Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (Big Bad Wolf)

by Charlie Adhara

  Cooper buried his face against Park’s shoulder and groaned. “Now you’ve done it. I’m about to emote all over you.”

  “That’s all right. The rain will wash it away.”

  He pulled back to look Park in the eye. “Okay, look. I want to buy a house with you. I’m happy we’re doing this. I’m happy.”

  Park studied him, then squeezed his hands and took a deep breath. “But...” he prompted.

  “No but. Not but!” Cooper hesitated. “Just you have to promise me something. If it’s not what you think...if we’re not what you think or you realize this isn’t...working for you anymore, promise me you won’t stay in this relationship because you think you need to support me or because you think I’m your only shot at following an alpha or because it hurts you to leave a pack. I don’t want to ever put you in that position. Fallen out of love but unable to leave. Without a choice.”

  Park opened his mouth, but Cooper held up his hand. “Please let me finish.”

  He cleared his throat, gearing himself up for what he needed to say next. “So, I want you to know that I will be your family, pack and your, uh, alpha for as long you want me. As long as you need me. Even if we’re not, you know, together anymore. You don’t have to be with me or buy me things or take care of me, ’cause I’ll always have your back. With or without the trimmings.”

  So help him, he meant it. Even if it would feel like hell itself to be so close to Park but not with him anymore. Cooper didn’t see any other way to neutralize this inequality of power. He had to leave the exit open, not because he wanted Park to take it, but because he needed to know they were both in this freely. Always.

  Park was staring at him with a blank look and Cooper gestured that he was done now.

  “Thank you,” Park said seriously. “That’s...very...nice.” He nodded, not quite meeting Cooper’s gaze. “I appreciate your...concern and support. I feel quite the same way about you.”

  For a long moment the only sound was the rain on leaves, falling on their heads and streaming down their faces. But there was something...some undercurrent of emotion that was hard to identify beneath Park’s overly formal tone.

  Cooper narrowed his eyes and noticed Park’s lips start to twitch before he clamped down on them hard. He seemed to be struggling to choke something down. Abruptly he broke and burst out with a sound Cooper might have called a giggle if it wasn’t Park.

  “Are you—are you laughing at me?” Cooper asked, appalled.

  “No, no, not at you,” Park insisted. He had to shout a little over the sound of the rain, rapidly getting heavier and heavier. “I’m sorry, I’m not laughing because it’s funny. I’m laughing because—” He shook his head, then wiped water out of his eyes, still uncontrollably grinning. “It’s nice, is all.”

  “That’s not all,” Cooper said suspiciously.

  Park raised his arms and let them smack back down to his sides in an over-large shrug. “Cooper, I’m the most feared and powerful werewolf this side of the continent, and somehow I’ve managed to fall in love with the only person in the whole world who thinks I can’t stand up for myself. Do you know I’ve been driving myself crazy thinking Oliver, you idiot, you’ve pushed too fast, come on too strong, he’s going to get scared off, while you’re over here worried about my autonomy. Me.”

  “I didn’t say you can’t stand up for yourself,” Cooper muttered.

  Park laughed again, more freely this time. “Is this why you were talking all that stuff about feeling trapped? I said leaving a pack is a bad feeling, not some unbreakable soul-bond that induces certain death. My god, can you imagine?”

  Cooper turned away, suddenly embarrassed, but Park caught him and pulled him into a kiss, their faces slick in the rain, Park’s hand dragging through Cooper’s wet hair.

  “What was that about?” Cooper echoed when they separated.

  “Turns out I like it when you worry about me.” He knocked their noses together. “I like it a lot. Thank you.” He kissed Cooper again, soft and teasing. “And I’m excited to go home and house hunt with you.”

  “Me, too. I think we’ll do better,” Cooper said with determination, then added with a laugh, “Maybe just less five-foot marble fireplaces this time.”

