Ethan (Moonlight Wolves Book 5)

by Sarah J. Stone

  Chapter 15

  “We have a problem,” Matthew told Hazel when she answered the phone.

  Hazel’s heart dropped as she thought of the horrible things that could’ve happened over night. Was there another murder? Had Hudson said something? Was someone in danger? Did Matthew find out about the shifters, somehow, someway?

  “What?” Hazel asked tentatively, afraid of what he was going to tell her.

  “Hudson got bailed out of jail from some unknown donor and is now out,” Matthew told her, sighing over the phone. “And not at his house.”

  Hazel closed her eyes in frustration and defeat. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

  The whole town of Jerome now knew that Hudson Schmidt was arrested for the murder of Camilla Phillips. It was all over the news last night and this morning, and Hazel refused to watch it. She also refused to go into town. She knew that people would be freaking out and attacking his parents and that was just not what Hazel wanted to see.

  Especially because she was having second thoughts about who really killed Camilla Phillips.

  But if Hudson was innocent in this whole mess, why was he nowhere to be found? Something wasn’t adding up, yet again. And who the hell was this unknown donor? Everyone knew everyone in Jerome.

  “Are you telling me that he fled town?” Hazel asked Matthew, hating it right when it left her mouth.

  This really wasn’t good news.

  “That’s a big possibility.” Matthew sounded like he was both drinking and smoking at the same time, which also wasn’t good news. Matthew had managed to not drink any whiskey during this whole investigation, but it looked like Hudson skipping town was enough to make him break out a glass.

  Hazel couldn’t blame him. She currently was craving something strong to drown the bitter taste of defeat and anger in her mouth. If Hudson really did kill Camilla, then his leaving was him getting away with murder.

  The thought made Hazel’s stomach turn. She wanted to throw up. “That’s not good.” Hazel didn’t know what else to say. She was so shocked about the whole thing.

  “Hence me saying that we have a problem.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Matthew had to have some type of plan by now, though his drinking whiskey didn’t sound too comforting to Hazel.

  “Meet me at the precinct as fast as you can get here,” he told her.

  “Done.”

  Both of them hung up, and Hazel raced out of bed to get dressed, her mind racing the whole time.

  Nothing was adding up, and she prayed that she would find out what really happened to Camilla Phillips that fateful night. Soon.

  Hazel, now fully dressed and ready to get to the bottom of the situation with a new sense of determination, opened her front door to see Ethan standing there, his hand raised as if he was about to knock. She smiled when she saw him, her heart momentarily forgetting about the hell it was going through. She couldn’t help but get giddy when she saw him. He had left last night, though it was more like early morning, to go home. She hadn’t wanted him to, but she was too exhausted to say anything.

  And now he was on her doorstep first thing in the morning.

  Hazel was about to say something cute to him when she saw his expression. Her heart dropped when she saw his grave expression. This wasn’t a cute visit. This was a serious one.

  Her mind whirled with possibilities about how his face could wear those expressions. Had something happened? Was he going to leave her? Did something happen with Hann? Or the shifter who was sending them letters and playing with them?

  “What happened?” Hazel finally asked him, her eyes wide with fear and confusion.

  “Lorelei got another letter,” Ethan told her, shaking his head in frustration.

  Hazel’s heart dropped. She took in a few deep breaths as she tried to stay clear-headed and not freak out. Though she really felt like she should freak out. Too much was happening, much too fast.

  “What did it say this time?” Hazel whispered, scared to hear what Ethan had to say.

  "Majority of it doesn’t matter right now," Ethan said, cutting her off with his hand when she tried to ask what it said again. “The main thing you need to know is that the letter said that the killer sent a letter to Matthew, lead detective on the case. And it sounds like there’s some . . . stuff about shifters and wolves in there.”

  “There’s no way Matthew would believe the truth from an anonymous letter,” Hazel told him.

  “True. But there are also some pictures that the letter includes.”

