Grave Origins

by Lori Drake

  “Scout’s honor.”

  “You were never a scout.” Joey flung herself down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling again.

  “You were a Girl Scout. I was scout-adjacent.”

  “Too bad we were born before the Boy Scouts went co-ed, eh?”

  “No joke. But the Girl Scouts are much more progressive now than they were back then. Did you know they have merit badges in cybersecurity and robotics?”

  She laughed, a much-needed tension release. “How do you even know that?”

  “Jenny volunteers to help with a local troop. I guess she went all the way through the program, from kindergarten through high school.”

  “She’s a good kid.”

  “Yeah, she is. Which is why I hate to see her go to prison for having the misfortune to fall in with the likes of us.”

  Just like that, the tension was back. Joey grimaced. “It won’t come to that. We won’t let it.”

  “Damn right. But I don’t want to talk about that anymore.”

  “What do you want to talk about, then?”

  “Hmm, I dunno. What are you wearing?”

  Joey laughed. “The same thing I was this morning when I left.”

  “Oh, come on, humor me.”

  “Do you seriously want to have phone sex?” She found herself smiling, though. It was kind of sweet, if kinky.

  “What kind of lech do you take me for?” His jovial tone was anything but offended.

  “My kind of lech, I suppose.”

  Chris and Itsuo were waiting on the porch when Cathy’s car pulled into the driveway. Chris had opted not to involve Colt in the matter of exhuming and moving Kate’s body, both to spare him the trauma of seeing—or smelling—his dead mate’s corpse and to keep the knowledge of her final resting place from him. Insurance, as it were, that he couldn’t turn himself in. The cops would want to know where she was buried, right?

  Much to Chris’s surprise, Cathy wasn’t alone. The passenger door opened, and another figure stepped out, joining Cathy in approaching the house. He squinted in the pale light of the waxing crescent moon and blinked when he recognized Dawn’s glamoured features.

  Trotting down the front steps, he looked between them in confusion. “What the… How the…”

  “You didn’t honestly think I made this charm myself, did you?” Dawn hoisted the thumb that the spelled ring encircled.

  “Uh…” Chris said, eloquently.

  Cathy smiled and patted his arm as they drew near. “Close that mouth or you’ll catch flies, child.”

  “How did you even find her?” he asked, staring at Dawn.

  She shrugged. “We’ve been corresponding. She suggested I come visit when I got out, so I did.”

  “Yeah, but…” Chris shifted his eyes between the two, then drew Dawn a few feet away and leaned down to whisper, “Does she know?”

  Dawn huffed and adjusted the bandanna covering her hair. “Of course. What kind of idiot do you take me for?”

  The kind that breaks out of prison when she only has six months left on her sentence?

  Chris knew better than to voice that thought. “Cathy’s important to me. I don’t want her to get in trouble with the law.”

  She smirked, eyes sliding past him toward the woman in question. “So you invited her to help relocate a body?”

  Chris sighed. “Don’t think this was an easy call to make. I tried to give her an idea of the stakes before I read her in.”

  “I'm sure you did. Because she’s a big girl and capable of making her own decisions, right?”

  “Something like that,” Chris half muttered the words as they rejoined Cathy and Itsuo by the car. Itsuo arched a brow, but Chris only shook his head in answer. Just because Itsuo had probably overheard his entire conversation with Dawn didn’t mean he wanted to rehash it or explain himself again. Chris cleared his throat. “Thanks for coming, Aunt Cathy. I really appreciate it.”

  Cathy nodded. “Lead the way.”

  Chris let Itsuo take point. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure he could locate the spot where Kate had been buried in the dark. He hadn’t been in great shape at the time, and Joey hadn’t even let him help with the digging on account of a still-cracked rib.

