He would have stayed at the park's inn, but with it being a weekend during prime foliage viewing season, there wasn't a room to be had. When I'd decided to get a place of my own, I could have gone anywhere. At one point, Florida was even on the radar, until the thought of swamps and alligators cropped up.
McCormick's Creek had always been my favorite state park. To my knowledge, it was the only one to boast not only a long and bubbling, fully accessible creek bed to wade in, but also a beautiful waterfall that the more adventurous people could actually climb, an old quarry, an amphitheater, a horse barn, a cave, nature center, public swimming pool, and—my favorite—miles upon miles of wooded trails to run. When I'd found the ten-acre tract for sale within running distance to the park, it had been a no-brainer. By now, the park was as familiar to me as my own backyard. In a way, it was my own back yard.
We followed the tracks down to the old quarry, across the creek, and up a steep ridge before going back down to cross the creek again and go up the trail three stairway. All in all, we probably walked five miles of trail and there were still tracks to follow. I understand that Jed is a good tracker, but the trail was almost too good to be accidental. A scent trail wasn't even an issue here. Rebel and I were redundant.
It seemed as if the stupid coyotes had just wandered the park aimlessly, making sure to leave enough prints so that the poor humans could follow along. We had pretty much come full circle and still had no idea where the den was.
Back within sight of the grave clearing, I stopped to check my watch. Mason. How could I have forgotten Mason?
Looking at the tracks still stretched out in front of us, I turned to Jed. "I'm really sorry, but I totally forgot I've got someone flying into Bloomington today for a visit. He was supposed to call me when he landed, but my phone doesn't get reception in the park." Not that it mattered as my phone was still on the kitchen counter. "He may already have left a message that he's waiting for me."
"Not a problem. I have to admit these are probably the easiest tracks I've ever followed." So, he had noticed. "Go meet your friend. If you give me your number, I'll call you later and let you know if I found the den."
Just like that, I had my fifth contact number.
Reb and I headed back to the cabin where I found two messages on my phone. The first was from Rose checking in to make sure I was okay. The second was the call from Mason. Just not the one I had expected.
He was stuck in Washington and wouldn't be able to make it today. What was worse, he'd been assigned a priority case and it would likely be a couple of days before he could hand off the duty to someone else. He asked me to call him in an emergency, but otherwise, he was stuck. Of course, he had no way of knowing I’d be the Beast’s target. He still believed them to be random kills.
I sat staring at the phone, wondering what constituted an emergency to an FBI agent. A trained squad of assassins bearing down on a girlfriend? Or in this day and age, did one not truly become a girlfriend until after you'd slept together? If not, would it still be an emergency? I was surprised to realize that I wasn't as disappointed as I probably should be.
Smiling, I put it together. I wasn't used to having friends. As in multiple. More than one. I thumbed through my contact list and made sure to add Jed's number before I lost it. Then I hit the button to dial Rose's home.
"This is Rose."
"Hey, Rose. It's Taz. Thanks for calling to check on me. I've been out with a DNR investigator...or at least he's consulting with the DNR. They brought him in to track the coyotes."
"Is everything okay there? I tried you last night, but couldn't get you. If you hadn't called soon, I was going to try to find your cabin. Which would probably be easier if I knew the address."
I told her about the sniper’s visit and how Dunwood had come through for me.
"Sheriff Dunwood is a good man. If I had to pick a human to let in our trust, I think it would be him. You know, I think he could handle it."
I considered that. "You're probably right. But I'm not ready to risk it yet. Truthfully, I don't think I ever will be."
"I was just thinking out loud, dear. You know a girl's gotta hunt down a fella eventually. A lot of Spencer girls have their caps set for the Sheriff. He'd be quite the catch you know."
"Are you playing matchmaker?" Is this what having friends was like? "Rose, I've already hunted down a guy. Well, I mean, I'm kind of seeing someone." Not that it's stopped me from looking...and dreaming.
