Long Shadows: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 2

by Cecilia Dominic

  “Thanks for trusting me, and you’re not doing that alone.”

  The sharpness in his tone surprised me. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning to, but please don’t tell me I need your permission to leave the house.”

  He took a deep breath. “You don’t need my permission, but I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me when you leave and where you’re going. Someone tried to kill you, remember? And don’t forget something tried to get at you last night.”

  “I’ll concede something seems to be after me, but apparently I can change if my life is in danger.”

  “If you’re conscious enough,” he pointed out.

  “Oh, right.” I sighed and wished… What did I wish? That if I were going to have a protector, he would be more than a bodyguard, more than a friend. I want him to be a lover.

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  “Ha! No such luck, buddy. Not without some effort on your part.”

  He shook his head. “Now I know what it’s like to be the woman in the relationship.”

  His comment was a dart to my heart—what relationship?—but I kept my face calm and gave him the patented slow, seductive Lonna Marconi smile. He swallowed and looked at his coffee. With the smile on my face, I went upstairs and got dressed. Time for some further cave exploration, hopefully mild this time.

  When I got to the bottom of the metal stairs in the cave, my hand only found empty air beneath them. I swallowed the scream of frustration.

  “It’s not here!” I called up to Max, who watched me from the work room. I swung my flashlight in an arc and found something in the dirt that made my blood freeze: wolf tracks.

  “What do you see? Do you want me to come down?”

  “No, stay up there.” We had marked the tiles with dry erase marker so we could easily remove the marks, but he stood by in case it closed so he could open the door again.

  I followed the tracks to the crack where I’d been yesterday, and not interested in encountering the murderous ghost again, I stopped and backtracked.

  I climbed back to the house and flopped on the couch, frustrated and discouraged. “Someone stole it.”

  “Any idea who?” Max sat beside me and massaged my neck with one strong hand. It was an effort of will not to just relax into his touch.

  “There were wolf tracks. Damn, I should have put it back in its original hiding place.”

  “If it was a werewolf, they would have tracked your smell to where it was and might have gotten it, anyway.” He frowned. “I wonder if that’s who was outside last night. I doubt it was your aunt or her fylgia. They are long gone.”

  I bit my lip. “Whoever it was, it’s gone now, and I don’t have my wolf senses to track them.” I hit the cushion with my fist. “Dammit, I hate it when my mysteries stall.”

  “Right, you’re a private investigator too.”

  “Sometimes. Like I said, curiosity and survival.”

  “So follow another lead?”

  I sat straight up. “Of course! The scrapbooks at the Forest Preservation Organization thingy.” I couldn’t remember exactly what it was called, but just before that weird couple tried to kill me, the woman—Claire?—had mentioned there were pictures of my aunt and a young Italian man in the books in the mid-eighties.

  “Doctor Fortuna,” I said, “would you like to join me for lunch in town?”

  “Why, Miss Marconi, I would be delighted. Do you think I’m appropriately dressed?” He gestured to his khaki pants and blue long-sleeved shirt made from some material that was so soft it made me want to run my hands all up under it and…

  “Ahem, yes, I believe you are. I think I’ll change, though. Wearing dusty jeans and T-shirt might tip off someone that I’ve been in the cave and discovered their theft.”

  “You look cute in cave wear.”

  I decided to ponder that comment later and went upstairs to change.

  “Are you feeling okay?” Max asked me once we got to town and strolled along Main Street, which circled the old town hall, now the visitors’ center, as a roundabout in the middle. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic because the out-of-county cars had some difficulty managing the “yield before entering” principle, and the late-winter day was punctuated by occasional beeps and screeching brakes. As we approached, we walked on the sidewalk with eyes out for sudden swerves. A chill breeze stirred my skirt.

  “I’m fine,” I said and took my eyes off the road for a second to give him a quizzical look. “Why do you ask? Thanks to your expert care, I was over my attempted poisoning yesterday.”

  He squeezed my hand. “Your home has been violated, at least underneath. I should have put wards down there too.”

