“Oh,” I said, thinking of the raven feathers on my doorstep, the scrap of mask.
Ms. Wilson walked to the board and erased some notes from the previous period. “Years later, they found a stash of gifts near Millicent’s bedroom window, in the valley of the roof joints. Keys, bottle caps, bits of tinfoil, tiny toy cars—things the ravens collected from around the town.”
“You found all of this in town records you took from Maggie?”
Ms. Wilson set the eraser down. “I’d like you to focus on other, more relevant things.”
The bell rang.
“So it’s okay for you to dig up the past,” I said, unable to control the edge in my voice. “But no one else?”
“Be careful how you speak to me, Lily,” Ms. Wilson said, her eyes narrowing. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” she said, motioning for me to go to my desk.
“You’re warning me to let things rest, but it’s not safe for you to be digging around. What if someone gets the wrong idea and targets you like they did Bob Murphy?”
Her spine stiffened. “Is that a threat? Do you know something about the crime?”
I lowered my voice and said, “I’m saying there are bad people around.” I snatched up my backpack and went to my desk.
Alicia gave me a questioning look, as if to say, what was that. Meanwhile, Ms. Wilson stepped to the whiteboard and began writing out an assignment.
Tom leaned forward a few seats and whispered, “What did you say to piss her off?”
“Nothing,” I growled.
“Sure? She just assigned us two chapters’ worth of reading,” Alicia piped in.
As soon as she’d finished writing on the board, Ms. Wilson grabbed her purse from her desk drawer and left the room with a mumbled apology.
I could only imagine she was going to call someone, maybe even go see Mr. Pinter and tell him what I’d said. She didn’t return before the bell rang, though, and on my way out of the room, I grabbed the tote bag full of books she hadn’t taken with her and carried them to my locker. I know, I know—it was pretty much stealing.
But I planned to return them later. I had to know what volumes Mr. Pinter had passed on to her. And what, after reading stuff in the town archives, she was digging deeper into.
***
After school, I retrieved the tote from my locker and then headed out to the truck, hustling through the drizzling rain. I snuck a look or two over my shoulder, hoping no one saw me with Ms. Wilson’s tote bag. Fawn and Rose ran toward me. I kept walking.
“Geez, thanks for waiting,” Fawn said. “Lewis can’t drive us today, ‘cause he’s got a dentist appointment.”
“Just get in,” I replied, unlocking the doors. “No activities today?”
“No, it’s an all-staff meeting or something,” Rose said, climbing up into the middle seat. Fawn slid in beside her, then stuffed her bag behind them. I didn’t want to go too far, just far enough to look through the books and then circle back to school to drop them back in Ms. Wilson’s classroom before she returned from the meeting. I was hoping she hadn’t noticed her tote was missing during her last class.
“We’re not going home?” Rose asked.
“Stopping by Cooper’s shack.” I pulled out and drove down the service road toward the caretaker’s quarters, hoping Cooper was there. He wasn’t, but the door was unlocked, so I led my sisters inside. The place still had the faint smell of jasmine tea above the usual scents of grass clippings, fertilizer, soil. At the little table I pulled all the books out of the canvas bag.
“You could’ve looked at the books in the truck,” Fawn grumbled.
“Just sit down,” I said. “It’ll only take a second.”
“So you just stole Ms. Wilson’s books,” Rose said, shedding her coat. She must have recognized the tote bag. “That’s not cool.”
“No, Mr. Pinter brought them to her. They must be about stuff she’s looking into.”
There were five books spread out before us on the table. Two were town histories checked out from the school library. The three other volumes originated from the town library’s collection: A History of Signs and Symbols, Northwest Native Legends, and The Biology of Canine Species.
“Oh crap,” I said, opening the canine book. It was full of sticky notes, flagging sections on wolves, specifically reproduction and habits.
Fawn shuddered and lifted the cover of one of the history volumes. “Am I the only one noticing none of these are about ghosts?”
Rose paged through the signs and symbols book. “There are no notes in this one.”
“Wait, he’s got a page marked here—on the influenza epidemic of the 1870s,” Fawn said in an ominous tone.
