by Mac Flynn
Miranda's angry eyes fell on me as I climbed to my feet. I looked down at the silver heirloom spoon in my hand. "You think I'll be as smart as my mom some day?" I mused to Adam.
Adam followed my gaze and a smile slid onto his lips. "Perhaps," he teased.
Miranda thrashed in their grasp, but couldn't free herself. "Let me go! Release me, you-" Cain knocked her upside the head and she went limp in their arms.
"This one appears to be more trouble than she's worth," he mused.
"She is quite difficult," Adam agreed. He turned his attention me and walked over to grasp my shoulders in his hands. "Are you all right? She didn't scratch you?"
"Not a mark," I replied.
He relaxed and smiled. "Good."
"What would be better if we were to leave this troublesome behind," Cain spoke up. He lifted the chain and Miranda's limp body raised with it. "She will cause us more trouble if we take her with us."
Adam looked around and his gaze stopped on an old, leaning shed in the trees. "She will be safe there for the time being."
"But what if she can't get out of the chains and we don't get back?" I pointed out.
"If she is who Cain says she is-"
"-and she is," Cain spoke up.
"Then the judge and deputies will search for her. They will find her scent and it will lead them to her," he assured me.
Cain lifted Miranda off the ground and slung her over his shoulder. "Then we had better get this done and get on our way before we are found with her."
Chapter 7
Adam led the way to the outbuilding and Cain followed with his load. I watched from the road as the pair with our prisoner pried open the door to the tilted shed and deposited Miranda onto the dry, dusty floor of the protected interior. They tightly shut the door and trudged their way back to the car.
I nodded at their path that led to the outbuilding. "Should we be worried about that?"
"We have no way to repair the damage, nor the time," Adam pointed out.
We piled into the car and drove away, but I couldn't help but be uneasy about abandoning Miranda. I leaned forward between the front seats. "Think she'll get out of the chains herself?" I mused.
"It's possible. She was resourceful enough to do it once," Adam replied.
"You should show less concern for her and more concern for us," Cain scolded me. "The other deputies may not show as much hesitation as she. We were fortunate you distracted her long enough to pull your spoon from your bag."
"What else did your mother pack you?" Adam asked me.
"Good question," I agreed. I slid back and opened the bag. "Looks like some garlic and a silver fork," I told them. I pulled out the garlic and the men winced. "What? You two not a fan of Italian food?"
"The odor is a little too strong for our senses," Adam explained.
"Oh, right. Sorry." I stuffed the garlic back in the bag and tightly shut the mouth. "So you think the other deputy werewolves are going to be more or less fanatic than she was about your guilt?" I wondered of Cain.
He shook his head. "I can't say. I'm not familiar with any of them. All I know is what I've heard."
"And what have you heard?" I persisted.
"To expect no mercy."
"Oh. Well, I suppose I can try to convince them to believe us and you guys can jump them while they call me a liar and an idiot," I suggested.
Adam smiled and looked in the rear view mirror. "You have a way with words," he teased.
I grinned and shrugged. "Maybe I can make them mad enough they'll forget about capturing Cain and want to kill me."
My joke fell flat as Adam's smile slipped from his lips. "I would rather that not be an option or a possibility."
Cain snorted and turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "I would prefer the latter half of her statement."
Adam frowned. "I would rather have none of the statement if it means Chris is in danger."
I leaned forward between the seats and glanced between them. "Boys, if you're done arguing over the safety of little old me who saved all our skins back there then we might get back to the problem at hand. Namely, getting into the manor without me having to use up all my family silverware."
Cain leaned back in his seat and shrugged. "That is easy enough. The difficult part will be searching the rooms without being discovered."
"You know of a way inside without being detected?" Adam asked him.
Cain nodded. "It's the same I used to escape. Abel showed me it once when he enlisted my help in a prank. He was always fond of dragging his friends into his schemes." Cain sighed and looked out his door window. "I can't fathom why anyone would kill him."