  “What kind of pictures?” Hazel felt like her heart was going to stop beating at any second.

  “Pictures of Camilla. Dead. Right after the murderer killed her.”

  Hazel couldn’t breathe. This was bad. “I have to go to the precinct and figure out what Matthew knows,” she told Ethan as she shoved past him, locking her front door as she stepped out into the frigid air. The spring storm was still in full swing and looked like it wasn’t going to leave anytime soon.

  Ethan and Hazel said their goodbyes as Ethan left to head back to Hann’s house. Hazel sped through the rain to the precinct, her mind whirling with thoughts and ideas of what Matthew would say when she saw him. She wondered if he believed it. She wondered what he was doing right then.

  The whiskey seemed understandable, all of a sudden.

  Hazel got to the police precinct in record time, breathing erratically as she raced inside. Right when she stepped through the front doors, she collided with Matthew, who caught her and placed her upright before she was able to fall on the floor.

  Hazel looked at his serious face and tried to decipher the thoughts in his mind. No luck, though. He looked like he always did.

  “I came as fast as I could,” Hazel told him, readjusting her coat and shirt.

  “We got a call that we have to answer,” Matthew told her, grabbing her by the arm and leading her out of the police precinct. “You drive. I’ll give you the directions.”

  Hazel couldn’t say anything else. She couldn’t do anything else but get back into her car and drive Matthew to whatever place he was supposed to go to.

  She couldn’t decide if he had gotten the letter or not. She couldn’t tell what emotions or thoughts were playing out in his mind, and when he noticed her staring at him instead of the road, he snapped at her. Just like regular Matthew would.

  Deciding that it couldn’t hurt to just ask him if he’d gotten a letter, Hazel decided to just take the leap. She needed to figure out if Matthew knew. If he had gotten the letter; if he knew what she was.

  “I have to ask you a weird question,” Hazel began, tapping the steering wheel.

  “Go ahead,” Matthew responded, scrolling through his phone and telling her to take a right. It seemed he was getting his directions from a text, though Hazel couldn’t see who the text was from.

  Hazel could also hear her own cell phone buzzing in her purse in the backseat, but she was too focused on Matthew and what he knew to care about it right then.

  “Did you perhaps get a letter today?” Hazel asked, wincing as her voice squeaked.

  Matthew didn’t say anything and stayed silent. When Hazel looked over at him to see what he was doing, she found him staring right at her, unblinking. Hazel couldn’t read the expression on his face, and she regretted even bringing the letter up. But she had to know.

  “A letter?” Matthew asked, his voice low. “What kind of letter?”

  “I don’t know,” Hazel whispered, refusing to look at him. He got it. She knew that he got it. Just the way he was watching her, the way he was studying her every move, made it clear that he got it.

  And now she’d just outed herself in front of him.

  “Take a right here,” he told her, his voice low. She could tell he was thinking. Contemplating. Trying to figure out just what the hell was going on.

  Hazel found herself shaking. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to say. But she wante
d to reassure Matthew that she wasn’t a monster or anything–not like the real murderer. And Matthew was taking the news of shifters and magic being real very . . . interesting.

  “Let me tell you a few things,” Hazel tried, desperate to vanquish the silence that was deafening in the car.

  “I’m sure that I’ll find out enough in a few minutes,” Matthew told her. “This address was given to me in that letter. Along with some interesting, crazy things that I won’t even discuss right now. As well as some pictures of Camilla Phillips at the murder scene. Dead.”

  Hazel shivered in disgust. She couldn’t believe that the shifter who did this was that crazy. That demented. That murderous. It didn’t sit right with her.

  And where in the hell was this shifter taking her and Matthew? Hazel wanted to reach in the back of her car and find her phone to call Hann for backup, but she didn’t want to out herself to Matthew–especially if he was having doubts about what that letter contained.

  And what, exactly, did that letter contain? Hazel could only guess.

  She would have to go in alone with Matthew by her side this time around. And hopefully, hopefully, they would make it out alive.