“Oh, great,” I said.
A sharp rap on the window made us all jump. Cooper peered in through the glass and then opened the door and let himself in. “Having a party without me?”
“No,” I said, beckoning him over to the table. “Ms. Wilson must be onto us by now. Look at these books Mr. Pinter gave her. I think she really is in danger.”
He looked down at the selection, and flipped through the wolf volume. “Call Morgan and your dad. We should meet up. This is getting out of hand.”
***
After I got the tote of books back to Ms. Wilson’s classroom, I dropped the twins off at home and headed to Morgan’s. As much as my sisters wanted to help, I knew Dad would want me to keep them out of it.
Morgan had just returned from a repair job when I got to his place. Cooper pulled up in his truck, right behind me. He gave Morgan a nod and then headed up the stairs to the apartment with a pizza box from the bowling alley.
A few minutes later, while Morgan washed up from the workday, Cooper set our dinner in the kitchenette.
“Really? Pizza.” I gave him an eye-roll.
“What? They make a good pie. Consider it recon and good PR,” Cooper said. “I’m not giving up on eventually making the peace.” He sized up the apartment a bit, taking in the surroundings, almost as if he approved of the way Morgan was settling in. Then he headed to the kitchen and slid still-warm pizza slices onto paper plates.
As we carried the three servings to the sitting area, I heard a siren squawk—Dad’s duty car pulling up in the driveway. We hadn’t planned on him joining us—after all, he wanted me to stop investigating anything and everything.
Morgan came out of the bathroom, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and rubbing his hair with a towel. He smiled when he caught the wafting smell of garlic and tomato sauce. “Ah…pizza,” he murmured.
But then he heard footsteps on the stairs outside and shot me a panicked look. I mouthed the word Dad. Morgan took the towel back to the bathroom and returned quickly, combing a hand through his damp hair.
Meanwhile, I met Dad at the door and welcomed him inside, now realizing that this was the first time he’d seen where Morgan was living. His gaze traveled over the simple room, much in the way Cooper’s had. “Kids, I can’t stay long. Dinner break and then I’ve got to get out on patrol.”
Morgan approached and gave Dad a nod. “Nice to see you, George.”
Dad took a seat in the chair near the couch. “Place looks good.”
Morgan showed him a half-smile. I could tell the approval meant a lot to him. I waved at Morgan to sit down, but he went to the kitchenette.
Cooper got up from the couch and fixed another plate of pizza. Dad held a hand up as if he’d reject it when Cooper brought it to him, but then took it. He shook his head as he took a bite, then smiled reluctantly, savoring the taste. “Darn it. I wish this weren’t so good,” he said, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin.
“Glad you stopped in. I’ve been meaning to have you ‘round.” Morgan brought some drinks to the table. Dad and I opened sodas while Morgan opened the beers for himself and Cooper.
“And I’ve been meaning to have you over to work on your bike. Been a little crazy,” Dad said.
“Indeed, sir.” Morgan nodded.
“We’re not
just here for pizza.” Cooper pulled a folded piece of white butcher paper from his bag and secured it to the wall with painting tape. “It’s time to have a strategy session. It can’t just be Lily poking around.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that point,” Dad muttered, sliding me a weak smile.
Cooper uncapped a pen. “Examining the intel together might help.”
Dad nodded for him to proceed. I think he was amused, watching Cooper run this as if it were a police investigation briefing.
“What do we know?” Cooper offered as a starting question.
“We have Bob Murphy, Art Pinter, and Mike Lindstrom confirmed as zombies,” I said.
Cooper wrote their names on the paper then took a bite of his slice, then set it back on the table. He chewed thoughtfully, seeming to savor the crust.
“Wait—Mr. Pinter?” Dad asked. “Your librarian?”
“This afternoon Mr. Pinter gave Ms. Wilson some books, and one was a book on canine behavior, with pages marked.” Cooper added the information to the list. “Maybe she’s moved on from ghosts to wolves.” He added her name to the paper.
