25
Forty-five minutes had passed, and Tean was still waiting.
Jem wasn’t answering his phone.
It could have been lots of things. It could have been a problem with the Subaru.
The Screech—a noise that the Subaru had been making in December—had disappeared for a while, and Tean had convinced himself the situation had resolved itself.
Which was, he knew, overly optimistic, especially when it came to cars.
Or Jem might have stopped to pick up something to eat.
Jem might have gotten a call from someone else, someone who needed help more urgently.
He had a younger brother and sister he’d reconnected with; what if one of them needed him?
But none of those things explained why Tean’s calls went straight to voicemail. Or why Jem hadn’t called and told Tean that he was going to be late, that plans had changed, that something had come up.
Tean studied Amy’s house. The windows were all dark, and in the time Tean had sat and watched, he hadn’t seen anything to make him suspect someone was in there.
And that made sense. Of course no one was in there. Amy had been out of the house for days. The wolves, if they were still trying to find her, wouldn’t be looking here.
He tried Jem once more. Once more, the phone went to voicemail, and Tean said, “It’s been almost an hour, Jem. I’m going to grab Amy’s medicine and take it to her. Give me a call back if you get this.” He wished he hadn’t said if. “I hope everything’s okay.”
It wasn’t like an old answering machine, where Jem could pick up in the middle of the message and say, Hey, I just walked in. And no miraculous call came in the wake of the voicemail. After another minute, Tean eased the truck into drive.
He drove around the block, the rumble of the Ford’s engine the only sound, driving through orange patches of light and scanning the cars he passed. Not just the cars. The cars, and the houses, and the hedges, and the trees. Anywhere the shadows thickened. Anywhere someone might be hiding.
But that was crazy. That was unsustainable.
Nobody could just sit out here, day and night, watching Amy’s house.
Someone would notice. Someone would call the police.
And didn’t they have anything better to do?
Wouldn’t they get cold and hungry and sleepy?
Wouldn’t they need a break? There were only five of them, tops—
Four.
Four, because Tess was dead, and they’d broken her down like old cardboard and stuffed her in a barrel.
There were only four of them. And at least two of them had been staying out at Direwolf Ranch.
And they were just four people. Four people who couldn’t be everywhere at once because they were ordinary human beings, not space wolves or skinwalkers or whatever they wanted to pretend.
They couldn’t be here. That was logic talking. That was a deduction.
His hands were so cold that he wasn’t sure he could ease his fingers off the steering wheel.
One last circuit of the block failed to show him anything suspect.
And still no call from Jem. Tean parked on the concrete strips behind the house.
Then he remembered how last time, Jem had made him park on the alley’s asphalt, parallel to the house.
Blocking traffic, but Jem didn’t care about that.
He’d wanted them to have a quick getaway.
So, Tean backed out and parked with the truck pointed down the alley.
And if someone came along and was angry that Tean had blocked the way, Tean would—well, he almost laughed, he’d probably apologize.
He was halfway to the house when the truck’s headlights timed out.
Shadows jumped forward to fill the space where the light had been.
Tean made himself keep walking. The door to the sunporch screeched again as he forced it open.
He took out his keys and found the one Amy had given them. Someone whistled, and Tean spun around.
Nobody.
Nothing.
The blacked-out yard, a flickering streetlight, the crumbling asphalt of the alley.
It took him a moment to make the connection: the broken window, and the breeze shrilling as it forced its way through the crack.
“Holy shit,” Tean mumbled as he turned back to the door.
Maybe it said something about his priorities, but he had a flicker of satisfaction that he wouldn’t have to put anything in the swear jar for that one.
The key turned easily in the lock, and Tean stepped inside.
The house was warm, and from somewhere in the dark came a steady beeping that he associated with an alarm clock.
Something stunk—rotting meat, garbage that needed to be taken out.
As his eyes adjusted, there was enough ambient light for him to make out the shapes of things: the counters, the table, the opening that connected to the living room at the front of the house, the darker passageway that led toward the bedrooms.
Tean turned toward the refrigerator.
The alarm was still beeping.
He debated for a moment and then, shielding his phone with one hand, he turned on the flashlight.
He kept the light low; it would be just Tean’s luck for a nosy neighbor to decide that now was a great opportunity to call the police, and even though Tean wasn’t technically doing anything wrong, he didn’t like the idea of drawing attention to himself here.
If nothing else, Orsino would probably take it as an excuse to arrest him for meddling.
The white light from his phone showed him the floor in front of him, but it only seemed to deepen the rest of the darkness. It felt like the gloom was pressing in around him. It wasn’t, of course. The flashlight had ruined his night vision; that was all. But Tean walked quickly down the hall.
Light flickered to his left. Someone loomed in the bathroom doorway.
Tean took two steps back before his brain caught up with him: it was his reflection in the bathroom mirror. And the reflection of the flashlight.
“Holy shit,” he said again, his throat tighter this time.
He kept going.
Amy’s bedroom was still in disarray, clothes and shoes and shopping bags everywhere, but it was the same disorder he remembered from his only other visit to the house. On the nightstand, a clock-radio beeped. Tean took a moment to inspect it. Then he thumbed a switch, and the alarm went silent.
He thought he heard a floorboard creak.
But then nothing.
His imagination, maybe. Or the sounds of an old house settling. His and Jem’s house made the strangest sounds at night, all that wood expanding and contracting.
He was sweating, and when he adjusted his grip, the phone almost slid out of his hand.
He swept the light down the hallway first, like he was a soldier clearing the house, and he was aware of the ridiculousness of it but couldn’t stop himself.
Still nothing. Because the house was empty.
Because nobody could keep watch on a house constantly, and because nobody knew he was going to be here, and because Amy had been gone for days, so nobody would waste their time trying to find her here.
All good reasons. All solid. All logical.
His breath felt like it was caught behind his breastbone.
Another floorboard creaked as he crossed the kitchen.
To his right, a dark pit opened up: the stairway down to the basement.
And then, beyond it, the refrigerator, the kind with the freezer at the bottom.
He opened the upper doors. White light flooded out around him, and he blinked as his eyes adjusted again.
Takeout containers. A sandwich wrapped in butcher’s paper, the dressing leaking through.
Jars of pickles. Condiments. A box of baking soda with the words CHANGE DEC 2018 written on it in Sharpie.
He moved the pickles. He shifted the ketchup.
No prescription.
He texted Amy: Can’t find it. Where is it?
And somewhere in the house, a phone dinged.
Tean froze.
Gentle pressure on the refrigerator door made him pull his hand back. The door closed.
A wolf stood there, watching him.