Wolf Prey (Wolf Cove Book 3)

by Nina West

  A loud crash sounds downstairs.

  I take the steps two at a time. “Mama? Daddy?” When I get to the kitchen, I let out a scream. Mama is sprawled out in the middle of the kitchen floor, gasping for air, her hand on her chest over her heart.

  “I need an ambulance!” My dad demands into the phone receiver. He was sitting in his wheelchair having his breakfast. Luckily, the phone was within reach.

  “Mama!” I dive to the floor.

  “It hurts!” she manages to get out through gasps.

  “Daddy, I think she’s having a heart attack!” It wouldn’t be surprising. Both Great-Grandma Pearl and Grandma Maggie died of heart attacks, though Mama’s young yet.

  “Does your left arm hurt?”

  Her eyes widen. “Yes!” She grabs her arm and moans.

  Oh my God. I can’t believe this is happening. She’s only thirty-nine years old. “Okay, hold on, Mama! The ambulance is coming!”

  She paws for my hand, grasping it tightly until the paramedics arrive. “Stay with me, Abigail. I’m scared.”

  “Of course!” Tears sting my eyes. “I would never leave you.”

  Celeste Enderbey arrives just as they’re wheeling Mama into the ambulance. She must have heard the sirens wailing. “What do they think it is?”

  “They don’t know. Her heart rate is all over the place.”

  Celeste squeezes my arm. “You go ahead, I’ll stay here with Roger.”

  I wedge myself in the corner as the paramedics hook Mama up to all kinds of machines, managing to keep hold of her hand the entire time.

  The ambulance races toward the hospital and I pray.

  Everything else is forgotten.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Indigestion?”

  I stare at the doctor, waiting for him to correct what I thought he just said, because I must have heard wrong.

  “Honestly? I don’t know what else could have caused the pain. I’ve gone through the tests several times. Everything has come back clean. Even her heart is fine. Surprising, to be blunt. All I could see was some irritation in her esophagus, common to acid reflux.”

  “I’ve been sitting in this hospital for twenty-eight hours because of gas? I missed my flight to Seattle because my mother ate pizza?”

  He gives me a sympathetic smile. “With her family history and her weight, we had to run the tests to make sure. And her heart rate was irregular when she came in.”

  “Yes, of course. I’m glad you did. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound….” Ungrateful, selfish, horrible. I shake my head, still surprised. “Is it normal that gas would knock you on your back like that?” Mama was literally lying on the floor, clutching her chest.

  “Well… people’s pain thresholds are different. Combine that with the high levels of anxiety your mother says she’s been experiencing and maybe?” His expression isn’t convincing. “I’m going to talk to her about making some serious changes to her diet while we finish up with the paperwork, and then I can release her. You’re welcome to go in and see her.”

  “Thanks.” I watch him stroll away.

  And wonder, would Mama have faked a heart attack just to keep me from going to Alaska to see Henry?

  No. She’s stubborn and resourceful, but that’s downright crazy.

  Still....

  I eye her door for a long moment, deciding if it’s smart that I go in there right now, with this doubt brewing.

  I walk past it toward the cafeteria.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Well, that’s just great that it turned out to be nothing. Isn’t that just great?” Celeste turns in her seat to smile wide at me.

  “Yes. Great.” My voice lacks enthusiasm, but I can’t help it. I turn to watch the roads drift by, quietly playing out the whole thing again. Her face didn’t turn red, she wasn’t sweating. And…. I frown as it all comes back to me. Her arm didn’t seem to hurt until after I mentioned it, and then it was suddenly so painful.

  Seriously, did Mama just fake a heart attack to keep me from seeing Henry?

  No. I’m horrible for thinking that.

  Horrible.

  “Thank goodness my Abigail was here to take care of me.” Mama reaches over. “The doctor seems very concerned about my heart. He said I need to be extra careful for the next few months, to make sure I don’t aggravate it any more, what with my family history. Gosh, between me and Roger, I don’t think this poor girl is going to get a moment’s rest.”

