Silver-White (The Great North Woods Pack #1) (11 page)

“I know,” Erica said, biting her lip.
Then her face brightened with an idea. “If you forget about it, lunch is on me next
weekend. Both days.”

The old man grinned thinly now. “Slow
down on this road, Erica; you know better. And I’ll see you for lunch Saturday.”

“Thanks,” Erica smiled, big and fake.

Evie gave him a guilty smile and a small
wave.

Old Ed Harkin tipped his cap and pulled
away.

They sat parked on the side of the road.
Erica smoked a cigarette to calm her nerves. Evie held her nose, scowling.

“Let’s just go to my house,” Erica
finally said. “I’m too nervous now to go anywhere far from home.”

“Nervous about me?” Evie asked through a
pinched nose.

Erica’s eyes nearly doubled in size; her
mouth hung open. Evie sat looking back with a clueless “
what
?” expression.

“Are you kidding me?” Erica said. “
Yes
I’m nervous about
you
. Do you not realize what almost just
happened?”

Evie let go of her nose. “I know I
shouldn’t have chased it, but I feel normal again. Everything is fine, Air.”

“
Fine?”
Erica
exploded
.
“You don’t get it, do you? We just
missed a major freaking catastrophe by literally a
hair
. It’s not
fine,
you
simple little twit, no matter how sweet you sound saying it. Use your brain,
dumbass. You could’ve ruined everything for all of us if you’d gotten away.”

Evie’s jaw hung open. Never had her
cousin looked so angry with her. Never had she spoken so viciously, and meant
every word.

“Yeah, look sad,” Erica said and drew
hard on the cigarette. “Do you have any idea what would’ve happened to
me
if you’d gotten away?” she exhaled. “To
hell with hitting the moose. That’s Disney World compared to what grandpa
would’ve done to me if I showed up and told him I’d lost his favorite little
darling. Did you think of that, Red? Huh? No. Of course not. You don’t even care,
do you?”

“I care,” Evie whispered, her voice
unsteady.

“You could’ve been seen!” Erica shouted,
her voice cracking. “Do you know what that means? You could’ve been
shot
for running moose. Dogs and coyotes
get killed for that on the spot. You might be white and beautiful but you’re
not bulletproof.

Evie tried to speak again. Erica ran
right over her.

“No, listen. You need to hear it. Just
imagine … you get excited and chase a moose. No harm, right? This place is the
sticks.
Wrong
. Everyone up here has
guns. If just
one
of them sees you,
bang
, no more Red and the secret is out.
We’re on the news. ‘Huge wolves hiding up north.’ Trophy hunters pour into town.
Our whole family gets hunted down.”

“Okay,” Evie murmured.

“When we’re not on family land, we’re
not safe unless we have complete control. That’s why there are rules, and that’s
why Grandpa is so strict with them. If you lose control and—”

“Okay,” Evie said louder; her eyes were
damp. “I came to spend time with you, not cause trouble. I sure didn’t plan on
chasing some stupid moose and getting the whole family killed. So stop acting
like I did this on purpose.”

Erica tossed her cigarette and blew the
smoke over her shoulder. “I’m just freaking,” she said softer. “I know it
wasn’t on purpose.” Then she leaned over, pressing her forehead to Evie’s
cheek. “I’m sorry, Red. I didn’t mean those things.”

“It’s okay,” Evie whispered.

“No. You’re my sister. If something happened
to you, I …”

“Let’s just go now,” Evie said. Her eyes
were scanning the surrounding woods. “I’m nervous here now, too.”

Erica sat up straight, wiping her eyes,
and started the car. “My house is safe. We’ll go there and cool off. And then,
whatever. If you go primal again, at least it’ll be on family land.”

-8-

During the short ride they were quiet.

Pulling up before her parents’ house,
Erica raised the top and cut the engine, then looked over at her cousin. Evie
stared out the side window with her arms crossed.

“Here we are,” Erica said.

Evie said nothing.

“I said I was sorry, Red.”

