A Light So Cruel (Pioneer Falls Book 3)

by Heather Davis

  “Yeah?” he said, crossing his arms, staring back at me.

  “I heard what you said to Rose. You guys aren’t working for the Smiths. So why did your pack come to town?”

  “Not my pack anymore.” His words were clipped, his jaw tight.

  I leaned forward on the chair. “You were with them the night of the fight at the bowling alley when the cops picked you up.”

  “Wrong place, wrong time.”

  “Did it occur to you we’re trying to help you?” I said.

  “Don’t pretend to be altruistic. Your angle is more ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’—I get it.”

  I bristled. “Okay, so you’re showing off with fancy words and quoting me some Art of War reference? Am I supposed to be impressed?”

  Skyler sat up and tilted his head at me. “Actually, it’s older than that. It’s from a proverb in Sanskrit. But anyway, I see what you’re doing.”

  I stifled a growl. “I’m just asking where they came from. They must’ve known Ezra, since that’s why they’re—and you’re—here.”

  The corner of Skyler’s lip quirked. “Well, we didn’t show up to help him, if that’s what you’re thinking. We came to collect what he owes us.”

  “Lily.” Dad stood in the doorway, next to Rose. “Skyler’s had an ordeal. He doesn’t need to be interrogated. Let’s all go to bed.”

  Rose held out the new toothbrush. “There’s toothpaste on the vanity in there for you.”

  Skyler showed her a smile, one of the first ones I’d seen. “Thanks,” he murmured, getting up off the bed and then taking the toothbrush into the bathroom down the hall.

  “Did you hear what he said? Ezra owed them for something.”

  “I know you think you’re helping, but stop,” Dad said. “We’ll get there without pushing him.”

  I didn’t quite believe Dad. Too often he’d wait too long to act, especially when it came to dealing with other packs. I told him good night and headed to my room. It was weird enough to have a strange wolf under our roof, but one that had something to do with Ezra made me even more uneasy.

  ***

  Going to school the next day, the twins and I walked cautiously from the parking lot, paying attention to the slick sidewalk. Overnight the wind had turned brutal and the school’s lawn sparkled with frost. Just before we reached the main entrance, a dozen ravens landed in the skeletal maple trees nearby.

  “Millicent’s birds?” Rose said, pointing.

  Fawn let out a huffy sigh. “I thought we were over that ghost stuff. Aren’t we on to the murder stuff instead? Look at the flag—it’s at half staff for Mr. Pinter.”

  The flag wasn’t the only acknowledgment of the loss. During the normal morning announcements, the principal told us that there’d be a memorial service for Mr. Pinter on Saturday. By lunch, the librarian’s death was the only thing people were talking about. Even Jeanie and Alicia were speculating about what had happened.

  Obviously, I didn’t say anything about what I’d learned from my father, about Mr. Pinter being a gun-crazed werewolf hunter. But it was never far from my mind.

  In fifth period, Tom already had a tribute section of The Post outlined on the board. Everyone jumped in, suggesting anecdotes they wanted to share about Mr. Pinter, but all I could think about was that he’d tried to hurt us, that he’d wanted to kill wolves.

  “You okay?” Alicia asked as the bell rang at the end of class.

  I loaded my stuff into my backpack and shrugged. “Sure,” I said, following the others out into the hallway.

  As I made my way to sixth period, Tom tugged on my sleeve. “There was a Pinter in that vintage hunter photo,” he whispered.

  I stepped out of the flow of traffic and pulled him with me. “What?”

  He ran a hand through his sandy hair and gave a glance around. “I grabbed that photo from the box my dad has. Pinter was a legacy from the old hunter gang during the epidemic.” He reached into his bag and pulled out the sepia-toned photo, encased in a plastic sleeve.

  I took the photo from him, my hands shaking. I turned it over. On the back, names were written in faint pencil. Lindstrom, Gillingham, Pinter, Murphy, Miller, McCaffrey.

  “There are no Millers or McCaffreys in town that I know,” Tom said. “I checked online too and couldn’t find anyone. Descendants must have moved away.”

