Nic closed the door and turned to me. “I guess an Ojibwe warrior isn’t necessarily a man.”
“No. I’m betting it’s Cora.”
“Lydia said she passed away.”
There’d been no mention of throat cutting—an item that would have topped my list in any conversation about a dead grandmother.
“Lydia said a lot of things,” I pointed out. “We’d better talk to her.”
“Yeah. Gramma passing away is a whole lot different than Gramma getting her throat slit and being buried in the woods.”
“Why would Dr. Watchry insist there’d never been a murder in Fairhaven?”
“Perhaps Cora didn’t die in Fairhaven.”
“Who knows anymore?”
“Did you get a read on Lydia?” Nic asked.
“She seemed nice enough.”
“I meant, did you bump against her when you passed or at least shake her hand?”
“You think she’s a—”
“Someone is.”
I went over the meeting with Lydia in my mind. “I never touched her. Never thought to.”
Nic’s face hardened. “Let’s go touch her now.”
Chapter 28
“That was a bust,” I said.
We’d gone to Lydia’s without calling first—no reason to give her a heads-up—but she hadn’t been there. So we’d driven to the crime scene.
Mountain Man’s description had been correct. Ancient Native American woman with a throat wound. Lots of paw prints. But not from a dog. There were also old bones mixed in with the earth, which led us to believe the grave had not been Cora’s originally.
Had she even been there when the sheriff was killed? Had he been killed because he found her? Hard to say.
Nic spent a lot of time on his cell phone asking hypothetical questions of FBI contacts. He’d even managed to get a hold of Basil once.
The new sheriff promised to find another ME, somewhere, and send him to the crime scene. He also promised to send someone to deal with the doctor’s body. Then as soon as Nic got to the interesting questions—bam—Basil’s cell phone went out. When Nic tried to call him again, all he got was a busy signal.
We drove into Fairhaven as night threatened. A car was parked in front of the cabin. I caught sight of Lydia walking around the far side of the building.
“Looks like she got your message,” I said, as we followed.
“Miss Kopway,” I greeted, just as she knocked on the back door. “Nice to see you again.”
“Oh! I went to the front, but no one answered, so—” She shrugged.
Nic and I climbed the porch and I offered my hand. Her gaze lowered and she smiled, then gave me hers. I braced myself for the pain. Nic slowly reached for his gun. Our skin touched and—
Nothing.
“Is something the matter?” Lydia asked.
“No.” I tucked my hand into my pocket. “Everything’s great. So how did your grandmother die?”
Nic choked, then turned the sound into a cough. Lydia stared at me as if I’d just belched in church. You’d think I was Jessie the way I blurted out things.
“My grandmother was murdered in her own home by an unknown assailant.” Lydia took a deep breath that shook in the middle. “She never hurt anyone. Why would someone hurt her?”
Nic set his hand on Lydia’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. How was she killed?”
Lydia, who had been staring at the ground, slowly lifted her gaze to mine. “Her throat was slit.”
Bingo, I thought. But I kept my mouth shut.
“I had her buried behind the cottage,” Lydia continued. “That was what she wanted. But then someone took the body. I heard the same thing’s been happening in Fairhaven.”
Cora hadn’t truly disappeared as the others had. But did Lydia, or anyone else, know that?
“Does the FBI have any new information on my grandmother’s killer?”
“Not really,” Nic answered. “But we’re trying to cover every angle.”
“You’ll let me know if you discover anything?”
“Of course.”
I surmised we were keeping the recovery of Gramma’s body to ourselves. Probably not a bad idea considering we didn’t know what was going on, who was lying and who was not.
Lydia handed Nic the book she’d brought. “What’s your interest in witchie wolves? They aren’t a common legend.”
“No?” I asked.
“They exist on the shores of Lake Huron, protecting the graves of the warriors buried there.”
“Obscure mythology is one of my hobbies,” Nic said.
“Like Professor Cadotte?”
“Sure.”
“I just found it odd that you would ask about witchies when I had another request for the same information not so long ago.”
“Who?” I demanded.
“The deputy. Well, I guess he’s the sheriff now.”
“Basil?”
“Yes, that’s the one,” she said, as if she didn’t know him.
“You two are friends?” I asked.
“Not really. He had questions; I had Grandmother’s library. I just found it strange that the deputy would be interested in an obscure Ojibwe legend when I hear he’s been extremely uninterested in Ojibwes for most of his life.”
He hadn’t appeared too uninterested from my point of view, but I didn’t want to bring that up. The book incident at least explained how the two of them had met. More than that, I probably didn’t want to hear.
“Nice seeing you two again,” Lydia said. “Keep the book as long as you like.”
We made the appropriate bye-bye noises, waiting until her car pulled away before we spoke.
“She’s lying,” Nic murmured.
“You think?”
His eyes narrowed at my sarcasm. “Although, I have to say, if my grandmother was murdered in such an ugly way, I wouldn’t want to discuss it, either. Dead is dead.”
“Not really.”
“No?”
I was having a hard time remembering what Nic knew and what he didn’t about my world. Edward had given him the basics, but what, to Edward, was basic?
