Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles #2) (22 page)

“Cordelia,” she said into the phone. “Listen, something happened.” All she heard was static. “Cordelia?”

The connection had been severed, or lost. Maybe it was just as well that she’d had a minute to reconsider her impulse to confide that she’d begun to transform. Katelyn dialed back but the call was blocked. Dom must have spies. And if they could come back for Katelyn, then the Fenner territory was not secure from invaders.

Do I care?

Her grandfather called; then he and Trick came back. They were grim faced and her grandfather said he didn’t want to talk about it. Instead, he began to inspect the items Sergeant Lewis had retrieved from the Wolf Springs bog.

“There’s about half of the good silver and one of the pictures,” Mordecai said as he picked up a framed mountain landscape. It was warped and covered with mud — and it wasn’t the painting with the waterfall and the heart-shaped boulder.

“And you say he found this in a bog?” Trick asked.

Mordecai nodded. “Why anyone would throw sterling silver in a bog’s beyond me,” he said angrily.

Katelyn picked up a serving knife and glanced at Trick. He looked back at her with a neutral expression.

“Careful with that, sweetie,” her grandfather warned her. “It’s sharper than the dickens.”

And it’s silver, fatal to all werewolves
, she thought as she looked down at the knife.
Except me
. And, thinking of the silver bullets in the garage, she “accidentally” pricked herself in the thumb with the tip of the blade. It felt so weird to do it, as if she were lying.

She knew very well that she
was
lying.

I am not a werewolf
.

Blood bubbled up from the wound. “Ouch,” she said. She felt as if she had just walked across a chasm on a rope bridge, then cut it loose so that her grandfather and Trick couldn’t follow. It was a horrible, frightening feeling and she swayed.

“Katie?” her grandfather said, his expression unreadable. “What happened?”

“I just pricked myself,” she said. “It’s barely a scratch.”

“Sometimes those hurt worse than the big ones,” he replied, taking her hand and examining the wound closely. “That knife’s probably covered with bacteria.”

“I’ll get the first-aid kit,” Trick said, leaving the room.

“Tell me what happened,” Katelyn said to her grandfather as she sucked on her finger. “To that man.”

“Animal mauling, like those two girls,” he said. “Maybe you should start driving back and forth to school with Trick again.”

“Um,” she began, thinking of how she’d manage going over to the Fenners. And looking for the mine.

Then Trick walked back into the room with the first-aid kit. Katelyn cleaned the cut and applied her own bandage while Trick looked on. Another text came in. Justin. He must have heard. She glanced down at it.

Killer not one of us.

So he said.

But somehow, like Dom and Cordelia, he already knew about the dead man and about why she was calling. She glanced at her grandfather and Trick from under her lashes. The terrible news was traveling so fast. People — correction, werewolves — were hearing about it more quickly than they should. How? She might be keeping secrets from them, but it was clear the werewolves were keeping secrets from her, too.

Word of the death of the Inner Wolf executive spread through school like wildfire. Katelyn’s classmates didn’t hold each other and weep the way they had when Becky Jensen had died. But they did walk around looking shell-shocked, and tributes for Mr. Henderson began to appear at the door to his office — silk flowers and candles, and handwritten notes.
We hope you’re okay, Mr. Henderson
.

The police imposed a curfew — no one out on the streets past 8:30 at night. No one really complained. Everyone was afraid.

Beau cornered Katelyn at lunch, his face peaked, shifting his weight as he held a lunch tray in his hands. She was sitting in the stairwell. Across the room, Trick watched.

“The cops came over and asked my whole family a ton of questions,” Beau began. “I think because of my grandma. She couldn’t give the police much information, but last night in the hospital she began to make a little more sense. The doctors are really happy about her progress.”

“That’s great,” she said.

“She keeps saying there was something at her window. And I think there was, Kat.” He looked at her with hurt in his eyes, and she felt herself giving in to the inevitable. If she didn’t help him, it would make him curious and he might ask questions she couldn’t answer. And if his grandmother had actually seen the Hellhound, Katelyn wanted to know.