  “It doesn’t really feel like my home, and I’m more pissed off than anything. How dare they? That was my family stuff, my chance to figure out what was going on and if my mother knew anything about it. From the family photos, the secret seems to have been out to a certain degree.”

  He nodded. “And your mother didn’t leave any diaries or anything behind?”

  “No, or if she did, Aunt Alicia had them. I think they would be in that box.”

  We reached the visitors’ center, where a nice older lady gave us some brochures on the area and directed us to the Forest Preservation Board offices. The front door was unlocked and led us into a small foyer where a brochure stand held about fifty different pamphlets on why logging was bad and why people should get involved in stopping it. An inner door opened into an office, where a young man who looked like a teenager sat behind a cluttered desk and ate his bag lunch while leafing through a comic book.

  “I swear, these interns get younger and younger,” I muttered to Max, who hid a laugh behind a cough.

  “Can I help you?” The young man looked up, and I was startled by the greenness of his eyes, which were the shade of summer leaves.

  “Ah, yes, we’re here to look at the scrapbooks,” I said. “My aunt Alicia Gannadisi was one of your members, and she’s recently passed away.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” the young man said, but he didn’t move. “Why do you want to see the scrapbooks? We don’t allow people to take pictures out for memorial services or anything like that, and we don’t let people photograph the books themselves. Some of them are kind of falling apart, so you have to have a pressing reason to look at them.”

  He turned his attention back to his peanut butter and jelly and his comic book.

  No one dismisses Lonna Marconi.

  I put my hands on my hips and gave him my best “Don’t You Dare Mess with the Social Worker” glare. “I understand the rules, but don’t you think wanting to see what my aunt’s life was like and how she spent her time is a pressing reason? I need something to say at the memorial service.”

  The stupid kid didn’t look up. “When is it?” he asked.

  “I haven’t set the date yet. I’m still waiting to hear from the funeral home.”

  He shrugged with one shoulder. “Come back when you have a date.”

  I clenched my fists, but Max rubbed my lower back in a mesmerizing circle, and I calmed down. “Do you have a supervisor?” I asked.

  “At lunch.” He waved his hand. “She’ll be back in an hour.”

  “Then so will we,” Max said. The kid looked up, startled, like he hadn’t really seen either of us.

  Once we got outside, I said, “I see why the loggers are winning. That’s no way to treat people who come to visit your nonprofit. Everyone is a potential volunteer.”

  “Give me just a moment.” Max went back inside, and I reached into my purse to pull out my phone. It wasn’t in there. I knew I’d had it when we got out of the car, so I wondered if I’d gotten so upset I’d put it down in the FPB offices and left it accidentally. I entered the antechamber to the offices and heard Max in heated discussion with the intern.

  “Do you know who I am?” Max’s tone was more authoritative than I’d ever heard him, and I raised my eyebrows.

  “Yes, Doctor Fortu
na, I recognized you when you came in.”

  “Then why didn’t you accede to the lady’s request? I had no objections.”

  “This is an open investigation, so no one aside from the Command and its representatives are allowed to look in them. I was surprised you brought one of those creatures in here with you.”

  “That is not a creature. That is Lonna Marconi, a grieving social worker who is under my protection. Where are the scrapbooks?”

  “They’re in the conference room.”

  “Why is the Command interested in them?”

  “They’re looking into how the Benandanti have infiltrated into the human world.”

  I caught my breath at hearing the name of my tormentors and listened for them but heard nothing.

  “Whatever your orders are,” Max told the kid, “I’m overriding them. Letting her see them is part of the investigation. She could lead us to more valuable information.”

  “Suit yourself. Oh, and she left her phone.”

  I dashed out the front door as quietly as I could and was waiting on the sidewalk when Max came back out.

  “Find what you needed?” I asked in an innocent tone, although I burned with curiosity. I reminded myself I was just an assignment to him, as much as I wanted to be more.

  “Yes, and you left your phone.” He handed it to me.

