Also available from Charlie Adhara
and Carina Press
The Big Bad Wolf series
The Wolf at the Door
The Wolf at Bay
Thrown to the Wolves
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Cry Wolf
Cry Wolf
Charlie Adhara
For R, who deserves a happy ending.
I had a wonderful time reading up on the National Zoo’s resident animals, studying St. Regis’s intense photo set and getting lost on the virtual tour of the National Museum of Natural History. But while these are very real locations in DC, I used them in a purely fictitious manner and played fast and loose with their representations here on the page.
Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental. Though if you do know of a criminal plot involving werewolves that has taken place at any of these locales, that is a coincidence I would love to know about.
Contents
Quote
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Excerpt from Best Laid Plaids by Ella Stainton
We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
—W. Somerset Maugham
Prologue
There should be a word for it. That feeling of sitting across from someone you thought you’d never see again. The specific scramble your brain made to pull memories it had already let fade and align them with the real thing, wondering if time had transformed your perceptions or if you’d never actually seen the real them at all.
Cooper Dayton leaned back in his chair, arranging his hands on the smooth, sterile table, the perfect picture of relaxation. Across from him, Dr. Emily Freeman mirrored his position and continued to say nothing. For someone who had voluntarily surrendered herself into custody and demanded to speak to Cooper and Cooper alone, she was being awfully quiet.
“I feel like we should be playing chess. Or eating fava beans,” Cooper said. “Isn’t that how these dramatic interrogations between arch nemeses go?”
“I’m not your enemy, Mr. Dayton. I want to help you.”
Cooper smiled pleasantly. “That’s funny. I just got back from this whole counseling retreat thing—long story—the point being I’m fully on board with the ‘getting help’ thing now. Less sure on how you can do that for me, though.” He shrugged and his clothes felt sticky and damp. Although it had still been morning when he’d made his way over to the Trust, the swamp air of DC in July was operating at full blast. That, and he’d been...nervous.
Cooper glanced compulsively past Freeman at the two-way glass where he knew his partner, Oliver Park, and their boss, Trust director Margaret Cola, were watching them. At least he hoped they were watching and not fighting. Again.
It had been a solid week of arguments over whether Cooper should agree to Freeman’s request to meet. Cola didn’t see the downside. Park disagreed. “I’m not saying he never talks to her, I’m just saying we need more information first.” Freeman had gone from quirky witness to vulnerable victim to coldhearted accomplice who’d spent four months on the run with a pocketful of biological samples ripped right out of a dead man’s mouth. You had to admit, the woman had range. It didn’t surprise Cooper that this request to meet with him was making Park nervous. “We have no idea what she’s been up to or what she wants now.”
In the end, Cooper had decided he didn’t want to wait, and though Park had furrowed his brow, he’d held his tongue because he respected that it was Cooper’s choice. Too bad. Having a little more information in his back pocket was sounding pretty good right about now.
“Yes, Maudit Falls, I heard all about that,” Freeman was saying. “Another pretty feather in your cap. You’re really building quite the reputation for yourself.”
“Is that what you want to talk to me about? My reputation?”
“In a way.” She leaned closer, walking her thin, pale hands across the table, like pink spiders. “Someone’s got a crush on you,” she said in that up-and-down singsongy voice reserved for children and serial killers on primetime TV.
Cooper laughed. He couldn’t help it. “My condolences. Who is it? You?”
Freeman shook her head, looking vaguely disgusted. “Someone very interested in the work you’re doing. The...potential you’ve shown. Someone with big plans for you.”
“And how do you fit into these plans?”
“Me? Not at all.” She shifted in her seat. “Just consider me a Good Samaritan.”
“Okay. Thanks. But why the sudden change of heart? I thought you had plans of your own. The next big scientific breakthrough. The woman who discovered werewolves.”
“We both know I was never going to be allowed to do that. And it’s not a particularly pleasant life, being the fox in the hunt, followed by a pack of dogs.” She paused, studying him for a reaction. Cooper kept his face amused, skeptical, a little bored, and Freeman’s eyes narrowed. “But I’m not the only one at this table being hunted. And the enemy of mine enemy—”
“Is your friend?”
“Or a bargaining chip.” Her expression turned serious, intent. “I’ll tell you who’s coming for you, but I want the hunt called off. I want out with time served.”
“Time served?” Cooper repeated. “You haven’t even been tried yet.”
“True. But I will, soon enough. And what exactly will the charges be?” She tilted her head. “Making a false statement? Breaking and entering?”
“Accomplice to several murders. Stealing samples off a dead man,” Cooper suggested. “Stealing samples of a dead man.”
“I wasn’t an accomplice, Mr. Dayton,” Freeman said in a painstakingly patient voice. “Marcus Park murdered those poor people, including my own beloved husband. Then he intimidated me into lying for him. An honest-to-god werewolf? What was I supposed to do? I was terrified and I made a mistake I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.” She paused. “But there’s a saying I believe in very strongly: from the greatest mistakes come the greatest discoveries. I’ve discovered wolves aren’t something to be frightened of. I’ve discovered the woman I really want to be.” She smiled at him. “See? I’ll get less than two years.”
