by Jason Starr
Teary-eyed, he texted:
Thank u
Then:
I miss u
He was hoping she’d respond with Miss u 2 but he knew this was beyond wishful thinking—it was hopeless thinking. After all, this was a woman who was so angry that she had hired a PI to follow him. A few years ago, when things were good, the idea of Alison hiring a PI would have been unimaginable. It hit Simon, really hit him, how far he had pushed her, and even if he found the remedy and it worked, he knew he had his work cut out for him if he was going to get her to ever trust him again.
Figuring that getting some rest would probably be a good idea after an extremely eventful day, he was pulling out the couch when he heard the elevator doors open and then smelled Charlie. He was surprised because Charlie had said he was working a twenty-four-hour shift.
A key turned in the lock, and then the front door opened and Charlie entered and said, “Good, you’re awake, we gotta get out of here.”
Charlie was usually relaxed, low-key. There was an urgency in his tone Simon hadn’t heard before.
“What’s going on?” Simon asked. “What’s wrong?”
“The boss said you know,” Charlie said.
Now Simon knew, but he was praying he was wrong. The poorly chewed steak was suddenly heavy in his gut.
“Know about what?” Simon said. “I don’t know anything.”
“Look, this isn’t my business, all right?” Charlie said. “The boss said he discussed it with you and you’d know what’s happening tonight. He just wants us both downstairs in five minutes.”
Simon hadn’t expected this at all. He thought he’d have time, at least a few days, to figure out what to do. But obviously Michael wasn’t planning to give him a chance to come up with a plan.
“Downstairs?” Simon said. “What do you mean, downstairs? In the lobby?”
“No, in front of the building. A car’s coming to pick us up.”
“Wait, we can’t go,” Simon said.
“What do you mean? We gotta go.” As Charlie glanced toward the kitchen, his nostrils flared. “Did you eat all the steak?”
“You know what he wants me to do, right?” Simon said. “I mean, he told you.”
“It’s okay, I got more in the back of the fridge.”
“Listen to me. I can’t do it, I can’t kill a cop. And if he does something, we’re all involved, including you.”
“Come on, we gotta get going,” Charlie said.
Simon moved closer to Charlie and said, “I get it. You have a bond with Michael, and you have a craving. I know, trust me, I have it too. But I still know it’s wrong and I want to stop myself; I don’t want to hurt anybody else. Don’t you want that too?”
Charlie held Simon’s gaze for a few seconds, then said, “Come on, the boss is waiting for us; we don’t wanna piss him off.”
Simon knew that trying to win Charlie over completely, at least while Michael was alive, was a waste of time. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t get some help from him.
“Okay, I’ll go with you, but can you at least tell me how you control yourself, how you don’t ‘wolf out’ at the wrong time?”
“You gotta learn that from Michael,” Charlie said.
Simon grabbed Charlie by the forearm and said, “Please. I know you’re a good guy, and you like me. Please, as my friend, tell me how to do it.”
Simon could see something in Charlie’s eyes; he wasn’t unreachable.
“I shouldn’t be saying this,” Charlie said, “but you have to love it.”
Releasing his grip, Simon asked, “Love what?”
“Who you are,” Charlie said. “At first me and Ramon, we were fighting it too, but when you love it, you control it.” Then, looking serious, he said, “Forget I told you that; let’s go.”
Charlie opened the front door and waited for Simon to grab his Armani sport jacket. Simon hesitated, then decided he had no choice but to go. If he didn’t go, Michael would just kill Detective Rodriguez on his own, but if Simon went, at least he had a chance to prevent it.
Outside the building, a black Lexus SUV was waiting, double-parked. What with the tinted windows and the glare of streetlights on the windows, Simon couldn’t see inside. He was able to make out the scent of a human; was it Eddie? Yeah, it was Eddie. There were no other scents coming from the car, but Simon sensed danger, a threat, and knew Michael was in there too.
Charlie opened the door, and sure enough Michael was sitting in one of the plush leather seats. He was in jeans, a perfectly fitting black shirt tucked in, with the top few buttons open, exposing his gray chest hair.
“Come join us,” he said.
With a certain feeling that this night wasn’t going to end happily, Simon got into the car.
Simon, Charlie, and Michael sat in the back, while Eddie drove. For a long time, maybe a half hour, nobody said a word. They were going north—FDR, then eventually across to the Saw Mill. Simon wanted to know where they were going, of course, but he didn’t see the point in asking about it.
As they left the city, Simon had to admit that despite his anxiety and fear, it was exhilarating to be out of the city, breathing in the fresher air that was seeping into the car, and to be surrounded by trees and actual woods. Like a kid passing an amusement park, he was dying to get out of the car and run around and be free.
But Simon’s anxiety kicked back in full force when Michael said, “You will kill the detective tonight.”