  “Thanks, I was wondering.” I forced a smile, and my stomach growled, saving me from having to come up with a way to not steer the conversation where my brain wanted it to go and tip him off that I’d been eavesdropping. “So where shall we have lunch?”

  We found a cute little cafe with a good heater. After we ate chicken salad on croissants with cups of tomato basil bisque, we headed back.

  “I forgot how good and how decadent sweet tea is,” I told him in an effort to keep our light lunchtime conversation going so I wouldn’t blurt out the questions that marched through my mind. The first, of course, was what exactly the kid in the FPB office was and how he knew Max and what was the Command? Okay, that was three questions, but my eavesdropping had given me more information than Max was willing to let on, so of course I couldn’t ask him, or he’d be overly cautious around me.

  Two can play the information game.

  The kid wasn’t at his desk when we returned, so I couldn’t get a closer look at him. In his place sat a petite blonde woman whom I couldn’t help but bare my teeth at before I got myself under control. It was Claire Robinson, the woman who had tried to kill me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I clutched at Max’s hand, and he gave me a quizzical look.

  When Claire looked up, the color drained from her face. “Lonna,” she said. “What a surprise.”

  “Well, you’re the one who told me about the scrapbooks.” I considered confronting her, but I decided I’d wait. Let her think I was some sort of superhuman who could just shake off the effects of her and her husband trying to poison me. Plus, I didn’t want Max jumping into hyper-protective mode and forgetting our reason for being here.

  Max frowned, and I remembered I’d told him about the conversation and who I had it with. He tensed, but it was subtle, so I doubted she noticed.

  “Are you feeling better?” Claire asked, which annoyed me more.

  “Much. I’m so sorry I had to bail on dinner before dessert. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Ray and I were worried.”

  I bet you were. “Well, if you don’t mind, we’ll look at the scrapbooks you mentioned. Are they easy to find?”

  “I’ll show you where they are.” She stood and seemed to have some trouble staying steady on her feet, especially when she had to pass by us to lead us into a back room. I couldn’t help but grin—she looked terrified. Max squeezed my hand, the corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile, and I suspected he was thinking the same.

  She led us into a conference room with a large table. “We can’t let you take the books, of course, but there’s plenty of room to spread out and look at them. They’re organized in file boxes, one per five years, in this closet.” She gestured to a set of double doors at the other side of the room. “You’re probably looking for the mid-eighties.”

  “Thanks. I didn’t know you worked here.”

  “I don’t, I’m just filling in for a friend who’s not feeling well.”

  I caught myself before I asked if she’d poisoned her friend.

  She glanced toward the outer office. “Our current intern isn’t that great. Someone needs to watch him or he’ll just sit and read comic books all day.”

  “Yeah, we met him earlier. Where is he?”

  “Supposedly delivering yard signs. We’ll see.” She looked at me, and the wary expression returned to her face. Rather than walk by us in close quarters, she went all the way around the conference table and back out.

  “Was that…?” Max asked.

  “My hostess from the dinner party where I got sick? Yes.” I decided to keep my comments neutral in case she could overhear us.

  “Ah,” he said. “I’ll make a note to have someone follow up with her.”

  We located the 1980-1984 and 1985-1989 boxes and laid out the scrapbooks on the table.

  “She said mid-eighties. I’m going to look through all of these in case there are other pictures of my aunt.”

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Max. He stood just inside the door like he was guarding me.

  “Look through them as well and tell me if you come across anything interesting.” I didn’t want to come out and say I wanted him to look for traces of magical interference, but he seemed to get the hint.

  “I’ll start on this end.”

  We lapsed into a companionable silence, and I went through the first few scrapbooks fairly quickly. I had to remind myself not to get distracted by the fashions and hairstyles of the 1980s, wild as they were. Some of the photos were in rough shape, more yellow than colored, and I noticed the scrapbooks themselves were newer.

  “It looks like someone went through and redid these in books with acid-free paper,” I said. “I hope the photos we need aren’t ruined.”