  They entered the forest—well, he hesitated to call it a forest, since the undeveloped part of his property was actually rather small, but it contained densely packed trees, and it didn’t take much walking to feel enveloped by this pocket of wilderness on the lakeside. The air seemed fresher, somehow, earthier and more pine-scented the farther in they got. He hadn’t spent much time out here since settling in Granite Falls, at least not on two legs. His wolf knew the game trails well, and the location of every den and burrow the pocket forest’s wildlife called home. They were all small creatures, of course. Rabbits and foxes, mostly. It wouldn’t be nearly enough to sustain a pack of their size if they hunted more than once or twice a month. Even that was pushing it. For the most recent full moon, they’d joined Sam’s pack for a jaunt through the actual forest. Chris had enjoyed the extra space so much that he’d briefly considered selling the Granite Falls property and finding something on a larger plot of land. Yet he’d discarded the notion quickly, not quite ready to relinquish the tie to his birth parents. The national parks would always be an option; they just weren’t always as convenient as having something home-adjacent.

  The soft patter of tiny feet on the forest floor as the local fauna scattered in the presence of the heavy-footed humans called to Chris’s wolf, who’d stood at attention from the moment they crossed the tree line. The humans walked in silence, but for the soft crunching of pine needles under their feet. When Itsuo eventually halted, Chris looked around for some sort of tell that would indicate where the unmarked grave was. He found none.

  Itsuo pointed at the ground. “Here.”

  The spot was marked by four stones in a diamond shape, easily overlooked. The ground remained level, without a hint of a mound to give away the gravesite.

  Chris hung back while Cathy and Dawn walked over to the grave. The two witches conferred quietly, then joined hands. Golden light sprang to life around Cathy first, then Dawn a moment later. Chris leaned against a tree and watched as Cathy pointed at the ground with her free hand, then began gesturing. A circular web of power formed on the ground, about ten feet in diameter. Cathy flicked her fingers, and the web sank into the ground and disappeared.

  The witches closed their eyes and stood there quietly for several minutes, Cathy’s features smooth while Dawn’s were pinched in concentration. Chris tapped his fingers against his upper arm while he waited. Dawn opened her eyes first, frowning as she studied Cathy’s face.

  “Is something wrong?” Chris asked, pulse spiking with sudden concern.

  Dawn didn’t answer, just tilted her head like a lizard trying to get a better look with one eye.

  “Yes and no,” Cathy said after a moment, opening her eyes. She lifted her brows in silent question, and Dawn shook her head. Cathy released Dawn’s hand and turned to face Chris. “There’s no body here.”

  Chris scratched his chin. “Itsuo, are you sure this is the spot?”

  “I… Yes, Christopher-san. I am certain.”

  “Can you expand your search area a little bit?” Chris suggested.

  “I did,” Cathy said. “We searched within a fifty-foot radius but found nothing.”

  “That’s impossible. She has to be here.” He frowned at the ground, as if that might make it any more likely to produce a corpse. Then again, he thought perhaps he should be grateful the area wasn’t littered with them. If Cathy and Dawn could actually find bodies underground—and he believed they could—he might just have to see what it would take to search the whole property. “I mean, she couldn’t have decomposed that fast. It takes years, and even then… there’d still be bones, right?”

  Cathy walked over and put a hand on his arm. “I don’t have the answers you’re looking for, child. I’m sorry. All I know is that the body isn�
�t here.”

  They walked back to the house in silence. Chris was distracted the whole way there. Maybe he ought to be glad that the cops wouldn’t find Kate’s body on his property, but not knowing what had happened to it nagged at him.

  It was one thing to have incriminating evidence on hand. It was another thing entirely to not know where it was at all.

  When they got back to the car, Cathy asked for a moment alone with Chris. Itsuo lingered until Chris nodded to him, then headed inside the house while Dawn got into the car.

  Cathy took one of Chris’s hands in hers. “If you need us to come out again, you know how to reach me.”

  Chris nodded. “Thanks again for coming. I appreciate it.”

  “I always promised Addie I’d look out for you after she was gone. I just never expected that would happen.” She smiled wryly, then shook her head. “But it’s no hardship. I’ve always loved Joey and you boys like you’re my own kin.”

  “We love you too. Take care of yourself, okay? And…” His eyes slid past her to the car, then back to her when she squeezed his hand.

