetite she had vanished after four berries.

  The money in her pocket burned guiltily against her thigh. Some consideration told her the refrigerator was as good a place as any to leave her father’s money where he could find it.

  Only after Rachael used a couple old alphabet magnets to pin the bills down did she notice the red blinking light to her left. She turned to where a bright 5 flashed at her, demanding attention. She pressed the white button beside the screen.

  The voice sounded unusually tinny on the answering machine. “Hey, um . . . it’s Vera. For Rachael. I just wanted to call and say I’m sorry about earlier—”

  She hit DELETE.

  Again, Vera spoke. “It’s me again. Please, could you call—?”

  DELETE.

  “Oh, my god, Rache, Holden just told—”

  DELETE.

  This time Shawna left a message. “Hey, girl. I’m with Vera and Jain right now. Are you—?”

  DELETE.

  “I’m coming over.”

  The last was from Holden and that was all he said. Shaking her head in disbelief, Rachael erased that message as well. What was the point? Henry had told her to lock the doors. What did any of them expect, for her to welcome them into her father’s home when he wasn’t around? He’d be furious.

  By the time she had settled in her room to stare blankly at her history book, Rachael had already forgotten the phone calls. That was why she leapt six inches off the chair when the doorbell rang—four times in a row.

  After the fifth Jackson stormed into her room. Glowering, he snarled, “I’m busy. Can’t you get the door?”

  Her capacity to be angry was already nil. Rachael blankly complied, coming face-to-face with her friends.

  Immediately Vera lunged forward, enveloping her in a fierce embrace. “I’m so sorry,” she cried. Tiny as she was, Rachael felt like a pinned moth in her friend’s arms. She was powerless to do anything but stare dazedly at Shawna, Jain, Amanda, and Holden in the threshold.

  “I thought you didn’t like me,” she said to Amanda.

  Caught off guard, Amanda gaped unintelligibly. Fortunately for her, Shawna swept in to speak. “Rache, so long as your mom’s in the hospital, we’ll do anything we can. Just name it.”

  “I’m such a jerk,” wailed Vera. “Please forgive me? I should never have said those awful things! And now. . . .”

  Bewildered by the commotion, Rachael at last managed to disengage from her friend. Her heart began creeping upward to her throat as she choked out, “Mama won’t be in the hospital.”

  Holden closed his eyes with a wince and turned away.

  Utterly ignorant, Jain said, “That’s great! When’s she coming home?”

  For the first time since Jackson picked her up, Rachael had trouble breathing. “Mama’s dead.” As her voice cracked and her chest tightened, she only got a glimpse of her friends’ horrified expressions before the dam broke. Rachael buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sheila Adair’s bodiless wake took place February 5th, Sunday morning. Family, friends, and acquaintances Rachael hadn’t seen in years—or in some cases at all—showed up on their doorstep, offering food and their deepest condolences. Vaguely familiar faces milled into their home, casting sympathetic glances at Rachael and talking in low whispers over cups of complimentary coffee her Aunt Sadie continuously brewed.

  She hated it. The entire façade came off as insincere or forced, clogging the Adair home with cloying pity. Her father stoically accepted each and every offering their guests brought. He hovered close to the photograph of his wife surrounded by flowers and Hallmark cards on the fireplace mantle, apparently loathe to leave her image.

  Jackson had refused to come out of his room since the first guest arrived. Throughout the morning he ignored anybody who tried to open his locked door or talk to him through the wood. But for the sounds of a TV inside, Rachael would have assumed the worst.

  It took all she could muster to remain polite and dry-eyed during the majority of the wake. One time she had burst into tears and her father had whisked her away from Grandma Marie and told her to save her grief for another time. “You’ve had a month. Today you need to be strong, like your mother.”

  His haunting method of referring to his wife in the present tense made Rachael want to scream. She had preferred his rebukes for her lack of good dress for the wake, even if jeans and T-shirts were all she ever really owned.

  By noon Rachael had taken to greeting and saying goodbye to guests at the front door. In doing so she was the first of the household they unleashed their regret for her terrible loss, but at least it was over and done with quickly once she invited them in.

  “Hello, Miss Rachael.”

  Seeing Aaron on her porch sparked the first emotion resembling fury she had felt in weeks. Glancing around to make sure nobody was watching, Rachael grabbed him by his gray jacket—What is that, real leather?—and pulled him outside onto the driveway until they had escaped any wandering eyes.