  “Either that or the scrapbooks were done recently in an effort to preserve the history,” Max said. “So much of our past is stuffed in boxes in random attics and basements.”

  I looked up and wondered if he was referring to my missing box from Aunt Alicia’s house, but he had a faraway look on his face. It reminded me I knew nothing about him or his past, only that he supposedly came from the Caribbean. And that he looks sexy in a leather jacket, like a bomber pilot.

  I shook my head and turned my attention back to 1983. Like the other years, it started with the New Year’s, New Trees gala. Women with feathered hair looked back at me from the pages, including Aunt Alicia, who of course looked younger, and whose hair was more conservatively cut than the rest of them. Then came the Spring Planting Drive and Protest, where the volunteers went into just-cleared areas and planted trees one day, and on the next protested at sites marked for the destruction of the trees. Vintage pamphlets that explained the events didn’t really give any of the details I wanted like who was in charge of them. Finally, I turned the page, and something else very strange struck me.

  Looking back at me from underneath a canopy of sun-dappled trees stood Aunt Alicia and an all-too-familiar young man.

  “Giancarlo?” I whispered. He stood with his arm around my aunt, and it was one of the few pictures where she had an unguarded grin on her face. The caption read, “Alicia G. and her friend showing each other the ‘ropes.’” He looked at her with an expression I’d seen a hundred times, and the chicken salad danced in my stomach. He’s giving her his post-sex look. Oh, dear lord, don’t tell me my Aunt Alicia and I shared a lover! What had Gladis Ann’s note said? Say hello and goodbye to Giancarlo for us.

  “What is it?” asked Max.

  “I think I know this guy.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “But why does he look exactly the same?”

/>   “Another thing you should know already,” he told me. “I don’t want to discuss it here. Let me look through the books you’ve already seen.”

  “Okay.” I raised an eyebrow and sighed at yet another evasion, but I did as he said. I continued looking and found more pictures of Giancarlo and my aunt, only during the summers and all of them looking like they were lovers until 1986, when they stood farther apart and no longer had the same lovestruck expressions. I wondered what happened. Did she finally get over his lack of prowess in the sack? I shook my head. That’s totally not where I wanted that thought to go.

  I looked at Max and listened for signs of someone approaching the office. He was engrossed in the album he looked through, and I didn’t hear anyone else, so I grabbed the last picture of them, an old Polaroid, out of the album and put it in my purse.

  Claire appeared at the door. “We’re about to close,” she said.

  I glanced at my watch. It was only four-thirty, and the sign on the door said they would be open until six, but I didn’t argue. Max and I cleaned up the scrapbooks we had taken out and replaced everything as we’d left it, except the picture. I decided to bring it with me for when I confronted him with the questions I now had.

  Although I seem like a rule breaker to some, I’m really not, and by the time we stepped into the chilly evening, I felt guilty. Aunt Alicia wouldn’t have approved of me taking that picture. Maybe I should give it back to Claire.

  Max snaked his hand around my waist and pulled me close, and I looked up at him, startled. Instead of a tender look on his face, his eyebrows were raised in warning, and he inclined his head toward the other end of the street. About twenty feet away, Ray Robinson, Claire’s husband, leaned against a lamppost and watched us. Anger twisted his face.

  “What?” I asked Max. “I see him, but what are you doing?”

  He leaned closer to me. “Showing him you’re under my protection so he can report that to his superiors.”

  Of course! Claire must have called him. That—

  Max’s lips found mine, hesitant at first, but as I opened my mouth to his, he pulled me closer, the hand on my lower back not giving me an option to back away. Not that I wanted to. His foot massage had been sensual, but it was nothing compared to his kiss. Again, we seemed to heat up the air between and around us, and I tingled in a very naughty way where we touched. I clutched his shoulders so I could press myself to his entire body, and the leather jacket I’d found so sexy earlier now seemed an impediment. When he pulled away, I bit my lip so I wouldn’t protest.