Rose was quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry dear, forget I said anything. But if I was twenty years younger...."
"If you were twenty years younger, I don't think Dunwood would stand a chance."
She laughed. "Believe it or not, I was quite the looker when I was your age. By the way, dear, I'm making vegetarian lasagna tonight. Will you come and join us for supper?"
"Could I bring some hamburger?" I had learned last night that both of them were strict vegetarians. The vegetable soup last night had been good but lacked the bits of beef roast my mom used to add.
"You'll have to eat your meat before or after, dear. House rules. See you at seven?"
I agreed and rang off. Then jumped as the phone in my hand immediately rang. Jed Crowe.
I decided to be professional. "Finders."
"Hello, Taz, it's Jed. Do you have a minute to talk? I know you were expecting company."
"Turns out my friend was delayed, so I'm all yours." I laid my forehead on the edge of the table. Talk about your Freudian slip.
"Sorry he didn't make it, but happy for me." I could hear his smile through the line. "Look, I was wondering if I could maybe hire you and Reb to track with me tomorrow. I need a good nose."
"Well, you came to the right place. Finders has the best nose available at any price." Actually, we had the best two, but I couldn't exactly say that. "I take it the tracks finally started to get tricky?"
"Yes. And just when they got interesting, too. About a quarter of a mile after you left, the coyote tracks seemed to gather around a big boulder that was laying halfway in the creek bed. When they took off again, they all went separate ways, acting more like normal coyotes."
I was puzzled. "So which one are we tracking? And why?"
"None of them," Jed said. "There was one paw print on top of that rock. Now, here is where it gets weird. There was a muddy coyote print that was much larger than your average dog." He hesitated and silence came over the line. There went my clairvoyant powers budding again, forecasting impending doom. They were right.
"I mean that isn't weird,” he said. “It figures that the largest coyote male would be their alpha and leader. It's just..." he trailed off again.
"Just spit it out Jed, or I'll have to head for the woods and find that print myself."
"No, I don't want you in those woods without me, Taz. Not with the coyotes acting so strangely." He sounded concerned. About me. I wish I'd had more time to bask in the warm glow that created. "It's just that the alpha's print was inside another print. A human one."
Pluck a duck. I had just agreed to help him track a were.
Chapter 8
I debated calling off dinner at Rose's, then realized maybe a conference was in order. Maybe she could use her psychic mumbo-jumbo to track the other area were. If we could find him before Jed or the sheriff, we could find some way to deal with it. Maybe hand him to the Luparii on a golden platter. A killer for a killer, all tied up with a big red muzzle.
On the drive to Gosport, my mind went down another path. What kind of weres would be vegetarians? Did they swear off meat entirely to control their hunger? After all, bears were famous for eating nuts and berries.
Swallowing, I pictured me running through the woods with a bear. A teenage, goth, female werebear with absolutely no history of wereing. I remembered my first few changes. It had taken a lot of practice to tone down the instincts and hunger. Now I make sure to eat right before I fur out. I really hate waking up with rabbit fur stuck between my teeth.
We
pulled up to the little yellow house and walked to the door. "Make nice, Rebel," I said as I lifted my hand to knock. "They just might be bigger than we are."
The door opened and the smell of fresh from the oven lasagna wafted toward me. It really did smell good. Different, but good. I promised to give it a chance. Maybe it would help with my diet. Being around Lilith was starting to give me a weight complex. Not that I'm fat or anything. But my frequent meat binges have given me a bit of a pooch around the middle. Nothing that losing a couple of pounds and doing a few hundred crunches wouldn't fix.
Lilith shuffled off to the table in front of me, wearing her normal shapeless black house dress, but dressed up this time with black leather calf boots. I smiled. So there was a little streak of normal in there somewhere after all.
The aroma of hot garlic bread joined the spicy Italian scents. Rose glanced up from taking the hot bread out of the oven.