  Hazel realized that she wouldn’t be alone after all when they got to their destination.

  About half an hour out of town in the opposite direction of the Moonlight Maine Pack’s woods and territory, stood an old, decrepit house that looked like it had been abandoned for the last few decades. One car stood in front of the house, and Hazel and Matthew recognized it from all the research and paperwork they had done.

  The car was Hudson’s.

  Matthew and Hazel gave each other a look before slowly, and quietly, exiting her car. By the time Hazel joined him to walk up to the front door, he had his gun out and down by his side, in a stance ready to fight and shoot if he needed to.

  Hazel hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Especially if there was a shifter in there. Bullets would only slow the wolf down and make it angrier, not kill it. Only silver, magic bullets did the job.

  And other shifters’ claws and teeth, of course.

  Hazel walked with Matthew, careful to not step on anything that would give them away. And then, just as she stepped over the last stone path marker, she realized that there was more than one shifter in that house. Her senses kicked in as she realized just who was in there.

  Ethan. Hann. Ross. Kato. Britta. Annie. Lukas. Lorelei.

  Hazel breathed a sigh of relief as she realized that she wouldn’t be alone. Her fear turned to dread as she realized that Matthew was walking toward that house, full of shifters, and Hudson, and God knew what.

  Before Hazel had a chance to grab Matthew’s arm and pull him back, the little house exploded with noise and howling. The front door slammed open to reveal Hudson running out of the house with blood all over his face. Screaming.

  A wolf was chasing him and about to tackle him when they noticed Hazel and Matthew. The wolf was Ethan, and Hazel breathed a sigh of relief when she found him unscathed and out of harm’s way.

  For now, at least.

  Matthew acted, tackling Hudson as Lorelei ran out, in her human form, to help. She sat on Hudson as Matthew handcuffed him, his face in the ground. Hudson was screaming and yelling belligerently, not making any sense at all.

  Hazel just stood there, watching the whole thing go down. Ethan walked over to where Hazel stood dumbfounded and gently pressed his nose into her hand, instantly having the effect of calming her down. She smiled at him and sent him love messages through their internal connection that all wolves had. And then, Hazel looked up, now calmed down enough to function, to see Matthew picking Hudson up off of the ground and walking him over to the car to lock him in.

  And Matthew was staring right at Hazel and Ethan.

  Hazel cursed, knowing what he was seeing. Hazel, acting like the wolf who was licking her hand was nothing to be worried about. Ethan, a wolf. But Matthew didn’t know about that.

  Just then, another wolf, this one Hazel didn’t know and had never seen, jumped through the front door, attempting to escape. Hazel and Lorelei stood in front of his path in their human form, willing to be knocked down and hurt in the process. Even though they were stronger in their wolf form, they were still pretty strong as humans, too. And Hazel had the feeling that Lorelei was also trying to save Matthew from freaking out if he saw them transform into a wolf.

  Hann and Ross, both in their wolf forms, managed to pin the wolf down before he could get away, with the rest of the gang forming a circle around the whole thing. Matthew was by her side in an instant, watching the whole thing go down with wide eyes. Hudson was safely locked in her car, still screaming incoherently.

  Hazel looked over to make sure Matthew was okay. She saw him pull out his cigarette carton and light a cigarette as he watched the whole thing go down.

  With the shifter down and unable to move, Hann retreated into the house, only to reappear a few seconds later in lightning speed with some baggy clothes on that looked weird on his athletic frame. He must’ve stolen some of Hudson’s clothes off of the floor when he shifted back into his human form.

  “I think it’s time you shift now,” Hann demanded of the wolf. The wolf, surprisingly, did exactly as the alpha said and shifted into his naked human body. Hann threw a towel around his private parts. Matthew cursed under his breath and inhaled a mighty amount of smoke.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Matthew demanded, his arms crossed with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He didn’t look scared at all. Just . . . confused. And a bit angry, if Hazel was being honest.

