by Lori Drake
Pushing her way through the crowd, Joey ducked between two stalls again to get some space. She tipped her head back and looked up at the sky, breathing deeply until the panic subsided. Then she pulled out her phone and sent Maria a text.
Where’d you go?
She waited, scraping an errant piece of lint from the screen with her thumbnail, but there was no answer. She tried calling, but it rang until voicemail picked up.
“Hey, it’s me. I lost you. Hopefully I will have found you by the time you get this. If not, call me, okay?”
She hung up and rubbed the back of her neck, then sent a message to Ben.
Lost eyes on Maria. Is she with you?
Ben’s reply was nearly instant.
No. Where are you?
Joey replied, Not far from where you left us. Head over, and keep an eye out for her on the way.
Joey waited where she was a little longer, then poked her head out and searched around for a familiar face. Lewis and Heidi were still in the area, hanging out by the dime toss game. She found Max and Ben moving in her general direction and lifted a hand to wave and get their attention. But there was still no trace of Maria.
“What are you hiding from?” Ben asked, holding out a foot-long corn dog. “Sorry, no salad on a stick.”
Joey took the deep-fried confection from him, but her mind was still elsewhere. “Did you find her?”
Ben shook his head, mouth full of salty pretzel dough.
“Is something wrong?” Max asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She hesitated to say more, uncertain if she could count on Max if it came down to her versus his Alpha. “Let’s just keep looking, okay?”
They re-entered the flow of foot traffic. Ben fell in behind her, buffering her from the crowd without being asked. Joey ditched her corn dog in the first trash can she saw, too wired to eat. For Maria to disappear after Heidi’s warning put Joey on edge. Sure, she’d had eyes on Lewis while Maria went missing, but the rest of his pack was conspicuously absent, even now.
Joey caught a glimpse of purple poking out from behind the duck bobbing game and pushed her way through the crowd, only to come to an abrupt halt when she found the giant purple bear on the ground, slumped over at the foot of the stall.
“Maria!” Joey called, grabbing the bear and darting her eyes around the area. “Maria!”
Ben put a hand on her shoulder. “Deep breaths. Did you try calling her?”
Joey shrugged off his hand with a frustrated growl. “Of course I tried calling her.” That didn’t stop her from grabbing her phone and doing it again, however.
A familiar ringtone echoed nearby. Frowning, Joey glanced around, trying to locate its source. Ben picked up on it first, drifting toward a nearby trash barrel. He leaned over and peered inside.
“I love you, sis, but there’s no way I’m going dumpster diving for you.”
Joey shoved the bear against his chest and leaned over the barrel. The call had rolled over to voicemail, so she called again. The ringtone was definitely coming from the trash can. Grimacing, she pushed aside the topmost layer of trash, sending a host of flies to the wing. It was mostly food waste, and the afternoon sun baking the contents only made their mingling odors stronger. Joey did her best to block them out, but her stomach lurched nonetheless. Bile rose to the back of her throat, but she caught a glimpse of the corner of a shiny black object and quickly zeroed in on the phone from there.
Once her fingers closed on the device, which had gone silent again while she searched for it, she straightened quickly and stumbled backward a few feet, inhaling the much fresher air deeply. Ben offered her a napkin, and she took it automatically but stood there holding it as she stared at the phone, her brain furiously trying to make sense of the evidence in front of her.
“Huh. Well, I guess that’s that,” Ben said.
Joey tore her gaze from the phone and looked at her brother. “What’s what?”
“She cut and ran, obviously.”
Frowning, Joey stared at Ben for a long moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not? I’m kind of surprised it didn't happen sooner.”
“I feel like I’m missing something,” Max said.
He was, but Joey wasn’t about to tell him. Nope. “It’s a long story.” She shifted her attention back to Ben. “I don’t think we can afford to jump to that conclusion. If something did happen to her, we can’t rest on our laurels. She’s part of Chris’s pack, whether you like it or not.”
Ben grimaced, drawing an increasingly curious look from Max. “Fine, fine. What do you propose we do?”
“Keep looking. Max, can you round up the rest of your pack and tell them what’s happened, so they can help?”
“On it.” Max tossed his half-eaten bag of popcorn in the trash barrel and plunged back into the crowd.
Ben approached her, lowering his voice in case Max was still in earshot. “What happened? I thought you were keeping an eye on her.”
“I was! Until I wasn’t. I—”
He leaned in closer, brows drawn into a nearly straight line. “We’re going to have to tell them about her. If there’s any chance she’s going back to her old ways, no wolf she knows is safe.”
Joey slapped his chest lightly. “Shut up for a minute and listen to me. Before Maria went AWOL, Heidi pulled me aside to give me a warning. She thinks Maria’s not safe here. She told me to take her and get out of town.”
He blinked slowly, his expression shifting from severe to concerned. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Lewis interrupted us, and she clammed up. I got the impression she didn’t want to talk about it in front of him.”
“You think Lewis is behind Maria’s disappearance?”