Simon glanced at Charlie, who had no reaction at all to this. Then Simon said to Michael, “Look, I still think this isn’t such a great idea. I mean, she’s a cop and I guess I don’t get why you want to get rid of her anyway. There doesn’t seem to be any formal investigation going on, and if she’s gone it’s not like the police suddenly stop investigating. It might give them more reason to investigate you and us if she’s killed working on a case.”
“We’ll be there soon,” Michael said.
“I feel like you’re not listening to me,” Simon said. “Why her? Because Ramon’s dating her? How about just telling Ramon to break up with her; doesn’t that sound a little less drastic? Or, wait, does this have to do with Diane? Did you actually kill her in Michigan? Is that what you’re afraid of?”
“I don’t have fear,” Michael said.
“Okay, whatever,” Simon said, “is that what you’re concerned about?”
“I didn’t kill Diane,” Michael said.
“I want to believe that,” Simon said, “but it seems like it has to be connected. Diane was worried that you’d be afraid she’d talk about the things she’d seen, so it makes sense that you’d want to keep her quiet about it.”
“Hey,” Charlie said, “he said he didn’t kill her.”
“Okay, then who did?” Simon asked.
“I did,” Eddie said.
Simon saw the driver’s dark, shadowed eyes in the rearview mirror.
Simon wasn’t expecting that, and it took him a few seconds to absorb the possible implications.
“You killed her?” Simon asked, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Yeah,” Eddie said, “drove to Michigan and waited for my shot at her. Waited for my shot at her, that’s funny, right?” Eddie laughed. “Ha, I crack myself up sometimes.”
Simon remembered the night he’d met Diane, when he’d tried to warn her about the pack and had encouraged her to run away to Michigan. She’d seemed like such a nice, pretty, innocent woman, and now she was dead, thanks to these psychopaths. And then, with a shudder, he thought, And how am I any better?
Getting hold of himself, Simon asked Eddie, “So are you a werewolf too?”
Eddie laughed again, more boisterously, as if Simon had just said the punch line of a hilarious joke. Charlie was laughing too, and—though Simon couldn’t tell for sure—it seemed like Michael was almost uncharacteristically smiling.
“Me a wolf,” Eddie said between guffaws. “Oh, man, that’s funny.” He howled a coup
le of times and laughed even harder.
Then, when Eddie’s laughter had tapered, Michael said, “Eddie is my employee. He’s a killer like me, but he prefers to kill with a gun.”
Simon looked toward the darkness outside, getting the strange feeling that he had just become a part of it.
“Die? How am I gonna die?”
Geri was waiting for Ramon to answer, but he was looking at the road, acting like he hadn’t heard her, but she knew he had.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here,” Geri said. “Maybe you think this is some kind of game or something. Going on a mystery ride, having some fun, and it probably would’ve been fun, but there’s an emergency now and you have to pull over.” The next exit was coming up, maybe one hundred yards away. She said, “This exit, right here, you gotta get out. Are you listening to me?” They were almost at the exit. “Okay, slow down, I said slow down!”
Ramon sped up, passing the exit.
“Jesús, ¿qué diablos es tu problema?” Geri said. “You think I’m playing? You see me laughing?”
But he was pretending not to hear her again.
Geri wasn’t sure what to do. She had to get back to the city to, hopefully, make a bust in the Washington Heights shootings, but how was she supposed to force Ramon to turn around? She had her gun in her holster, but what would she do, aim a gun at him while he was speeding down a highway? This was a guy she liked; she didn’t want to get so extreme. Besides, she didn’t take threatening people with guns lightly. Like she told rookie cops whenever she spoke at the academy, “When you point your gun at somebody, there’s a possibility it’s gonna go off, so don’t point your gun at somebody if you can’t live with the consequences.”
Her best bet was to keep trying to reason with him.
So she said, “Look, I’m working on a case, okay? Two people have been killed, two innocent people, and I think I know who’s responsible. But if I don’t get there now, somebody else could get killed. Every second counts, you understand what I’m saying?”
“You got a partner, right?” Ramon said. “Why don’t you call him? Tell him to go cover for you.”
She’d considered this. She didn’t mind handing it over to Shawn, but would Shawn follow it up? It was basically just a hunch, after all, and they weren’t even supposed to be working on this case. He could get suspended if Dan found out he was investigating on his own, and Geri couldn’t hand something to Shawn just to have it blow up in his face.
“That won’t work,” Geri said, “and I really don’t have time to explain any of this right now. I just have to get back to the city immediately.”
“I told you, I can’t let you do that,” Ramon said. “If you go back you’re gonna die, and I’m gonna have to live with that my whole life.”
“Why do you keep saying I’m gonna die?” Geri asked. “Are you just trying to scare me?”
