No matter how badly she wanted to rescue her mother, there was nothing Claire could do until morning. The town may have relaxed with her mother’s capture, but Claire hadn’t. Somewhere, the seule was still out there, and Claire had no desire to run into her alone. Claire couldn’t shake the image of Zahlia’s apartment from her mind—she hoped the black wolf hadn’t gone looking for the strange wolf by herself.
Claire crept back into the house. Upstairs, Lisbeth’s snores echoed like a buzz saw. Claire’s shoulders slumped in relief. At least I’m not in any more trouble. With any luck, Lisbeth would think she’d just forgotten to turn her alarm on. Claire collapsed on her bed and fell asleep, wrapped in guilt because she lay in her comfortable bed while her mother was trapped in a cage somewhere. All night long, she dreamt of dead dogs, suspicious-looking men, and cages. Lots and lots of cages.
In spite of her exhaustion, the sun woke Claire shortly after dawn. She felt more rested than she’d expected to. Her mother never needed much sleep, always working late in her darkroom, and then getting up early to prep for a shoot or go to a meeting. Maybe it was part of the whole werewolf thing. If I get her out— Claire stopped herself. No, when I get her out, I’ll ask her.
She slid out of bed, grabbed her phone, and wandered downstairs. Even now, walking into her mother’s darkroom uninvited made Claire’s palms sweat. The cool, dim air smelled of Marie. Claire slid onto one of the stools in front of the worktable and put her head in her hands.
Her cell rang and Claire jumped.
“Hello?”
“Hey.” Matthew’s voice was gravelly, but the excitement in it was clear. “I hope I’m not calling too early.”
Hearing his voice lightened the blackness in her chest, just a little bit .
“No, I’m up,” she said, trying to keep her voice normal. Part of her wanted to just go ahead and break down—tell him everything. But his dad actually had her mom. If Matthew panicked, he might go to his dad. And Claire couldn’t risk that.
“Cool. So, listen, since things are, you know, safe again, I was wondering if you wanted to go out tonight.”
Just the idea of seeing him made Claire feel calmer, made it easier to think. And if Matthew knew anything about where her mother was, then she needed to do everything possible to get that information.
“That’d be great. What do you want to do?”
“I was thinking we could go over to Greenway Park—maybe have a picnic?”
“That sounds fun. Can you pick me up?”
“Um, sure—is that okay with everyone there?”
Claire struggled to keep her voice level. “My mom’s not here today. It’ll be fine.”
And who cared, anyway? Her mom wasn’t around to punish her if she found out. And Lisbeth would probably let her go if she said that she was going out with Doug Kingman after all.
They sorted out times, and Claire got off the phone before her mask of I’m-just-a-normal-sixteen-year-old cracked.
“Since things are safe,” he’d said. That’s what he thinks. Things aren’t ever going to be safe for me, not with a monster like his father on the loose.
Claire took one last look around the darkroom before she went upstairs to see if Lisbeth was awake. Her gaze flicked over her mother’s computer desk and she stopped dead.
If Marie Benoit was anal about one thing, it was her photography equipment. Everything had a place in the darkroom, and if it wasn’t in her hand, it was in its assigned spot. In anyone else’s house, the two cameras sitting on the desk next to the computer would look innocent enough, but the sight made Claire shudder. One of the cameras was turned on its side, still plugged into the computer. Claire picked it up and flipped it on. The memory card was empty—whatever photos had been there, her mother had already uploaded and then deleted them from the camera.
Unable to believe what she was doing, Claire slid onto the chair in front of the monitor and jiggled the mouse.
On the screen, a gray box popped up. THESE FILES ARE PASSWORD PROTECTED. PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD. Claire bit her lip. Okay. She could figure this out. She started with the obvious words, like “password,” “pictures.” None of them worked. Claire had worked her way through her mother’s favorite artists, foods, and hotels before she sucked in her breath and tried the one thing that kept darting through the back of her mind—the one password no one would be likely to guess. With shaking hands, she typed it in: loup-garou.
INVALID PASSWORD, the computer announced.
Well, crap. If that hadn’t worked, Claire couldn’t think what else it could possibly be. With a heavy sigh, she snapped off the monitor and headed upstairs to sweet-talk Lisbeth into cooking her some breakfast.