“If a werewolf bites but doesn’t eat, new werewolf within twenty-four hours.”
“What if the victim dies?”
“Then things get ugly. The dead rise, people start screaming, the tabloids show up. Messy. That’s why it’s our policy to shoot the bitten with silver, even if the body isn’t breathing.”
“Thanks for the tip.”
“Anytime.”
“What about Basil?” Nic wondered. “Why did Lydia pretend she didn’t know him?”
“Maybe she’s embarrassed.”
“Or he is.”
The wind stirred my hair, and a slight sound made me glance toward the woods. I caught the glint of the moon on metal.
“Get down!” I shouted a millisecond before the crack of a gunshot.
A bullet passed through the air where my head had been, then thunked into the side of the cabin. I was getting really sick of being shot at.
I waited for more gunfire; instead I heard the thudding retreat of footsteps. Nic started to rise, gun in hand, and I yanked him back down. “I’ll go.”
Before he could argue, I moved to the edge of the porch, thought of the moon, and shifted. The scent of werewolf invaded my nose, and I leaped from the steps, then raced into the woods.
The aroma tickled the edge of my brain. I wasn’t certain if it was just the smell of werewolf that was familiar or this particular werewolf. Even so, I couldn’t get a fix on the identity.
I didn’t get very far before the scent of death overpowered that of wolf. I nearly stumbled over Basil’s body. His eyes stared sightlessly at the sky. Most of his throat was missing.
I growled low—a sound of both warning and unease. Who had done this? Lifting my nose to the night, I howled, waiting for an answer, getting none.
The smell of werewolf was all around Basil. A trail led into the fores
t, growing fainter and fainter, then disappearing altogether. When I heard Nic calling me, I hurried back. I didn’t want him unprotected beneath the moon while an unknown werewolf roamed.
I burst through the foliage on one side just as Nic did on the other. His gaze went from the mutilated body to me, and he lifted his brow. I shook my head and pawed the earth.
“That’s what they all say.” Nic tossed a blanket behind a bush. “Thought you might need that.”
I took advantage of the gift and the foliage, changing with the swiftness that now seemed to be mine for good, then I wrapped myself in the sarong and returned to the clearing.
“What happened?” Nic was already examining the body.
“There was another werewolf.”
“No human bite mark. Maybe he didn’t have time to shift back and finish the job.”
“Maybe,” I agreed.
“First rule of a murder investigation--extreme violence, injury to the face or the throat equals personal.”
“Which brings us back to Lydia. Boffing Basil. Mighty personal.”
“Lydia isn’t a werewolf.”
“Maybe she was sleeping with one.”
“Two-timing Basil with a lycanthrope?”
“She might not know that,” I said.
“We’ll have to talk with her again.” Nic sighed. “And now we’ve got another body. I don’t know who to call anymore.”
“How about the mayor?”
“Why not?” Nic threw up his hands.
We headed back to the cabin and Nic opened the door. I hung back, frowning at the bullet hole that had plowed into a log.
“Why would Basil shoot at you?” Nic asked.
“A better question”—I reached out, yanking my fingers away when they burned—“is why would he shoot at me with silver?”
“He did?”
I nodded. Could Basil be—
“The traitor.”
“What traitor?” Nic asked.
Quickly I filled him in on what had been, a few days ago, my biggest problem next to Billy.
“Someone’s been selling information?”
“Yeah. Although I don’t know how they could have found out about me. No one knows but Edward, and there certainly aren’t any personnel records with the box ‘werewolf’ checked.”
“More people than Edward know.”
“You. But you wouldn’t.”
“You’re very trusting, Elise. But you’re right. I wouldn’t, even if I knew who to sell you to. But what about the others? Jessie, Will, Leigh, Damien.”
“They’d never—”
“You’re sure?”
I didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes.”
They might not understand me. They might not even like me. But Jager-Suchers stuck together. We had no one else.
“Someone sold you out.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “Maybe Basil just knew there were werewolves, so he loaded his gun with silver bullets. They work on anything.”
“But why shoot at you? What did you ever do to him?”
“There is no telling.”
I didn’t jump, or gasp, or spin around. I knew that voice as well as I knew my own.
Edward was back.
Chapter 29
“Perhaps you killed someone dear to him—by accident or design.” Edward stepped out of the cabin.
Nic backed up, putting himself between my boss and me.
“When did you get here, sir?”
“Not very long ago. Imagine my surprise to hear gunshots, find out that once again, strangers are shooting at you with silver. Are there no secrets anymore?”
“Apparently not. I see you managed to escape from the latest round of people who were trying to kill you.”
“Escape makes it sound as if I were running away. I ran to them and now they are... gone.”
I knew what gone meant, so I let the matter drop. Edward’s gaze wandered from the top of my wild and tousled head, past the sarong blanket, down to my dirty toes. He said nothing, but I felt his censure just the same.
Edward turned to Nic. “Why are you still here?”
“We’ve been working together,” I said.
“Is that what they call it nowadays?”
Nic’s hands curled into fists. I touched his shoulder and slowly his fingers relaxed.
