Chapter Twenty-One

An evening with Gladys turned out to not be half as bad as Becca had feared. Not fun, exactly, but not too bad. It turned out Gladys was a lot less abrupt and unpleasant on her own turf. They prepared dinner together and made low-key conversation about the town and the wolf preserve, where Gladys volunteered. The regular wolves were a little jumpy around her at first, but had gotten used to her over time, or so Gladys maintained.

Becca considered Clyde’s reaction to her when the moon started getting full and wondered if the wolves were just frightened out of their wits. But it would be impolite to contradict her host, so she let that speculation pass. After dinner, they sat in Gladys' country kitsch living room and watched an old movie before they got sleepy enough to go to bed.

Or at least, Gladys did and Becca went along to be polite. It was something to do and just enough to be somewhat distracting. Gladys even had a tiny guest room so Becca didn’t even need to sleep on the sofa. And Becca tried to be grateful for that hospitality as she lay awake for hours staring at the ceiling.

She really was grateful, once she stopped to think about it. It was just that she missed Erin and her own bed and Clyde and…who was she kidding? She wanted to be home with her own family. Which brought up another fear: how were she and Erin ever going to rebuild what they had, after all this? Assuming they even had the opportunity? Things might never be the same. A tear ran down Becca’s cheek and she wiped it away before it hit the pillow.

She gave up wiping them away after awhile and she was still crying when she fell asleep some time later.

The next morning sent her back to work at the store, so at least there was that semblance of normality. But it didn’t last long. Shelly and Molly came in with a tale about Erin chasing Annie up into the mountains, or perhaps luring her up there. They weren’t sure which one of the two it was, or perhaps it was both. Shelly assumed that it was about the murder charge and Erin thinking Annie had done it, Molly thought it might be that and that she might also have been hoping to find out something about Jim and Kari.

Their words washed over Becca in a wave, including the information that Erin was staying with Carla at an undisclosed location that wasn’t the cave. But clearly was because her friends were terrible liars. She felt a flash of irrational jealousy, followed by a different kind of flash. Her skin burned while her emotions roiled. Why was Carla getting to spend time with Erin? That was her job, dammit. Or, at least, it was where she wanted to be the most. Didn’t that amount to the same thing?

It took a few minutes to realize that Molly was telling her about Carla and Erin finding the warehouse where Erin had been held, but she wasn’t paying as much attention as she could have been. And by the time that she thought she had wrapped her brain around everything that had happened, it felt like everything shifted. Molly had left for work and Shelly was working the front of the store while Kira restocked and she was out on the sidewalk, having been gently ejected from the store to go to lunch.

Looking around her gave Becca a sense of déjà vu. Had it only been a few months ago that they’d been dealing with Annie and her men on this very street? She drank in a breath of downtown air, letting her wolf sift through the various scents. Her back tensed with every new noise, every fresh scent. What was she so worried about? The werebear? Erin cruising down the street to break off their potential relationship before it really got started? Random strange werewolves?

After a moment, she twitched a little, shaking off some of her fears. All of this could happen, but they wouldn’t be any easier to handle if she was half-asleep and mid-hot flash on an empty stomach. The sign for the new café caught her eye from a couple of blocks away and she started walking toward it, negotiating her way through the sidewalk displays and wandering pedestrians.

An acquaintance held the door for her at Muffins N’ More while she was hesitating on the doorstep. The way he did it suggested that he thought he was doing her middle-aged self a favor, something that she found both amusing and irritating. She consolidated that into a nod and stepped inside, pushing down a small wave of concern about being disloyal to Millie of Millie’s Café fame, a downtown Wolf’s Point mainstay, merely by walking into this place.

The waitress and a vaguely familiar-looking man converged on her at the same time. “How many?” “Ms. Thornton, I—”

Becca glanced from the waitress to Larry Milchester. His voice was sonorous in the wave of lunchtime crowd noise. “Do you have a minute?” At her nod, he gestured at the waitress, who brought them to a corner table and seated them. Becca gave the décor a quick glance as he checked his phone, and sniffed. Store-bought antiques, some handmade kitsch, seats so new, they crackled. Millie’s next time, she promised herself.