  I replay the conversation in my head. I’m pretty sure the doctor said her heart looked fine and that she needed to lose weight and not eat pizza.

  She babbles on with Celeste and the Reverend, her gaze shifting to me every once in a while, just long enough to smile and pat my knee. Though each time, those smiles grow more wary.

  Reverend Enderbey pulls into the gas station just outside of town. “I just need to top us up. I’m afraid we won’t make it back.”

  “I’ll do it!” I hop out of the car before he even has time to unfasten his seat belt, struggling to unclench my jaw as I jam the gas nozzle into the Oldsmobile. If she was trying to keep me from seeing Henry, she has succeeded. Even if I fly to Seattle now, by the time I get to Alaska, it’ll be night, and Henry is leaving for Beijing in the morning. Honestly, I considered it. I even went as far as to try and book another flight while I sat in the cafeteria, waiting for Mama to be discharged and the Enderbeys to pick us up. But nothing was available.

  I won’t see Henry for weeks. Months, possibly.

  I’m fighting tears when a car pulls up beside us.

  “Hey, Abigail!”

  I look over to see Jenny climbing out of the driver side, adjusting her skirt. Veronica and Beth are also with her, surprise, surprise. “Hey, Jenny.” I can’t keep the melancholy from my voice.

  Veronica nods to Jenny once, a silent communication.

  Jenny turns back to me. “We’re going out tonight. Do you want to come?”

  I’ve never gone out with any of them. It doesn’t take a genius to see what’s going on here. They figure they can get close to me and then have an in with Henry. And right now, all I want to do is curl up in my bed and cry anyway.

  From inside the car, Mama clears her throat loudly. She doesn’t approve of me going anywhere. Of course.

  “My mother just got out of the hospital. I should probably stay home.”

  Jenny’s eyes flitter to the back window. “I hope she’s okay.”

  My defiant streak flares. “Yeah, she’s fine. Just bad gas,” I say, loudly enough for Mama to hear.

  “Oh.” Jenny presses her lips together, trying not to laugh. She lowers her voice to say, “If you change your mind, we’re leaving out from my place at nine.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I glance at my watch. It’s two o’clock. I should be tangled in Henry’s sheets right now. Instead, I’m pumping gas and letting Mama win. How long will I last at home before I make my suspicions known?

  With each passing minute, going out with three girls I don’t even like is sounding better and better.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Why would you say such a thing!”

  I push through the screen door and into the kitchen. Daddy and Jed are sitting at the table, bewildered looks on their faces.

  “What in heaven’s name is going on now?” Daddy’s spoonful of soup is halfway to his mouth.

  “I’m fresh off the heels of a heart attack and she’s mocking me!” Mama cries, huffing and puffing as she tries to catch up.

  “You didn’t have a heart attack. You had gas!”

  “Well… I thought it was a heart attack,” she mutters with indignation.

  “Did you? Did you really?”

  Her mouth drops open. “You heard the paramedics. My heart was going haywire. What are you insinuating?”

  “Abigail!”

  I turn to see the harsh disappointment in my dad’s eyes and mine immediately begin to burn with tears. I take the stairs two at a time, running all the way to the bathroom, slamming the
door shut behind me, somehow managing to kick the trash can over in the process as I crumple to the floor in a fit of sobs.

  Guilt weighs heavily on me.

  I can’t believe I’ve actually convinced myself that Mama would fake a heart attack. What is happening to me? I never would have done that before. I just wanted to see Henry so badly. Is this what Daddy was talking about, when he said he didn’t want me to turn into someone I couldn’t be proud of?

  I need to apologize to them.

  Pulling a tissue from the box, I blow my nose a few times, then set to cleaning up the mess I just made.

  Five small foil wrappers catch my attention. I pick one up to read the small writing on one side. And frown. Caffeine pills?

  Who’s been taking caffeine pills? And five of them. I emptied the trash for collection yesterday morning, so someone took five caffeine pills between yesterday morning and—

  Realization dawns on me. I march downstairs, wiping my tears from my cheeks with the back of my hands, an odd sense of vindication taking over.