“And I heard you,” Evie mumbled.

“I meant it. So give me a break.”

Evie turned her head sharply. “Fine, but
you give me one, too. I know next to nothing about what’s happening to me, and
I feel like I’m losing my mind here. The last thing I need is my best friend in
the world screaming at me because I’m lost in this crazy …
thing
. I’m not trying to compete with you, Air. Seriously.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you acting like I am? None
of this is my fault.”

“I know that.”

“And on top of it all,” Evie grumbled,
“I’m so hungry I feel ill. I can’t even think straight.”

“Okay,” Erica said. “First we’ll eat, and
then we’ll talk this thing out. I’ll spill everything I know about the family.
Absolutely everything. But understand that it’s not easy for me either. I’m
stuck at the worst possible age for our kind. I know all about it, I feel the
desire to join the pack, but I can’t. No matter what I do, I’m
stuck
.”

“That’s fair,” Evie said. “And I’m sorry
for that. Let’s just agree to help each other instead of fighting. Okay?”

“
Fine
,”
Erica said with a small smile, mimicking her cousin’s drawl. “Let’s go in and
eat so you can think straight.”

“I can think straight enough,” Evie said
as they stood from the car, “to know you saved the day back there. Thank you
for stopping me.”

“You would’ve done the same.”

“I’d like to think so,” Evie said. “But you
really did think fast.”

Erica smiled. “What can I say? Talent
runs in the family.”

Inside they found a pizza in the
freezer; Evie’s eyes widened at the sight of peperoni’s. Erica started the oven
and found the pizza tray while Evie stood by the open fridge eating roast beef
slices. She was eating like it was her first meal in weeks.

“You know,” Erica said, “Matthew eats
that stuff by the pound. If he comes home and catches you, you might have to
fight him for it.”

“I’ll take it and run,” Evie said between
bites. “He’s too heavy to keep up with me human, never mind as the wolf.”

Erica opened the pizza wrapper and
dropped the frozen block onto a cookie sheet. Standing straight after sliding
it into the oven, she motioned Evie to follow her up the stairs to her room,
saying, “I have something you’ll be interested to see.”

“Okay,” Evie mumbled with a full mouth.
She took one more slice of roast beef, closed the fridge, and hurried to catch
up. Her cousin was suddenly in a good mood about
something
, and Evie was thankful, whatever it was.

In her room Erica produced a three ring
binder from her desk. “These are the little booklets Aunt June makes up for the
teenagers,” she said, dropping the binder onto her bed.

Evie sat on the bed and opened the
binder, still chewing. As she skimmed the first few pages, Erica paced the
floor.

“We’re instructed never to take them
from our homes once we’ve received them,” she said. “And, obviously, we’re
forbidden to discuss any of it beyond the family. You have no
idea
how hard it is keeping your mouth
closed all the time.”

“Snow,” Evie thought aloud, remembering
Eli’s comment. She raised her eyes to Erica. “Who is James Snow?”

“Grandpa’s father.”

“Snow is Papa’s real last name?”

“That’s what it says, isn’t it?”

“But he’s so proud of the Ludlow name.”

Erica scoffed. “It’s a cover story, Red.
And the name’s just the tip of the ice burg. Like I said last night, there’s a
lot to our grandfather we didn’t know as kids.”

“This man,” Evie said, reading from the
binder again, “James Snow was born in Scotland in the sixteen hundreds. How can
he
only
be our great grandfather?”

“Grandpa’s not seventy,” Erica said, her
eyes dancing as she tried to hold back a smile. “Da-da-da-da.”

Evie sat silently staring.

“And Grandpa wasn’t born in New
Hampshire,” Erica continued, “like some people assume. People in Ludlow might
think
he’s always been here, but
actually he was born in a little Maine logging camp over a hundred years ago.
Only blood relatives and other families of wolves made up that little village.”

Evie sighed. “Papa told me the important
things were all true.”

