A Light So Cruel (Pioneer Falls Book 3)

by Heather Davis

“It’s a pretty house,” I said. “I think he’d love that you’re getting the society rolling, Maggie.”

  “I hope so. We’ll put a small plaque out front here on the fence, and eventually a freestanding sign near the steps. Maybe with a small spotlight,” Maggie said, her voice getting a little dreamy. “This location’s not far from Main Street, so if we put it on a self-guided town tour, we should get some good traffic. Maybe even have a little gift shop with some T-shirts and local products in one room of the house.”

  I stepped out the truck and shut the door. “Sounds nice. One thing, though—how’re you gonna have time to run this?”

  “Volunteers! See how easy it was to draft you into helping?” She hopped out and went to unlock the house’s front door.

  “I’m a volun-told, not a volunteer,” I said, smirking.

  The gray light in the sky was fading as I let down the tailgate. I jumped into the back of the truck to stage the boxes so they’d be easier to bring in. My fingers were itching to dig through those boxes. What if there was something about Millicent and Charlie in one of the files? Or maybe their families. Morgan’s question was still in my mind—how did we know that Millicent was a werewolf? Or Charlie, even. Those were assumptions based on the timing of the crime.

  I slid one of the boxes down and carried it up the front steps. “Where do you want these?” I asked, trying to balance it as I waited. “What’s wrong?”

  Maggie stood in the doorway, frozen in place, her hand resting on the doorknob. Her shoulders shimmied. “Ooh… Creepy feeling just now,” she said, stepping back and letting the door swing open. “I think I need to smudge this whole place with sage. Bring in some healing crystals.”

  “Really? You think you have a ghost too, now?”

  “No, maybe just bad energy.”

  I poked my head into the entry and found a light switch. When I clicked it on, I didn’t see anything unusual. A small table stood beneath an oak mirror. An antique-looking oriental rug stretched out across hardwood floors. I smelled pine cleaner, with an underlying scent of commercial coffee, weak supermarket stuff that maybe Mr. Gray had liked. He’d never frequented Pioneer Perk at all, so he probably made coffee at home everyday.

  I took a few steps into the hall. “Come on, it’s okay.”

  Maggie looked unsure, but moved inside, her hand jingling her keys.

  I stopped at the first closet and opened the door, catching the scent of old-man cologne, forest, and the musky smell of wolf. His coats still hung still in there. No one had come to clean them out, but according to Cooper, Mr. Gray hadn’t had much family in the first place—a son in Arizona who didn’t even come to the funeral.

  Maggie peered over my shoulder. “Ugh. I thought all his things had been carted away, but I guess this isn’t like a real estate deal where you buy a house and it’s empty. The society inherited all of it.”

  I closed the door and followed her into the living room. A curved-arm sofa sat in the center of the room, not far from a fireplace with built-in bookshelves on either side, filled with cloth- and leather-bound books and keepsakes. Through an archway, I could see the dining room table was still dressed in a white linen cloth with brass candlestick holders. In the center, what had been pink roses withered in a vase.

  “It’s gonna be a big job cleaning out all his stuff,” Maggie said.

  “I know someone who’s great at raiding closets. She’s got a twin, too.”

  “You are a genius.” Maggie grinned and said, “Fawn and Rose. I’d love to have most of it gone before our first meeting of the society next week.”

  “Good idea.” What kinds of things werewolves might keep, I didn’t really know. But I was pretty sure we should be the first to find them. I followed Maggie into the kitchen, noting the recently painted cabinets, the appliances scrubbed clean. A calendar hung on the wall, the month’s full moons circled, I noticed, my cheeks heating up a little.

  Maggie turned in a circle, her forehead wrinkling. “I had that spooky feeling again. Like we’re not alone.”

  “Let’s get that stuff in from the truck,” I said. “Then we’ll go room to room and check things out. I’ve never known you to be freaked out by stuff.”

  “I know. That’s why it’s a little weird,” she said, rubbing her arms. She followed me out into the driveway.

  When I got to the truck, some of the boxes had been shifted around. A few box lids were askew. I shook my head.

