by K. R. Willis
***
Tom lived in Fairfield, about half an hour away. He told us once that all the pack members lived either in Augusta, Choteau, or Fairfield because of their proximity to the Flathead National Forest in Glacier National Park. They claimed the forest as part of their territory and adopted the Flathead Pack as their namesake. The whole pack would meet up at the park border on full moon nights, and shift into their alter egos together, all under the watchful eyes of their Alpha.
Sally drove down Highway 89 as though she’d never heard of a speed limit. I sucked in a deep breath, and prayed we wouldn’t run into any wild animals along the way.
We pulled up in front of Tom’s apartment eighteen minutes later. The road had been more or less deserted so she made excellent time. I said a small “thank you” that we arrived in one piece, and peeled myself out of the leather seat as I opened the passenger side door.
Sally ignored my antics as she jogged up the sidewalk. “This is it, here on the end, number 218,” she called over her shoulder. By the time I caught up with her, she was already ringing the doorbell. We waited several seconds before she tried again. No answer.
“Maybe he had pack business to attend to,” I offered in explanation. “Or maybe he lost his cell phone and is waiting at the Blu Moon for us. He knows we go on Friday nights. There are lots of reasons to explain why he hasn’t called.” I tried to sound reassuring, though I didn’t know why Tom wouldn’t take a few seconds to contact her.
Sally glanced at me, her face drawn with worry. She rang the doorbell again, harder this time.
“He’s not here,” I said. “Come on, let’s go.” I grabbed her arm and tried to pull her in the direction of the car.
“Wait!” She shrugged out of my grip. “I know where he keeps his spare key.” My eyebrows rose in silent question.
Sally stood on her tiptoes and felt around on the small ledge at the back of the carriage-style lantern that lit up his porch. When she pulled her hand out, she held a key on a small wolf-shaped key chain.
“I gave the key chain to him several months ago as a gift,” she offered in explanation as she walked back to the door and started unlocking it.
“Wow. I thought you guys were just friends,” I muttered. I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice, but failed. We never kept secrets from each other, or at least that’s what I’d thought.
“I’m sorry, Keira. We decided not to tell anyone. With pack dynamics the way they are, and me being human, we figured it was best for now.” She opened the door and we stepped inside. The apartment appeared to be empty. “Tom?” she called. “You here?”
Silence.
“What does you being human have to do with anything?” I stopped her right inside the doorway and forced her to turn and face me.
“Werewolves only mate with other werewolves,” she clarified. “The pack will not approve of me unless I become one of them. Tom and I aren’t to that point yet, so to avoid the issue, we’ve kept it secret.” She looked around. “Tom?”
“Okay, so he takes the cure and becomes human again,” I said. “Then there’s no issue and no reason to keep things secret.”
She dropped her head and wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Um…we’ve already discussed that option. His life before the pack was…complicated. I told him that if we did this, it would be me joining him in his world, instead of him in mine.”
“Do you think you will?” I asked. I searched her face for the answer, and tried to picture my best friend as a wolf.
“I don’t know,” she said.
I had no idea what to say to her. The fact that she was so seriously involved with Tom that she was considering becoming a werewolf so she could be with him, even though a lot of humans didn’t survive the transition, but hadn’t told me, her best friend, hit me like a punch in the gut. I always told her everything. For her to keep something that big from me hurt more than I wanted to admit.
She was already upset, so I decided to let it go. “I understand why you did it, sort of, but now that I know, I expect you to fill in all the details after we’ve talked to Tom.”
Sally glanced up at me and nodded. “I really am sorry, Keira.”
I returned her nod and then we looked around.
Tom’s living room opened up to the kitchen on one side, and had a hallway that led to the back of the apartment on the other. Open and spacious, he had decorated the apartment in an understated masculine theme with rich earth tones, wood furniture, and leather seating.
“I’ll check the bedrooms,” Sally said. She took off down the hallway.
I wandered into the kitchen while I waited for Sally to find whatever she was looking for so we could leave. It looked like something you’d see in one of those upscale magazines with granite countertops, walnut cabinets, and stainless steel appliances. A row of cookbooks, their spines worn from years of use, sat prominently on a shelf that hung on the wall next to the fridge. Clean dishes were neatly stacked in the strainer next to the sink, and the counters had been wiped clean. No wonder Sally liked him so much.
A large oil painting on the wall between the kitchen and living room caught my eye so I walked over to get a closer look. It portrayed a beautiful black wolf standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking a valley with a river running through it. He had his head thrown back, howling at a full moon, announcing to the world, “I am here!” It took my breath away. I wondered if Tom’s wolf was black, inspiring him to purchase the piece, and decided to ask him once we tracked him down.
Lost in my thoughts, I jumped when Sally’s scream broke the silence, almost knocking the painting off the wall. “Sally? Sally, where are you!” My legs shook as I turned and raced down the hall, past two closed doors, heading straight for the one on the end that stood open.
I found Sally in what appeared to be the office. A couple bookcases sat along the back wall, and a large mahogany desk dominated the space. She knelt on the floor with her back to me, beside something I couldn’t quite make out. I rushed to her side and saw Tom lying there.