“I have no idea.” The stone-cold truth of the statement sat heavy in her stomach. “All I know is Heidi was convinced that Maria was in danger, but she wouldn’t talk about it in front of her Alpha. Her mate. I can’t think of many reasons why she might do that, and they’re all bad.”
Ben worked his jaw left and right, then sighed. “Alright, let’s keep looking while the trail is fresh. If foul play was involved, someone had to have seen something. There are hundreds of people here.”
Joey swiped another napkin from Ben and wrapped up Maria’s phone with it, then shoved it in her back pocket. But as they headed back into the crowd, she couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that they’d found all the trace of Maria they were going to find.
17
Chris stood at the site of Kate’s original burial for the second time in as many days. His heart was heavy, but not merely out of respect for the fallen. He hated deceiving Leta, but he couldn’t tell her Colt had snuck onto the reservation to bury Kate any more than he could tell her that Kate had died at her lover’s hands while he was possessed.
Squatting, he brushed aside a few handfuls of pine needles that’d blown over to cover the four stones that marked the spot.
“This is it,” he said, rocking back to his feet and wiping his hand on his pant leg. “I’ll give you some privacy, but I won’t wander too far.”
Leta stood a few feet away as if her feet had put down roots in the rich soil. Chris squeezed her shoulder in passing and withdrew into the trees. After walking a bit, he turned and leaned against a tree. He could still see Leta in the distance, but unless she called out to him, he wouldn’t be able to hear her. She knelt on the forest floor now, rocking slowly with her arms wrapped around her midsection.
Chris sighed and averted his eyes, tipping his head back to gaze up at the gray sky peeking through the canopy overhead. He hoped that Leta’s visit meant that this ordeal was nearing an end. He hoped that Joey was making some headway in Wenatchee and, for the first time since she’d left, envied her relatively simple errand. How was it possible for him to wish he’d gone with her and be glad he hadn’t at the same time?
Another glance at Leta found her right where she was a few moments ago. He took out his phone an
d sent a text message to Joey.
Thinking of you. Hope you can come home tonight. Just met Leta’s daughter. Think everything’s going to be okay on that front.
When he looked up again, Leta was rising to her feet. He tucked his phone away and watched as she turned and looked around, perhaps searching for him. Detaching from the tree, he waved to get her attention and waited while she walked over to join him.
“All set?” he asked.
“I want to take her home.”
Chris blinked, looking past Leta toward the gravesite, then back again. “Like, literally?”
Her brow furrowed. “Yes. Is that a problem?”
“Ehhhh…” Chris rubbed the back of his head and scrambled for a good excuse. He couldn’t agree to that, even if he wanted to. Kate’s body simply wasn’t there. “I don't think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” Her gaze sharpened, and Chris sensed her wolf stirring.
“Well, for one, moving bodies around is dangerous. What if you were caught with it?”
“I’m willing to take that risk.”
Chris glanced toward the gravesite again. “Even so… I really don’t think we should disturb her. Her soul’s at peace, you know? And Colt…”
She frowned more deeply, folding her arms. “What about the redneck?”
“Well, he was her mate…”
A growl rumbled from Leta’s chest, and she spat on the ground. “That man was no more her mate than you are mine.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t say that to his face if I were you…”
Leta gave him a lingering glare, clenching her teeth tight enough that a muscle in her cheek twitched. “This isn’t over.” Her ponytail whipped through the air as she turned and marched off in the direction of the house.
Chris sighed and tromped after her, muttering to himself, “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
Joey shoved the front door of the police station hard and stalked out into the afternoon sun with a low growl in the back of her throat. The door didn’t even have the decency to slam against the wall outside, which was probably for the best, since she didn’t want to be cited for damaging public property, but the quiet snick of it closing behind her just made her feel even more impotent.
Balling her hands into fists, Joey stood on the sidewalk and closed her eyes until the urge to scream passed. Which was right around the time Ben joined her outside, incidentally.
“You okay?” he asked.
Joey inhaled a deep breath, filling her lungs with fresh air and releasing it slowly. “No.”
“Let’s take a walk.”
When Joey opened her eyes, he’d already started walking down the sidewalk. She caught up with a few hasty strides and fell in beside him. “That was bullshit.”
“I don’t disagree, but getting pissed off isn’t going to change anything.”
Her brother pointing that out didn’t help calm her ire. Joey shoved her hands in her pockets and stalked along in silence until they’d gone a few blocks. It wasn’t that the police hadn’t done their job, oh no. They’d taken statements. Filed a report. But they did it with an air of tolerance rather than concern. Clearly, they thought Joey was blowing things out of proportion—just like the security guards at the carnival had, once they figured out that the missing person was an adult rather than a child. Even Lewis’s pack hadn’t been able to summon much in the way of alarm. Or, at least, the members of it that had been present for the search. They’d said Gerald and Caroline had gone off to relieve Kyle. Conspicuously absent, all of them, as far as Joey was concerned.
She sighed gustily and glanced at her brother. “What’re we gonna do now?”
“Have you called Chris yet?”
“You’ve been with me every second of the last four hours. When exactly did you think I snuck off to do that?”
He held his hands up. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
Joey stopped by a fire hydrant and gave it a light kick. “I’ll call him when I’m ready.”