  “What is wrong with people?” Maggie said, her hands on her hips as she looked up and down the street. “And Pioneer Falls? It used to be safe to leave things in your car.”

  “It still is most of the time,” I murmured. I didn’t like the idea someone had been in those boxes.

  We unloaded on warp speed, bringing everything in and setting them in the large kitchen.

  Maggie counted the boxes. “They’re all here. So maybe they realized this stuff was mostly old papers and took off.”

  “I hope so. Hey, you have a key for this lock?” I pointed to the door to the basement, off the kitchen. “It might be a good idea to put the boxes out of sight, in case whoever it was comes back.” Or wolf, I added mentally. It very well could have been Jonah or Nathaniel digging through boxes. Or one of their out-of-town helpers.

  Maggie tried the doorknob. “It doesn’t actually lock, but I think it’s a good hiding spot, anyway.”

  The basement light was burned out, but there was space near the bottom of the stairs where we could stack the boxes for now. I took out my phone and shined the light around the room. A washer and dryer with a utility sink was positioned at one end. Metal shelves held glass jars of jams, pickles, applesauce, and other preserves at the other. Under the stairs, a workbench with a peg board held hand tools, like you’d use for carving or woodworking. Everything tidy, and yet, I still got a strange feeling about the place. I got a faint hit of floral perfume, and then the strong scent of old-man wolf.

  As we climbed the stairs, Maggie gave me a wary look over her shoulder. “Kind of a creepy basement, too.”

  “Yeah. But at least those boxes are used to creepy basements.”

  Maggie shut off the kitchen light on our way out. “Gus told me he had to look hard to even find the key to that room. Hadn’t been gone through in a few decades, I guess no one thought much of this old stuff.”

  “No one but Mr. Gray,” I said.

  Maggie shrugged. “Mr. Gray had always been into it. He hadn’t updated his will for years. He probably knew about that Town Hall treasure trove from his time as mayor. He wanted to preserve the past. And now we’ll do just that,” she said, locking the door.

  “Preserve the past or protect it?” I murmured as we headed to the truck. I wanted to know what was in those boxes.

  ***

  After a cryptic text later that night, I pushed through the front door of the Palace Theater. Sitting at the end of Main Street, the place had been closed for years, but Cooper had insisted. The rusty chain that normally secured entry dangled uselessly from the handles. The interior was dark and the faint stench of stale popcorn long ago and soda-stained carpet faintly lingered in the air. The door shut behind me with a ka-chunk.

  “What, no to-go cups?” a gruff voice said. Cooper stood in the shadows of the staircase. He held out his hands in a ta-da motion. “Surprise!”

  “We shouldn’t be in here. Breaking into an abandoned theater?”

  He lifted his chin. “I didn’t break in. I picked up the keys today. Come on, the others are waiting.” He started walking toward the auditorium doors.

  “Wait—I’m confused.” He ignored me, so I followed him. “Why are we here?”

  “Lily! C’mon.” Cooper pushed aside cobwebs that trailed across the aisle, kicked aside remains of some paper popcorn buckets and other trash. Weak lights lit up the seats. A small wooden stage jutted from the movie screen, which was intact except for a small tear in the lower right corner.

  Dad, still in his uniform, sat in the front r
ow next to Morgan. I waved a hello to Dad and slid into the seat next to Morgan, planting a kiss on his cheek. He smelled like forest and fresh cologne and was wearing a thick wool sweater and jeans, so he’d probably had time to clean up from working the repair jobs he’d been doing.

  Dad glanced at his watch and said, “I’m on duty. I hope this doesn’t take long.”

  Cooper went to an emergency exit door near the screen and cracked it open. It was freezing in the theater, with no heat or anything, but maybe the musty smell was getting to him.

  “I can’t even remember the last movie I saw here,” I said to Dad.

  “Well, it’s been closed down for at least ten years or so,” he said. “I’m guessing it was something with a cartoon alien.”

  “I guess we can start,” Cooper said, glancing down at his watch as he returned to us. “This was one of the holdings in my dad’s portfolio. He never had the funds to fix it up properly, but now, with his life insurance, I think I’ll be able to do it someday.”