Their waitress appeared and Becca gave the menu a quick skim before picking a chicken sandwich and a side salad. The waitress disappeared and the lawyer put his phone away in an inner pocket of his jacket. “Ms. Thornton, I need to call Shelly later today, but I wanted to check in with you. I won’t ask you to tell me if you know where Ms. Adams is, of course, but I am wondering if you might be able to get a message to her.”

Becca stared at him with narrowed eyes. He still smelled off, not human, not wolf. Not werebear, either. She wrinkled her nose. After all, Shelly trusted him, so that was going to have to be enough for now. Right? “What would it mean for me if I were able to do that, hypothetically? Would I turn up as an accessory or something if things went…badly?”

Larry Milchester looked at her, his expression unreadable, at least to Becca’s anxious gaze. Something not human flickered in the back of his black eyes for a moment and she braced herself for trouble. A quick glance at the rest of him, his broad shoulders with muscles bunched as if for flight or fight, suggested that he sensed what she was feeling and was having a few issues with control himself.

The waitress interrupted their standoff by putting Becca’s order between them. The atmosphere eased immediately once they stopped making eye contact and Becca let out a small relieved sigh. “I should eat lunch while we talk, if you don’t mind.”

He gestured his assent and glanced casually around the room, almost as if he was looking for someone. Or was making sure that no one else was listening. “It’s more in the nature of passing along anecdotal information. Much like you would if you were speaking to a neighbor.” The corner of his thin lip tilted up in a not quite smile. “Which, in effect, you would be. The initial lab analysis came back and suggests that Mr. Callan had been dead for five or six hours before he was placed in the trunk of Ms. Adams’ car.” He glanced at her, eyes a normal dark brown for the moment.

Becca stopped mid-bite and put her sandwich down. It took her a second to process what he was saying, then another minute or two to review what she could remember about the day when this whole mess started. “I’d have kept a diary if I’d realize I might have to remember this kind of stuff,” she murmured at last. “But I’m pretty sure she didn’t leave the house until about two or three hours before she started hiking.” A huge sense of relief washed over her. The likelihood that Erin had killed Leroy in a fit of rage or something was diminishing fast.

“Perhaps Ms. Adams kept an appointment book, one that you might be able to locate. It certainly couldn’t hurt to verify that she had a client meeting that morning, or equivalent. Thank you for your time, Ms. Thornton. I need to go now, but I look forward to discussing this further.” He stood up and nodded to her, the angle suggesting a bow. For a big man, he moved both swiftly and quietly, fading through the restaurant and out the door like a ghost. Or a big predator.

Becca grimaced, then finished her sandwich. She paid the waitress and started walking back to Peterson’s, her brain whirling with the implications of what she’d just been told. Erin must have some kind of calendar either in print or on her computer. A thought struck her then and she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, causing a woman walking behind her to walk right into her. Apologies exchanged, Becca moved into a store doorway to get out of the way. Their burglar, had that been what they were looking for?

It was a staggering realization. She hadn’t checked to see if Erin had an iPad or even a little volume with a padlock on it when she’d gone looking for clues. What had she missed? She frowned across the street, not really seeing the people there, at least not until one of them looked very familiar.

She’d recognize Kari’s blue eyes anywhere, not to mention that perfectly coiffed blonde hair. A bolt of fear went through her and she glanced around quickly, wondering if Jim was somewhere nearby. A cautious sniff told her nothing, except that Kari wore too much perfume and could use a shower.

The other woman was clearly looking for something or someone. She was pretending to look through a sales rack of outfits in front of Emmeline’s Closet, but her gaze was directed at the hardware store. Was she contemplating home renovations? Or, more likely, spying on her?