  “Who said you could come?” she hissed.

  Aaron’s somber expression remained int
act. “I do not intend to cause a disturbance. All I came to do was pay respects to your mother. She was a lovely woman.”

  The urge to shove him nearly reached a level of irresistibility. Recalling how badly that had ended with Coleen, Rachael directed her violent thoughts to her tongue. “You didn’t really know her. And I don’t want you here.”

  “Is that so?” he asked mildly.

  “What makes you think I do?”

  “For starters, you have not let go of my arm.”

  In fact she was grasping his wrist so hard her knuckles were white. Flustered, Rachael released him. The mirth failed to recede from Aaron’s eyes. She finally understood just how Holden could easily lose his temper over his leader’s behavior.

  And speaking of. . . . “Where’s Holden?”

  “Doing you a service by keeping Nathan occupied,” replied Aaron in earnest. “I assumed it would be tasteless to have a bawling child attached to your person. He still misses you.”

  Rachael had to ignore a pang of guilt to answer steadily. “Isn’t he over a hundred? I’d have thought he could act more mature.”

  Aaron shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. “It appears Holden has not been revealing as much as one would have believed, given how much time you two have spent together lately.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t always feel like talking about ly—about you guys.” The word still felt awkward in her mouth. Rachael wasn’t sure she’d ever be used to it.

  “Very well.” Aaron lit one of his clove cigarettes, seeming not to notice or care when Rachael wrinkled her nose and took a step back. The smell more than the habit upset her, evoking memories of a much darker day. “The short explanation is that as our bodies are slow to age, so are we slow to grasp even simple concepts. Language, mathematics, social norms—it is why we hide our newly infected as they transition and why I require my pack to repeat the same studies in the same fields and the same general grades.”

  Admittedly this was all fascinating to hear, but not what Rachael wanted to talk about. “Look, Mr. Moreno—”

  “Aaron,” he corrected.

  She ignored him. “I just want you to leave. And I hate to beg, but—”

  “No need,” he cut in. Grimly, Aaron finished his cigarette and flicked the cherry off with his middle finger before pocketing the butt. “I will not stay if that is your desire.”

  “It is,” she assured him.

  With a brief nod he said, “Then all I will do is express my regret. You are handling your mother’s death relatively well. I apologize for exposing you to my kind when it proved so vastly unnecessary.”

  Though she wanted him gone, Rachael was having a hard time keeping her mouth shut. She had several reasons to be angry with Aaron; at the same time, she was fully aware she was taking her frustrations with her family out on him as well. “Holden told me. How you only picked me because you thought I didn’t have friends.” Aaron’s eyes shadowed in what could have been anything from regret to anger. She pressed on. “Maybe next time you stalk someone you should do a better job of it.”

  Something visibly changed in Aaron’s entire demeanor then. He tilted his head and watched her with a mixture of open curiosity and surprise, as though a light bulb had just flickered to life in his head.

  Softly, he told her, “Scouting and reporting is pup work, Miss Rachael. Not an alpha’s.”

  “And you’re the alpha, I bet.”

  “Correct.”

  “So what is your job, then? Other than punishing Holden for trying to protect me?” she bit.

  His expression reset back to his default calm. “I will leave you to grieve. If you would kindly give my regards to your father, it would be both unexpected and appreciated.”

  Tilting her chin back in an effort not to show her gnawing anxiety, Rachael said, “I’ll think about it if you leave now.”

  Without so much as a wave, Aaron left.

  From that point on Rachael couldn’t relax. Pacing the driveway in unseasonably sunny weather failed to produce any positive results. Agitated, she slipped back into the house and made a dash for Jackson’s room.

  Moments later her father found her pounding on his door. “Knock that off! You’re upsetting the guests.”

  Rachael turned. “But—”

  “But nothing,” grunted Henry. He pressed the cordless kitchen phone into her hand. “One of your friends is on the line. Make it quick.” He started to head back for the stairs, reconsidered, and added, “And if you can’t keep quiet stay in your room like your brother.”

  With her frustration nearing its pinnacle, Rachael felt she had no choice but to obey. Once the door closed behind her she brought the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  “About time. Are you alone?”

  The voice was familiar, so saccharine yet ominous that Rachael’s sternum contracted.

  Without waiting for confirmation, the melodious voice said, “Good. Now keep quiet, do as I say, and I’ll reconsider killing your brother.” In the background a thumping sound reached the phone, followed by a male’s groan of anguish.