"Perfect timing, dear, seven on the nose." She pulled out three plates and silverware and passed them around. "We don't stand on ceremony here. But guests do go first. Help yourself, Taz." She looked down at Rebel, "And I've put you a bowl over there, Reb. Vegetarian dog food. It'll help detox your system."
Reb went off and pushed the bits in the bowl around uncertainly. Then looked up at me. "House rules, old boy. No meat," I said. It is true that misery loves company. I loaded my plate and headed over to the table.
"Does it matter which chair I take?" It was obvious that Rose loved color. The table was a plain white painted wood, but the chairs were each a different vibrant color. Red, blue, yellow, and green.
"I usually take the red, and Lilith seems to favor the green."
Nodding, I sat my plate in front of the blue chair. Yellow was Rebel's color of choice. Not that he would be joining us at the table for dinner, but I may as well stake out my claim for blue. Good thing I wasn't in wolf form. It’s a territorial thing.
We ate in pleasurable silence. The meal would have been better with a little hamburger or sausage thrown in, but it was edible. The spices on my tongue almost made me forget the lack of meat. With practice, I could get used to this...but only if I had to.
After the last bite of bread had sopped up the last of the sauce, I filled them in on everything that was going on. Including Jed's call and my short-sightedness in agreeing to help him track before I realized what we were tracking.
Lilith still wasn't buying our were-story, so she excused herself to go work on her report. This time, Rose didn't stop her.
After she left, I looked at Rose. "You don't think she'd mention our talks to anyone, do you? I mean she might not see the harm in telling her friends about her crazy Gran and friend who thought they were were-creatures."
She shook her head. "I swore her to secrecy. Now, if for some reason she doesn't were...we may have to take other measures to convince her. But she has promised me to keep it to herself until she is sixteen and one day. It's really all I could ask of her."
"Sounds like a fair enough deal." I hesitated. "I don't suppose there's any way you can track this rogue through the Foundation or your mind?"
"Unfortunately, no. The rogues are usually outside of the Foundation's influence." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Did you say Jed found a coyote print inside a human's print?" I nodded. Her brows drew together and she sat silently, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
"This is going to sound a little daft," she said, "but has anything strange—not murder strange, just strange—happened lately? Like maybe someone is playing tricks on you or making fun of you?"
I thought for a minute over the past few days. “Well, the night I found Jimmy’s grave, there was laughter out in the woods by my cabin. Not nice laughter, either. Then yesterday as I was locking up after work, this boy on a motorcycle wolf-howled at me and...,” I stopped. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten him. I got excited. After all, I’d actually seen him. “I’ll bet he’s our rogue. That laugh was the same, I’d swear it.”
"What did the boy do after the howl?"
"He took off. It took me a minute to get in the Jeep and I lost him after he turned into the store's parking lot. I circled around, but it was like he vanished. No scent or anything."
"I see. I don't suppose you got a look at him?"
"Not a good one, but yeah, enough that I could probably recognize him. He was young and had topaz eyes, which so screams were. Probably about Lilith's age...he may be one of her classmates." I jumped to my feet. "Does she have a yearbook?"
"Sit down, dear. I doubt we'll find him in her yearbook. You say you lost him at the store? Did anything odd happen right after that?"
I thought back. "Nothing I would call odd. I went into the store to make sure he wasn't in there and to pick up some things, but there was no sign of him. So I went back outside. That's when I met Jed Crowe and his dog."
"And has anything happened to embarrass you or inconvenience you in any way? Something that may seem normal but odd at the same time?"
Well, I'd certainly been embarrassed this morning, but that was my own doing. Of course, it never would have happened if my cell phone hadn't been shut off...
"I don't know where you're going with this, but do you mean like someone showing up unexpected at my house while I still have bed-hair because my cell phone—which I never turn off—is somehow not on?"
Rose closed her eyes and nodded. "The boy was wearing purple wasn't he?"