Becca was contemplating walking across the street and confronting her when she noticed another familiar face about a block away. Deputy Lizzie Blackhawk was out of uniform and driving her own car, but she also seemed to have the hardware store staked out from where she was parked. Unless…she was watching Kari? Now why would she be doing that? Becca sent a quick text to Shelly to let her know that she was checking something out and would be a few minutes late.

When she looked back up, she couldn’t see Lizzie anymore and Kari had shifted to looking in the window of the shop next door to Peterson’s. Was she planning on going in? Becca suppressed a growl. What other game was this woman playing? Since Erin had gotten away, the whole exposé plan must have collapsed. Was she hoping that the hardware store staff would transform into wolves just in time for her to capture it on film?

Maybe it was time to go find out. Becca strolled down the block and across the street, before walking in the front door of the store. “Something’s up,” she murmured to Shelly. “Let me work the front while you stay out of sight.” Shelly quirked an eyebrow but used a customer’s question as an excuse to turn the counter over to Becca.

Becca fidgeted a bit, trying not to watch the front door too hard. Instinctively, she pulled a box of screws from behind the counter and started counting. Kari didn’t take long. She barely gave the rest of the store a glance before barreling up to the counter and peering at Becca. “Hello.” The other woman’s voice was pitched low and quiet. “I was hoping to find you here.”

“Were you? And why is that? Doing a bit of home repair?” Becca could hear the rage in her own voice and inhaled deeply to try and regain control. How dare this foolish woman threaten the Pack? How dare she scare and hurt Erin?

“Well, we want to be good neighbors, and we noticed that you and your…housemate haven’t been home for the last few days. Would you like us to take in your mail, maybe take care of some plants?”

Becca tried to picture Kari in a black hoodie and jeans, with her face covered up, and leaned forward for a closer sniff. She did smell somewhat familiar, but she was too short to be their burglar. Which left her husband as the most likely suspect. Her suspicions about her new neighbor hardened. “You have got to be kidding. I think you should leave. Leave the store, leave this town, leave the valley. We already know what he is and you don’t want any more trouble than you’ve already gotten into.”

“Are you part of ‘we,’ then, too? Just like your pal, Erin? We suspected you were, but it’s always nice to have confirmation.” Kari smiled, her blandly pretty features shifting into something predatory.

Becca sucked in a breath. This confrontation was a mistake. She was letting her fury at Erin’s kidnapping, as well as the break-in, get the better of her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Erin and I are part of a neighborhood watch and we’ve seen the company you keep. This town isn’t a good match for,” she paused and drew her mouth down like some of the more snobby ladies from the Women’s Club, “the likes of you and your…husband. We have a very low crime rate, you know, not much violent crime. Comes from having good people live here.”

“Oh, indeed. We know. It was one of the reasons that we moved here.” Her plastic smile had turned stiff. “But I’m pretty sure that whatever you think you know about us is nothing compared to what we know about Erin. And I don’t think you want that getting out.”

Blackmail? Who did this woman think she was? A wave of pure rage coursed through Becca and she leaned forward, elbows on the counter. She let her wolf out, just a little, and rejoiced at Kari’s flinch. “Even if there was something to know, I don’t think anyone would believe you. Most folks around here would think you’re telling lies about a nice bunch of upstanding community members. And if you were to leave town suddenly with a murder charge nipping at your heels, I’m pretty sure that your credibility would drop quite a bit.” She growled the words softly, the scent of Kari’s blood overpowering the scent she wore.

“Murder! Why would you think that we murd…” Her voice trailed off. They locked eyes and Becca’s wolf slipped closer to the surface. She could picture her teeth in the other woman’s throat.

The door chimed as it opened, making the other woman stumble back as the bright sunshine outside poured in. Lizzie Blackhawk paused in the doorway before stepping inside. “I always seem to be interrupting something around here lately. Why is that, do you suppose?” She closed the door and leaned against it. “I don’t think we’ve met yet. I gather you and your husband bought Becca and Ed’s old house?” She pushed her mirror shades up on her head and studied Kari.