  I hold up the pill packaging in front of Jed but I’m looking at Mama. “Do you know anything about this?”

  “What are those? Caffeine pills? Heck, no,” Jed says.

  But I’m not even listening to him because the look on Mama’s face says it all. She tries to smooth it over, but it’s not fast enough for me. Not even for Daddy.

  He frowns as he looks from Mama to me, to the pill packaging, and back again.

  “Someone took five of these yesterday morning after I emptied the trash. Do you know something about that, Mama?”

  Mama’s eyes dart to the freshly brewed cup of coffee in her hand, that the doctor specifically asked her to cut out. “No. I like my caffeine in a cup. Must have been… someone else.”

  “The only other person here was Celeste, Bernadette. Why would she take those? And why would she do it in our upstairs bathroom?” Daddy’s been married to her a long time. Long enough to see through her bullshit, too.

  She swallows, feigning indifference. Something she’s not good at doing, because there isn’t anything she doesn’t have a strong opinion on and, if she suspected Celeste was popping pills like this, she’d already be on the phone. “I couldn’t tell you.”

  “You took them yesterday morning to spike your heart rate, just so you could keep me from going to Alaska to see Henry.”

  She opens her mouth and I know denial is coming.

  “That wasn’t a question.” I toss the wrappers onto the table. “If you ever try to interfere with me seeing Henry again, I will tell every last person in this town what you did.”

  “Good Lord, Bernadette. If anyone needs their head examined, it’s you! Do you know how dangerous this is? You could have killed yourself!”

  I leave them to argue because I’m done. I march right back upstairs, intent on getting out of here. Maybe not to Alaska, but at least to wherever Jenny is planning on going. Anything is better than staying here.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Are you guys sure about this?”

  My stomach does another flip as I pull my truck into the parking lot of Billy Bob’s, a white clapboard building with no neighbors in sight, twenty miles outside of Greenbank, near the highway. It looks like it might have been a large ranch house at one point, its second story built into a high-peaked attic. The sides haven’t seen a coat of paint in a few years.

  Music blares through the gaping windows, where neon lights flash, advertising various liquor and beer brands.

  “My friend is meeting us here tonight.” Veronica eyes the row of bikes parked along the curb, leather-clad men and women alike hanging off each other, bottles of beer in hand, laughing boisterously.

  What the hell am I doing here?

  We pile out of my truck. I can’t help but do a double take at all of them. When we pulled away from Jenny’s house, waving at her mom, they were in regular t-shirts and summer skirts. As soon as we rounded the corner, they started stripping, revealing tank tops and jean shorts that barely cover their asses. They traded sandals for heels hiding in someone’s backpack, and spent the last fifteen minutes testing out the lights on my visor mirrors to cake on their makeup.

  I do a quick glance at my clothes. Having no idea what we were doing and not having many options, I settled on jeans and a black tank top that I had borrowed from Katie and forgot to return. It’s far from fancy, but it’s tight and low-cut and has a slogan across the front that says, “If it feels good, do it.” The scathing look on Mama’s face when she saw me come down in it made it all worth it.

  But Jenny made me pull over and take my jeans off right in the driver side, swapping them for this black skirt that’s loose but short. Really short.

  A man in his midtwenties is leaning against the thick post on the front porch, his smirk growing more lascivious as his eyes pass each of us. He’s one of the bikers, I gather by his heavy black boots and leather cut. His chin-length blond hair is pushed back off his forehead, allowing me a good glimpse of his handsome face.

  When his eyes land on me, they settle on my chest for a good five seconds.

  I can’t help but cross my arms.

  He chuckles. “Sounds like you and I are a lot alike.”

  Doubt that.

  Reaching a hand out, he scoops Veronica up with one tattooed arm, his fingers sliding up her shorts to grasp her ass. And squeeze. In front of everyone.

  “Hey, baby. Missed you,” he murmurs, burying his face in her neck for a second.

  I can’t help but widen my eyes.

  Veronica is with a biker?