“Is he…”
“He’s dead,” Sally said before I could finish.
I dropped to my knees, and wrapped my arms around her. Her whole body shook from crying so hard. “I’m so sorry, Sally.” I rocked her back and forth, trying to give her what little comfort I could, while at the same time, trying to keep my emotions in check.
Tom was dead.
The old ache that surrounded my mother’s and Raging Buffalo’s death crept into my chest at the sight of Tom’s lifeless body lying inches from me, making it hard to breathe, but I shoved hard and tucked it away. I licked my suddenly dry lips, and looked around the room, away from Tom’s body.
Pictures of people I didn’t recognize scrolled across his computer. The wooden desk chair had chunks of wood missing from the left arm and a huge crack that ran the length of the seat. From the looks of it, he’d been working on his computer when he died and the chair busted when it crashed to the floor.
Sally had rolled him onto his back, and cradled his head in her lap. Strangely, I couldn’t find any blood anywhere, bullet holes, or any other signs of death. In his baggy sweatpants and light blue T-shirt, he looked like he’d been enjoying an evening at home.
It took a few minutes, but she quieted down enough that I let go and said, “I need to call the police. Will you be okay long enough for me to do that?”
She nodded, silent. I used the phone on the desk to dial 911, and gave the operator our information. She told me not to touch anything else, and to remain on the scene.
I walked back over to Sally and knelt beside her. “The police are on their way. Why don’t we go sit in the living room and wait for them there?” I put my arm around her and helped her to her feet. She didn’t make a sound as we made our way to the living room, but as soon as we sat down on the sofa, the floodgates reopened.
With Fairfield being such a quiet little town, it didn’t take long for the sirens to drown out Sally’s tears. I
had my arm around her, supporting her while she cried, when the first policeman knocked on the door. I went to the door to let him in. As soon as the door opened, I gaped. The bartender from the Blu Moon stared at me, eyes narrowed, lips pressed tight.
“Matt?” I asked. “I didn’t know you were a police officer.” His badge said Officer Matthew Tate.
He pushed his way through the door and looked from me to Sally. “Keira? Sally? What are you girls doing here? We got a call about a body at this address.” His stammering and uncertainty I’d noticed from the club disappeared as his serious cop persona took over. The drastic change almost made me swear he had a twin or something.
“It’s Tom,” Sally choked out between sobs. “He’s down the hall, last door on the right.” She glanced toward the office through red, puffy eyes.
“Stay put while I check it out. I’ll be back to ask the two of you some questions,” he ordered, then strode down the hallway.
Sally looked up at me. “I knew something was wrong when he didn’t call me back. I should have checked here sooner. Maybe I could have done something, and he’d still be alive.”
I knelt down in front of her and placed my hands on her knees. “Sally, you listen to me. There is nothing you could have done. This is not your fault. Do you hear me?” She stared at her hands as though she didn’t really see them. Reluctantly, she nodded, then leaned her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes.
More police filtered in while I comforted Sally. They left the front door open where I could watch them put up police tape. They cordoned off the apartment all the way out to the sidewalk. Neighbors wandered out of their apartments, drawn out with the sound of the sirens and flashing lights. Two overfed officers held them back with their bulk.
“Sally, I’m going to talk to Matt. Stay here, okay? It’ll just take a minute.” She didn’t respond.
At the office door, I stopped and asked the officer standing there if I could speak with Officer Tate. He grunted something that might have been, “Wait here,” and left me standing in the doorway as he spoke to Matt. Matt never looked up, but nodded, so I figured that meant he’d see me.
I waited as Matt finished taking notes. He wrote them down on the small spiral notepad he held in his left hand while he circled the body, then the room, three separate times. He put a blue latex glove on his right hand and lifted the chair, examined it carefully, then placed it back on its side where he found it and made some more notations on his notepad. Matt knelt beside the body and looked at something out of my line of sight, again putting his pen to work.
Matt finished his notes and walked over to me. “What were you guys doing here, Keira? Do you know what happened to him?” His voice sounded cold, clinical, suspicious. I felt like a suspect.
I fidgeted while I told him about Sally and Tom, and why we’d come to the apartment.
“So, that’s it? There’s nothing else?” He tapped his pen on the notepad.
“That’s all we know. Matt, what’s going on? Why are you treating me like a suspect?” I shouldn’t have been nervous, but under the hard scrutiny of his gaze, I was.
Matt grabbed me by the arm and pulled me down the hallway far enough so the other officers couldn’t hear us. “Look, the only reason I’m going to tell you this is because I like you and Sally, and I don’t believe you guys are guilty of any wrongdoing.” He took a deep breath. “I believe Tom was murdered. He’s the second werewolf we’ve found like this.” He pointed over his shoulder toward the office. “We found the other one last night a few miles from here.” He let go of my arm, then pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat off his forehead.
My jaw dropped. “Murdered? I thought you had to use silver bullets on werewolves or decapitate them. It doesn’t look like he’s been shot, and there’s no blood.” My mind reeled. Who would want to kill Tom and why?