Morgan raised an eyebrow at this news, too. I hadn’t had a chance to fill him in on it yet. “Care to elaborate, Lily?”
“Ms. Wilson’s interacting with Pinter. Researching stuff.”
Dad let out a long sigh. “Not good.”
Cooper gestured with his pen. “What else? Keep going.”
“Mike Lindstrom has Maggie’s archive pictures,” Dad said.
Morgan raised a finger. “There was a trace of Mrs. Gillingham’s smell in Mr. Gray’s basement. Perhaps the records had been there at one time.”
“What about the kid in jail?” Cooper asked. “Anyone claim him yet?”
“We got a name from him, finally. Skyler Dawes. Transferred to county lockup. Bail hearing was this morning, set at a thousand dollars.”
“I can drive over and get him out in the morning, maybe learn something from him.” Cooper made a column marked “Wolves” and wrote “Skyler” underneath it.
“If he doesn’t run on you,” Morgan said, his lip curling. “Perhaps I should join you.”
Dad gave Morgan an appreciative nod. “That sounds smart. He’s less likely to bolt on another wolf.”
Cooper tapped the paper with his pen. “What else? I remember six people with Bowman at my homestead on the night of the murder. That includes Mrs. Gillingham. We know three of the five. Pinter, Lindstrom, Murphy. Who were the other zombies?”
“They were men, or dressed as men,” I said. “That rules out Ms. Wilson, unless she changed costumes.”
Morgan scratched at his chin. “But why would Pinter give her the books… Unless the hunters are trying to recruit her. Maybe use her research skills for their purposes.”
“Old Mr. Pinter from the school library,” Cooper said, with a long sigh. “It’s always the quiet ones.”
Everyone went silent for a moment, studying the list Cooper had created. Dad took a couple bites of pizza, then washed them down with a sip of his cola. Morgan and Cooper swigged down some of their beers.
“So who else could it be?” Dad muttered.
Morgan’s head swiveled toward the door. I heard it, too, soft footsteps on the stairs outside. We all shut up.
There was a knock a couple seconds later, then Maggie’s voice. “You home?”
After an alarmed glance at me and Dad, Cooper took a step in front of the paper on the wall. Maggie opened the door a crack.
Morgan got up and moved toward the entry, trying to intercept his benefactor. “Yes, Maggie, my dear?”
“Do I smell pizza?” she said, stepping inside. “Oh, I hope I’m not intruding.”
“I stopped by for dinner with the kids,” Dad said, getting up and joining Morgan at the door, shielding Maggie from full view of the doorway.
“I wondered what your car was doing in the driveway. Everything okay?” she asked, craning her head around Dad’s to give us a concerned look.
“Morgan wanted Dad to see his place.”
Maggie laughed. “Well, for a proper dinner, you could have used the dining room in the big house. What are you guys doing? Playing Pictionary?”
“Oh, yeah,” Cooper said, removing the paper and rolling it up. “We’re all bad at it. Quitting now, in fact.”
“Well, I’m excellent at guessing. Next time, invite me and I’ll show you how it’s done,” Maggie said, putting a hand on my father’s arm.
Dad actually turned red at the contact. “Um, yeah. Maybe a game night at the coffee shop?”
“Oh, yeah! It could even be a fundraiser for the historical society,” she said. “You have the best ideas.” Maggie actually batted her lashes at my father, which made me giggle a little.
Clearly flustered, Dad shrugged off Maggie’s grasp and retrieved his pizza plate from the table. “Break’s over. I should be on my way,” he said, depositing it in the kitchenette.
“Don’t run off on my account.” Maggie’s voice held a trace of disappointment.
“Oh, no. It’s not that,” Dad mumbled.
“Well, I could take your place in the game,” Maggie said, moving toward the table and plopping into the chair at the end. “Go ahead, and unroll it.”
Cooper cleared his throat and folded up the paper we’d been using. “Better to start fresh.”
“Can we do movies? I’m great at that category.”
“Actually, I think we’re done with the game,” I said in a small voice. “It wasn’t that fun. Dad’s pretty terrible at drawing.”
“Hey!” Dad said, shaking a finger at me.
