“So you’re just…moving in?”
Aimee walked with Maggie in the early evening mist. The mountain trail wasn’t far from the car—a good thing since Maggie had said her back hurt tonight.
Her friend was bundled in a purple down jacket with a faux fur collar that draped around her neck like an unconscious rabbit.
Grimacing, Aimee touched it. “Is this new?”
Maggie hugged herself a little tighter. “Don’t like it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It was an early Christmas present from Candi.”
“Ahh.” Enough said. Aimee had never met Candi, but felt like she knew her anyway. Maggie’s sister-in-law was sweet, spunky, beautiful, and preferred clothes that made most other women look easy. That was the nice way to put it.
“It’s warm,” Maggie said. “Don’t be judgy.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. Not everyone does the natural thing as well as you.”
“Oh, please. If I could get away with dressing like Candi, I would. But I’d end up looking ridiculous.”
“So you’re saying I look ridiculous.”
Aimee sighed. “No. You look warm.”
Maggie stopped and turned to face her. “How did we get so off subject anyway? We were talking about you moving in with a total stranger.”
“He’s not a total stranger. He’s my doctor.”
“And you trust him?”
Aimee thought about that for a second, although she already knew the answer. She’d trusted him the very first time she laid eyes on him. “I do.”
“Well, he’s Candi’s doctor too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And I did some research.”
“Oh, boy. Here it comes.”
“What? This is a major step. You’ve been through a lot, Aimee, and I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I didn’t do a little snooping for you.”
“If you put it that way… What’d you find out?”
Laughing, Maggie started walking again. “For one thing, he’s a widower.”
“I guessed that.”
“His wife is the one who died on that camping trip a year ago.”
“I know that too. I remembered a few days ago.”
“So, you remember how she died then?”
She licked her lips, her stomach roiling with nausea. “Yeah.”
“Poor woman. Can you imagine?”
She didn’t want to. But since she was now part animal herself, she knew just how Lizzie Blackstock must have been dragged away and killed. By a bear, most likely. Or a cougar. It would’ve been horrific. Unthinkable.
Stopping in the middle of the trail, she raised her head.
Rubbing her belly, Maggie stopped too. “What?”
“I don’t know.”
They stood there, the forest unusually still around them. After a few seconds, Aimee started walking again.
“You freak me out when you do that,” Maggie said.
“When I do what?”
“Act like you’re listening to something I can’t hear.”
She didn’t say what she was thinking, but Maggie was right. She had been listening. But it wasn’t any kind of sound that made her stop, simply a feeling. An intuition that they weren’t necessarily alone.
“Anyway,” Maggie said, “he’s also loaded. Has a cabin up near Pike’s Peak.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“And he’s drop-dead gorgeous. But you already know that.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
They walked for a minute longer before Aimee touched her arm. “Come on, Mags. Let’s go back. It’s getting dark.”
Maggie turned, serious all of a sudden. “I just want you to be careful, okay?”
“I’m always careful.”
“I mean it. I’m glad you’re taking this step. You know I’ve been wanting you to. But I also don’t want you to get hurt. Just watch yourself, okay?”
Aimee forced a smile. It was only natural for Maggie to feel apprehensive. But as the hairs on the back of Aimee’s neck prickled, she knew it wasn’t Jake Blackstock that her friend should be worried about.
It was whatever lurked inside the forest at that very moment.
* * * *
“Daddy!”
Jake opened his eyes. He’d been dreaming…about what exactly? He could only remember a woman with long, blonde hair. She’d been watching him from a distance with the most curiously dark eyes.
“Daddy!”
He sat up and looked at the clock. Midnight. “Coming, buddy.”
Swinging his legs out of bed, he rubbed his face. The bedroom was darker than usual. No moon, not even a sliver of one. He knew a cold, heavy fog cloaked the entire town and surrounding woods. He thought of Aimee and where she might be tonight. She’d never told him of course, but he had a feeling she was sleeping out there in this. But soon… Soon she’d be sleeping in the little studio out back, and the deeply ominous feeling he’d had about her safety would be gone. Or at least he hoped it would.
He walked into Daniel’s room to find him sitting up in bed. The nightlight illuminated his face, tear tracks running down his cheeks.
“Hey, mister.” He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the little boy to his chest. “What’s shakin’?”
“I had the dream again, Daddy.”
“Which one?”
Ever since Lizzie died, there had been a menagerie of nightmares for them both.
“Not the bad one,” Daniel sniffed. “The good one.”
Jake hugged his son tighter, feeling his downy head tuck perfectly underneath his chin, like it had been made for that spot.
“Which one’s that? You’ll have to remind me.”
“The one with the wolfman. Where he carries me home.”
Jake stiffened. He knew this dream well, but Daniel hadn’t had it for a while. When he’d wandered away from their campsite last summer, he hadn’t been found by any of the sheriff’s deputies or local search parties combing the mountainside. He’d simply shown up at the base camp two mornings later, tired and hungry but otherwise safe. Like magic.
That night, as Jake had tucked him in, he’d said that a wolfman carried him back. Jake remembered staring at him, ultimately chalking it up to a three-year-old’s imagination, fueled by the unimaginable trauma of losing his mother and then spending two nights alone in the woods.
But ever since then, instead of forgetting about it, or remembering what really happened, Daniel had grown more and more adamant about his story. “There was a wolfman,” he’d say. “And he saved me.”
Jake rubbed Daniel’s back now, resting his cheek against his head. “Oh, yeah? Why are you crying then?”
“Because this time somebody got him.”
His stomach muscles tightened, just like they always did when Daniel talked about the wolfman. It was creepy, unsettling. And without fail it made him want to look over his shoulder.
“What do you mean somebody got him?”
Daniel rubbed his nose. “Killed him. Somebody killed him, Daddy.”
Jake rocked him, staring across the room. The hairs on his arms prickled.
“But it got scarier,” Daniel whispered.
“Are you sure you want to talk about this?”
He nodded and snuggled closer. Jake waited, hating that his son knew this kind of fear.
“It wasn’t a person who killed the wolfman.”
The house creaked and settled in the midnight hour. Each sound seemed magnified in the stillness. A strange, empty feeling came over him, and for some reason, all he could think about was Lizzie.
“It was a monster,” Daniel said.