“Those aren’t the only ways, but yes, it is a very short list. And you’re right, the usual signs aren’t there. Something about this just doesn’t feel right, and the fact that we’ve found two dead bodies in less than twenty-four hours within a ten-mile radius…well, let’s just say I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“So what do we do?”
He glanced at the office door to make sure the other officers were still out of earshot before saying, “I’ll request autopsies on both bodies, and hopefully, that will give us the answers we need. If not….” He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “There’s not much else we can do. Ever since they passed the Paranormal Rights Act back in the 1980s, it has limited what we can do with these sorts of things. As it is, I’ll be lucky to get anything.”
After the experiments at Area 51 leaked to the public, the government enacted the Paranormal Rights Act (PRA) as a way to prevent it ever happening again and to help make amends. It gave the dead supernatural’s pack, coven—or whatever group they belonged to—the right to step in and claim the body at any time so experiments couldn’t be performed under the guise of being for investigative purposes.
Hunger and emotional exhaustion started to kick in. I needed to get Sally out of there. “Thanks for telling me, Matt. Do you need anything else from us, or can I take Sally home?” The thought of Tom’s lifeless body being only a few feet away made me nauseous.
“No, you guys can go ahead. Just make sure you’re available if I have any more questions.” Matt’s touch was gentle when he put his hand on my shoulder and his voice softened when he said, “If you or Sally need anything, you let me know, okay?” With my nod, he turned and walked away.
When I reached the living room to collect Sally, she had curled up in the fetal position on the couch, her makeup smeared beyond repair. My heart ached at how small and fragile she looked.
“Come on, Sally. Matt said we can go since I answered all of his questions.” She didn’t say anything as I put my arm around her, just kept the wolf-shaped key chain clutched to her chest like a life preserver.
As we stumbled out of Tom’s apartment and headed for Sally’s car, a sudden thought occurred to me. Matt said they found two werewolves dead. Who was the other? My chest tightened, forming a knot of dread in between my breasts as I supported Sally. I don’t know why, but I had the awful feeling I knew who the other werewolf was.
CHAPTER 5
Calling the drive back to Sally’s apartment depressing would be an understatement. It started raining as we left Tom’s, a light spraying mist, but as Sally’s car passed the city limit sign that thanked us for visiting Fairfield, the dark ominous clouds opened up and let us have it.
After nearly an hour of barely being able to see the road, the lights of Sally’s apartment building came into view, flashing like a rescue beacon on a stormy sea. I heaved a sigh of relief as I pulled into Sally’s assigned spot and parked the car.
She hadn’t uttered a single word to me the entire trip. The pounding rain echoed in the silence that stretched between us. I twisted in my seat to face her, unable to stand it any longer.
“I’m so sorry, Sally. I didn’t know Tom as well as I would have liked, but he seemed like a really nice guy.” The words sounded weak even to me, but they were all I could think of. How do you comfort your best friend when the man she loves has more than likely been murdered? My chest tightened a little more.
She didn’t say anything for so long; I didn’t think she would. “He was…” she sobbed. Her quiet, raspy voice almost disappeared amidst the pounding rain. “He was a great guy. The kind of guy a girl would consider becoming a werewolf for. I loved him.” She looked up at me with a fresh glitter of tears in her eyes, this new revelation intensifying her emotions. I leaned across the center console and hugged her tight. My own tears began to fall as my heart broke for my best friend.
“Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” I asked.
“Would you please?” she whispered. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”
“I’ll stay as long as you need me.” If I needed to, I wo
uld call Sam and ask him to run the shop for me for a few days.
I helped Sally out of the car. She leaned on me as I led the way across the rain-soaked sidewalk to her front door, thankful I opted to wear my flat heeled boots rather than the high-heeled monstrosities I’d considered trying to impress Brian with.
Once there, I waited while Sally unlocked the door. My heart sank when I caught a glimpse of the wolf-shaped key chain she refused to relinquish even as she fumbled her own keys. She opened the door, and stumbled into the living room. My reflexes kicked in, allowing me to grab her with my right hand before she crashed into the small table just inside the door.
A fresh wave of tears burst from Sally. I draped her left arm around my shoulders, wrapped my right arm around her waist, and dragged her toward the back of the apartment to her bedroom.
With Sally tucked in bed, I took a few minutes in her bathroom to wipe the dried tears from my cheeks with a damp wash cloth, then went to the kitchen in search of food. I fixed a turkey sandwich, grabbed a blanket and pillow from the linen closet in the hallway, and curled up on the sofa. The sound of Sally crying filled the background. Poor thing, with any luck she’d cry herself to sleep and get some rest.
After scanning through several late night talk shows, Christian network television, and several soap operas, something on a special news report caught my attention. The caption at the bottom of the screen read: Military scientist develops defense against the supernatural community. I stopped flipping channels and turned the volume up.
A man in his early forties with spiky blond hair appeared on screen. He wore a white lab coat with a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose. The immature look his spiky hair presented was at odds with the wise, intelligent look the glasses gave him. He cleared his throat and introduced himself as Dr. Mitchell Johnson, then read his statement.