  “Pioneer Falls will have a movie theater again?” I asked, thinking how cool it would be to have an actual place to go on a movie date. Otherwise, the nearest theater was about an hour away. “An alternative to bowling, hooray!”

  “What about Fawn?” Dad said, turning to me. “Maybe she could earn her imported cheese money here.”

  I cracked a smile. “She’d improvise on the popcorn recipe.”

  “Someday, I said,” Cooper cautioned us. “That’s not why we’re here tonight. I thought we could use the theater as a meeting space. A neutral meeting space.”

  “Wait a second,” Dad said, getting up from his seat. “Are you implying that—”

  “The packs of old communicated,” Cooper said. “It’s time we reinstated that.”

  Just then, the exit door creaked open and Ezra came in, followed by Jonah. Instead of his crutch, Ezra was using a cane now, and it looked like he was rocking a prosthetic foot. Jonah had a red buffalo plaid wool coat on over jeans.

  I hadn’t seen them since the fire. My body tensed. Morgan wrapped an arm around my shoulders, protectively.

  “What is this?” Dad hissed.

  Ezra took a few steps inside, saw us, and turned to glare at Cooper. “Should’ve known there was something amiss with this rendezvous. I take it you’re not serious about offering us the theater as an investment.”

  Dad’s posture tensed. His hand moved to his gun belt. “Cooper, I know you mean well. We’ve tried communicating with this pack. It’s brought us nothing but trouble.”

  “I thought that was a parley,” Jonah muttered.

  “A rather ill-fated one,” Morgan said.

  Cooper’s expression remained somber. “I’m not asking you to be friends. But now that Ezra’s pack has been cleared of my father’s murder and returned the TV they stole, I think we need to reach an understanding.”

  “Admirable, I’d say,” Ezra said, his leathery lips meeting in a smile. “And you’re right, Cooper. The wolves of old Pioneer Falls did work together.”

  Jonah stayed a step behind as Ezra lowered himself into a seat at the end of the row. Once the old wolf was comfortable, Jonah sat next to him.

  “I’m listening,” Dad said, plunking back down into his seat.

  “I found my great-grandfather Jakob North’s journal in my dad’s things. Jakob was the first sworn Protector.”

  “I remember Jakob,” Ezra said, with a sneer. “His wife hated wolves.”

  “He struck a deal with the packs, trying to end the bloodshed. In the same spirit, we need to outline a truce.”

  “That would require two packs,” Jonah said, with a grunt. “What we’ve got here is a pack and a lone wolf.”

  Dad cut his eyes at him, displeased with the insult.

  “Easy,” Cooper said, holding up his hand. “George has established a home here. This is his territory, technically.”

  Morgan cleared his throat. “And he’s no longer a lone wolf.”

  Ezra grinned. “Oh, delightful. You’ve joined his ranks. I’ll bet your brutish sire couldn’t wait to be rid of you.”

  Morgan got up and went over to Ezra. “I answer to George now. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t summon the entire McAllister clan, or that we don’t have allies in the States.”

  Jonah stood up, putting himself in front of his father. “Back off. We get it.”

  “Stand down, all of you!” Cooper snapped. “That’s not how to build trust or community.”

  “They’re incapable of doing that,” I said, pulling on Morgan’s hand to come away from his defensive stance. “We can’t have a community, Cooper. They’re doing things right now to ruin ours.”

  Dad shot me a look of warning.

  “Oh, that little fire?” Jonah’s laugh was low. “Murphy’s insurance’ll cover it.”

  Dad’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t go around terrorizing people in my town.”

  “He’s our common enemy. We saw him, dressed in costume, circling your wolves,” Jonah said. “He and the others heard enough from Bowman to put us all at risk.”

  “They talk, they die, that’s all anyone’s saying.” Ezra issued a grim laugh.

  My dad’s face reddened. “So, you admit you set the fire.”

  “I’m not admitting anything of the sort,” Ezra said, sitting up taller in his chair and lifting his chin. “And you wouldn’t lock us up if we had done it, either. We both know how that would end.”

  “We never had this problems like this in town. Don’t you guys see that you’ve made it worse?” I said.

  “Hasn’t studied her history,” Ezra said. “There was a time that the packs––”

  “Murdered innocents,” Dad interjected.