“I wish I was, baby. I wish I was.”
Geri thought about going for her gun, then said, “This is the last time I’m asking you. How am I gonna die?”
“Right now, it’s better you don’t know, and just let me handle it, all right?” Ramon said. “I got a plan, okay? But meanwhile we gotta do what he told us to do.”
“He? Who’s he?”
Ramon was shaking his head as if he’d slipped up, said something he hadn’t intended to.
“Who?” Geri raised her voice.
“You don’t get it,” Ramon said. “You got to know what you’re dealing with. You gotta trust me. You gotta believe that you’re my soul mate and I’d never let anybody hurt you.”
Seeing a road sign illuminated by the headlights of the Camry, Geri said, “Look, there’s another exit coming up in half a mile. Just get off there. Stop somewhere and we can talk about this, okay?”
“We’re not stopping,” Ramon said.
Geri let out a frustrated breath, then said, “Who is he? Who’re you talking about?”
Ramon didn’t answer.
“Who?!” Geri shouted.
“Michael, all right?” Ramon pounded the dashboard with his fist. “See? Now you got me talkin’ about things I shouldn’t be talkin’ about.”
“Is it because of Diane Coles?” Geri asked. “Did he kill her?”
“No,” Ramon said.
“Or Olivia Becker,” Geri said. “Does he think I—”
“No—”
“Or the wolf murders in New Jersey?”
“No,” Ramon said. “See? That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Some murders? That’s nothin’ compared to what’s going on here.”
With her hand gripping the handle of her Glock, she asked, “What do you know about Michael that you haven’t told me yet?”
“You know nothing about Michael, I’m tellin’ you.”
“So tell me,” Geri said. “Tell me what I don’t know.”
“You know how you want my body, right?” Ramon said.
“What does that have to—”
“You know how you want me, right? You know how you can’t resist me? You know how you feel something with me you’ve never felt with any guy before?”
Despite how angry and frustrated she was, Geri couldn’t deny that all of this was true.
“Okay,” Geri said. “So?”
“So I’ve always been good with the ladies, but something happened to me, something Michael did to me, and it made me even better with women. I’m irresistible now.”
Thinking this was getting weirder and weirder, Geri said, “What does that have to do with—”
“You don’t get what I’m tryin’ to say,” Ramon said. “I was … I was changed by Michael.”
“Changed? Changed how?”
“You won’t believe it if I tell you.”
“And I still don’t get what this has to do with why Michael wants to kill me.”
“You’ll think it’s crazy,” Ramon said. “Only way anybody ever believes it is if they see it for themselves.”
“See what for themselves?”
“What we are,” Ramon said.
Geri saw that the next exit was coming up fast, too fast to make.
“What?” Geri said. “What are you?”
As they sped past the exit, Ramon shouted, “Werewolves, all right? We’re all goddamn werewolves!”
No one said another word until the SUV stopped on a country road about an hour and a half outside the city, somewhere in Dutchess County, near Pawling, New York, and Michael said, “Get out.”
Despite his fear, Simon was eager to get out of the SUV and breathe in the fresh country air. He stepped out onto the dirt road, then onto a grassy area, and looked up at the still mostly full moon and inhaled. Nothing could have prepared him for how invigorating his first breath of country air was, as if he were a newborn baby filling his lungs with air for the first time. He got a head rush that had to have been better than the feeling any drug could provide, and it was more addicting. He took more breaths, inhaling and exhaling as fast as he could; he couldn’t get enough of it.
“You will walk ahead,” Michael said.
Still affected by the wild rush to his brain, Simon said, “Walk where?”
“Into the woods,” Michael said.
There was a woodsy area up ahead, visible in the moonlight, but even if Simon hadn’t been able to see it, he would have known exactly where it was because coming from that direction, mingled with the cool, crisp air, were the dense aromas of evergreens and mulch.
So Simon headed toward the woods, wishing he were running, not walking. Following him were Michael and Charlie.
“Enjoy y’all selves,” Eddie called after them, but he remained near the car.
Simon entered the woods with Michael and Charlie trailing, the sounds of their shoes crunching twigs and leaves and their breathing the only noises. Again, Simon wished he could break free and run or, better yet, get naked and transform into a wolf. To run in the woods would feel like being an animal released from a zoo and set free in the wild. Th
ere was a whole new world to explore and, walking with Michael and Charlie, he couldn’t help feeling restrained, as if he were in shackles, a prisoner on his way to be executed.
When they finally reached a clearing, or at least an area that was mostly free of trees, Michael said, “Stop walking.”
Simon stopped and turned to face Michael and Charlie, who was lagging a few feet behind. There was plenty of moonlight in the clearing, and their faces almost seemed to be glowing. Simon suddenly had a much stronger feeling of potential menace than he’d had in the car.