Hunter's Trail (A Scarlett Bernard Novel)

by Melissa F. Olson

  I showed the photo to Jesse, then handed it back to Sharon. “They’re very handsome, ma’am.”

  Sharon Remus beamed at me. “Thank you.” She placed the picture carefully back on its end table and returned to her kitchen chair.

  “How much time does Henry actually spend here?” Jesse asked.

  “Oh, he’ll stay a stretch of about a month, at the most,” Zeke drawled. “Then he’s back out in the woods. Usually he stays at the public campgrounds. Police’ve brought him home twice, though, when he was camped out somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.”

  “I put a card in his wallet,” Sharon added helpfully, “so they’ll call if they find him. He’s not actually . . . you know . . . retarded. But sometimes he gets agitated.”

  “Stubborn is what he gets,” Zeke grunted. “I don’t get it. You thinkin’ Henry killed those women?”

  Sharon gasped and her hands flew up to clasp at her breastbone. Zeke ignored her. He seemed absurdly satisfied with the direction of the conversation, as though he’d been just waiting for someone besides his wife to show up so he could bad-mouth his son.

  “There’s no evidence of that,” Jesse said. “But we’re talking to people who know the missing women, and that includes members of their environmentalist clubs.” He looked at Sharon, clearly the gatekeeper to current information on Henry. “So you don’t know where he is right now?” Jesse asked. “Where does he go when he camps?”

  Sharon and Zeke looked at each other. Zeke gave a little shrug. “Heard him say he’d been to Lake Casitas, once,” he said doubtfully. “And I know he goes over to Mammoth once in a while.”

  “You said he went to the Sequoias,” I said hesitantly. “Would that be Kings Canyon National Park?”

  Sharon beamed at me again. “Why, yes.”

  Jesse gave me a questioning look, but I shook my head slightly. A little piece had fallen into place, but now wasn’t the time to talk about it.

  “When the police brought him home,” Jesse said, “where did they find him?” I knew he was thinking of the werewolves running in the LA parks at night.

  “At Griffith Park,” Sharon said immediately. Her voice was soft and a little sad. “I used to take the boys for picnics there, when they were little. He loved it.”

  “Where in the park?” Jesse asked sharply. “The big picnic area to the south, by the playground?”

  Sharon blinked at the intensity of his voice, and Jesse flushed. “Sorry,” he said. “I just know that park pretty well. I take my parents’ dog for walks there.”

  “No,” she said hesitantly. “Northwest of the observatory, by where the tunnel comes out.”

  Jesse’s face clouded over for a moment, then he nodded in recognition. “Ma’am,” he said to Sharon, “would you try calling Henry now, and ask where he is?”

  She hesitated, her loyalties torn. Zeke Remus made an exasperated noise. He really did have quite the versatile range of grunts. “For Pete’s sake, Sharon,” he barked. “If he hasn’t done anything wrong, they’ll figure it out when they talk to him. And if he has, well, he’s gotta answer for it.”

  Biting her lip, she acquiesced. “I’ll call but I can promise you he won’t answer. He only turns the phone on to call me on Sundays. He said it saves the battery that way.”

  She was right. After retrieving her phone from the kitchen, Sharon Remus put it on speaker before Jesse could ask her to and placed the call. It went straight to voicemail. “You’ve reached the voicemail of Henry E. Remus,” said an overly cheery male voice. He sounded odd, like that moment right after you suck in balloon helium and talk in a Munchkin voice, just before it goes back to normal. I felt an unexpected stab of sympathy for Zeke Remus. That voice would annoy the shit out of me too. “If you’re calling about my classroom services, please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you just the second I can. Have a wiiiiild day!”

  “Henry, it’s your mother,” Sharon said hesitantly. She looked at Jesse, who just pointed a finger at her. Nodding, she continued, “Please call me back when you get a chance. I—” Her voice faltered, and for a moment I thought she was going to warn him about us. But she just swallowed and added, “I love you, honey.”