  Park’s brow furrowed. “I quite liked that fireplace,” he murmured, which answered Cooper’s question about Park’s aesthetic. But having wildly different tastes suddenly felt a lot more manageable, all things considered. “Anyway, maybe we can focus on the case before we drown out here?” Park continued, and nodded toward the side of the trail that dropped off into a steep hill.

  “Right.” Cooper kissed his nose quickly and stepped out of Park’s embrace. He looked over the edge and below he could see a medium-sized warehouse. A couple of flatbed trucks were parked in the muddy lot at angles, as if they’d been hastily abandoned. Large brown puddles with rainbow sheens of oil had begun to form. The mill was oddly quiet. He had assumed Beck would have come and gone by now, but he’d still been expecting some signs of life, saw sounds and the bustle of employees.

  “Maybe they’re closed,” he considered out loud.

  Park frowned and nodded at a single dark SUV pulled up next to the building. “Well, someone’s working overtime.” He tucked the lodge map into his inner pocket and zipped his rain jacket all the way up. “Ready to look hopelessly lost?”

  “I’ve only been practicing my whole life.”

  They hurried toward the warehouse, but the rain was near torrential now and out of the cover of the trees they were quickly soaked through. There were two enormous garage doors, but Cooper couldn’t see any way for them to get in. “Now what!”

  Park said something, but Cooper couldn’t hear him over the wind and rain on the warehouse’s metal roof. “What?” he shouted back, squinting as water got into his eyes.

  Park gestured that they should go around the building, and together they started to run, hunched over as if it were possible to dodge between the drops. On the short end of the building, they found a white door. Above it a security camera was pointed directly down at any potential intruders.

  Cooper nodded at it, squinting up into the rain, and shouted, “Pretty high-end security for a place like this!”

  Park grabbed the doorknob, and though his hand slipped on the wet metal, it was unlocked. “Not that secure!”

  “Wow, that got bad fast,” Cooper gasped once they were inside. He wiped uselessly at his soaked face with his soaked fingers, irritated by the drops streaming relentlessly down his cheeks. Beside him, Park shook his head, splattering Cooper with stray water. “Excuse you.”

  Park winked, his hair all puffed out. Outside, the rain continued to pelt the walls and the roof, and the sound echoed around within the warehouse. It was more cramped than Cooper would have imagined. Most of the space was packed with enormous metal shelves, loaded with, well, wood. Four-by-fours and beams of various lengths, rectangular stacks wrapped in white and neon green plastic with the Montclaire Mill logo prominently featured—wood waiting to be delivered.

  The other half of the space was dedicated to metal machines Cooper wouldn’t begin to know how to work. A complicated network of metal boxes, steps, walkways, tracts and saws that resembled a Rube Goldberg machine that had been interrupted halfway through assemblage. In fact, the whole place had a feeling of work that had been abandoned suddenly and left behind untouched. There was even a fat, raw tree trunk, messily shaved of bark and suspended from the ceiling by chains and pulleys.

  “So much for casually interviewing the employees,” Cooper said.

  “Hello?” Park called. “Anyone here?” An eerie silence answered him. “They wouldn’t have just left it all unlocked,” he reasoned. “Let’s look around.”

  They explored the warehouse. There wasn’t much to see besides tree trunks in various stages of being disassembled and machines that were cold to th
e touch, until they got to the opposite end where there was a metal-grate staircase. These led to a second-floor office that sat like a balcony. The walls were glass so that whoever worked here had an easier time literally overlooking the mill workers.

  Inside, the office’s light was on, bathing the plain desk, filing cabinets and office chair in a sickly fluorescent glow. “Maybe the real source of fighting was that Monty and Kreuger were competing for whose office is more of a dystopian barrack,” Cooper suggested, glancing over the desktop.

  “Look at this,” Park said. Cooper joined him at the wall where Park had removed a large framed photo from its nail. Behind it was a safe. “Beck said she was complaining about trespassers and theft. Looks like she’s upgraded since then.”

  Cooper agreed, but his attention was caught by the picture in Park’s hand. “Can you hold that up a minute?”