“All right,” Cooper said. “Let’s say that’s true. Then what do you need me for?”
“It’s what happens after that worries me,” Freeman said. “If I’ve learned anything about these creatures, it’s that they’re a network of information and...rumors. I’m safer in here than out there. Why else do you think I turned myself in?” She smiled. “But when I get out, I want...protection. A new identity.”
“And will Dr. Beeman make a miraculous werewolf discovery three years from now?”
“How do you expect me to do that with your furry friends strategically placed in every profession across the globe, poised to efficiently silence any whisper of their existence?” This time Cooper couldn’t help the flicker of surprise that crossed his face, and Freeman noted it with interest. “You really don’t know very much at all about the creatures you’re in bed with, do you? Why do you think they like to keep you in the dark?�
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“A whole new life is a big ask,” Cooper said, ignoring that.
“They’ve done it before, they can do it for me, too. But I’m guessing you don’t know about that either.”
“Since I’m so clueless, maybe you should talk to someone higher up the food chain.”
“Ignorance and influence are rarely as unrelated as they should be. You have a lot more power than you think. I’m not the only one who’s noticed.” Freeman sat back in her chair and let her eyes drift shut, as if already dismissing him. “You don’t realize the danger you’re in, Mr. Dayton. But when you do, come back and see me. I’d love to talk.”
Chapter One
Three months later
There were more werewolves here than he’d expected. More vampires, too. Even a simply sheeted ghost or two among the more contemporary or clever costumes. Apparently, there was still an appreciation for the classics at Halloween.
Cooper Dayton leaned back against the outdoor café table as another mob of screeching, giggling children swarmed past. The National Zoo in DC was hosting its annual holiday event, inviting guests to stay past regular hours, don costumes, sing spooky songs and roam the decorated paths between animal exhibits and treat stations. Off the top of his head, Cooper could not imagine a place he’d less like to be.
Fortunately, his own costumed niece, eleven-year-old Cayla, seemed similarly skeptical of the proceedings. They’d managed to avoid the carousel and—Cooper shuddered—kid karaoke station in favor of the quieter areas where Cayla could point out various animals to Cooper and tell him everything she knew about them. What she knew turned out to be a lot. She’d known the exhibits like the back of her hand ever since her mother, Sophie, an expert in all things reptilian, had been asked on as a temporary consultant for some kind of conservation video series the zoo was developing.
Meanwhile, Cooper’s brother Dean had left his old job and started working from home, so he and the animal-enthusiastic Cayla would drive to DC with Sophie once a week to spend the day at the zoo together. They’d tried to convince Cooper to come along many times, but it was Cooper’s father, Ed Dayton, who had shown up at the house this morning insisting that the whole family was going in costume and if Cooper didn’t pin this sunflower to his head and join them for Boo at the Zoo he would “break Cayla’s heart.”
More like coup at the zoo, Cooper thought, pulling off the too-tight headband with the big plastic flower hot-glued to the top as his father waded through a particularly contentious pileup of children with ease. Ed sat on the bench next to Cooper, sighing heavily in the way of old, tired men and people who had just stood in line for a cup of zoo ice cream so small it was finished by the time you made it back to your table. Ed was both, and Cooper felt the brief, alarmed pang of recognizing your parent as mortal and unfamiliar.
Ed had changed a lot while Cooper wasn’t looking. To be fair, Cooper had purposefully and determinedly spent many years not looking. He didn’t know the soft, slow-moving man with a hint of ice cream in his gray mustache and half a dozen Ping-Pong balls glued to his T-shirt to represent butterfly eggs—the stage of the metamorphosis cycle Cayla had assigned him for their themed family costume. It was an unheard of display of playfulness. When Cooper was a kid, his mother already dying, Ed had sent him and his brother out in whatever they could find in the house and use without destroying. More than one year Dean had thrown a sheet they weren’t allowed to cut holes in over Cooper and left him to stumble around the neighborhood alone while Dean hung out with friends.
Now, Ed handed him a small cup of melting ice cream. “They didn’t have your favorite.”
Cooper blinked at the unexpected offering and tried to remember ever having a favorite flavor. He supposed he must have as a little boy. It was strange what you remembered and what you didn’t. Stranger still the things your parents held on to as critically important information, and what they let fall away as bygones, ghosts of the past.
“Too bad your Oliver couldn’t make it,” Ed said for possibly the eleventh time that hour.
“Dad,” Cooper sighed. “I told you he’s out of town. Maybe if you’d called ahead like a normal person instead of banging down the—”
Ed held up his hands in the universal I don’t want to fight but I’m also about to say something that’s going to piss you off gesture. “Did I say that? I just think it’d be nice for your family to get to know him before the big day.”