  “Or they go by different last names.”

  A couple friends, including Alicia, hurried by on the way to last period. I gave them a wave, pretending everything was normal, though Alicia’s eyebrows lifted when she saw me.

  “Why are you sharing this with me?” I asked Tom, slipping the picture into my backpack’s zippered pocket.

  “After what happened to Mr. Pinter,” he said. “I mean, what if my dad’s next? Whoever’s doing this is looking for the hunters’ kin.”

  I couldn’t help but nod. “They’re picking off the hunters who were with Rick Bowman the night he was killed.”

  Tom sucked in a breath. “You know something. Tell me.”

  As I hesitated to reply, the bell rang.

  “I gotta go,” I said. “Thank you for the photo.” I rushed down the hall toward the front doors of school. I didn’t care if I missed my last class. I was ahead in AP English and Alicia would get me the homework. I skidded to a halt at the front door, though.

  Ms. Wilson was apparently skipping her last-period class, too.

  I saw her outside, talking to someone in a white van idling near the entrance. I paused, ducking behind one of the portico’s columns to watch. Ms. Wilson leaned into the van’s passenger window, doing more than chatting. It was more like smooching some dude with a beard.

  That’s when I noticed the logo on the side of the vehicle. Swirly black and green letters proclaimed Spirit Sleuths. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.

  Ms. Wilson was making out with a TV ghost hunter.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The cinnamon goodness of snickerdoodles hit me as I slipped into the coffee shop a few minutes later. As the door chimed, Maggie emerged from the back—a couple strands of her curly hair escaped from the low bun at the back of her neck. She blinked at me and then at her watch. “You’re early.”

  “Yeah, I skipped sixth period.”

  “That’s not like you.” Maggie moved behind the espresso machine and started packing a couple of shots.

  “Did Ms. Wilson return those historical records she borrowed? Was she acting weird or anything when you saw her?”

  “She did, and she’s already weird, if you haven’t noticed. Sorry, that’s not very positive of me.” Maggie flashed me a guilty smile. “I get a strange vibe from her.”

  “Yeah, me too.” I set my stuff on the couch near the window while Maggie moved on to steaming the milk. A minute later, she brought over two big ceramic mugs.

  I accepted the mug from her and sipped at my hot mocha. “Was she alone when she dropped the stuff off?”

  “You’re full of questions, aren’t you?” Maggie blew on her cup of tea. “She didn’t need help. It was only a couple of boxes.”

  “Where are the boxes now?”

  “In the storeroom. I was too tired to load them into the Volvo last night.” Maggie let out a sigh. “This extra dough work for the pizza operation is killing my arms. I really am going to need to hire help. Maybe Fawn.” She hazarded a look at me. I hadn’t spoken to Dad yet, I realized.

  “The records are here?” I set down my cup and headed toward the back of the shop.

  “Hey!” Maggie followed me to the storeroom. “Okay, now you’re officially acting weird. You don’t care that I might hire Fawn?”

  I flicked on the light and took the lid off of one of the office boxes. If Ms. Wilson was dating a ghost hunter, then maybe stuff about Millicent really was all she’d been searching for.

  “What is it?” Maggie crouched beside me. “You think she was after something specific?”

  I rifled through the box, but it s
eemed mostly to be full of property records. I let out an exasperated breath. “Maybe she was looking for info about Millicent’s house,” I murmured.

  Maggie turned over an empty milk crate and sat down. “She told me she hadn’t even gone through the boxes yet. She was huffy when she dropped them off.”

  “I bet! She probably wanted them for back story on the haunting. She’s got a TV crew here now, from a paranormal investigation show,” I said, sitting back on my heels. “Spirit Sleuths. You ever hear of that stupid show? It’s mostly shot in the dark with infrared cameras?”

  “What?” Maggie’s forehead wrinkled. “Oh my goodness. She can’t do that! You think she’s going to convince them to highlight poor Millicent and her ravens?”

  “Or worse,” I said, gritting my teeth.