Becca dug her fingers into the counter and took a deep breath, getting her body and mind back under control. She could hear Shelly and the other customers rustling around and talking in the aisles around them now. Better make sure that no one saw anything particularly odd going on. “Hi, Deputy,” she managed, forcing her voice to sound calmer than she felt. “K—our new neighbor was just heading out. She just stopped by to check out the store and say hi.” Even though I never told her where I worked.

The realization staggered her. This went much deeper than the burglary. This woman, and presumably her werebear spouse, had been studying them, not just Erin. But who told her about the Pack to begin with? A flood of face rose up in Becca’s brain: people in Wolf’s Point, the Circle, other Pack members, Annie, her men…Leroy.

She charged around the counter just in time to realize that Lizzie had let Kari out the door and was standing in front of her. Lizzie frowned as Becca’s words poured out in a torrent, “They did it! Her husband’s the one who broke into our house! Why did you let her go? Where did she go? We need to catch her!”

“Or we could take a few minutes and you could tell me what’s really going on. I don’t think she’ll get that far.”

Becca glared at the deputy. “Why not? Whose side are you on?”

Lizzie gave her a long look, then held up one of Peterson Hardware’s longest nails. “I believe one of these found its way into her back tire.”

Becca’s jaw dropped and she blinked slowly as she took the nail. “You knew? Or at least you suspected that she was up to something? Do you know about Jim?” The roiling emotions in her head choked off her words for a moment. Was Erin on the run for nothing? This was getting to be too much to endure.

Lizzie nodded at the counter behind her. “Suppose we wander back up there and I pay for a few more nails so things look nice and normal?”

Becca glanced back in time to see a young couple approaching the register with a basketful of stuff, and with an exasperated sigh at Lizzie, she bustled over to wait on them. A few minutes of polite chitchat and some hardware advice and she sent them on their way. A quick glance down the aisles showed Shelly on her way to them, but no one else in the store, and she flipped the sign to “Back in Five Minutes” and locked the front door.

“Now will you tell me what you know and what you think is going on? I’ll tell you everything I can, but some stuff you’ll have to get from Shelly.” She nodded at her boss, who was leaning up against the shelving across from the counter.

Lizzie set a box of nails on the counter. “’Suspect’ is probably more accurate than saying I actually know things for certain. It’s obvious that things started getting weird…weirder when that couple moved to town. Not too hard to figure out they’ve got some woo-woo crap of their own going on, based on your reaction to them. Now, I don’t know that they killed Leroy, and I’m guessing you don’t either or I’d have heard about it by now. But I do suspect that you all know something about them and that you know where Erin might be and that you’ve all been holding back on telling me about any of it.”

A red flush crept up Becca’s cheeks despite everything she could do to hide it, and quickly fanning herself to imply that it was a hot flash didn’t seem to convince Lizzie. The deputy leaned against the counter and scowled at her, the nail rolling around between them like a little compass point.

“It’s not like we set out to hide things from you,” Becca said finally when the silence got to be too much to bear. “But you’ve got the sheriff to answer to and your kid to take care of and you’re not…a lot of the time, I don’t know what’s going on either.” She trailed off. It wasn’t like Lizzie didn’t know she wasn’t a Pack member, but it felt unkind to rub that in. She knew that the other woman wanted to be a member very badly and was hoping that she would in a few years.

“I don’t expect you to tell me everything, but I’m guessing that Shelly told you that I’m planning on running for sheriff next year. If I’m going to do that, I’ve gotta look at least somewhat impartial. I also need a big case to make my name stand out so people recognize it. Solving Leroy’s murder would do that for me. Are you still with me?” Lizzie’s expression suggested that she was having some trouble being this straightforward about her plans, and Becca guessed that this decision was pretty recent.

“So if we crack this case for you and give you a murderer, you drop the case against Erin? I’m not opposed to doing that exactly, but I think by now you know that Erin didn’t kill Leroy and that the only thing you really have to charge her with is that damn confession.” Shelly had joined them at the counter, her expression distant.

