I grew more and more fidgety. I tried to distract myself, keep my head down, and throw myself into getting plates out the pass. I tried to tell myself I was being silly, overreacting. There was no reason to think Cooper was in trouble. For all I knew, his hunting party was doing well and he was being paid overtime. But I couldn’t get rid of nagging little flares of worry in back of my head as I rounded the counter, preparing to take Alan’s lunch order.
“Hey, Mo,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m OK. I’ve stopped throwing up every time I crack an egg, which is an occupational plus.”
He started to laugh and looked down at his belt when his cell phone rang. “Sorry. Give me a minute. Hey, Walt, what can I—Slow down, Walt. Tell them to stop yelling, I can’t hear you.”
I tilted my head, sending him a questioning look. He rolled his eyes and shrugged.
“You shot what, now?” he exclaimed, standing, knocking his stool to the floor behind him. “No, don’t bring it here! Take it to my barn. Yeah, I’ll be right there.”
Alan snapped his phone shut. “Walt and a couple of his friends shot a wolf outside of town. They said it’s a big sonofabitch and want me to come see if it could be the wolf that attacked Susie and Abner.”
I stopped in my tracks, blood roaring through my ears. The pad slipped from my hands, clattering to the floor.
Alan looked up and grimaced. “You OK? You look pretty pale. Why don’t you sit down?”
“What about the wolf?” I heard myself ask.
“They’re driving it out to my place now, so I can take a look at it. I need to take some measurements, some pictures, call a vet to do a necropsy . . .”
My head spun as my stomach did an unpleasant slide. I turned on my heel, pulling my keys out of my apron as Alan called, “Mo? You OK?”
Lynette strolled through the door, preparing to flirt with Alan. I caught her arm and pulled her with me as I headed for the door. “Lynette, I need you to take over bar duty. The lunch rush is over. Pete’s taking care of the dishes. I just need you to keep an eye on things for a little bit.”
“It’s my day off.” Lynette scowled, jerking her arm out of my hand.
I snarled, backing her into the wall. “Now, you listen to me. I’ve put up with your bullshit for almost a year. Your lousy attitude, your piss-poor work ethic, and the fact that you take more than your fair share of the tip jar on more nights than I can count. And despite the fact that I’ve had to cover for you, I’ve never said anything. But so help me God, if you don’t step up to the plate this once, I am going to tell Buzz about those butt prints I found on the shelf in the walk-in freezer.”
Lynette blanched. “You can’t know that was me.”
“Well, I didn’t, but I do now,” I said, throwing an apron at her. “Take drink orders, collect on tabs, do your damn job.”
Lynette nodded, mute, as I stalked out the door.
Just because Walt shot a wolf didn’t mean it was Cooper, right? There were dozens of wolves in the area. Walt could have killed any one of them. That’s what I kept telling myself as I pulled away from the saloon.
In the rearview mirror, I caught sight of my neighbors through the saloon window—normal people, eating burgers and living normal lives. I used to be one of them, totally unaware of the world beyond ours. And for a split second, I felt sorry enough for myself to want that ignorance back.
On the drive to our house, I prayed to Jesus, Buddha, Gaia, the Great Spirit, and every other deity I could think of to let me drive home and find Cooper climbing out of his truck, with some story about a flat tire and a dead cell-phone battery. When I got home and found the driveway empty, I realized how asinine that hope was. I climbed out of the truck and dialed Cooper’s cell phone again while I opened the front door. I was sent to voice mail as I did a cursory sweep of the house. “Cooper, if you get this, please, please call me so I know you’re all right.” I snapped the phone shut.
I paced on the porch and tried to work through all of the scenarios in my head. I could rush over to Alan’s, throw myself into the group of triumphant hunters, and . . . what? What would I do if it was Cooper in wolf form? I would collapse, possibly start screaming and beating the men in the hunting party, and get hauled away to jail. It would be awfully tough to raise my baby in a prison mental ward. And what if the wolf wasn’t Cooper? I swiped at the tears flowing steadily down my cheeks now. What if it was one of Cooper’s relatives? How would I handle that? What if it was just a plain, everyday wolf? How would I explain my sudden overwhelming desire to see a carcass?
I was way over my head here. I pulled out my cell phone and called the only number I could think of.
“Eli?”
22
We’re Going to Need
a Bigger Tranq Gun
WHERE WAS JENNIFER GARNER when you needed her?
Alias superspy Sydney Bristow could sneak through the woods outside Alan’s cabin, do a reconnaissance mission, and seek out her possibly dead werewolf boyfriend, then escape without any problem. If Sydney Bristow had a werewolf boyfriend. It would probably involve a Supernatural crossover.
I, on the other hand, had to call Eli and ask him to sneak me over to Alan’s and help me get through this. I’d left Cooper ten or so increasingly desperate voice mails demanding that he call me back. In my final message, I told him where I was meeting Eli and begged him to keep me from seeing my first dead wolf up close. So far, he hadn’t responded.
I was crying full-tilt by the time I pulled my truck into a little clearing off Alan’s drive. Eli was waiting there for me so we could trudge through the woods behind Alan’s house and sneak into the barn. I hadn’t thought much beyond that.
Eli’s expression was sympathetic when I climbed out of the truck. He opened his arms as if he planned to hug me. When he realized I wasn’t stepping closer, he smoothly lowered them and placed his hands on my shoulders.