  A group of seven smiling people in familiar neon-green T-shirts stood by a bulldozer. Cooper recognized Monty in the center, her arms slung around two burly guys. Behind them was a low, long white dilapidated house he knew had once been pretty.

  “I recognize that place,” Cooper murmured. “That’s the building Vanessa was posing in front of. The photo hidden in her book of the man and the boy.”

  “Are you sure?” Park asked.

  “It’s a lot worse for wear here, but it’s definitely the same. Is it weird she sold the part of the property where she grew up, do you think?”

  “Could be a lot of reasons for that, though.”

  Downstairs, a door slammed shut. “Shit,” Cooper whispered.

  Park quickly replaced the photograph on the wall and then gestured toward the door. Cooper nodded and followed Park out of the office to the landing at the top of the stairs...

  ...and ran right into his back with a grunt when Park stopped suddenly.

  “Don’t you move!” a voice yelled from below.

  Park’s hands slowly raised in the air and Cooper followed suit, stepping carefully around him to see.

  Down below, in the center of the warehouse stood Monty. She was soaking wet, had debris in her hair and a smear of mud on her face, but her hands were rock steady, wrapped around the shotgun balanced on her shoulder, aimed right at them.

  Chapter Nine

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Ms. Montclaire, we’re guests at Maudit Falls Retreat. We saw you yesterday. Talking to Vanessa and the ranger,” Park said quickly but clearly.

  Monty looked between the two of them and a flash of recognition passed her face, but she didn’t lower the gun. “What are you doing in my office?”

  “We were just looking for you. My partner, Kyle, and I were hiking when it started to rain. We tried to get to shelter. The warehouse door was unlocked,” Park added.

  Monty continued to stare at them for a long minute and Cooper held very still, keeping an eye on her hands on the trigger. He didn’t trust guns and he trusted people who pointed them willy-nilly at others even less. Even if she didn’t mean to shoot them, that didn’t mean they’d all walk out of here uninjured. Outside the wind built to a howl and the small windows high up on the warehouse walls shook in their frames.

  “Please, Ms. Montclaire,” Cooper said softly. “We’re just lost.”

  Very abruptly, Monty lowered the muzzle to the floor and Cooper winced at the jerky movement. “You’re not going to make it back to the retreat on foot,” she said gruffly, taking the stairs two at a time and shoving past them into the office. “I can drop you there on my way out of the mountains, but we’ve got to go now.” She glanced at the tiny window, impossible to see out of with all the rain. “I should have left hours ago.”

  “Did everyone else go home?” Cooper asked.

  Monty laughed. “That’s one way of putting it. I’m the only one left. My two last guys quit last week. They weren’t gonna spend one more minute in these woods after everything. If you want my advice, I suggest you do the same.”

  “What do you mean?” Cooper asked.

  Monty barely looked at them. She went straight for the same photo Park had been holding a moment ago and plucked it off the wall, revealing the safe.

  “Please,” Park said, sounding whiny and worried and very much not like himself. “We only just got here yesterday. All this stuff with the T-shirt and the warrant... We did not sign up for this. If there’s something you know about what’s going on, we want to know.”

  Monty looked at them sharply. “What T-shirt? Warrant? What are you talking about?”

  Cooper exchanged a look with Park and said, “The ranger was at the retreat today, three hours ago at most. He said he was stopping by here to talk to you.”

  Monty looked confused, and if she was faking it she was a damn good actress. “He wasn’t here. I haven’t seen him since yesterday with y’all.”

  “Beck found a bloody T-shirt with your logo on the retreat property. He said it was enough to get a warrant, I think?” Cooper said. “You really don’t know anything about this?”

  “My god,” Monty whispered. “It’s finally happening. Llcaj.” She slapped her hands against the wall. “I told him they were behind this, but no one would listen. Now we’ll get them.”

  “Get who?” Park asked.

  “Them! Them! Your precious retreat running me out of business. Threatening my men until they quit. And now Llcaj is dead. I just know it.” She started twisting the safe wheel to unlock it, muttering to herself.

