Laurie's Wolves (22 page)

His shoulders slumped. “I heated spaghetti.”

She released the counter and grabbed a tank top from next to the sink. As she shrugged into it, she closed her eyes and went into her head. She needed to think. “I’ll be right there.” She grabbed her panties next and stepped into them.

“Baby?”

She pasted a smile on her face and stepped toward him, patting his chest with her palm as she lifted her gaze to meet his. “Starving.”

The change of subject ended any discussion he might have wanted to have about the black shadowy spirit. Besides, what was there to say? The world was going to hell quicker by the day it seemed. Whatever she’d been doing up to that point to appease the spirit had not worked. She needed to make a change.

∙
•
∙

Zach took her hand and led her to the kitchen.

Just as she pulled out a chair and sat, his cell rang. It vibrated on the table. Zach grabbed it with a frown. “Who would call at this hour?”

“The precinct,” he muttered as he answered it. “Hello?”

“Zach. This is Sheriff Terrance Bergman.”

“Hi. I’m guessing this isn’t a social call at two thirty in the morning.”

The man sighed. “No. Sorry.”

“Talk to me. There isn’t much you can say to shock me.”

“We’ve had disturbing reports of a group of people meeting with the intention of running you out of town—at any cost.”

“See? That doesn’t shock me at all. Not after someone broke into my condo and filled the place with gas, and not after bricks came through the window at Corbin’s apartment. I assume it’s worse than that and whoever this fucked-up group is, they’d like to see me dead. Me and my mates.” Thank God Bergman was a shifter. Made it easier to express himself openly.

“Well, it’s not hard to figure out who’s organizing this crime. They were trapped last night inside the church. They were forced to call for help when the door froze shut during their meeting.”

Zach chuckled. “Perfect. What church?”

“The Church on the Hill.”

“Of course. Why am I not shocked? That church is the most fundamentalist one in town. But I’m surprised they’d go to such lengths to conspire against me. How do you know that’s what they gathered to discuss?”

“Apparently one of the members is not in complete agreement. She panicked when she realized they were moving from hate to actual crimes. She was the same person who anonymously called in the gas leak.”

Zach sighed. He leaned against the counter and rubbed his temple with his free hand. “Do you know who she is?”

“Nope.”

“But she called again?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do?”

“There isn’t a lot I can do. My hands are tied. I can’t arrest people for meeting.”

“Even if they threatened my life and that of my mates?”

“I need more solid proof. The woman who called was whispering to our dispatcher, and she hung up before she got into specifics. Trust me, I’ll be on those folks like glue. But in the meantime, I think it would be best if you watched your backs.”

Zach nodded, even though obviously the sheriff couldn’t see him. He met Laurie’s gaze across the room where she sat on her hands with her lips pursed. “Thanks for the warning. We’ll see what we can do.” Zach ended the call and turned to face her.

“Some people are pissed with our arrangement,” she stated, deadpan.

He nodded. “To say the least.”

She lowered her gaze toward the table, picked up her fork, and dove into the spaghetti as though nothing had happened.

Zach watched her eat for several seconds before he came over to sit next to her. “Baby?”

“Yes?” She lifted her brows.

He stared at her. Obviously she wasn’t interested in discussing this issue further. Finally, he dug into his own plate of spaghetti, not the least bit oblivious to the deafening silence filling the room.

»»•««

“When are the cops going to arrive?” Ada asked her husband.

Pastor Edmund paced the front of the church where two dozen members had met late the previous evening. They all still sat there now. It was after four a.m.

Mary was among them. The only reason she had attended this farce was to eavesdrop on their plans. When Florence had called to see if she was coming, she’d hesitated for a moment before accepting. These were not the sort of people she wanted to be involved with. But after the stunt they pulled at the condo, she didn’t see how she could ignore them.

What she needed to do was get to the police station alone and speak with someone. She should have done so already after the fiasco with Zach Masters’s condo. But there hadn’t been time. And she realized it was probably more help to the police that she gather more information than blow her cover yet.

Pastor Edmund gave a long exasperated sigh. “I just called them for the fourth time. You heard me on the phone. They said they’ve had dozens of calls all night long. Since we aren’t in imminent danger, we’re not high on their list.”

Florence jumped to her feet. “We’re trapped. How is that not a priority?”

Even Edmund looked annoyed at that. “We have heat, restrooms, and food. Some people out there are trapped in ice, freezing.”

Florence flounced back into her seat, grumbling. “Probably some of them aren’t worthy of rescue.”

Mary sucked in a breath, but tried not to give herself away. Seriously? She had assigned a different value to various people’s lives? That was above and beyond crazy. How the hell had Mary found herself among this sort of so-called Christian?

Sure there were things she believed were sins, but that didn’t give her the right to extinguish lives. She was not the judge. God would determine the punishment at each person’s reckoning. Not Florence. Not Pastor Edmund. Not Ada. Her skin crawled with the desire to get away from these people. The church was large enough, but suddenly she felt claustrophobic.

When she’d heard about the attack on Zach Masters’s home, she had been appalled. She had hoped the mission had been simply to scare the occupants into leaving town. But natural gas? Filling the condo with flammable material was not a warning sign. It was dangerous. And she still wasn’t sure if one of the members had intended to toss in a match or simply let nature take its course.

Either way, she hadn’t wanted to take her chances with three lives, so she called the sheriff’s office.