“Maybe we could go see her together this weekend,” she suggested.

Clouds of worry rolled away from his face. “That’d be good. Thanks. Have you found anything? Heard anything?”

She didn’t tell him about the Switliski book. She just shook her head and picked up her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, even though she had no appetite. Beau got the hint and said, “She’s all the way in Bentonville. It’ll be a drive.”

“I’ll square it with my grandfather,” she promised. But a moment later another thought sprang into her mind:
Do I have to clear this with the Fenners, too, like when I wanted to go to Little Rock?
An instant later, this was followed by,
Screw that; I’m not going to have my freedom curtailed completely
.

Gratified, Beau walked away, giving Katelyn a clear view of Trick watching her.

When she pulled up outside the Fenner house, she sensed that something new was wrong. Usually Justin stood outside waiting for her, but there was no one there. She walked around the back, her boots crunching on a layer of crusty frost, and took inventory of the parked vehicles. Apparently, Arial and Regan had come over.

Her throat tightened. She was so not in the mood to deal with Cordelia’s bitchy sisters.

Straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin, she knocked on the door. There was no answer. She tried calling Justin’s phone, but he didn’t pick up. She stood there, wondering what she should do. And then she heard raised voices from inside.

Someone was arguing.

I shouldn’t be here
, she thought.
Not if they’re having family problems
. She started to back away from the door.

Without warning, it flew open and Arial stood framed by the doorway. Dressed in scarlet and gold and wearing heavy makeup, she crossed her arms and sneered at Katelyn.

“Well, speak of the devil,” she said, raising her voice only slightly, for sensitive werewolf ears to hear.

“What’s going on?” Katelyn asked, taking another step back. Fear pricked at her scalp and her body started to quiver.
Run
, it told her.
Flee
.

Trembling, she ticked a glance toward the tree line, wondering if she could make it there before the others caught her. A moment later she realized that was foolish. Some of them could shift into wolves at will and they would hunt her down and maul her to death.

It’s just a primitive response
, she told herself.
Fight or flight. The animal part of me
.

Except . . . the people in the house were animals, too.

Justin appeared in the doorway behind Arial. “Kat, come in,” he said, voice tense.

She didn’t want to, but she didn’t see that she had any other choice. When Arial didn’t give way, she had to push past her and she saw the anger flicker on the face of the higher-ranking girl. Justin led her to the living room where the rest of the Fenner clan was gathered, except for Jesse.

“Jesse’s with Lucy,” Justin said, as though reading her thoughts.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Too much, that’s for damn sure,” Lee Fenner said, voice hardly more than a growl. The others glanced his way, but no one commented. Katelyn knew now that it was considered a sign of weakness or immaturity to display wolf behaviors when in human form. That their alpha was doing it was a symptom of his dementia.

“We’re discussing the murder,” Doug — Regan’s husband — said, sounding kind as he acknowledged Katelyn’s entrance into the room with a lifting of his finger.

“An invasion of our territory, that’s what it is,” Mr. Fenner snarled.

“We’re still not sure that Dom’s pack is behind this,” Albert, Arial’s husband, pointed out, his posture deferential, his tone cautious. Katelyn translated: no one wanted to contradict the alpha.

“They must be. It can’t be one of us,” Justin argued.

“It’s her, of course,” Regan said, tilting her head toward Katelyn.

All eyes were on her.

“What?” Katelyn gasped, stunned.

There was a moment of terrible silence and she could read the fear and hostility in the body language of those around her.

“But
I
was attacked. And I can’t shift at will,” she finally managed to say.

“And the first girl was killed before Kat got here,” Justin pointed out with a heavy sigh. “So it can’t be her.”

She felt as though she had been slapped in the face. From the tone of his voice he sounded like he wanted it to be her.

“Only one thing is certain,” Doug said. “Someone’s disloyal.”

“Maybe they’re spying on us, going to the Gaudins and telling them all about us,” Regan said.

Katelyn thought of Dom and his brother. They had managed to sneak into Fenner territory to extract Cordelia unobserved.

