“Why not just tell him the truth? Seems like a big chunk of town already knows.” As soon as she said it, she tried to imagine the sheriff’s reaction, or the mayor’s for that matter, to the notion that many of the women of a certain age running around Wolf’s Point turned into wolves from time to time. It was hard to say whether or not it would be better to be believed or disbelieved at that point.
“Well, on the offhand chance that he didn’t call your family to see if you could be committed, there’s the greater likelihood that he’d lock you up and throw away the key. Amazing how many people around here suddenly have drugs in their car or their garage when they’re starting to cause trouble.” Lizzie grimaced and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
Becca sat there looking at her with her mouth hanging open for what seemed like a solid minute. “You know this and you work for him?” She finally sputtered out.
“Someone’s got to keep an eye on the department and he wins elections. Besides, a lot of the time, he’s right about the troublemakers. Not as often as the wolves are, mind you, but often enough. Man’s just not the believing type when it comes to this sort of thing though. So that leaves you and me giving him something he can believe.”
“Boy Scout reunion gone wrong?”
“Now there’s a thought. Tricky to explain about the obvious gasoline burns in the woods though. However, he might go for a camping trip for potential meth heads looking to case out the area. He’s already got us checking for that. We could claim you saw some stuff just before something blew up,” Lizzie studied her speculatively. “Any chance he’d buy the notion that you have a thing for bad boys?”
Becca rolled her eyes as Erin appeared behind them, making them both jump. “Probably not. He’s likely to have met Ed at some point. Why not fall back on the old ‘kids in the woods fooling around until responsible adults stumble across them, accidents happen’ version of events?”
“Because we used that the last time these clowns came to town and it didn’t go over that well then.” Lizzie rolled her eyes. “They’re a little old for the kid defense anyway.”
Becca glanced past her at the rest of the room. Shelly was back in the center of the circle, now considerably emptier. Becca realized that people must have started leaving once they had their orders. Or requests, depending on how you wanted to look at it. In fact, it was down to just the Pack and a few others, including Pete and Lizzie. She wondered what their orders were going to look like.
No one had to spend much time wondering. “All right. Some of you know or at least suspect that there are ways to use the magic of the valley against intruders. And you’re right. But there are a couple of problems, the first one being that we’re not sure how to do it, seeing as we lost the archives when the Women’s Club burned down. I’ve been meeting with my mom and the other elders but no one remembers all of the rituals, just bits and pieces that worked at one time or another. The second problem is the price for calling on that magic. Legend says that every wolf who did it in the past didn’t live to see it work.”
A cascade of whispers and muttering filled the room. Erin murmured, “Great,” in a slightly sarcastic tone. Becca gave her a sidelong grimace and wondered what else had been in the “archives.” Lizzie raised an eyebrow as she glanced at both of them.
Shelly drew in a breath and scanned the room. Everyone fell silent again. “I know what it sounds like, but it’s an option we may need to explore. In the meantime, we need to step up our patrols. Today, we’ve seen that Sara and her followers are a clear danger to us no matter what form we’re in. We need to know where they are and what they’re doing at all times. And if there’s a way to split them up, maybe scare off a few at a time.”
“Guess I’m off house arrest,” Becca muttered to Erin, without thinking. Her voice was louder than she’d expected and she went beet-red and clapped a hand over her mouth a second later. It wasn’t soon enough to avoid Shelly’s cold stare though, and she hung her head as she looked down at the rug.
“Erin will be handing out the team assignments. We patrol in pairs and stay in radio contact as much as possible. It’s more reliable than cell coverage around here. See Adelía if you don’t have a radio already. She and I will patrol tonight until one am. Be careful, everyone.” She nodded and was immediately surrounded by women asking questions.
Erin pulled out a clipboard. “All right, I’ve got Gladys and Mei on for tomorrow morning. Then it’s Molly and Carly from afternoon until evening.” She looked around to make sure she was being heard and caught Becca’s inquiring stare. “Me and Becca tomorrow night from dark until one am.”
She kept calling out team names but by then, Becca was too flustered to hear her. Should they be out patrolling together? Wouldn’t that be too distracting? She fretted so much that she very nearly forgot that before she started turning into a wolf, she’d been going to bed at ten sharp. The wee hours of the morning were starting to look pretty normal now.
At any rate, before she could ask about it, Adelía came by and handed her a radio. A few minutes of instructions on how to use it followed and then she moved on to the next team. Lizzie tapped her shoulder, “I’ll come by the store tomorrow and we can talk then. I’m guessing the sheriff will want some names so you may want to pick a favorite Nester to rat out. See you then.”
Becca watched her walk away and thought about secrets and lies and how many more of them she was living with lately. It wasn’t as if she thought there was much point in telling the sheriff the truth, but that this didn’t seem like the life she saw herself leading when she grew up. She wasn’t sure what was anymore.
Erin poked her gently in the ribs. “You still with us? We need to get going. Pete and Shelly want to hit the hay for as long as they can.”