“Thanks for coming,” I told him. “I didn’t think I could do this alone, and I didn’t know who else to call. And if it is Cooper, I didn’t want Samson or Gracie to see him this way.”
“If you’re not up to it, I can do this alone,” he said.
“No, I think it won’t be real for me unless I see it myself,” I said, shaking my head.
“This is one of the worst parts of my job.” He sighed, leading me into the trees. “Being the one to take on the bad news.”
“We don’t know that it’s bad news,” I said, my tone just a little petulant.
He smiled, but I could tell it was just to humor me. “Of course not. Sorry, Mo.”
I shrugged. Eli was moving quickly and quietly through the trees, leaving me in the dust. I had to half-run to keep up. About a mile from Alan’s house, I had to double over to catch my breath.
“Hold up,” I called. “I’m sorry. I can’t keep going at this pace.”
Eli made a sour face and moved back toward me. “Are you hurt?”
“No, pregnant.” I drew deep, lung-stretching breaths.
“What? Why didn’t anyone tell me?” he demanded, the color draining from his face.
“I asked Gracie not to say anything until Cooper and I got everything worked out.”
Eli seemed livid at having been left out of the loop. I couldn’t tell if the injury was personal or professional. Clearly, as de facto alpha, he expected to know everything going on in his pack members’ lives.
“Aw, damn it, Mo.” He pushed through the trees at a slower pace. He seemed to have recovered his usual bland demeanor. “I wish I’d known. I wouldn’t have let you come. You shouldn’t see this. This shouldn’t be the way you remember Cooper.”
“It might not be Cooper,” I insisted again, getting annoyed that Eli seemed hell-bent on the worst-case scenario. He took my elbow and assisted me a bit more gallantly during the last mile. We finally reached the edge of the trees, just in time to see the hunting party walking toward their trucks, slapping one another’s back in that “manly men together” manner. I heard several voices call, “Meet you at the Glacier. You’re buying!” Alan was the last to drive away after locking the barn up tight. He pocketed the key.
Eli and I ran for the barn. Eli grabbed a rusty pipe wrench lying near the concrete pad and bashed the padlock off the door. I blinked into the dim light of the barn, assailed by dust and the faint smell of motor oil. Eli tossed the wrench onto a workbench. I squinted, my eyes adjusting enough to take in the blanket-covered form on the wooden trestle table. I stumbled toward it. Eli pulled back the blanket, and I cried out, wanting to shield my eyes but unable to look away.
I covered my face with my hands, muttering something like “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” The fur was too light, the body too lean. It wasn’t Cooper.
I was flooded with simultaneous waves of relief, confusion, and embarrassment at dragging Eli all this way. I wiped at my eyes, wondering again where Cooper was and whether he was OK.
Eli stared down at the body, his pupils tight little pinpricks in eyes that were growing increasingly golden. His mouth was set in a grim, unhappy line.
“Is it anyone you know?” I asked, instantly ashamed of my insensitive reaction. “Is it a werewolf?”
“No, it’s just your normal, run-of-the-mill wolf,” Eli said, his voice flat and unaffected.
“Eli?”
“Sonofabitch!” he screamed, tossing the trestle table over. The wolf’s carcass fell to the ground with a soft thud.
“Eli, what are you—”
“If you want something done, you can’t trust anyone to do it for you!” he raged, his face flushing purple. “Do you have any idea how long it’s taken me to set this up? And these dumb fucking roughnecks kill a real wolf?”
Eli’s eyes were now completely yellow, his cheekbones protruding sharply. He was starting to change, a shadow creeping over his skin instead of the light of transformation I was used to from Cooper. This was something primal and scary. And as I finally processed what Eli was saying, I realized I was in deep, deep shit.
Eli drew back and slapped me with an increasingly pawlike hand, sending me flying across the room and into a tool chest.
Jennifer Garner totally would have seen that coming.
I sat up carefully, my hand curving protectively around my belly. “Why, Eli? Why are you doing this?”
Eli rolled his neck, stretching his body in a long, lean line, willing the change to withdraw as he shrugged out of his clothes—which was, I will admit, disturbing. He was fully human again, his eyes a bitter chocolate color. He smirked. “Would you believe . . . I just enjoy screwing around with short-order cooks?”
He sat down in front of me. My only comfort at this point was that the concrete had to be extremely rough on his bare ass cheeks.
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this?” he demanded. I tried to look away, because of the nudity issue, but he grabbed my jaw and forced me to keep eye contact. “I’ve worked for years to get where I am today. Cooper was weak. He was too worried about being fair and equal when what we needed was strength. I’m a leader, Mo. I was born to lead my pack. And they’re too damn stubborn, too stuck in the Dark Ages to realize it. Do you know what it’s like to know your potential and have no one else recognize it? Because of Cooper. As long as Cooper was around, I would only be the second best, the substitute.”
Just over Eli’s shoulder, on the opposite wall, I spotted a tranquilizer gun. There was no way to make a direct grab for it. My only hope was that Eli would keep talking, allowing me to shift positions and get to it.
“That rival pack was strong, though, as it turned out, not especially subtle,” he said, looking annoyed. “They bungled the whole thing, after I’d been sending them information for months! I mean, really, if you can’t trust the people you’re staging a coup with, who can you trust? That turned into a total fiasco, and I had to act just as surprised and shocked as everybody else.