Dead Letter Day (3 page)

In fact, it sounded suspiciously as if it wasn’t a disappearance. Maybe Paul really had taken some time to think about his priorities. It wasn’t like he and I sat down each month and compared our calendars. If I took a little vacay, I wouldn’t necessarily tell him.

Still, it seemed weird that he hadn’t at least told Meredith he was going, even if he didn’t say where.

Chuck gestured for me to walk back down the hill toward the house. “Oh, and congratulations, by the way,” Chuck said from behind me.

“What for?” I asked, turning to look at him.

He paused mid-step and then said, “You know, for, uh, how well things are going at Mae’s studio. Congratulations on keeping that going.”

“Oh. Thank you.” I turned and resumed walking down the hill.

Werewolves are good at lots of things. Lying isn’t one of them, and that sounded like a lie to me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up even taller.

“WHERE ARE YOU? I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING YOU’RE saying,” Ted yelled through my phone.

I was in my car with the windows rolled up and the radio cranking. “I’m trying not to be overheard.” I wasn’t sure who might be listening in or why, but I didn’t like the lengths that Chuck had felt he’d had to go to to keep from being eavesdropped on. It made me even more uneasy. If Chuck didn’t trust the members of his own Pack to know what was going on and why, how could I? I also knew that there were wolves all around me. I could feel them, but I couldn’t see them. I didn’t know why I was being spied on. It might have been standard operating procedure for when someone who was not pack was in the area. I didn’t have to like it, though.

“Great job. I can’t even overhear you and you called me.” Was that an edge of annoyance I heard in the usually solicitous tones of my sweetheart? It had taken quite a bit for me to finally annoy him, but apparently I had managed. I am nothing if not persistent.

I’m not one to gloat over my victories, though. “I talked to Chuck. He claims not to know where Paul is. He thinks Paul’s off somewhere straightening out their failure to communicate.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Maybe.” I didn’t know what to believe. The idea that I was causing Paul problems with the Pack wasn’t exactly pleasant. I certainly didn’t want to cause him more by poking around where I wasn’t wanted or needed. On the other hand, I didn’t want to not check things out, in case he was in trouble. And what the hell had Chuck really been congratulating me about? That made me uneasy, too.

“So what’s your plan?” Ted asked.

“What makes you think I have one?”

“The fact that I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without one, even if it’s just a way to get whatever it is you want for dinner.” Okay. So the Pack may not be the only ones with control issues. Ted said it without rancor. I have to grant him that. Still, it seemed like I was no longer quite a woman of mystery to my boyfriend and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. On the other hand, it did seem like he had me pretty well figured out and had yet to run screaming for the hills.

“I’m going to head into town. Chuck’s second has a hardware store there. Maybe he’s heard something that Chuck hasn’t.”

“See you tonight?”

“Not until later. I promised my mother I’d meet her at the gym.”

“The gym?”

“Yep. She thinks her spin instructor might be demonic. She wants me to check him out.” Ever since I’d told my mother what and who I was, she’d been dragging me from place to place like a supernatural Geiger counter trying to
figure who in her life was a problem and who was a Problem.

It wasn’t all bad. We were having mother/daughter bonding we’d never really experienced before. She also paid for me to get my hair done at her salon because she wanted to see if there was something magical about her hairdresser. She was right about that one. Teri totally had a touch of fairy blood. It probably explained why everyone loved the haircuts she gave them so much. They all came with a soupçon of glamour. On the other hand, the receptionist at my mother’s office? No troll blood at all. She was just mean.

Plus it was better than her first reaction, which had been stunned silence and then several attempts to get me psychiatric help. It had taken Alex and Norah together to help me convince her that I hadn’t lost my mind. Alex had had to show her his fangs and Norah had had to help me explain. Even then there had been several extended days of pure hysteria. I still think she must have bought it at least a little bit because even as convinced as she was that I’d lost my mind, she never told my dad. He was still bumbling along quite happily thinking that his daughter was a little eccentric and not either bat-shit crazy or some kind of evil denizen of the dark.

“I could come by late,” Ted suggested, without even a little of the irritation I’d heard in his voice earlier. In fact, he was using a tone that made a blush creep up my neck and gave me a bit of a tingle.

“That would be nice. Around eight?”

“See you then, babe.”

We hung up. I turned off the radio and rolled down the Buick’s window. “I’m going now,” I said out in the open air.

It might have been my imagination, but it felt like the whole forest let out a sigh of relief.

IT OCCURRED TO ME THAT CHUCK BEING A CONTRACTOR and his second owning a hardware store was a pretty cozy setup. I wondered if anyone in the Pack ever worried about antitrust law. Of course, people in the town would have to figure out all the connections first.

My guess is that if they did, that would be the least of the Pack’s problems.

I pulled into town and my first impression was that a troll had thrown up everywhere. There didn’t appear to be a single storefront without rosemaling somewhere on it and there were a lot of store names with
O
s with slashes through them and little dots above
U
s. I pulled into a parking space in front of the hardware store. Everyone was certainly into their Norwegian heritage here. I’d had no idea. It probably started out as a tourist thing, but a lot of people seemed to be taking it pretty seriously.