  “Don’t you worry about me. As for Dawn… she told me about your chat. That you might not want her around, what with her being a fugitive and all. I thought you should know that I’ve offered to take her on as an apprentice if she does stay in Seattle.”

  Chris stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded. “Why?”

  “Because she was badly used by her former master, but she has the potential to do great things with her gift. She is truly gifted, and I don’t think she has any inkling of it. Which may be part of why Marcus was so keen to get her back. Now… I’m not asking you to ask her to stay, or even to associate with her if she does. What I’m asking is that you don’t ask her to leave.”

  Chris swallowed and looked away. He didn’t want to ask her to leave. Not really. But there was so much at stake that he’d be a fool if the thought had never so much as crossed his mind. “I still need to talk to Joey about it, but we’ll take that into consideration.”

  “That’s all I ask.” She released his hand and reached up to hold his face. Her strength always surprised him, belying her gnarled, wrinkled fingers. “Don’t forget your own lessons, hmm? You missed our appointment today. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

  Chris blinked. With as much that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, he’d forgotten all about their usual session to work on his astral projection ability. “Shit. Um. Same time, next week?”

  She patted his cheek and nodded. “That’ll do.”

  While Cathy walked around the car to get in on the other side, Chris took a few steps back and slid his hands into his pockets. In the passenger seat, Dawn didn’t even glance in his direction. Already, he could feel a rift between them, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

  The car’s engine rumbled to life, and he waved as they pulled off down the drive, before turning to head inside. A flicker in the window drew his eyes, and the swaying curtain confirmed that someone had been there. When he stepped inside, Adam was kicked back on the couch with a video game controller in hand, but a glance at the television showed the game was still at the menu screen.

  Adam tapped a button to start the game and waved casually.

  “Were you looking out the window?” Chris asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Chris tilted his head. “Why?”

  Adam shrugged, eyes glued to the load screen. “No reason.”

  Chris didn’t believe him for a moment, but decided his life was already complicated enough without inviting more intrigue.

  10

  “We’ve got some time to kill before our dinner date with the locals. Anything in particular you want to do?” Ben asked, as they sat around a table at a diner a few blocks from the motel.

  Joey barely heard him, too busy poking at her egg white and veggie omelet. Her early morning conversation with Chris weighed heavily on her mind. She couldn’t imagine where Kate’s body had gotten off to. It certainly hadn’t moved itself, unless some spirit had animated it again—which she planned to ask Dean about, if he’d ever answer his damn phone. He’d been gone for months, working with his mentor in Mexico. She wasn’t sure if he planned to return, but that was neither here nor there. If someone had moved Kate’s body, it had to be someone who knew where she was buried, and the only people who did were her, Chris’s pack, and Ben.

  “Earth to Joey,” Ben said.

  Joey tuned back in at the sound of her name, looking up from her plate. “Hmm?”

  “I said, matching piercings sounds like a great idea.”

  Maria snickered quietly and sipped her orange juice.

  Joey rolled her eyes and kicked Ben under the table. “Sorry, I was just thinking about all the shit going on at home.” She’d filled them in on everything—not that it’d done anyone any good.

  “Hey,” he said, “at least no one’s trying to kill anyone. That’s a plus in my book.”

  “Yet.” Joey sat back and pushed her plate away in favor of more coffee. She’d eaten about half of the omelet. That was good enough.

  “Can’t you just reach out to Kate’s daughter and explain to her what happened?” Maria asked.

  “We have no way of getting in touch with her.” Joey sighed. “All we know is her name and the reservation she may or may not live on. Adam’s working on it, but even then… would she believe us? ‘A ghost killed your mother.’ How can we prove it? We can’t.”

  Ben winced and glanced around. “Why don’t you say that a little louder?”

  Joey blew him off, reasonably certain there was no one in earshot paying them a lick of attention. She wasn’t that distracted. “As for what we should do today, how about shopping?”

  Ben straightened in his seat. “You have my attention.”