  I opened the second box, lifting out several bound journals, some ledgers, copies of the minutes from old town council meetings…and then I saw the corner of a notebook that looked familiar.

  “Finally, some good news,” I murmured, relief pumping through my veins.

  Mr. Gray was a smart old wolf, I had to give him that. He’d hidden the missing historical records in plain sight. He’d probably still had a friend at Town Hall—someone who’d given him access to the locked storage room. Maybe he’d sensed that Maggie would be sympathetic to our cause. She’d been the only one who’d shown interest in reviving the historical society. He’d have hoped that the records would end up in her hands. And buried beneath loads of old documents and photos, it would have taken hours of tedious searching to locate them amongst all the junk.

  “What did you find?” Maggie said as I pulled the notebook from the pile in the box.

  “Oh…something that Cooper told me about. It belonged to his father.”

  Maggie gave me a confused smile. “How’d that get into old record boxes?”

  “Long story.” I smiled back, hugging the binder to my chest. Knowing the notebook was safe and not in the hands of hunters gave me such a feeling of relief. I’d take it to my dad, have him keep it safe, or wait—would it be better to destroy it? Of course, there might be copies out there, too.

  And, despite what she’d told Maggie, what if Ms. Wilson had already flipped through this volume and read the entries listing the violent deaths by wolf attack and noted the family names? Would she try to expose us? A frisson of dread traveled down my spine.

  “Is there something you want to tell me?” Maggie asked, picking up on my mood change, probably noticing my fading smile. “Or is this going to be like the other night where you and your dad keep secrets. I’ll understand, whatever it is, I promise. Is it about the ghost?”

  “C’mon. You’re always thinking things are woo-woo,” I said, giving a little laugh. “We don’t know if Ms. Wilson’s so-called paranormal activity was even real.”

  “You’re the one who asked me to help you send the ghost to the light,” Maggie said, her voice soft. “You must’ve believed it.”

  “I did. I do. I want her to take her ravens away. They’re haunting me worse than any ghost.”

  “About the ravens and Millicent…” Maggie rested her elbows on her knees. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

  “I don’t know what you could say that would surprise me now,” I said, my voice softening. I braced myself for what she’d say next, about how maybe one of her relatives had been a hunter. That maybe she’d known more than she’d been letting on.

  “Well, I sort of knew my family tree, but working on the society really piqued my interest in genealogy. I did some tracing and it turns out Millicent was a distant cousin. Someone my grandmother never talked about. Millicent’s father was a Cardew, but her mother was a Green. Makes sense, right? I’m related to the Raven’s Maid of Pioneer Falls,” she said, her eyes gleaming. “Have you noticed how many ravens are always hanging around outside the coffee shop? And you know my interest in otherworldly stuff, I guess that’s obviously a tie-in, too.”

  My heart hammered. I guess I hadn’t thought much about Maggie’s fascination with new-age stuff like crystals and auras and all that, but maybe it did have its roots in her family history.

  “I should’ve told you before,” I said, leaning against the wall of the storeroom. “But I had a vision in the woods near the cemetery, where Millicent was killed. The ravens led me there. I thought maybe they were trying to get me to dig into her murder, to find out what had really happened to her and Charlie.”

  “You were going to solve a cold case that the police couldn’t solve?” Maggie said, not even blinking at the part where I told her I’d had a vision. It probably seemed natural to her.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been…solving other things.”

  “That’s it, then,” Maggie said, brightening as she pointed at me. “The ravens led you there. I only see the ravens near the shop when you’re here. You’re the next raven’s maid. I guess I should be envious the birds chose you, but I’m not. I get it now.”

  “Get what?”

  Maggie narrowed her eyes and smirked. “Deny it all you want, but there’s something supernatural going on. It’s not a séance you were trying to perform to lead Millicent to the light. You were trying to get instructions, to get her to pass the torch.”

  “Ugh, no. Stop!” I said, shaking my head. I couldn’t hear more of this weird line of thinking. “It’s not that. I promise you.”

  “Well, Charlie and Millicent were killed for a reason,” Maggie said. “I have a theory. Did you see that old picture Lindstrom took? Charlie Walsh’s mother was a Miller—the last of the line.”