“Oh my god,” Cooper muttered under his breath, and shoved a spoon of melty vanilla ice cream into his mouth. Truthfully, he was grateful Park was currently visiting his own family’s estate. He should not have to be subjected to this forced bonding experience that Cooper was beginning to suspect hadn’t been Cayla’s idea at all.
Ed’s attitude toward Park was difficult to figure out. When they’d first met in the midst of a murder case last year, Ed had liked Park a lot. The revelation that he and Cooper were dating was equally positive and honestly went a long way toward soothing some age-old tensions between Cooper and his father.
The revelation that Park was a werewolf, that werewolves were indeed a thing at all, had been...a bit more challenging.
Maybe Cooper was a little to blame for that. He’d done his best to keep Park and Ed’s interactions to a minimum ever since the big revelation, running interference at Dean and Sophie’s wedding so that they could only interact at the most superficial level and only agreeing to a handful of short dinners in the last year. At all of them, he’d enlisted the help of Dean and Sophie as buffers. The two got along fine with Park and seemed to have just rolled with the existence of a supposedly mythical being.
But Ed had struggled. He wasn’t antagonistic at all. Rather, he was too interested, wanted to be too involved, wanted to show he cared too much.
It had gotten worse when Cooper told him he and Park were engaged. Now Ed typically brought Park up seven to eight times during a phone call. Was Park fully recovered from his gunshot wound? Had he bought the scar ointment Ed had suggested? Did he like the smell? Were they going to have a catered wedding? What kind of food did Park like? Did he have any allergies?
Basically, asking everything about Park except the things he most wanted to know. What was being a werewolf like? What did it mean for the son whose life was dedicated to them, one way or another?
In an effort to dissuade the questions, Cooper had started teasing rather than answering seriously.
Yes, Oliver’s very happy with the new house. Plus, once he’s done digging out the hibernation tunnels we’ll finally be able to shift the last of these pods out of the foyer, just in time for hatching season.
No, we can’t drive down tonight for dinner. Do you think Blood Moon rituals can just be rescheduled willy-nilly?
That didn’t seem to be working at all if this sudden, almost desperate trip to the zoo was any indication. The only flaw in Ed’s plan? Park wasn’t getting back to DC until tomorrow. Lucky bastard.
“There they are.” Ed waved at the rest of their crew. Dean was wrapped in translucent green cloth to represent some kind of larvae or something. Sophie looked like she’d just walked off a runway in a black-and-neon-green turtleneck jumpsuit striped like a caterpillar, curls styled into two large buns. And Cayla, the main event of their little cycle, had her face painted in monarch colors, white beads popping against her braids, orange butterfly wings streaming out from under her arms.
Cooper and his dad stood to join them. “Don’t forget your costume,” Ed said, grabbing the sunflower headband.
“Oh no,” Cooper said with heavy sarcasm. “What a loss that would have been.”
“Cayla was very anxious you wouldn’t feel included,” Ed said meaningfully, and Cooper shoved the hideous thing back onto his head.
“Lucky for you Oliver wasn’t here after all. What was he supposed to be, my stamen?”
Ed flushed, shook his head and wordl
essly joined the others. Hopefully that would ward off some Park questions for a little while at least. He didn’t want to have to pull out the obscene pollination joke he had ready, but desperate times and all that.
For the next hour, Cooper managed to avoid his father, and chatted with Cayla, which mostly consisted of listening to her read the informational placards to him at every exhibit, peppered with what he could only assume were completely made up facts like “The beaver’s incisors keep growing all his life and his favorite color is purple.”
“That makes sense” was all Cooper ever seemed required to say, and Cayla would nod as if satisfied at his gullibility.
Sadly, his guard against adult conversation eventually skipped ahead to walk with Ed and Sophie, and Dean immediately fell back to join Cooper.
“Funny kid,” Cooper offered to his brother.
“She’s awesome,” Dean said, vibrating with pride for his stepdaughter. “She could be the next great zoologist, if she wants. Make bonkers discoveries, change the world, you name it.”
Sweet as it was, Cooper couldn’t help but think of the last great zoologist he’d known and the discoveries she had wanted to use to change the world. True to her word, Dr. Freeman had maintained her stubborn silence after the Trust refused to give her a deal, not even speaking to Cooper the two times he’d visited.
The first month after that meeting with Cooper, Park and Cola had been on high alert for any whisper of a threat. The second month only Park had remained vigilant, side-eyeing anyone who got close to Cooper and coming up with excuses not to leave him alone. Now, after three months without anything more dangerous than a paper cut, even Park had to agree her ominous warning act may have been nothing more than that: an act meant to manipulate him one last time. After all, who on earth would have any reason to be obsessed with Cooper, of all people?
Dean nudged him out of his thoughts. “What’s with the look? Is my parental bliss giving you ideas? Might there be little Park-Daytons in your future?”
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