I thought back and nodded. "Yeah, a dark purple motorcycle jacket and helmet." My excitement ratcheted up a notch. "You know him, don't you?"
"I've met him a time or two." Rose hesitated a moment. "We aren't dealing with a were here, Taz."
I frowned. "We aren't?"
"The Trickster has come to Spencer, Indiana."
Chapter 9
The Trickster. The Coyote. I'd always thought he was just an Indian legend. Just goes to show that we werewolves aren't the only legends living. I didn't want to think too hard about what else might be out there. There are worse things than coyotes and wolves. Hopefully, they won't decide to make Spencer their home, too. We were getting crowded as it was.
I had tried Jed's number twice last night and once already this morning, despite the early hour of six am. We were supposed to meet by the creekside shelter house at nine o'clock, and I was hoping to put him off until the afternoon to give myself more time for a solo tracking. Unfortunately, Jed's phone was unavailable. I would just have to make the next three hours count.
I threw some bottled water and sodas into my backpack, along with my .38 Smith and Wesson. Thanks to my dad, I knew how to use it. Thanks to my dad, I knew a lot of things. Like how to kick ass. At twelve, I'd been registered for karate lessons at the local YMCA, then later as my skill grew, at a private dojo. I was currently a black belt and kept limbered up by practicing Tai Chi and Chinese Wand exercises. He had wanted me to know how to defend myself in skin form so I could fight the urge to wolf out when trouble hit. He was a smart man, my dad. I still missed him. I still missed them all.
Now the Trickster was going to bring trained wolf assassins to my town, and innocent or no, they'd be after me. If the Luparii killed my family, they knew about me. Maybe I hadn't mattered then, but I was betting I wouldn't be missed this time around.
Rebel decided to ride shotgun and settled into the front seat. I fingered the bullet holes and cringed. The one in the rear quarter panel had only missed the rear door by inches. Reb had been in the back that night. How easily that bullet could have ended up in him. I was musing on our blessed luck when I heard a vehicle coming up the drive. I couldn't see the vehicle through the glare of its headlights, so I jumped in the Jeep and started digging for the gun.
By the time my hand closed around it, I could make out the shape of an older model Chevy Nova past the brightness. I was still holding the gun when the headlights went out and I could dimly make out Jed's face staring back at me. How did he know I was ditching him? He was three hours early. I uncurled my fing
ers and closed my pack, stepping back out onto the gravel.
Jed pulled his Nova to park beside the Jeep, getting out with a sheepish grin I could barely make out in the waning moonlight. We're talking pre-sunup this late in October.
"When you say six o'clock, you mean on the dot. It's only five after. Where you really going to leave me behind?"
I stared at him, then realized in horror that my mouth was open. I shut it. At least I had brushed this morning so my disbelieving breaths should be minty fresh.
"What?" I'm the queen of elocution, not to mention vocabulary, when I'm flabbergasted.
For the first time, Jed started to look slightly uneasy. "I got your message to meet you here at six sharp with a box of Square Donuts. By the way, the bakery doesn’t deliver to the store until six, so these are knockoffs and round, but they'll have to do," he said, raising a box of the store's deli donuts.
I forced myself to blink. He didn't go away as I'd hoped. I opened my mouth and shut it a couple of times, trying to find words. My brain usually doesn't start fully functioning until at least nine. I'm just not a morning person. Jed, looking freshly showered and shaved, obviously was. We would so not work as a couple.
"I tried to call you three times, but couldn't even reach your voice mail to leave a message." There. A whole sentence completed. I leaned back against the Jeep, proud of my accomplishment.
The sheepish grin was back. "Yeah, the darndest thing happened to my phone. I sat it on the bathroom counter as I showered in case someone called, and when I got out, it had slipped off the counter and into the...commode. It's totally fried. Until I make it to Bloomington to pick up another phone, I'm out of the communication loop."
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