  A dull thud as she hit the floor was Rachael’s only warning that her knees had given out. Of course—Jackson hadn’t had a lock on his door since December. Swallowed by the loss of their generous household mother, nobody had given second thought to the doorknob’s replacement. How it had been recovered and set up was a mystery. That and the TV in the background immediately told her she was dealing with someone very methodical, very clever, and extremely dangerous.

  Had Aaron done this? Was his job to distract her so somebody, perhaps even the caller, could sneak in and harm her brother? Was Jackson even in his room or was he long gone?

  At Rachael’s stunned silence, the caller rapped out instructions. “You have two hours to meet me at your precious sequoia. Your brother’s out here with me. Come alone and I’ll consider not breaking his kneecaps before I eat him. I even catch a whiff of someone else, he’s dead.”

  She was dealing with a werewolf. Heat flooded Rachael’s head as she realized Aaron had to be tied to this somehow.

  “You’re Delilah,” she whispered.

  Lyrical laughter answered her. “And that just cost you half an hour. Better hurry. I’m getting hungry.

  The line clicked and died.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nathan was moping and it was driving Holden bonkers.

  Since Aaron had left for the wake, all Nathan had done was sulk on the couch. Initially Holden had no issues with it since it made his job that much easier. But then Roxi had gone out to hunt alone—her privileges had been returned while his had not, which was massively unfair—and Nathan had begun the sniffling.

  Irate, Holden snapped. “You’re older than I am. Can’t you pretend to act it for once?”

  The boy’s lower lip only extended further. “Why do you and Aaron always get the girls?”

  Holden could already tell having this argument while staring into the eyes of what looked to be a child was going to get surreal quickly. “What, you mean Rachael and Roxi?”

  Nathan slumped so low in his seat that his butt balanced precariously on the edge of the cushion. “She promised she’d marry me.”

  Instead of making the first snide comment that popped into his head, a blinding epiphany had Holden gaping. Quickly he shut his mouth. If he could tread very carefully perhaps he’d glean something useful.

  Hoping Nathan wouldn’t realize his pause had extended too long, Holden replied, “So that Delilah girl has a crush on Aaron, huh? Sucks, kid.”

  If possible Nathan’s black eyes turned even darker. “It wasn’t suppose’ta be that. Miss Rachael was gonna like Aaron so me an’ her could make our own pack when I’m big enough.”

  So Roxi had not only convinced Nathan he would do the impossible, she had somehow used it to swear him to secrecy. Upset as the boy was, he obviously didn’t believe her anymore—so why continue to omit details?

  The more Holden pondered, the worse his s
tomach reacted. Another epiphany nagged him with a ghostly touch when Aaron’s cell phone rang shrilly. His concentration broken, Holden uttered a curse aloud and leapt to grab the phone before Nathan could. The child slunk back to the couch, defeated. Holden glanced down at the screen.

  INCOMING CALL . . . SUNSHINE

  Creepy, Holden decided. He answered anyway. “Moreno residence.”

  More sniffling sounded, this time coming from the caller. “I’m glad it’s you, Holden.”

  Part of him was overjoyed to hear from her after a week of silence, but that part was drowned out by a crushing wave of concern. “What’s wrong?”

  She hiccupped. “It’s Mama’s wake today.”

  Oh.

  “That and I needed to say goodbye.”

  The worst flashed through his mind; Rachael’s limp body lying in a broken, twisted mess at the base of her driveway, floating in a bathtub with bloody gashes in her flesh, forever slumbering in her mother’s bed in a drugged stupor from which she’d never wake . . . “No. Ray, please don’t. I know it’s bad. I’ve been there, remember? But dying won’t fix anything,” he said desperately.

  A strange laugh emitted from her end. “No. I know. It’s just . . .” Another hiccup, and then it sounded like she was crying anew. “I shouldn’t even be calling you. She’ll kill Jackie if she finds out.”

  “Who?” he demanded.

  “But I just needed—I had to say goodbye to you.”

  Slowly, taking care to speak clearly, Holden emphasized, “Rachael, who is saying they’ll kill him?”

  But for her crying he would have believed she had hung up on him. From the front of the house, in his world, the front door slammed. Holden motioned to a puzzled Nathan to greet his brother.

  Finally, Rachael said, “I really, really liked you, Holden. Thank you for being my friend. That’s . . . it’s all I wanted to say.”

  “Wait—”