Becca got up obediently, noticing for the first time that her knees had stopped hurting when she got up after sitting for awhile. It seemed like the aches and pains she’d had for the last few years were dropping away, little by little. She looked down at her body and frowned. “So…did you stop hurting, in that, you know, creaky middle-aged sort of way once you started to change?”
“Just noticed that part, huh? Yep. It’s one of the best of the side effects, in my humble opinion.” Erin started moving toward the door. “Funny, I figured you were going to ask about what happens when we get too old to change any more. You do realize that we’re not immortal, right?”
“Ummm…” Come to think of it, why hadn’t she asked that question? Probably because they’d mentioned “elders.” Odd how no one ever defined who they were. Did you just wake up one day and discover that you were now an elder werewolf or what?
Becca rubbed her cheek and frowned back at Erin. Life was just one long series of questions these days. She wondered if there would have been so many if she’d stayed as she was. But then, middle-aged single divorcees who didn’t transform probably had a different set of questions of their own.
“So we have elders, as you’ve heard us mention,” Erin continued, just like she had asked the question out loud. “You probably noticed some of the women around the dining room table?” Becca nodded as if she actually had noticed and tried hard to remember. There had been a group of elderly women at the table, that much she was clear on.
Erin went on, “Those are some of them. When we get too old to change without side effects, the magic lets us go, more or less. I will say that they’re the healthiest, sharpest bunch of old ladies I’ve ever seen, even without changing. We’ll have to go by Circle House so I can introduce you to them.”
“Circle House?” They were outside now, and the wind was picking up. Becca thought she could smell something, just the tiniest whiff of a smell that wasn’t wolf or tree or regular nighttime at Shelly and Pete’s place. She turned her head first one way, then the other, sniffing.
“Circle House is just what we call it. It’s up at Shady Oaks, kind of a retirement community for the Pack within a retirement community for everyone else. We’ll definitely
stop by later on in the week. In the meantime—what’s up?” The last question was in a much lower tone of voice, one that it would have been hard for nonwolf-enhanced ears to pick up on.
“Not sure,” Becca answered in the same pitch. Now she was sending all her senses out into the darkness, listening for anything out of place while she peered into the shadows beneath the trees. All of the Pack and their visitors had cleared out by now so there was a good field of sight all around the house and the yard.
Not that it helped. The light scent on the wind vanished as soon as it had appeared. She couldn’t hear anything or see anything moving. Maybe being a wolf enhances my imagination too, lucky me, she thought. Even so, she found herself beginning a big circle that would take her around the house and yard.
Erin fell in next to her and didn’t ask any questions, which Becca was glad of. It made her feel like her judgment might be worth something. Even if the Pack beta couldn’t sense anything wrong, at least she was willing to trust Becca’s instincts.
They slipped quietly through the shadows, avoiding the dry leaves and small breakable sticks where they could. Still, they were so noisy to Becca’s wolf hearing that she held up her hand and stopped them both when they got to the trees that ringed the backyard. Her gut told her something still didn’t feel right, but the harder she listened and sniffed and looked, the more normal things seemed to be.
Finally she dropped her hand with an exasperated slap against her thigh. “I’m just being a nervous Nelly, I guess. There’s nothing here.”
Erin caught her arm, her expression turning serious in the moonlight. “Don’t ever question your instincts, Becca. If something felt wrong, it felt wrong. There could be lots of reasons for it, but your first thought was to check it out and that’s the way it should be. Okay?”
Becca could feel an odd tingle run through her arm into the rest of her body. For one mad, crazy moment, she thought about kissing Erin again. Then she shook herself and nodded instead. This wasn’t the time or the place. Instead, she followed Erin back to the car in silence and they drove back to town. Erin dropped her off and pulled into her own driveway.
Becca watched her go inside before she let herself into her dark little house. Maybe it was time to get a dog or a cat for company. If Shelly could manage to have pets without eating them, so could she. But then, she might not be living here that much longer, at least if Ed had his way, and it would be harder to get an apartment if she had a pet. Or so she’d heard.
Her spirits felt incredibly heavy, nearly unbearably so and she was too agitated to go to sleep. She made herself a cup of decaf tea and wondered what to do next, finally settling on sitting in front of the TV. She channel-surfed until she settled on watching late night comics. The sense of unease finally ebbed as she got sleepier. Eventually, she fell asleep on the couch, dropping into a dreamless sleep until morning.
Chapter 20
~
Dawn woke her early enough that she made it to the store and got everything ready before the time that Pete usually showed up. It felt like an apology for her screw-up earlier in the week, or at least that’s what she intended it to be. She was just turning the sign to “Open” when Molly ran up and hammered on the glass of the still-locked door. Her face was as pale as Becca had ever seen it and her eyes made her look like a horse about to bolt.
Becca yanked the door open and pulled her inside. “What is it?”
“It’s Shelly. She’s gone. She went out to check on the horses last night after we left and Pete fell asleep before she came back in. When he woke up, she wasn’t there. He took the dogs and went looking for her but he couldn’t find her.” Molly stopped to gasp for air.