"Who was present in the manor besides Lilith, Abel and yourself?" Adam wondered.
"The servants, an old maid and a butler. They are-or were- very loyal to Abel, and both are very incapable of harming anyone. They are humans, and of great age," Cain told him.
"What of Lilith?" Adam persisted.
Cain whipped his head to Adam and frowned. "What of her?"
"If you proclaim your innocence then does that not mean she is the one most likely to have performed the deed?" Adam pointed out.
Cain's face reddened and his eyebrows crashed down. "If you infer that Lilith murdered Abel then I challenge you to procure a motive."
"You said they didn't like each other. Maybe Abel did one prank too many," I reminded him.
"She is my mate, and yet here you are suggesting she murdered my oldest friend and framed me for the deed?" Cain growled.
"If not her, then who do you believe murdered Abel?" Adam countered.
"Adam, you have known Lilith almost as long as I. Do you believe her capable of murder?" Cain questioned him.
Adam pursed his lips and shook his head. "I can't say."
Cain frowned and grabbed the handle of his door. "Then there is nothing more to say. If you suspect my mate of such a heinous crime then I will travel alone to prove both our innocence."
I grabbed his shoulder with my hand. "Oh no you don't. We haven't gone this far and gotten into this much trouble just to see you walk out on us. We're in this now together, or we're all going to be strung up together."
Adam sighed. "Chris is correct. The confrontation with Miranda has ensured we must solve this mystery. We will continue on with you whether you wish for our company or not."
Cain turned his face away and folded his arms across his chest. "Very well, but say nothing more of your groundless suspicions against my mate."
"I swear it," Adam promised.
We drove onward for a quiet two hours. The scenery outside the windows grew more rugged and the road more rough. The houses became fewer until they stretched apart by miles and finally stopped being seen. There weren't even driveways to reflect small pockets of isolated civilization. Potholes and ice patches became common occurrences, and the woods now hugged the road. Their limbs stretched out and left shadows across the roadway, and the gray skies added to the dark gloom of the day. Snow was coming, I could tell by the chill in my clothes.
"Are we there yet?" I quipped from the back seat.
"We have another two hours," Adam replied.
"Not quite that much," Cain spoke up. He pointed at a side road. The trees covered the path, and that meant there was less snow then there could have been. "Park there and we will walk the remaining ten miles through the woods to the start of the secret entrance."
I cringed. "Ten miles through snow?"
"It can't be helped. The safest route is the hardest," Cain told me.
Adam parked at the mouth of the road and we piled out with our bags slung over our shoulders and bags. I clutched my mom's drawstring bag in one hand and looked gloomily at the snow-filled road ahead of us. The snow was a foot deep on the road. The only signs of life were wildlife with their little rabbit and deer tracks.
"I will go first so we won't get lost," Cain volunteered.
Adam bowed his head. "As you wish."
Cain strode forward an
d cleared a path for us to follow. Adam went ahead of me, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards me. Cain noticed our stop and paused fifteen yards from where we stood. I lowered my voice so we wouldn't be overheard too easily. "Who do you think did it?" I asked him.
Adam shook his head and replied in a like quiet voice. "I can't say."
I snorted. "You always have a theory, Adam, so 'fess up. Who is it?" Adam didn't move his head, but his eyes flickered over his shoulder. The color drained from my face. "Seriously? You think we're traveling with a murderer?"
He pursed his lips together. "I can't be sure, but mind both friend and foe," he advised as he turned back to Cain.
"Wonderful. Just wonderful. . ." I muttered as I followed Adam over to our companion.
Cain raised an eyebrow as he looked at us. "Problems?"
"We will have many more if we are caught here. How difficult a trek will this be?" Adam asked him.
Cain rubbed his chin in his palm. "Hard to say. We have an extra passenger the like of which I didn't have before." His eyes fell on me and I scowled back at him.
"What? Can't a girl come with you?" I shot back.