  Once the excitement of the phone call was over, Zeke Remus seemed to lose interest in the conversation. “If that’s all you-all need, we’d like to get back to our day,” he said impatiently. I glanced at the beer and the remote. Yeah, that looked more important than his son killing people.

  Jesse ignored the comment. “What about his brothers?” he asked. “Would he go to either of them?”

  “Nah,” Zeke said, unwilling to be ignored. “Neither of them have much to do with Hank.”

  “Can we get their contact information anyway?” Jesse asked, looking at Sharon.

  She nodded, looking terrified as she clumsily scrolled through her phone’s contacts and held it out so Jesse could copy her sons’ numbers. “When you find him, please don’t hurt him, all right?” she begged, her eyes flicking back and forth between Jesse and me. “He’s a good boy, he’s just . . . a little different, is all.” She focused in on Jesse. “You won’t let him get hurt, right? You’re police, you have to protect him even if he does . . . know something about those girls.” Her beautiful eyes flicked away uncomfortably and then came back to fix on Jesse again. This time he squirmed. Detective or not, he wasn’t used to making promises he couldn’t keep.

  That was my department.

  I stepped forward and took Sharon’s hand. “No, ma’am,” I said solemnly. “We won’t hurt him.”

  Chapter 36

  Back in the car, Jesse asked, “What was that about the Sequoias?”

  I hesitated for a second, unsure how much to tell him. I didn’t want him to know that I’d killed Ana, or that I’d slept with Eli. But didn’t he deserve to know both of those things? Was I protecting him from having that weight on his conscience, or was I just protecting his opinion of me? Was there even any point in that anyway?

  “Lydia came to see me this morning,” I said finally. “She mentioned that she and Ana drove up to Kings Canyon a couple of weeks ago and changed.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Jesse exclaimed. I didn’t answer, and after a moment’s thought he added, “So one of them changed the nova.”

  “Yes, that’s what I think. My guess would be Ana, because Lydia didn’t seem to know anything about an attack on a human. But I suppose it doesn’t really matter.”

  “But was she also the one who called the Luparii?” Jesse asked, talking mostly to himself.

  The Luparii. Shoot. I’d been so focused on the nova, I’d almost forgotten that there was another player in the game. “It’s possible,” I said. “But it’s also possible that Ana told someone about the nova, and they called the Luparii.”

  “Terrence,” Jesse concluded. “Terrence and Drew were the one who met with the scout at the cemetery.”

  Lydia had said that Terrence and Ana were scheming. “Okay, but how did he know to do that?” I wondered. “I kind of doubt the Luparii have a number in the Paris phone book.”

  “When I went to see Terrence before,” Jesse said slowly, “he had these scars on his arms.”

  “I remember those.”

  “He said he studied in England for a year, practiced fencing with real swords.” Jesse shook his head in amazement. “I wasn’t sure I believed him, but if he really was in Europe for a whole year, he may have made some connections.”

  “Who may have known about the Luparii,” I concluded.

  “Maybe. I don’t think it matters, at this point,” Jesse said, shrugging. “That link is broken. Terrence is dead.”

  “We need to call Will,” I said firmly. It was time for an update. Jesse nodded, and I pulled out my phone. While I was finding Will’s number, he gave me a sidelong glance. “Are you going to tell me why Lydia came to see you?” he asked quietly.

  I put the phone to my ear. “No. It’s personal.”

  Will picked up
on the third ring, and I filled him in on what we’d learned at the Remus house. “So you’re pretty sure this is the guy?” he asked anxiously.

  “We’re pretty sure Remus is the guy, right?” I said to Jesse, holding the phone away from my chin.

  “You know, if we were in my car, we could put him on Bluetooth,” he reminded me.

  I blew him a raspberry. Then: “Oh, wait, I think I’ve got speakerphone.”

  Jesse rolled his eyes as I figured out the button that would let us all talk to each other. Once I had everything set up, he and Will greeted each other, and then Will repeated his question.

  “Yeah, we’re sure,” Jesse said loudly. I told Will about Remus’s weird camping habits, and his interest in the outdoors.