Edward saw the interaction and scowled. He believed that the fewer attachments Jager-Suchers had, the less they had to lose. And a person with little to lose was much more dangerous than one who had everything. That he allowed Jessie and Will, Damien and Leigh, to work together, to be together, meant he was softening. And the idea that this man was a softer version of the one he’d always been was a frightening thought, indeed.
“Now that I am back, you can go away.”
“We already played that tune, Mandenauer. I’m not leaving.”
“Just because Elise has shown extremely bad judgment in letting her personal feelings interfere with her job does not mean that I will.”
Edward stalked into the cabin. Nic followed.
“Shouldn’t we go see Lydia?” I asked.
“Soon.”
I had no choice but to trail them both into the living room where Edward turned to me. “Make him go away or I will.”
“Wait.” I jiggled my ear. “Time warp. We’re having the same conversation twice.”
“Sarcasm does not become you.”
Huh, and I thought I was getting the hang of it, too.
“We will not have the same conversation, either.” He lifted a yellowed brow.
“What more can you tell me?” Nic asked. “She’s a werewolf. I don’t care.”
“You don’t?”
He shrugged. “I’m getting used to it.”
“She has not told you of her other hobby.”
Nic might not care that I was a werewolf, but I doubted he could as easily forgive my being a murderer.
“You have to go,” I blurted.
Nic merely rolled his eyes.
“That list of names?” Edward murmured. “She killed every one of them.”
Instead of drawing his gun and arresting me, Nic merely appeared resigned. “Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not just his right-hand woman, you’re an assassin. And a damned clever one, since you’re freaking hard to kill.”
I didn’t bother to answer what hadn’t been a question.
“You do not seem upset, Agent Franklin. You are not horrified to discover you have been sleeping with a killer?”
“The people on that list were monsters,” he said. “The world is a much better place without them in it.”
My eyes widened. I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Such an attitude for a law enforcement officer.” Edward tsk-tsked.
“Sue me.” Nic kept his gaze on my face. “He sent you after them on the nights of the full moon.”
I nodded.
“He’s using you.”
“It’s all right.”
“It isn’t. Killing upsets you.” He narrowed his eyes, tilted his head. “A lot more than it’s ever upset me.”
The travesties I’d read about in Edward’s dossiers ... Rapists, serial killers, child molesters, scientists experimenting with new ways to birth ancient horrors—both monsters and monster makers. They’d have given me nightmares if I hadn’t ended their existence myself. They did anyway. Nevertheless—
“Who are we to play God?” I asked.
“Better us than Mengele,” Edward snapped. “Or another like him.”
“He has a point,” Nic agreed.
Instead of being thankful for the support, Edward merely scowled. “I am going to take care of the latest body in the woods.”
He slammed out of the cabin.
Nic crossed the room, pausing right in front of me. I tensed, not exactly sure what he planned to say or do. Though he hadn’t flipped out at the news I was an assassin, as well as a werewolf, that didn�
��t mean he wouldn’t. Nic was an FBI agent; he should arrest me. Or have someone else do it. Instead, he leaned down and softly pressed his lips to mine.
The embrace was completely different from those we’d shared since he’d walked back into my life. On almost every occasion he’d been angry with me, furious at himself for wanting me. So what was the matter with him now?
Nic lifted his head. “I was scared.”
“Of me?”
“No.” He straightened. “Never.”
“Never? You’re not as bright as you look.”
“Don’t try to push me away. I know all there is to know about you, and I don’t give a flying fuck.”
He was mad again. I couldn’t win.
“What exactly is a flying fuck?”
Nic made an annoyed sound, pushing past me and into my bedroom. I stood in the living room alone for a minute, then followed.
A box lay on my bed. A glance at the label revealed the clothes I’d ordered online had arrived. The only way for that to happen so fast was if Edward had made some calls. I didn’t bother to wonder how he’d known about the order. Edward knew everything.
Nic plucked at the tape on the box. “That bullet barely missed your head.”
“Oh,” I said, as understanding dawned. “You didn’t seem scared.”
“I’ll let you in on one of my secrets. When I seem the least scared? I’m terrified. I know everything now, don’t I?”
He didn’t know I still loved him—always had, probably always would—but I planned to keep that to myself. As previously noted, I was brighter than I looked.
“I think you’ve heard all the secrets.” I opened the box and brightly colored clothes tumbled out. I snatched up a fuzzy sweater in neon green and a pair of bright blue sweatpants. Had I ordered items so vibrant? They were so unlike me—or maybe they were perfect for a new me.
I dropped the blanket and got dressed without concern for my nakedness. The wild, tangled length of my hair cascaded down my back, brushing the swell of my rear. I hadn’t braided the strands since leaving Montana.
I wasn’t the woman I’d been at the compound, and I was glad. I’d been hiding inside those stone walls, hating what I was, constructing a life that wasn’t really a life.
In Fairhaven I’d been almost happy and that was strange. People were dying; I’d stopped fighting my werewolf nature, pretty much embracing it, inching closer to the beast and further from the woman, and Nic didn’t seem to care.
Dark Moon Page 19