Adam smiled. "He's referring to your being a human."
I folded my arms across my chest and shrugged. "I can manage."
"We will manage," Adam corrected me. He swooped down and swept me into his arms.
I glared at him. "You know I don't like this," I reminded him.
"And you are aware we are in a hurry, and I am preventing your getting soaked in the snow," he returned.
"Oh. Right. Good point. Carry on!"
Chapter 8
The world traveled by quickly as my Werewolf Express took me through woods, and over hill and dale. The road wound its way through the thick bunches of old trees and brush onward to the unknown. What I did know, though, was that though the werewolves were fast, the waning day was faster. It was approaching dark when Cain slowed his sprinting pace to a stop.
He held up one hand and hunkered low to the ground. "We are a half mile from the house," he whispered to us.
I looked around us. There was still just the trees and snow-covered bushes. "I don't see hmphhm." My last word was stifled when Adam clamped a hand over my mouth.
"Patrols have been through here," he told me.
I looked at the unscathed snowy ground, other than our tracks, and back to him with a raised eyebrow. He nodded above us, and I followed his pointing. In the trees there were large patches of missing snow from the branches. The patched followed a path as though someone had jumped from one branch to the other in an effort to escape notice on the ground.
"The shed isn't far off," Cain told us.
He stalked low to the ground, and led us off the roads and into the trees. Adam followed with me in his arms. He was strong, but the balance to hold my body weight with his meant we almost tumbled forward. "Let me down," I instructed him.
"No."
I was low enough to the ground I scooped a ball of snow off the top of the icy crust. "Let me down or you get a face full of snow."
Adam frowned, but agreed. He set me behind him in the tracks of the pair. I shivered at the cold that sank into my boots, but at least I was balanced now. Adam traveled onward and we both followed Cain into the woods. We pushed through brush and stumbled over logs, at least I stumbled, on our journey. In a few minutes we arrived at a leaning old shed like the one in which we'd placed Miranda. Cain slipped inside, and we behind him.
The interior was dry and dusty. A lone, broken-paned window allowed some light into the interior. Cain stooped in one of the corners and flipped back a cloth much like the ones he wore. It also smelled like him. He revealed wooden floor boards, but they became more than that when he lengthened one of his fingers into a claw and caught hold of a knot in the wood. Cain pulled upward and a hatch came up with his clawed finger. Inside the hatch was a rickety old wooden staircase that led ten feet down into darkness.
I pointed at the interior. "Let me guess. Our way in?"
Cain nodded. "Yes. This is how I escaped. I took parts of the cloth that covered the entrance and covered myself."
"Lead on," Adam instructed.
Cain climbed down the stairs and Adam followed. Their wolf eyes helped them with the unbalanced steps, but my toes caught on one halfway down and I fell forward into Adam's back. Fortunately he was steady, and when he looked at me over his shoulder I sheepishly grinned at him.
"Dark down here, isn't it?" I commented as we reached the dirt floor at the bottom of the stairs.
"It will be darker when I shut the lid," Cain warned me. I grabbed one of Adam's hands as Cain climbed up and closed the lid behind us. He took a sharp piece of thin metal off a nail on the earthen wall and pushed it through holes between the wooden planks of the shed floor. The metal caught on the rag and Cain covered the hole. "That will avoid anyone following us," he commented as he put the metal back.
"How far is this tunnel?" Adam asked him.
"It's a straight route from here across the grounds to the manor. Another set of stairs leads us behind the walls and into a crawl space disguised as a vent," Cain explained.
"Will they smell us through the walls?" Adam asked him.
"No. The walls are coated with a thick molding that prevents scents from traveling through. We will not be found unless we leave the passages or make a loud noise," he assured us. "Now come. The faster we reach the manor the faster we will find my innocence. If there is such hope left." I felt Cain move past us and down the tunnel.
The last bit of light went out with the covering of the hatch, and I leaned on Adam. "You're going to have to be my seeing-eye wolf," I whispered to him.