  “Hunters aren’t innocent,” Jonah growled.

  Dad gave out an anguished grunt. “That’s not the way to deal with them.”

  Ezra pushed himself up on his cane. “You see, George. This is what separates a pack leader from just another wolf. You have to be willing to spill some blood. We’re all predators. When will you own up to that?” He gave Dad a disgusted look.

  Jonah rose from his seat, too.

  “Wait.” Cooper moved toward them. “As Protector of the wolves and this town, I have to side with George. No more terrorizing the townspeople. Not again. I know the carnage your old raiding parties caused. You almost destroyed Pioneer Falls in the 1870s.”

  Ezra’s eyes were slits. “If it hadn’t been for your ancestor, we would’ve. Imagine that, an entire town of wolves, a haven for the supernatural.”

  “That’s not how it’s supposed to work,” Dad said, rising and standing next to Cooper. “Peaceful existence, blending––that’s the way our town is now.”

  “Was, Turner. Was.” Ezra’s knuckles whitened on the grip of his cane. “You may think this is our town. But it’s my town.”

  Morgan had been calm for most of this meeting, but now his eyes flashed with anger. “It most certainly is not,” he said, between gritted teeth. “You’re still here because we showed you mercy. My father would’ve torn you apart if I hadn’t stopped him.”

  “Debatable,” Ezra said. “But keep telling yourself that. We’ve got more numbers, too, McAllister. I owe you a thrashing. I won’t forget that.” He took a few steps toward the door.

  “Stay clear of those hunters!” my father called out.

  Jonah rolled his eyes and then followed Ezra. “We’ll be seeing you,” he called over his shoulder.

  Cooper let out a frustrated sigh. “Not what I intended.” He sat down on the edge of the little stage in front of the screen.

  Dad got up and dusted off his uniform. “I’ll see you back at home, Lily.”

  “Wait. They aren’t going to stop. You heard them! We can’t let them attack more people in town.”

  Dad stepped closer to me. “I can’t lock them up for whatever they threaten to do. And I’m not ready to resort to other measures.”

  “Killing the pack,” I said.

 
“There’s a code,” Dad said, his jaw set in a hard line. “One I don’t want to invoke, should I kill Ezra.” He waved good-bye and stepped down the aisle, carefully avoiding the garbage on the musty carpet.

  “I don’t get it,” I said, after he’d gone.

  Morgan let out a long breath. “If George kills Ezra, he assumes responsibility for his pack. The sons could challenge him for pack leadership. Those are fights to the death.”

  I shuddered. “What next, then?” I asked Morgan, waiting for Cooper to lock up and shut down all the lights so we could all leave together.

  “Wait and see what your father wants to do,” Morgan said, reluctantly.

  “And meanwhile, hunter-wannabes who probably don’t know anything might be killed.” My insides felt sick, thinking about Bob Murphy’s place, about other people being hurt. “We have to—”

  “Love,” Morgan said, taking my hand. “You always want to help others, and that’s admirable, but we have to do what your father, your pack leader, says.”

  Cooper returned, carrying a flashlight. “Even if you knew who they’d target, how do you think you’ll stop that pack?” He ushered us out the main door and then secured it with a chain and a lock.

  I didn’t fault Cooper for trying to bring peace, but when would he and Dad realize that there would never be peace as long as Ezra’s pack walked free?

  Chapter Eight

  “When you said closets, I was picturing dresses and stuff,” Fawn grumbled, shoving more pants and jackets into the black trash bag at her feet on Saturday afternoon.

  “He was an old guy,” Rose said, opening another drawer of the oak dresser. “I think you missed that part.”

  I closed the flaps on a box of shoes and wrote its contents with a big black marker on the side. Then I dragged it to the growing pile in the upstairs hall of Mr. Gray’s house. The afternoon light streamed in through the windows, highlighting a swirl of dust. Mr. Gray had kept his home neat, but some of the things we were packing up probably hadn’t been touched in years.

  I walked back into the master bedroom. Now that the last drawer had been emptied, I pulled the dresser out from the wall, testing its weight. We’d probably need all three of us to move it to the garage along with some of the other furniture.