“He means the sentimental side,” Erica
said, pacing faster. Clearly she loved the mystery of it more than her cousin
did.

Evie flipped to another page and skimmed.
“Papa moved here permanently after his father passed away.”

“Yeah but there’s more that’s not
written there. He didn’t just move here for the hell of it; he came here
permanently then because that’s when he collected his inheritance. He could afford
to start all over; build that huge house, and start his businesses. That’s how
it works; one Snow dies, a younger Snow takes over leadership of the pack, and
control of the family fortune.”

Evie looked up. “
Fortune
?”

“Now do you see what I mean? It’s a
big
deal. Not just the actual wolf part
but the purpose
for
the wolf.
Everything to do with this family is secretive.”

“Let me guess,” Evie said closing the
binder. “The best parts aren’t written down.”

Erica laughed. “
Hell
no
. That’s just the
proverbial bone they toss to the teenagers.”

“So …”

“Stay with me. Here’s where we’re
lucky,” Erica said, sitting at her desk and opening her laptop. “We’ve got
resources our parents didn’t have.”

Evie set down the binder, stood, and moved
over behind her cousin to watch over her shoulder.

“Great grandfather Snow came to the American
colonies from Nova Scotia,” Erica said, “back when it was a mix of French and
Scottish settlers. And By the way, here’s a fun little fact. In the eighteen
hundreds, after most of our relatives were gone from the area, a small town up
there actually adopted the name of Wolfville.”

Evie smirked. “Really?”

“Yeah but it’s not the point. The facts
are that the Snows were in that area. They had money, and they were very good
at keeping secrets. Any guesses?”

“No,” Evie said. “Smelling that pizza is
driving me crazy.”

“You’re pathetic,” Erica muttered.
“Think
big
. Think
money
. Think
mystery
.”

“Just show me; I’m not in the mood to
guess.”

“Have you heard of The Money Pit?”

Evie’s face brightened. “Yes! That silly
movie with the Forrest Gump guy.”

“
No
,”
Erica said in disgust. “I would seriously like to slap you right now.” She
stood up. “Here, sit. See for yourself. Maybe then you’ll take it seriously.”

Evie ignored the slap comment, thinking,
try it, honey
, (her head still ached
from the hair pulling) and sat to examine the web page on the screen. Erica
paced the room behind her and began narrating, far too impatient to wait for
Evie to piece anything together for herself.

“The pit is on Oak Island, a little bump
in the Atlantic off the coast of Nova Scotia. Some teenage boys found it in the
late seventeen hundreds. They dug and found layers of oak logs every so many
feet. Eventually a whole crew of men took over, and long story short, way down in
the pit they found a rare stone supposedly native to Egypt with strange
markings on it.”

“This is
real
,” Evie blurted, looking up in surprise from the laptop. “Actual
buried treasure.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell
you!”

“Calm down,” Evie said, though she was
feeling the excitement herself now. “I don’t see the name Snow on here. How is
our family involved?”

“Officially, we’re not. But if you read
you’ll see that the old legend mentions packs of wild dogs with fiery eyes
guarding the island. I found that out by searching for wolf legends of the
north east. It’s what led me to Oak Island in the first place.”

“Keepers of secrets,” Evie muttered, her
eyes widening. “Papa said those exact words to me yesterday.”

“Uh-huh,” Erica nodded with a raise of
her eyebrows. “He wasn’t joking. Keep reading while I get the pizza.”

Evie looked back to the computer screen.
Without an overexcited narrator she could actually focus. There were pictures
of the island, the treasure pit, and the workers who had labored there over the
years, always unsuccessfully. Men had died in various accidents, and for their
efforts no money had been discovered. Franklin Roosevelt had been involved at
one point. So had several movie stars. Millions had been spent to exhume the
treasure, but not a dime had ever been recovered. The pit, designed centuries
ago, was too sophisticated for even modern technology to conquer. No water pump
on earth could contend with the Atlantic Ocean. Oak Island
did
hold a significant secret—a secret it refused to give up.