He set his hand over mine and I could just imagine his sweet, soft smile on his face. I certainly couldn't see it. "It would be my pleasure."
Adam led me forward, or at least not into a wall, and onward we marched to the manor. The dirt ground was even and clear of rocks, but the moisture on the walls made my nose wrinkle. "How can you guys stand the smell?" I whispered to Adam.
"I have been sprayed by a skunk," he reminded me.
"Oh. Right. Forgot about that. So what do you guys have against Italian food?"
"Garlic is a very invasive smell. It permeates the nostrils like no other. That is why werewolves detest it."
I clutched the bag given to me by my mom closer to myself. "I'd trade in the ability to smell garlic any day to see in the dark. It'd be really useful right now."
"Now is not the time to discuss matters of changing you," he scolded me.
I snorted. "There might not be a later."
"We are nearly at the manor. There is a narrow stair way and the vent is very small. We must leave our bags at the bottom and return for them later," Cain warned us.
"You guys are really optimistic about that later stuff. . ." I mumbled as I pulled off my pack and set my mom's bag beside it somewhere in the darkness.
"Are either of you claustrophobic?" Cain asked us.
"No, why?" I returned.
"The space ahead is very cramped. Adam and I will hardly be able to turn around," Cain explained.
"We will manage," Adam promised.
"Very well. Follow me."
I heard the soft groan of feet on steps as Cain ascended the stairs. Adam grabbed my hand and guided me onto the first steps until I caught the rhythm of their placement. We climbed a long flight of narrow stairs that led us twenty feet upward, above even the ground-floor level. The secret passage wasn't so much a passage as an air duct masquerading as a passage. The space was narrow and short, only a foot and a half wide and four feet tall, and the walls were lined with a white plaster to smell-proof the secret passage. The board shoulders of the men brushed against either side of the walls, and even I had to stoop my head to keep it from bonking against the ceiling.
Little chinks of light punctured through the walls on either side of us. Those minuscule cracks gave enough light for me to see the stairs led us to a hall
way that stretched fifty feet before another flight of stairs led us up to a second floor. The upper hall, too, was small, more like a duct than a passage. If we traveled upstairs we'd need to crawl on our hands and knees up another narrow flight of stairs.
"You call this a secret passage?" I grumbled.
Cain, still in the lead, spoke in a low whisper which I could hardly hear. "It was the only way Abel could hide the existence. He installed it as a heating system, and faked that it never worked so no one would grow suspicious," he explained. Cain stopped a dozen feet inside the cramped vent and looked over his shoulder at us. "We are in the front of the manor just above the doorways. To the left is the entrance hall, and to the right is the billiard room."
"Can we enter the room from this space?" Adam asked him.
Cain nodded. "Yes, but we must time this carefully." He pointed at one of the slits in the left-hand wall. "Look through there." Adam and I leaned over and peered through the crack. The crack gave us a filmy view of the entrance hall. To our right along the same wall through which we peeked was a wide, carpeted staircase. It ran up to the second floor and a long hall continued the wall to the rear of the house. A door almost opposite where we stood signaled an opposing wing to the manor.
"How are we seeing this without them seeing us?" I whispered.
"You are viewing the hall through slim wallpaper. Abel had the whole place re-papered with the stuff so he could see everything through these passages," Cain explained.
"He must have been a small man to want to get into these things," I commented.
"He would go to any lengths for a practical joke," Cain told me.
"Isn't there an easier way to sneak around here?" I asked him.
"No. This is the only secret way I know of," he replied.
"There is a problem," Adam spoke up.
I shifted and winced when my shoulder struck a white plaster wall. "More than this cramped place?" I returned.
Adam nodded at the slit. "We have company."
I peered into the crack and saw the entrance hall wasn't as lonely as I first figured. On either side of two large doors which I assumed were the front stood two husky men. They stood at attention with their hands behind their backs, but their eyes constantly swept over the room.