  That was just like Matthew. He would get mad if there were a secret magic shifter species living in his town and he didn’t even know about it.

  “This, Detective, is your killer,” Hann said, pointing at the angry shifter who was still trying to break free of the wolves on top of him. “His name is Brian. Young kid. Bit crazy. Bit demented. Full on murderer.”

  “So, what’s Hudson, then?” Matthew countered, gesturing over his shoulder at the human who was sitting in Hazel’s car, still yelling.

  “Also, the murderer,” Hann clarified, his eyes sad. “It seems that these two worked together to kill Camilla Phillips. Hudson lured her deeper into the woods. Brian murdered her in the most brutal and disgusting way possible. Two killers. One human. One shifter.”

  Matthew stared at him, in disbelief, that cigarette still hanging from his mouth and burning away at the tip. Hazel stared back and forth between him and her alpha, in disbelief that it was all going down like this.

  And then, Hann jumped in and explained the whole story, while Matthew and Hazel listened in disbelief.

  Brian wasn’t a rogue. Brian was a shifter, to Hazel’s surprise, from a pack in Vermont. He used to travel up to Maine all the time with his father, which is where he met Hudson years ago. Both were troubled youth, and when Hudson learned just what Brian was, their friendship was sealed. Brian was dangerous, and Hudson loved that. Even though he hid his new found obsession with danger and death from his parents when he got back from boarding school a changed kid, he still had those dark thoughts.

  And they had matured just like he had.

  So, when Camilla broke up with him one night because she was annoyed with his obsession with the supernatural and death, Hudson never got over it. He thought that she was his light. And then, he had no light.

  So, he started planning little ways that he could get back at her. Not until Brian, who Hudson hadn’t seen in years, came back up to Maine angry at the shifter community and hungry for destruction, did they think of a plan.

  Brian would get what he wanted, and so would Hudson.

  And they killed her.

  “Now, Detective, I long for justice for that poor girl just as much as you do,” Hann told him. “And I know that this is going to be hard for you to understand right now, but I am willing to work with you for the rest of your life to track down any wrong shifter who thinks they can harm human
s like this. But you must understand, a species like Brian cannot go to regular prison. He would kill every single person that goes near him and escape, never to gain justice.”

  “What do you propose, then?” Matthew asked, taking a drag of his cigarette. He seemed to be dealing with this whole thing rather well, though Hazel knew that he was freaking out inside.

  “I propose he goes through our own justice system,” Hann replied.

  Just then, Michael, an Elder that was close friends with the Moonlight Maine Pack and Hann, appeared. Brian started screaming when he saw the Elder walking near him with justice on his mind.

  “No, please, don’t take me there,” Brian begged, his crazy yells now turning into desperate pleas. They fell on deaf ears.

  He was a cold-blooded, demented, killer. He would get what was coming for him.

  “And the other?” Matthew asked, nodding toward Hudson.

  “He will be tried for the murder of Camilla Phillips through Jerome’s criminal justice system,” Hann replied. “And we can also do something to help his memories, regarding us shifters, that is.”

  Hann nodded at Michael again, who nodded toward Matthew who was staring at the hooded Elder in disbelief.

  “I’m gonna need to hear everything before I agree to anything,” Matthew finally stated, staring straight at Hann. “And I mean everything. Including what . . . this is. What you are.”

  “Of course,” Hann nodded, smiling slightly. “Why don’t we go into the house and talk for a bit? I’ll make us some coffee.”

  “I prefer whiskey.” Matthew and Hann walked into that little house together, leaving the shifters alone with the two murderers. Michael took the screaming Brian and was gone instantly, taking him to the courts of shifters that was as brutal and deadly as Brian.

  They would treat him great there.

  “How did you guys find out about this?” Hazel asked Lorelei, confused.

  “I may have snuck into Matthew’s office a few minutes before you got there to see what his letter said,” Lorelei confessed, giggling into her hand. “Lucky I did, though. You guys would’ve been butchered without us!”