Maggie stiffened and swung a look between me and Dad. “Okay,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically rough. “What the heck is going on? You guys were weird the other night at the historical society meeting, and you’re being super secretive. Not cool.”
Dad stopped in his tracks near the door and turned around. “Maggie, it’s not something we can—”
“Spare me the denial,” Maggie said. “Just level with me. Are you holding pagan rituals in the forest? Contacting aliens? All those nights off during the full moon, Lily? What is up? I know you guys, and something is not right.”
The air in the room felt stuffy. Nobody knew what to say. Dad looked especially pained, his eyebrows drawn together, one of his hands scratching at his scruffy jaw. “Um…”
Morgan spoke first. “It’s not something that we can really discuss without putting you in danger.”
Maggie stood up. “Well, it hurts that you won’t trust me with your secret. Cooper, you too? And Morgan, you’ve been like family to me.”
Dad’s eyes took on a mournful look. For a split second, I saw his longing to be truthful with Maggie. The desire to welcome her into the secret. Besides Cooper, she’d been the closest of any outsider to us.
“I want to tell you,” Dad said, his voice mellowing. “But tonight isn’t the right time.” He came over and took Maggie’s hand. “Can you trust me to wait a little while longer and then we can reveal what we’re working on?” His voice was calming, laced with caring. He lifted Maggie’s hand to his heart, covering it with his own.
My mouth dropped open at Dad’s sudden outpouring of charm. I’d never seen this side of him.
Maggie was shocked by it, too. She stared down at her hand on Dad’s chest and an embarrassed smile surfaced on her lips. “Okay, George. I just want to help you in any way I can.”
Dad released her hand and backed up a step. “Thank you for your patience, Maggie. It means a lot.”
“Sure,” Maggie murmured.
Dad seemed to shake off the mood that’d come over him. He caught my eye. “I’m off. We’ll continue this discussion later,” he said, then made a beeline for the door.
The guys didn’t say anything. We all kind of felt a shocked vibe in the room.
Maggie turned back to us, a dreamy look in her eyes. “I’ll be down in the big house,” she said, and then she follow
ed Dad out.
“Whoa,” Cooper said, breaking the tension. “He definitely should not tell Maggie.”
“Don’t you think she’s going to find out eventually?” Morgan took another swig of ale.
Cooper shrugged and nodded. “George has it bad. So does Maggie. Sorry, Lily.”
“Oh, man.” I sank back on the couch, pulling the throw blanket over my shoulders. The thought of Maggie knowing the truth, that Dad would want to tell her, made me nervous. Not because she’d know we were supernatural beings, but that she might freak out on him. I knew she had a crush on him, but the reality of it felt a whole lot weirder. Would Maggie freak out and tell people in town, putting us in danger? Would Maggie reject him and break Dad’s heart if she knew the truth? Or maybe even worse, find out and run away like my mother had.
As if he could hear my internal turmoil, Morgan scooted closer to me on the couch and put an arm around me. “It’s okay, love,” he said, kissing my cheek.
Cooper unrolled the paper on the coffee table. “Lily, you said there were crowd photos you haven’t studied yet. Look through them tonight, find anyone photographed with Bowman or the known hunters. Maybe we can narrow it down that way.”
“And if we don’t?”
“We should watch Mr. Pinter. It’s only a matter of time before Ezra’s pack targets him,” Cooper said. “And it’s likely he’s in contact with the other two hunters. Maybe he’d lead us to the others.”
Morgan’s arm tightened around me. “Don’t confront him at school. I can see you thinking that’s your next move.”
I turned to give him an annoyed look. “You don’t know that,” I said, but he was right—the thought had crossed my mind.
But I didn’t get a chance to snoop around Mr. Pinter at the library on Monday because he didn’t show up to work. Ever again.
Chapter Twelve
Monday after school, when I heard the sirens, I didn’t immediately think of Mr. Pinter. It wasn’t until my father entered the coffee shop a little while later, a grim expression on his face, that I got a sinking feeling.
A Light So Cruel (Pioneer Falls Book 3) Page 14