  “You studied that picture?”

  Maggie nodded. “I found it intriguing…and it was labeled with names.” She smiled. “So I once heard a rumor that another man was in love with Millicent and killed both her and Charlie out of anger. He didn’t like them together. But what if it was because he was in that odd hunter society and she was a woo-woo bird lady?” she said, stretching as she got up from the crate.

  I stared at her, dumbfounded.

  “Yep, the weird hunter society was still going strong, nearly a hundred years later. Very secretive. Not out in the open anymore, but I did find mention of it in one of the boxes. And it wasn’t like some NRA group or anything. This group was obsessed with Bigfoot and other strange stuff.”

  “Maggie…”

  “What? Okay, I know what you’re thinking, that I shouldn’t make fun of woo-woo bird ladies since I’m a little woo-woo too,” she said.

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t thinking that. I’m just thinking about Charlie and Millicent. About Charlie being a hunter and Millicent being mixed up with supernatural stuff.”

  “See? The hunters tried to stamp them out,” Maggie said, connecting the dots.

  “Or the supernaturals did,” I muttered.

  “Supernaturals?” Maggie said with a giggle. “What, is this because I dressed as a vampire for Halloween?”

  “Sheesh, yeah,” I said, letting out a nervous laugh.

  “Okay, because this isn’t Forks. No one I know has sparkly skin,” Maggie replied. “We had glitter everywhere after the Halloween decorations, but that’s totally different…”

  I patted Maggie on the back. “You can relax. There are no vampires in Pioneer Falls, at least none that I know of.”

  “That’s a shame. It might help with tourism.” Maggie smirked and then stretched out her arms toward the top of the doorway, arching her back. “I guess it’s back to the doughy trenches for me,” she said. “You wanna clock in early?”

  I was still hugging the notebook to my chest. “I should return this notebook first.”

  “What’s in it?” Maggie said, holding out her hands.

  “It’s personal, about Cooper’s family.” I felt bad concocting another lie, but it was necessary. “Something Ivan had kept.”

  Maggie nodded at me and stretched again. “Hmm… Ivan was always so secretive. And all those wolf-dogs…” Her voice trailed off. I could almost s
ee the wheels of her mind turning and the cogs slowing as they clicked forward.

  “No,” I said. “Don’t go there.” I put my hands on Maggie’s shoulders, turned her and gave her a light push toward the kitchen.

  “And then there was all that resistance to the wolf ordinance,” she murmured.

  “Maggie, please stop. Nothing good can come of making up stories.” I drew in a breath, trying to summon my most nonchalant air.

  Maggie washed up at the sink, and I saw her pause, glance in the mirror and then turn her head toward me. Then shake her head again.

  “I’ll be back in a little bit,” I said, realizing now was a good time to make an exit. I grabbed my stuff from the couch and threw my coat back on. I wanted to get that notebook to a safe place. Quickly.

  ***

  I was about to pull out of the parking spot I’d left the truck in when a cop car sped by. I couldn’t tell if it was Dad or another officer, but the lights weren’t flashing. I let the truck idle a moment, wondering if I should text Dad to make sure he was actually at the station before I headed over.

  As I glanced behind me to back out, someone banged on my window. I jammed on the brakes and pulled back into the spot. Jonah stood there, making a roll-down-your-window hand gesture.

  I put the car in park, but I kept it running. I lowered the window part way, not enough to get a hand through. “What?”

  “You seen Nathaniel?”

  “Why would I have seen him?”

  “I know he talks to your sister,” Jonah said, his lips twisting into a bitter smile. “He was supposed to meet me over at the Laundromat after his prep at the kitchen this morning, but he never showed. And he’s not answering his phone.”

  “Why don’t you use your superior hunting skills to sniff him out,” I replied.

  “Your boyfriend, where’s he at?”

  “Jonah, why aren’t you on the run for the kill you made yesterday?” I said, shaking my head. “The police are investigating. It’s probably only a matter of time before they figure out it’s you.”