  Joey hid a knowing smile behind her coffee cup. “The lady at the motel said there are a whole bunch of vendors set up downtown for the festival selling all kinds of artisanal stuff.”

  “Sounds touristy,” Maria said, wrinkling her nose.

  “So, let’s be tourists,” Joey said with a shrug. “Why not?”

  Ben slumped. “I’m with her. ‘Artisanal’ is code for crap.”

  Laughing, Joey flicked a shred of potato at him. “Sometimes, but not always. Come on, we’ll wander around for a few hours, train for a few hours—it’ll be dinner time before we know it.”

  With Ben and Maria reluctantly agreeing, they finished breakfast and headed for downtown Wenatchee, which consisted of about five blocks of brick and mortar buildings, none of which looked like they were constructed within the last twenty or thirty years. Parking was at a premium; they had to park several blocks away and walk the rest of the way. Wenatchee Avenue, the quintessential “Main Street” that ran through the center of town, had been closed to traffic for several blocks, where the street was now lined with vendors hawking their wares.

  “You know, this could be a great opportunity for Christmas shopping,” Joey said as they followed the throng of slow-moving foot traffic.

  “In June?” Maria glanced at Joey with arched brows.

  Ben laughed. “That’s my sister, the walking contradiction. Impulsive to a fault, but a hell of an advance planner too.”

  “So I don’t like scrambling at the last minute like some people.” Joey huffed, shooting a pointed look at her brother.

  “She’s also quite particular about gift wrapping.” Ben leaned over to speak to Maria, but his words didn’t escape Joey’s wolf ears. “Whatever you do, don’t wrap gifts with her. She sucks all the fun out of it.”

  Though Joey was glad to see him warming up to Maria, she still wanted to elbow him somewhere uncomfortable. Instead, she grumbled quietly to herself, “There’s a right way and a wrong way to wrap a package.”

  “When she was a tween, Jon and I used to compete for the ugliest gift-wrapping job.”

  Joey blinked. “You did not.”

  “We did.” Ben grinned, his eyes sparkling
with amusement. “The winner was whoever got the first exasperated shriek.”

  Maria laughed and nudged Joey with an elbow. “Brothers, eh? Can’t live with them, can’t…” She trailed off, her amusement fading as her eyes darted around, probably in search of a distraction. “Oh look, moccasins!”

  Joey followed Maria as she veered off toward a stall across the street. It wasn’t a stretch to believe Ben and Jon might’ve gotten up to some mischief at her expense. Ben had always been a legendary prankster around the Grant house. There were many times Joey bemoaned growing up with a house full of man-children, but she wouldn’t trade her brothers for the world. So she understood Maria’s frustration at being separated from her brother, even if she wanted to throttle two of her own right then.

  They made their way from stall to stall, stopping now and then to window-shop. By the time they arrived at the end of the blockaded street and turned to walk up the other side, Joey had picked up a few jars of homemade preserves for Sara, who’d been craving pears something fierce, but they weren’t in season. Maria had found a small painting she wanted to hang in her room. Ben hadn’t found anything yet; he was mostly trailing along behind them, looking uninterested whenever they stopped.

  The first vendor on the other side of the street sold furniture, of all things. A variety of pieces were on display, from chairs to tables to bookshelves. They were unique and fascinating, clearly made from reclaimed wood. Joey gravitated toward it, not particularly needing any furniture, but drawn to the display of craftsmanship and ingenuity.

  “Look,” she said, pointing. “He has some picture frames there in the back. Maybe there’ll be something the right size for your painting.”

  That piqued Maria’s interest, so they wandered over.

  “Excuse me… is this all reclaimed wood?” Joey asked the vendor, who had his back to them.

  The man turned from straightening a row of barstools, a smile on his face. He was about Ben’s height, five-nineish, and fit, with work-roughened hands that suggested he wasn’t merely selling someone else’s hard work. His brown hair could’ve used a trim. It was shaggy, hanging just short of being in his eyes, but he was clean-shaven. “Yes, it—” He stopped mid-sentence, eyes locked on Maria. His face went white, like he’d seen a ghost.