Seriously enough to make me a little nervous. As a girl who has spent most of her life feeling different, too much same same-iness makes me uneasy. I don’t even like to buy matching towel sets. I thought about lighting out before someone pounced on me and forced me to eat lutefisk, but it seemed like too good of an opportunity to get a look at Kevin.

The inside of the Spivey’s Hardware was like some place I thought existed only on TV or maybe in books. The air was scented with sawdust, and motes of dust swam in the filtered sunlight that came through the shop windows. Shelves filled the big open room like a maze. I pretty much expected someone in a leather apron to hand me a butterscotch candy at any moment.

The place was far from crowded, but it wasn’t empty either.
Two older men leaned against the counter, and toward the back, a woman was looking at a display of shelving supplies.

I took a few seconds in the doorway to let my eyes adjust to the relative gloom and to let my other senses catalog what they could find as well. Werewolf, duh. I’d expected that. Possibly a soupçon of brownie. Also not surprising. Even ’Canes needed the occasional tool to get the job done and brownies are all about making sure chores are completed.

I relaxed a little more and that’s when it hit me. The wave of emotion was so intense it nearly knocked me to my knees. I had never experienced anything like it and I staggered backward a step, nearly tripping over the threshold. A nearly unbearable sadness clutched at my chest, weakening me at the knees and making it almost impossible to draw a deep breath. It was a melancholy so deep and black, I felt for a moment as if it was going to rob me of my eyesight.

I slammed my senses shut as hard as I could. It was some protection, although it wasn’t complete. Whatever hit me had been powerful, but it hadn’t been a weapon. Or, at least, it hadn’t been meant as one. Someone here walked around feeling like that all the time. I couldn’t imagine. How could someone get out of bed in the morning feeling like that? I felt like curling up in the fetal position under the counter with only traces of it seeping through my defenses.

I shook my head to clear it from this new sensation. It’s not that I don’t sense any emotions. I am a person, after all, but I wasn’t any more sensitive to them than anyone else. Or I hadn’t been until now.

It was another something new. A few weeks before, I’d managed to send some kind of otherworldly zaps out of my fingertips and taken down a
bruja
in a cemetery. I had no idea how I’d done that and hadn’t been able to reproduce it. It had been a brand-new thing.

Let me be clear. I’m not fond of new. I like old and familiar. I drive my grandmother’s Buick. My roommate is my best friend from second grade. I’ve owned the jeans I was wearing today for three years and the shoes for four. Newness brings surprises and adjustments and compromises, and all those things make me nervous. With Paul missing, I was already a little on edge. I didn’t want any more new. I wanted something like my jeans, a little worn at the cuffs but utterly predictable and expected.

I took a deep breath and blew it out and walked back into the store with my walls up a little higher and a little stronger than usual. This time, nothing smacked me back. The sadness was still there, but the tsunami-like quality of it had subsided.

The two old guys leaning against the counter hadn’t moved. The man behind the counter, however, had straightened up. He wasn’t exactly sniffing the air, but it was pretty close. I was pretty sure I’d found Kevin. I walked over and stuck out my hand.

“Hi. I’m Melina Markowitz. I’m—”

“I know what—who—you are,” he said, interrupting me. He did not take my hand.

I left it there, hovering in the air for a second, and then dropped it. Can you say awkward? “Okay, then. Back atcha, I guess.” I wasn’t guessing, though. I knew exactly what and who he was, too. He wasn’t, however, exactly what I’d expected.

Most of the werewolves I know are big men with a lot of muscle packed on them. I’ve met a couple of female werewolves over the years and even they were pretty toned and strong in human form, with Michelle Obama arms and shoulders. The toll on a body of becoming a werewolf is pretty extreme. Not everyone can withstand it. It helps to
already be big and strong to start with. Once you become a werewolf, that strength builds on itself. They tend to be pretty solid.

Kevin, on the other hand, looked a lot like a distance runner, whippet thin, not all that tall and way more stringy than solid. Still, there was no mistaking what he was, at least not by me. If he’d been wholly human, I would have guessed his age to be in his mid-forties. His hairline had started to creep back away from his forehead and what hair was still there was thin and dark. I wondered what his wolf looked like. Would it be skinny and little like him?

Regardless of size, he had to be formidable in a fight. There was no other way to rise to be second in a pack, especially not a pack as large as the Sierra Pack. I guess what they say about it being more about the size of the fight in the dog than the dog in the fight was true.

The two old guys at the counter excused themselves to let Kevin and me talk.

“How can I help you, Messenger?” Kevin asked. His tone didn’t make me think he really wanted to be helpful.

“I’m looking for Paul,” I said, watching his reaction. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one. Not a twitch. Not a grimace. Not a winking eye tic. Nothing.

“He’s not here,” he said, finally. He leaned back against the counter behind him and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Really? Thanks so much. That’s helpful. I can cross this place off my list. Any suggestions on where else I might look?” I smiled. I didn’t mean it. I hoped it showed.

Another werewolf came out of the back. This one was younger than Kevin. He looked like he was barely into his twenties. He was easily five or six inches taller than Kevin, though, and most of that seemed to be leg. “Everything okay out here, boss?” he asked.

“It’s fine, Sam.” Kevin didn’t take his eyes off me as he spoke. “Have you tried the bar?”

I nodded.

“His…lady friend’s?”