“You’re Pack. The magic makes you what you are, but it makes you protectors as well. Seems to me that we’ve none of us got a choice but to get to the bottom of this pretty quickly. What’s the deal with Blondie and her hubby?” Lizzie’s gaze shifted from her cousin to Becca.

She took a deep breath, and at Shelly’s nod, tried to lay it all out as succinctly as possible. “Her husband’s a werebear. They were TV personalities, show hosts or something from a few years back. Now, they’re trying to break back into the biz by doing a reality TV show of some kind, online, we think, about the Pack. They kidnapped Erin from the jail so they could film her changing.” Becca finally ran out of breath.

“A were-what now? How did they find out about you in the first place?” Lizzie rubbed her hands on her cheeks, her expression a combination of bewilderment and weariness.

“And I’m ninety percent sure that he’s our burglar. I think he was looking for something to connect Leroy and Erin so they could pressure her into cooperating. Sorry, Shelly, I just figured this part out. I was talking to…” She trailed off. Should she mention what Larry had told her in front of Lizzie? Or was that, what did they call it, “privileged information”? Why was everything so complicated all the time now?

Shelly sighed. “Out with it. Who were you talking to? Sounds like we’re putting all the cards on the table.”

“I ran into Larry Milchester at the new café when I went there for lunch, and he said the results had come back and that Leroy had been dead for five or six hours or so before he wound up in the trunk of Erin’s car. So I thought that maybe the burglar was looking for something that would have proved Erin had an alibi for when Leroy was killed? Maybe she came out of whatever blackout or whatever was wrong with her, found him in her trunk and just assumed she’d done it?”

Shelly’s gaze sharpened and her nostrils flared. “What kind of something, Becca?”

“Maybe a calendar or a diary or something? She meets with clients and auditors and so forth, and if it’s something confidential, she usually doesn’t tell me much about it.” Becca looked at the counter for a second and frowned. “Now I’m trying to remember what I was doing. I might be her alibi, for all I know.” She rubbed her face with her hand, stretching the skin down until her palms met under her chin.

Lizzie glanced at Shelly. “An alibi would help. As would some kind of medical condition that would explain a blackout. Other than turning into a werewolf.”

Someone knocked on the front door and Shelly went over to check on it with a soft grumble. Lizzie eyed Becca while they waited. “Can you find her appointment book?”

“I think so. She doesn’t like those online calendar things, doesn’t trust them, so I think I know where she usually keeps the one she does use,” Becca added, picturing Erin’s basement office and desk.

“How about you and me go check that out right now? If I’m supposed to be looking for more suspects, I’d like to get a move on.” Lizzie dropped her shades back down on her nose and walked over to the door, just as Shelly opened it to let in a couple of customers. “I need to borrow Becca for an hour. Can you manage?”

“Well, seeing as you’re not really asking, I guess so.” Shelly arched a dark eyebrow at her cousin.

Lizzie grimaced back at her and ushered Becca out the door. “I’ll bring takeout tonight after work. We’re all due for a family night and I know you’ve got that Women’s Club board meeting tomorrow night.”

“Oh…crap. I’d forgotten about that. Takeout sounds great. I hope Andy’s coming too. See you later.” Shelly turned and headed back into the store as Lizzie pulled the door shut behind her.

“So all is forgiven?” Becca asked, with a sidelong glance.

“Takeout heals all wounds. Well, takeout and some shouting and some apologizing and all that stuff.” Lizzie led the way to her car with a shrug. “How are you and Gladys getting along?”

It was Becca’s turn to shrug. “Could be worse. I’d rather be home with Erin and our dog, but I’m glad that Gladys was willing to put me up for a couple of nights.”

“Your enthusiasm is overwhelming, but yes, I do know what you mean. Let’s try and get this figured out as fast as possible so we can get things back to what passes for normal around here.”

“And get your campaign jumpstarted?”

“That too.

“You can practice your acceptance speech on the way.”

“I’m excited already.”

“Now who’s enthusiastic?” Becca rolled her eyes and followed Lizzie out to her car.