Ben took a breath like he was going to say something, then seemed to think better of it and remained silent.
“What?”
“Can I ask you a question without you biting my head off?”
Joey eyed him. “Maybe.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
“I don’t know. I guess I keep hoping she’ll turn up. That this is all a big misunderstanding.” She tapped the toe of her sneaker against the fire hydrant a few more times, knocking off some of the fairground dust.
“Hm. Well, I guess there’s a first time for anything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
Joey elbowed him, frowning. “What?”
“You’re not given to flights of delusion, is all.”
“I’m not delusional, yeesh. It’s called hope. I still have hope that we’ll find her.”
“Finding her implies we have somewhere else to look.”
Joey switched feet and assaulted the fire hydrant some more. “It’s not so much where as how.”
“Okay, you have my attention. What do you mean?”
“Well, we failed to find her with our eyes, but there’s another valuable sense we haven’t employed yet.”
“You’re kidding, right? Even if it were possible to pick her scent out of one of the hundreds of people who passed through the carnival today, have you forgotten that wolves are shoot on sight here?”
Joey shook her head. “I haven’t forgotten, but one… we’re in the city. No one’s going to shoot at us in the city. There are laws and shit. Two… I wasn’t thinking of trotting over there now. We can go later, after the carnival closes.”
“The trail will be pretty cold by then. I’m sure the carnival is open until one or two in the morning.”
“Do you have a better idea? I’m doing the best I can, here.”
“Actually… I think I do.”
Joey looked up and found Ben staring across the street. She followed the direction of his gaze and groaned as her eyes fell on the pet store over there. “No. I’m not wearing a collar and leash.”
“You’re the one that wants to go sniffing around…”
“You’re the one that owns not one but two collars.”
Ben tweaked her nose, smiling. “Those are strictly for clubbing. Besides, you’re a better tracker than I am, and you know it.”
Joey did indeed know it. She looked across the street again at the quaint little shop with its big windows. A big green bird perched in a large cage on the other side, preening its feathers. Neither she nor her wolf were eager to undertake this plan, but resignation coiled in her belly. She sighed. “Fine, but if you tell anyone…”
Ben drew bunched fingers across his lips in the universal sign for zipped lips. “Mum’s the word.”
After a harrowing fifteen minutes in the pet shop, during which Joey refused both metal spiked and rhinestone collars, they emerged with a rather plain brown leash and collar set for an imaginary Labrador. It was the first big dog that came to Joey’s mind whose neck might be similar in size to her wolf’s.
Joey stripped down in an alley behind a dumpster and shifted forms, then sat and grumbled to herself while he buckled the collar around her neck and clipped on the leash. Humiliated but determined, she headed for the mouth of the alley as soon as he was done, leash trailing along behind her.
Ben whistled to get her to stop and jogged to catch up with her folded clothes and shoes cradled in one arm. “Hey, wait for me.” When she turned to look impatiently in his direction, he snapped a picture of her with his phone before picking up the trailing end of her leash. “Okay, now I’m ready.”
They dropped her clothes off at the car, and Joey plotted her revenge all the way to the fairground.
Of course, a wolf on a leash got a few curious glances along the way, but no one stopped them. The closer they got to the park where the carnival was set up, the harder Joey pulled on the leash, eager to get
to their destination. The leather around her throat chafed her spirit if not her flesh, and her wolf wanted it off as soon as possible.
Rather than entering through the main gate, they skirted the perimeter. Joey kept her nose low to the ground, doing her best to sift through the myriad scents in search of Maria’s familiar one. When they reached the aisle between the stalls where Maria’s bear and phone were found, she finally caught it and stilled, her tail sticking straight out behind her. Excitement fluttered in her chest as she inhaled deeply. Friend. Pack.
“Found her, did you?” Ben said. “Which way did she go?”
Joey sniffed around a bit more. The scent grew weaker the farther she moved from the site the stuffed animal had been found. Puzzling. Wouldn’t Maria have ditched the bear and phone and kept going?
Unless she didn’t want someone to track her from the spot.
Joey pulled Ben out of the aisle and into the flow of traffic, where several carnival-goers stepped back in alarm.
“Sorry, excuse us,” Ben said as Joey pulled him along the front of the nearest game stall, scattering carnival patrons.
“Hey! No dogs allowed,” the carnie manning the booth called out, but Joey ignored him as she tried to pick up another whiff of Maria’s scent.
It was no use. There were just too many scents, all tangled together. Some wolf, some human. She didn’t give up until they had made a full circuit, heaving a resigned sigh as they walked back the way they came. It was time to call Chris and face the music.
Maria was gone.
18
“What do you mean, ‘she’s gone’?” Chris asked, going rigid where he sat at the kitchen table with a half-eaten sandwich in front of him.
“She’s gone. Vanished. Poof.”
Chris pushed away his plate. “Okay, back up. When did she go missing? And where?”
“At the carnival. I’m sorry, babe. I only let her leave my sight for a minute, I swear.”
Joey’s contriteness almost worried him more than Maria’s disappearance. “I assume you tried calling her…”