“Yes!”
He knew she wasn’t mad at him but panicked, fearing that she would soon be a wolf half dressed in clothes.
He began pulling off her hat and then crouched to unzip her boots. The sun was setting, washing the sky in pink and purple, and reflecting off the snow.
“We still have three more cottages on our list to check tonight after this one. We’re not going home until we do,” she said, her voice ferocious.
“All right.”
They still had another mile hike to this cottage.
If they located Otis, they didn’t know how this was going to end. Unless the guy had a heart condition, forcing him to have a heart attack wasn’t going to happen. They wanted to turn his body over to Rowdy but make sure it looked like an accident. They didn’t want to kill him as a wolf, which could provoke a wolf hunt.
Then Allan’s phone buzzed. He finished helping Debbie undress, and she shifted almost immediately. He yanked out his phone and saw that it was Vaughn calling. Figuring the PI must have some news, Allan answered, “Yeah.”
“I’ve found Otis’s stash in a storage unit in Bigfork.”
“Everything?”
“Hard to tell. Clothes—mostly the camo kind, ammo, a rifle and a Glock, personal stuff. Possibly the gun used in Sarah’s murder.”
“Anything that might clue us in to where he is now?”
“No, but he’s been here recently and he wasn’t wearing hunter’s camo scent. So I’ve got his scent. And I’m taking some of his T-shirts to share his scent with the pack.”
“Good. What about security cameras?”
“Yeah. Sending the pictures now. He was driving a black Jeep. We got a partial tag. Problem is we don’t want the police to run him down.”
“Yeah, gotcha.”
“So we’re having one of Hunter’s police officers do the trick. Any progress there?”
“Just checking out four more cottages situated around twenty-two to twenty-five miles out from Van Lake.”
“How’s Debbie doing?”
“She’s a wolf.” Allan gathered up her clothes and tucked them in his backpack.
“Okay. Now that I’ve found his scent and that he was staying in Bigfork, I’ll drop these off with Lori and Paul, and then I’m going to start checking into the places where he might be staying.”
“You don’t think he’s taken off?”
“Nope. Not when he’s left so much of his weaponry here.”
“What about Franny?”
“Paul and Lori are there, providing additional protection.”
“All right. If you locate him, let me know.”
“Will do.”
As Allan and Debbie drew closer to the cabin, he noted no lights were on, but he smelled the faint odor of wood smoke. He didn’t have to tell Debbie. She lifted her nose and took a whiff of the air and huffed a little, her body tense.
“Stay close,” he warned, his voice hushed.
Without warning, shots rang out from the direction of the cabin. Allan dove behind a tree as the rounds pelted the snow inches away. He glanced in Debbie’s direction, but she had run off in a wide arc—and then headed toward the shooter.
Damn it to hell and back. He didn’t want her shot. What if the resident was just a hunter? Using the cabin illegally, true, but not their killer?
“Police!” Allan called out to let him know what kind of trouble he could be in if he shot and killed him or his dive partner.
More shots were fired in his direction.
Screw this. He made a wide arc through the trees and around to avoid being shot. Either the shooter had night-vision goggles, or he was a wolf and could see well at dusk. He just hoped Debbie wouldn’t get herself shot.
He wanted to yank out his phone and tell Paul they were going in to grab what could be their suspect, but he figured they were on their own right now. Certainly with Debbie up to who knew what, he had to act quickly to protect her and himself.
A screen door slammed and he assumed the shooter had left the cabin, not wanting to be caught inside.
As soon as he did and Allan bore down on the door, a wild growling—Debbie’s wild growling—made Allan’s blood run cold. It turned to ice when he heard a much larger wolf growl back.
The full moon of January—appropriately, the wolf moon—illuminated the trees and snow, some snowflakes sprinkling from the trees as the branches stirred in the breeze.
Then he saw them—a large tan wolf snarling at Debbie a short distance from the dark cabin, only the tiny glow of a fire inside.