  “That makes sense,” Will said thoughtfully. “I couldn’t figure out how someone could turn into a werewolf, keep it a secret, and just . . . go about his life.”

  “But this guy was off anyway,” I finished for him. “I wonder if that’s why he ended up becoming a nova. Maybe all novas are created when a crazy person becomes a werewolf and then gets ditched?”

  There was a long pause, during which I squinted at my phone’s screen to make sure the call was still connected. “Maybe,” Will said at last. “As far as I know, no one really understands the relationship between a nova and his pack. Or if they do, word hasn’t gotten out about it.”

  “So we have to figure out how to find him,” I said aloud. “Hey, Will? Can I ask you a hypothetical?”

  Will knew me well enough to be wary. “I guess.”

  “Let’s say you’re the nova wolf. All you want in the world is create a massive werewolf pack and murder the shit out of the current one. You’ve finally found a mate. What do you do now?”

  He sighed. “It’s hard to say. We’re getting into a magical gray area here. The female—”

  “Lizzy Thompkins,” Jesse said, looking irritated.

  “Lizzy Thompkins can’t be feeling very favorable to him right now. He kidnapped her and killed her friends, maybe in front of her, and now she’s going through physical hell. And he intends to keep her as his mate. I don’t know if that’s even possible against her will.”

  “So he’s gotta have a place where he can contain her,” Jesse reasoned.

  “Yes. He can’t order her around as her alpha until she’s completed her change,” Will finished.

  I said, “The guy’s a planner. He fancies himself a scientist; that’s why he gives the school presentations, why he marked all their backs like it was a controlled experiment. He must have come up with a hidey-hole where he can restrain her.” I thought back to the silver-barred cage I’d seen back in September, the one in Jared Hess’s basement. I shuddered.

  “If he’s got her in some big wild area he could just dig a really big hole and put her inside until the change is over,” Jesse pointed out.

  Will said, “My guess is that he’ll park her somewhere for the full moon so she can finish her change, then he’ll go attack as many people as possible, hoping to build a pack. He’ll kill a lot more people, but his chances of changing them increases during the full moon.”

  “It’s a numbers game,” I said thoughtfully. Jesse gave me a glare, but I just shrugged defensively. It was.

  “Where will he go to find his victims?” Jesse asked the phone. “He’s got his mate, so I assume he’ll be less discerning.”

  “Good question,” Will said slowly. “Probably an outdoor area somewhere because he’d be too conspicuous as a wolf running around a movie theater or something. A place that he knows well, that’s public enough for people to be around but private enough that he can pick them off one or two at a time. No huge crowds.”

  “Okay, thanks, Will,” Jesse said suddenly. “Any luck with the Luparii?”

  “Not yet,” Will answered heavily. “But Kirsten and I are both still working on it.”

  There wasn’t much Jesse and I could do about the Luparii, especially if we were gonna find Henry Remus before the full moon. But . . .

  “Will, what happens if the scout is still in town when the moon goes up tomorrow night?” I asked.

  There was a pause. When he finally spoke, his voice was miserable. “I don’t know. It’s possible that he’ll be so busy tracking the nova that he’ll ignore us . . .”

  His voice drifted off, letting Jesse and me fill in the blanks. If the scout was still in town and he couldn’t get to the nova, he would probably come after the LA pack.

  “Can you guys get out of town?” I asked hopefully.

  Another long sigh. “I’ve urged those of us who have another safe place to go during the full moon to do so. The problem is that there just aren’t many of us with a second secure location.”

  “I could come sit with you guys,” I offered hesitantly. In theory, I could hang out with the pack on the full moon, and as long as they stayed in my radius they wouldn’t have to change at all. But we’d never done that before. Will had told me once, a long time ago, that the pack needs the release of changing during the moon. They already spend so much time tamping down their instincts, and if they don’t get a chance to change, it makes everything worse. In these desperate times, though, it seemed like a viable one-time option.

