Chapter 11 Jennie
I toggled the view and watched the wolf come in.
It was huge. Freaking enormous. If that was a big dog I’d eat my drone.
It hugged the edge of the clearing, then another appeared, darker and leaner, not following but flanking, and then a third, all chest and legs, massive.
One last one, looking older and rangier than the rest, brought up the rear.
I’d written off Grandad’s stories as just that. Stories. People saw things, and then those things became tall tales, and eventually the stories paid better than the truth. But this was not a story. I watched the four wolves converge, each moving with the instinct that said “pack.”
The drone captured everything, even when the world was dark.
The infrared showed the wolves as blurs of living fire.
I followed them, frame by frame, as they circled the old feed station, all four raising their heads at once.
The rain hit the partially caved-in roof in sheets, flattening the world to static.
I boosted the volume, but the only thing I caught was the beat of water and, behind it, the rumble of thunder.
The lead wolf approached the crates, nose low. It hesitated, muscles bunched, then it looked up and back at the other two. They closed in, a triangle. Then the real show started.
The first wolf shuddered, like it had been hit with a cattle prod.
Its body rippled and folded, the fur became skin, the limbs twisted, hands and feet erupting from paws.
I’d seen some fucked-up things in the Bureau, cartel execution videos, a guy who’d tried to DIY his limb removal, a PCP trip gone so bad the man yanked out his molars, but this metamorphosis sent my stomach lurching toward my throat.
The wolf became a man. The other three followed, quickly, one after another, and then there were four men standing in the rain, fully clothed, staring at the gun crates.
I paused the feed and sat back. What the fuck?
In my thirty-two years on this earth, I’d always assumed that when the moment came, the moment the world turned upside down, I’d have something smart to say. What I had was a mouth full of cotton and a brain leaking out my ears. So, yeah. Not my best moment.
I replayed the transformation, slower this time.
The transition wasn’t instant, wasn’t like poof magic.
It was violence turned inward, the body fighting to reject every inch of itself, then, at the last second, deciding to just give up and let nature have its way.
The men who emerged weren’t superheroes.
They were battered and raw, skin already going purple in the cold, hands clutching at themselves, barely upright.
I zoomed in.
The faces weren’t unfamiliar. My heart stuttered as I recognized the one on the right. Reid Coulter. The other three I recognized from around Hollow Ridge, Buck, who I’d met at the feed store. The other two were part of the Maddox ranch. The wolves were Maddox men.
I should have called the FBI right then. I should have called Marcus. But I didn’t. I sat on the mattress, staring at the freeze-frame of three men in the rain in shock. Reid had just appeared from a wolf.
I watched the rest of the footage.
The men stood over the crates, talking. I tried to read lips, but the angle and rain made it impossible.
Still, body language is half the battle.
Reid opened a crate and motioned them closer.
Eli’s jaw dropped. Buck rolled a round between his palms. They were surprised.
They weren’t here to guard the stash. They’d just found it.
I watched for proprietary movements, the little gestures. Every motion was exploratory, poking and prodding. The men looked disgusted. Eli turned away at one point, looking like he was angry.
The men re-covered the crates, then shifted back. It was slower this time, more deliberate. Reid looked back over his shoulder before he went full animal. For a split second, I thought he was looking straight through the camera, through the screen, and into my room. I shivered.
I ran the clip again. Then again. Each time, I caught another tell, the way Buck clocked every shadow, the way the youngest one’s hand shook when he picked up a shell, the way Reid carried himself, even rain-soaked, even monstrous.
I thought about my grandfather. He’d told me the world was full of things that didn’t care if anyone believed in them. I wished he were alive so I could ask him what a person was supposed to do when the wolves put on jeans and drove F-250s. He'd probably have laughed. Then told me not to feed them.
I closed the laptop and lay back. My hands shook, but only a little.
I’d solved half the case. I’d proven what nobody in Hollow Ridge would ever say, if they even knew.
Was the whole town in on the coverup? The Maddox family weren’t just wolves in the metaphorical sense.
They were shapeshifters, werewolves. But if I called it in now, if I uploaded the footage to the Bureau, what would happen?
Marcus would send a team, the Colemans could catch wind and move the guns, the Maddox pack could go underground, and the official report would read “delusions, false leads, possible side effects of local water.” I’d be done.
The case would be over before it started.
Knowing Marcus, he’d find a way to prove that I’d doctored the video.
And there was something else. I didn’t want to sell out Reid. Not yet.
I could almost hear Marcus in my ear, voice all smooth and sinister, “Jennie, you’re getting close.
But don’t let emotion cloud the data.” Fuck Marcus.
He was a bastard. But he was right. I couldn’t let my emotions override my good sense.
I had to get more information before I did anything, and I was supposed to meet Reid in a little over an hour.
How was I going to spend the day in the saddle with him and not let on like I knew he was a freaking wolf?
Only one way to find out. Time to get moving.