What she’d listened to last night in the meeting made her cringe. It had started with several members organizing a boycott against the Masters, hoping if they could convince the citizens of Cambridge to stop patronizing the resort, they could put the Masters out of business. That was innocent enough and within their rights.

But soon the conversation deteriorated to acts of violence if they didn’t feel heard. They weren’t really interested in a slow demise. They wanted the entire Masters family out of town yesterday.

“Those people” were ruining their way of life, making a mockery of the Bible, God’s will, and the good citizens of Cambridge.

Like an organized mob scene, it only took a few people to convince two dozen others to take up “arms” and fight this religious battle.

There was discussion of burning down the main resort lodge, destroying property. One of the members had access to explosives.

Mary had almost vomited as they discussed their complete disregard for the possible loss of innocent lives, stating the blame for that would be on the Masters, not the Church on the Hill.

How had it not occurred to anyone that while they tossed their stones, perhaps it was really the members of the Church on the Hill who were the sinners in this charade? They were all so worked up in judging the Masters and their partners, no one could see the real issue—
thou shalt not judge
. Which was worse?

“Call the sheriff’s office again. Demand that they get us out of here.” Ada stood to pace next to her husband.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell. “Go ahead, dear,” he mocked. “We’re lucky we have cell service at all. Apparently the temperature outside is at an all-time record low. It’s like the weather in this area is possessed.”

“It’s been possessed for a few years,” someone stated. “Freaky earthquakes, rain out of nowhere, snowstorms that swoop in without warning. And now a geyser on the side of the highway? What is the world coming to?”

Florence set her hands on her hips and cocked her leg out to one side. “I’ll tell you what the world is coming to. We’re being punished for the sins of our neighbors. It’s a sign
,
I tell you. If we don’t wake up and straighten out our citizens, we’re liable to be wiped from the map.

“God is punishing all of us for the sins of a few. If we want to stop this madness, we need to take action. Have you noticed that every time one of those Masters kids enters another immoral relationship, the weather gets freakier?”

Pastor Edmund pinched his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “She’s right. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“When their first boy got together with that nasty Indian and that loose hooker of a girl, we had an earthquake. When the second boy shacked up with an Indian girl and another man, we lost the casino and the revenue it would have brought to our area. Now, the third son is tempting fate again with his sinful nature, fornicating with some mixed woman and another Indian. God is furious.”

Florence’s voice rose as she spoke. She pointed at each and every person in the room one at a time. “Mark my words, if we don’t put an end to this abominable attempt to mix races and allow polygamy to flourish in our town, we’ll see more of God’s wrath.

“It’s our duty to step up and put an end to this farce. If not, God will see to the sins of our neighbors. And he may not be kind enough to leave us living. Remember the ark?” she asked as though perhaps someone among them was unfamiliar with Noah. Besides, they’d been through this argument about God’s possible wrath already. Now they were rehashing.

She continued. “Plagues. Famine. Locusts. He will see to the crimes against His word if we don’t do so ourselves.”

Mary held her breath. No one was really saying anything she hadn’t heard her entire life. If her parents were in the room, they would be fisting the air with the other parishioners and shouting in agreement. But Mary seemed to have exited her body. Had she come to her senses? Or was she doomed to die in the third circle of Hell for not going along with this plan of annihilation?

She shuddered. For better or for worse, her gut told her to get the hell out of Dodge and call the sheriff immediately. She’d called them earlier, but had only managed to speak in a hushed whisper and then had been forced to hang up when someone approached her.

Unfortunately, she was as stuck in this building as everyone else. There would be no escaping until the deputies arrived.

She winced as she considered her own predicament. Was it a coincidence she had met Jazmine in the same relative time frame as being put to this test as a true parishioner to the Church on the Hill?

Maybe everything happening to her was a test. God testing her faith. Perhaps she was supposed to renounce her feelings for Jazmine and reclaim her beliefs.

Or it could be she was supposed to turn away from this farce of a church and live her life authentically. Either way, she was filled with anxiety. This was not a test she would ever sign up for.

As if by divine intervention, her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out. A text from Jaz:
Thinking about u. Hoping u r safe in this cold weather.

Mary quickly responded:
Trapped @ the church.
Wishing I were with u instead.

Jaz:
Be careful. Be safe. Be diligent.

Mary:
I will. Talk to u tomorrow.

Laurie paced the living room again for the hundredth time that morning.

After Zach left to go check on things at the resort, she started thinking.

Evidence was mounting that she needed to get the hell out of town. If she didn’t, there was a distinct possibility shit was about to hit the fan. Bigger shit.

How else was she supposed to look at things? The entire tri-county area had peacefully existed with no spirit sightings for months until her arrival.

Since her mating, the world had been tossed upside down. She’d personally been the witness to several spirit sightings. No one else. Always her. The spirit was trying to tell her something. Frequently weird weather accompanied the sightings. Increasingly strange phenomena made her skin crawl.

Something horrible was about to occur. Was it simply her job to point this out? Or was it her fault it was happening?

There was only one way to find out. Deep inside, she knew this was true. She had to leave town. She’d avoided contemplating the idea for days. It was time.

She knew if she suggested such a thing to either of her mates, they would freak out. Neither of them was in a position to leave town. Corbin was needed by the sheriff’s department, and Zach was needed at the resort.

Laurie took a deep breath and raced for the bedroom. She packed a bag in minutes. And then she called a cab. Her rental car was still somewhere along the highway. Hopefully the taxi could get her to it.