  But Will said, “No. I thought about that, but you’re our best chance of stopping the nova before he attacks or kills more people. I can handle the pack.” His voice betrayed his uncertainty, but he just continued, “For now, you just worry about finding the nova.”

  I had been planning to tell Will and Jesse about Lydia’s ultimatum—really. But in that moment, when Will sounded so broken, I resolved to keep it from them. It was my mess. I needed to figure out a way to clean it up. Again, I wondered what had happened to Eli. I needed to call him as soon as I got a moment alone.

  “Okay. Let me know what you find out,” Jesse said shortly, in a telltale “I have an idea” tone. He nodded at me, and I shrugged and hung up the phone.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Jesse looked at me. “Griffith Park.”

  I frowned. “I thought the LA parks close at sunset. If the guy wants people around . . .”

  “Not Griffith. It stays open until ten thirty, because of the Observatory.”

  Oh. I thought that over. “A few people around, lots of dark, an area he knows well,” I said slowly.

  Jesse nodded. “It’s our best guess. But that’s plan B.”

  “What’s plan A?”

  He glanced at the dashboard clock. “We’ve still got thirty-some hours until the full moon rises. Let’s see if we can find the bastard before he tries to attack the public.”

  “How?”

  Jesse gave me a pleased little smile that said, You’re gonna hate this. “Old-fashioned police work,” he proclaimed.

  Yep. I was probably going to hate it.

  Jesse explained that we needed to start calling everyone involved with the animal rights organizations to see if they knew where to find Henry. There was a good chance that one of them was hiding him, or knew of a place he would go. Calling almost one hundred and fifty people sounded horrible, but I didn’t have any better ideas.

  Since Jesse’s phone battery was low, he suggested we head for the nearest residence that had a landline and where we would be more or less welcome: his parents’ house in Los Feliz. Which would have been fine, except I really didn’t want to meet Jesse’s parents.

  “What’s the big deal?” Jesse asked when I demurred. “My dad will probably be in his studio anyway. And my mom’s really nice. And,” he added, “I know you want to see Max.”

  Well, he had me there. I had a serious pet-crush on Jesse’s parents’ pit bull mix. But I was also still a little raw from Jesse’s comment the night before about living without my parents, and I didn’t want to see him—or anyone else—being part of a happy family just then. It would hurt too much.

  But I couldn’t actually say that out loud, of course. Not my style. “Didn’t you say your brother was in to
wn too?” I objected. “They’ll be distracting. Besides, though I love him, Max will probably knock me down and hurt my leg,” I added piteously.

  We were at a red light, so Jesse took his eyes off the road long enough to search mine. I don’t know what he saw there, but his expression softened almost imperceptibly and he nodded. “So we’ll go to Molly’s.”

  Oops. We’d been so busy talking to the Remuses that I’d forgotten for a moment that I’d murdered someone at Molly’s the night before. And that Lydia had put Eli and me on a ticking clock. And I still didn’t know where Eli was.

  “Scarlett?” Jesse asked impatiently.

  I snapped back to the present. “Fine,” I said. “Let’s go to Molly’s. We’ll need to stay downstairs, though, so we don’t . . . you know. Wake her up.”

  Which is exactly what we did. It was after lunchtime, so we picked up sandwiches—well, Jesse ran into the place to buy sandwiches, so I didn’t have to hobble around more than absolutely necessary—and ate in the van on the way. Traffic was still light, so thirty-five minutes after we’d left the Remus apartment, Jesse and I were sitting at Molly’s card table–sized kitchen table with the rosters from PAW and HPA. Jesse gave me the PAW list, keeping the much longer HPA roster for himself. Still, I looked down at the thirty names on the paper in front of me with dismay. “Are you sure we need to do this?” I complained. “I really don’t like . . . people.”

  “Too bad,” he said cheerfully.

  “What do I even ask?”

  “Do they know Henry Remus? If so, do they have any idea where he might hide out? Try to get a sense of who might be lying or holding something back, and we can visit those people in person. Oh, and ask everyone who Henry hung out with at meetings. Hopefully we can get a sense of who his friends were, and then we can go after them hard.”