  Oh boy. Between simply wearing cut-off jean shorts and dating a biker, I think her mother, who leads the choir at the church and wears a dress 365 days of the year, would gladly take the shorts.

  I’m guessing she has no idea about him, though.

  “That’s Declan. She met him at her dad’s shop. He brought his car in for fixing.”

  “Oh.” I guess that would make sense. How else would their two worlds ever collide?

  Veronica pulls away to give him a pouty look. “Where have you been?”

  He shrugs, releasing her but not without running her body down the front of his in a very deliberate move. “Here and there.” His gaze shifts to me again. “Who’s the new girl?”

  “That’s our DD. Come on, I want a drink.” She grabs hold of his hand and tugs him inside. He follows with a playful grin on his face.

  It stinks of beer inside. Not freshly poured beer either. Stale beer, as if it’s been spilled and left to soak into the worn wood floors and tables for decades, and it’s never coming out.

  To the left is a simple bar with a weathered-looking bleach-blonde woman about twenty-five pounds too heavy behind it, gabbing and smiling as she pours drinks, breasts to rival mine in size spilling out of a loose top. Everywhere else are people of every age, most of them people I don’t recognize. Which is odd, being only twenty miles away from Greenbank, where it’s like I know everyone.

  “Band plays over there on Friday nights.” Jenny points to a stage on the right.

  “How often do you come here?”

  “This will be our third time.” Her eyes graze the crowd. “There are so many hot guys here.”

  Clearly I have misjudged the debate team captain and mathlete Jenny in a major way.

  I let my eyes wander, too, to the source of music—a jukebox beside the stage. A muscular man with sandy-brown hair flips through the catalogue of songs while an exotic brunette woman in a spandex tight-fitting dress grinds into his side, running her long, hot-pink nails back and forth over his back intimately.

  I wanted to get out of the house and forget the fact that I’m not with Henry, but this isn’t where I want to be. The staff lodge at Wolf Cove, sharing drinks and stories with Ronan and Katie and my other friends… that’s more what I was thinking.

  This place feels… off.

  Beth thrusts a bottle of beer in my hand.

  I try to give it bac
k to her. “I can’t. I’m driving.” After Saturday night, I’m definitely not ever drinking again.

  She rolls her eyes at me. “It’s one drink, and we’re not leaving for a few hours.”

  A few hours. Great.

  I take the bottle for the sake of holding something, and then trail them toward the back.

  ~ ~ ~

  “When are you going to see Henry again?” Jenny leans in to glance at my phone.

  I pull it against my chest, protectively. So you’re on a first-name basis with him, too? “Not for a while. He’s leaving for Beijing in the morning.”

  She sighs. “Wow, that’s so cool. Too bad you can’t go with him.”

  “Yeah, too bad.” Though, after what Mama pulled, I want to just pick up and leave. But I can’t do that to Daddy.

  “Jenny!” A blonde girl waves at Jenny from the other side of the table.

  “Sherri!” Jenny squeals. “I’ll come around and give you a squeeze in a bit, okay?”

  “Okay!”

  The blonde gets herded along the path by a broad-chested guy who’s holding her hand. He glances once our way before continuing on.

  Jenny leans in. “She has no idea that I fucked him out back about a month ago.”

  It takes me a few seconds to recover from that bit of naked truth. “Were they together then?”

  She snorts. “Yeah. For, like, a year now. And she thinks he’s so in love with her.” The smug smile on her face as she watches them talk to someone else tells me she doesn’t feel the least bit guilty about it.

  “Wow. That’s….” I’m not sure exactly what I want to say.

  I really don’t think I like you?

  One of Declan’s friends hollers at Jenny and she immediately abandons me to climb over the table, flipping her hair over her shoulder. They’ve been flirting all night and I’m pretty sure they’re going to hook up soon.

  Declan and Veronica disappeared for a while, but they’re back and standing at the next table over, her hand settled on the buckle of his jeans possessively. She’s had at least two shots of something amber since she’s been back, so I’m guessing she’s drunk.