“Yes. We need to find a way to flush the traitor out,” Mr. Fenner announced. “And then rip out her . . . or his . . . throat.”

Katelyn went cold all over. They were discussing murder. She thought of her lawyer father and what he would have thought of her standing there listening to them.
If they kill someone, I’m an accessory, guilty as well
, she thought, anxiety pouring through her.
I have to get help. Find a way to stop all this madness.

She could hear the others talking, but she was no longer paying attention to what was said. The image of the silver bullets in her grandfather’s garage blazed into her mind. She knew how to shoot a rifle. Could you just put silver bullets in a normal rifle? Could she do that? Her heartbeat roared in her ears. Could she kill these people?

They are not people.

And neither am I
.

She trembled so hard she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. She couldn’t feel her shoes against the floor.

“So, it’s settled then,” Mr. Fenner said.

“What is?” She could have kicked herself when he glared at her. She couldn’t afford the luxury of fuzzing out around him.

“You’ll have Thanksgiving dinner with us,” Justin said.

She blinked again. How had they gotten from talking about murder to Thanksgiving?

“But my grandfather expects to have dinner with me . . . er, sir,” she said, desperate for a way out. She couldn’t imagine sitting down to turkey dinner with the Fenner clan and struggling to pretend that she was thankful for anything in this whole mess.

There was an exchange of looks that didn’t bode well. Then Justin said, “We’ll work something out.”

“You can go, Kat,” Mr. Fenner announced imperiously.

Her lips parted in surprise. She’d come all the way out and now there’d be no training? She dipped her head, grateful for the reprieve, and hurried to the door.

Justin followed her out to her car. When she started to open the door, he laid his hand over hers. His dark brows met over his deep blue eyes.

“Things are bad now, Kat. Suspicions are running high and no one wants this police investigation to go forward.”

She nodded, trying not to focus on the touch of his hand and the way her skin was tingling. He leaned forward and brushed her cheek with his lips.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I’ll protect you.”

“Please, don’t touch me,” she said, aware that heat was starting to flash through her, burning in her veins like fire. It was how it always felt when he was this close. His breathing had changed, become more ragged, and she knew he was feeling what she was. She pushed the feeling back down — this was not who she was.

With a small grunt of frustration, he stalked up the steps and went back to the house. Katelyn got into her car and drove away as fast as she could.

That was close
, she thought.

Too close.

Saturday morning, Katelyn went with Beau to see his grandmother. It was a long drive to Bentonville, and both of them were nervous. Beau kept music on to fill the void.

“They’ve moved her to the convalescent wing,” he told her as he angled his truck into a space in the parking structure.

She wrinkled her nose as they entered the building. She had always disliked hospitals, but now the smell of antiseptic and sickness burned into her pores like acid.

As they walked down the hall toward his grandmother’s room, Beau took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you for coming with me.”

“No problem,” she said. “I just hope that she can tell us something useful.”

They made it to the room and walked in. Katelyn recognized her as the elderly lady she’d met the first time she went in to Babette’s. Beau’s grandmother, Mrs. Nelson, had looked very elegant then, in a black dress and feathered hat, but now the hospital bed engulfed a sunken old lady, frail and wispy-headed, and fearful. She had warned Katelyn and Cordelia to go home and lock their doors. But for her, her home had not been safe.

“Grandma, how are you? This is my friend, Kat, the girl I was telling you about,” Beau said, planting a kiss on her forehead.

The older lady smiled wanly at him and picked at the edge of her hospital sheet. She didn’t even look Katelyn’s way. “You’re my good boy, Beau,” she said in a warbly, uncertain tone.

Beau flashed a smile at her, then glanced over at Katelyn, as if he weren’t sure how to get started.

“I love you, too, Grandma. Ah, we were hoping you could tell us what you saw that night at your window,” he said.

“My . . . window?” the old lady repeated, worrying the sheet more rapidly.

“Yes, Grandma, remember?” Beau prompted. “You saw something that frightened you?”