  “Ms. Montclaire.” Park tried to get her attention. “The Claymonts seem to think you’re the one sabotaging them so that you can force them to sell the property.”

  Monty laughed loudly. “They’re lying and I can prove it.” She yanked open the safe, pulled out a packet of papers and brandished them wildly. “See this? You know what this means? I don’t need to force anyone, I’ve already bought the place. As good as, anyway.”

  “Vanessa Claymont doesn’t want to sell.”

  “It’s not her goddamn choice alone, though, is it? It’s Jack’s, too.”

  Cooper exchanged a shocked look with Park. “Jack? Jack Nielsen?”

  “He’s co-owner of the property and he’s agreed to sell to me. I have his signature right here.” She flapped the papers again. “Vanessa will have to agree, too, eventually. If she doesn’t, Jack will file suit for partition. In which case they’ll either be forced to divide the land and I’ll just buy Nielsen’s share. Or they’ll be forced to sell by the courts. Either way, I’ve won and I certainly didn’t need to sabotage anyone to do so. Unlike them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She sighed. “I bought this place last year. We’re a mill. We’re noisy, dirty and not particularly good for their luxury views. I wasn’t expecting a welcome-to-the-neighborhood party. But this was...something else. First, it was small stuff. Some of my guys reported finding the doors unlocked in the morning, the pallets were moved, machines left running, gas knocked over. Nothing serious.”

  “You think someone at the retreat was breaking in?” Park asked.

  “Not at all. Not then, anyway. I figured it was kids sneaking in to party. But a lot of our equipment is dangerous and I didn’t want to show up one morning and find bits of drunk teenager in the chipper. So I set up a camera, at the door. Took a couple weeks of checking empty footage, but one day, last month, I got the son of a bitch.” She crossed her arms and looked at them, clearly enjoying this, anticipating their reactions.

  “You caught someone on tape?” Cooper asked.

  “Not someone.” She planted her hands down on the desk and leaned forward with relish. “A motherfucking wolf.”

  Whatever Monty saw in their expressions made her laugh. “I know, it sounds crazy, right? I wouldn’t have believed it either if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. This thing just waltzed right up like he owned the place, stood on its back legs and
turned the knob with its mouth. With its mouth. It was incredible. I’m a country girl. I’ve seen animals do some weird shit. But this? This was something else. It had no fear. No confusion. Someone had trained it to do exactly what they wanted.”

  Cooper’s heart was pounding and he had no idea what to say, but when Park spoke he sounded calm, amused and even gently dismissive. “You can’t train a wild animal,” he said. “Not the way you’re describing, anyway.”

  “I know that,” Monty snapped. “But find me another explanation.”

  Park shrugged. “I’m not the one who watched the tape. You didn’t see anything else? No other possible explanation? Even if it’s crazy?”

  “Andrew,” Cooper said nervously. He didn’t understand why Park was challenging Monty’s theory, almost goading her to consider supernatural possibilities.

  “It’s fine,” Park said, touching Cooper’s arm lightly in reassurance. “I’m just saying maybe it wasn’t a wolf. Are wolves even native around here?”

  “It was definitely a wolf,” Monty snapped. “You could see for yourself, but I gave everything to Beck.”

  “Why, though?” Park said. “Why do you think some trained animal—wolf, dog, whatever—has anything to do with the retreat?”

  “They’re hiding it there. Llcaj said there’s tracks all over the place. Leading right up to the buildings. You better lock your fancy little cabin or you might just wake up with the big furry fucker.”

  “Terrifying,” Park murmured.

  “What was Llcaj doing on the retreat property?” Cooper asked hastily over him.

  Monty turned away from them abruptly. She rummaged beneath her desk and pulled out a lockable briefcase. “Oh, he hooked up with some chick there, I think.”

  How convenient for Monty, Cooper thought as Park confirmed the who, asking, “Reggie?”

  “I guess so. The newest masseuse or whatever they’re calling her. I swear Vanessa runs through more staff than guests. It’s like a revolving door over there. She should be thankful I’m taking the place off her hands.”