The Nesters. It had to be them. Becca’s thoughts turned to the worst possibilities. Had they killed Shelly? She wanted to throw up just thinking about it. “Was there anything to tell what happened?” She imagined blood, bits of fabric, a trail of breadcrumb clues like on a TV show. Anything.
Molly grimaced and nodded. “There was blood, hers and someone else’s. But no body so we think they’ve kidnapped her, whoever they are. There hasn’t been a note or anything yet. Lizzie’s got the whole department down there checking things out. I heard about it at the post office and I was going to call here, but I thought you should hear it directly from one of us.”
“When are we meeting?” Becca’s thoughts were whirling. It wasn’t close enough to the full moon for Shelly to start to change, not unless that was something that came with a lot more control. So their alpha was still human for the time being, which could be good or bad depending on what the Nesters intended to do with her.
“Erin’s taking over until we get Shelly back. There’s a meeting tonight at her house, right after dark. Just the Pack this time. Erin and I, well, we’re wondering if maybe someone said something that tipped the Nesters off, maybe by accident.” Molly looked kind of green around the gills.
“One of the allies, you mean?” That was an unpleasant thought. It had been kind of wonderful for a few moments last night, knowing who to trust in town. But then she couldn’t imagine any of the wolves doing something like that, not even the ones she didn’t know that well. Then she remembered that Oya had been a wolf once and she started to reconsider.
If any of the wolves were thinking about what a cure might mean for them… The thought popped out of the back of her brain, making her heart race. She nearly screamed, “No!” out loud before she got herself under control.
But no, that couldn’t be it. The other wolves were strong, she was the only one who had doubts. Even she hadn’t told Oya that they were meeting last night or anything else the Nesters could use against them. Something else occurred to her. “Maybe they already knew. Oya probably already knew where Shelly lived after all. They’re…they were family.”
Molly shrugged. “It’s possible, but Erin wants to eliminate all the possibilities. Pete said that she’d never been to the house.”
Becca nodded slowly. It made sense, but then Erin had talked about seeing lights in the mirror last night too. Why assume that someone said the wrong thing when the Nesters might have just been following them? Then a thought struck her: if they could follow Erin and her to kidnap Shelly at home, she was a sitting duck if they came here while she was working at the store alone.
Molly interrupted the tumult in her head with a small cough. “Got any water?”
Becca nodded and sent her back to the office fridge while she watched the street outside. Paranoia aside, there wasn’t much to see except Hal Kramer walking his dog down the street. A couple of cars pulled into the parking lot next door but she couldn’t see who was getting out of them, at least not from here.
She was being ridiculous. There was no point to kidnapping her too. Who’d notice?
Kidnapping, then curing Shelly, on the other hand, might just break the Pack.
She drew in a long shuddering breath and shook her head a little. Enough of this. If Shelly was in trouble and Pete might not make it in today, she had a business to help run. It was the least she could do for them.
Molly came out of the back room drying her hands on a towel. “Pete said Kira would come down this afternoon to try and help out. He’s working with the police today, but wasn’t sure how long that would take.” She took a closer look at Becca. “I know this is horrible, but we’ll get her back. And we’ll make them pay.” The wolf looked out of her eyes as she spoke, glowing bright and fierce and terrifying.
For a change, it didn’t make Becca flinch away. Instead, she nodded, her fears ebbing for the moment as a trickle of the wolf’s strength came back to her. “Thank you for coming to tell me. I’ll see you tonight.”
Molly left and the first customer of the day came in. Becca managed to get through the morning in a blur of suspicion, anxiety and paint chips. Anyone who came through the door could be a Nester. She reminded herself that she’d only ever seen a couple of them, never all of them at once. Rationally, she knew that they weren’t likel
y to come into the store but it felt like they might be capable of anything now.
As promised, Kira showed up in the afternoon and worked the register while Becca helped customers around the store. The kid had big dark circles under her red eyes and clearly hadn’t slept, but she took after her mom: no incorrect change and no public breakdowns. Becca only just managed not to pat her shoulder in sympathy; something told her that might be the last straw.
Finally when it was just the two of them cleaning up, Pete came in. Both of them dashed up to him. “Any word?” Becca demanded.
“Mom?” was what rolled out of Kira’s mouth. Then she burst into tears. Pete reached out and held her tight in a big hug. For a moment, Becca wished he could do the same for her, but that would be just plain inappropriate. But nice, she thought wistfully.
She made herself sound more adult than her thoughts. “Have the police found anything yet?”
Pete’s voice was low, barely above a whisper, like he thought someone else might hear him. “The Nesters have cleared out of their campsite. Henderson couldn’t find much there. Nothing to say that they did it except who else would do something like this?” His face was even more drawn than his daughter’s, and that was what made Becca remember her better self.
“Look, I’ll manage things up here. You and Kira go into the back and take a few minutes. There’s coffee and water back there and I picked up some of the those granola nut things that you like.” She took a deep breath and stopped herself short of making a shooing gesture.
Pete nodded and took Kira, still weeping, into the back. The door swung open as they disappeared and Becca turned, startled. Something in her expected Oya or maybe Scott. To her overwhelming relief, it was Erin.
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