The Better to Bite (Howl #1)(32)

He was right. I was a liar. “If I’d found her yesterday, she would have been—”

He shook his head. “From the looks of things, she’s been dead for a while. At least two days.” My dad knew dead bodies. He’d worked real close with the ME in Chicago on so many cases.

All that time. Sissy had been alone in the woods.

Don’t think about it. Don’t go there.

I cleared my throat. “So…F-Friday night?”

It was his turn to nod. “The ME will tell us for sure, but based on the lividity of the body, it looks that way.”

I didn’t want to know about lividity. I didn’t want Sissy to be dead. “What happened to her?”

He caught my arm and started leading me away from the scene. “Baby, you don’t want to know.”

I stopped walking. “I’m not a baby anymore.” I lifted my chin. “I was attacked by a wolf on Friday night. Sissy died on Friday night. I want to know—”

“Her throat was ripped out.” Flat, but his eyes burned with fury. “The size of those slashes, hell, yeah, I’m looking for an animal. One damn vicious beast.”

I swallowed. “She ran from the party, and she ran right into the wolf.”

The big, bad wolf that waited in the woods.

“No.” He pushed me forward again. “Not right from the party. Sissy was wearing a night gown.”

I blinked.

His gaze swept the woods and tension kept his jaw tight.

“A night gown?” I repeated slowly. But if she’d been wearing her gown, she’d gotten home safely. She'd made it back after the party.

Then she'd gone back into the dark woods.

“I want to know why the hell that girl was out in those woods.” We were walking faster now. My dad was nearly running, and I was tripping as I tried to keep up with him. “I want to know if she was alone.”

Because reason number one a pretty girl went into the woods when her parents were out of town…to meet a boy.

“If someone was with her, I damn well want to know who left her alone to die.”

A twig snapped. My head whipped up. Rafe stood there, staring at me and my dad with a furrow between his brows. “You found her.” No question.

Rafe started to push by us. My dad caught his shoulders. “Son, you don’t want to see that.”

No, no one wanted to see what was left of Sissy. Unfortunately, her parents would have to see their baby again. They’d be the ones to identify her, and the ones that would never forget the last image of their little girl.

As we headed into the clearing, I saw Sissy’s folks. Hope still lit their faces. I knew my dad wanted to be the one to tell them about the sad discovery. And he’d have to tell them soon, before the ME pulled up.

My dad eased away from me. I hunched my shoulders and watched him go. Rafe stayed beside me, silent.

My dad straightened his spine. He took off his hat. Held it between his hands. I couldn’t hear his words to the Hamilton’s, but I saw when the mother broke. Her knees gave way, and she would have fallen right to the ground if my dad hadn’t lunged forward and caught her.

Sissy’s dad just stood there, shaking his head, as tears streamed down his face.

Then I heard his words, because they were rising, louder and louder. “She’s just lost…she’s just lost!”

But Sissy wasn’t lost anymore. I’d found her. Too late.

“How did you know?” Rafe’s gruff question.

My dad took the mother inside the house. Sissy’s dad stared at the woods, with his hands clenched into fists.

“How’d you know where to find her?” Rafe demanded, and anger rumbled in his voice.

Anger? I glanced over at him. “We got lucky. We were out scouting in the woods, and…we just got lucky.”

Doubt stared back at me from his gaze. “The way you got lucky when you found Brent’s house on Friday night?”

“Yes.” I said the lie when I looked him right in the eye.

Then he called it.

“Bullshit, Anna Lambert.”

“Rafe!” His father’s voice.

But Rafe didn’t move. “You’ve got secrets, don’t you, Anna?”

I was starting to think everyone in this town had them. Some of those secrets were even scarier than mine.

His bright stare searched mine. “How do you do it? How does it work?”

My lips pressed together. For once, I’d actually like to tell someone. He’d seen what I could do, so he’d have to believe me. But then what would happen? Could I really take the chance? What if he shared my story all over school and everyone talked about what a freak I was?

No, thank you.

I turned away. I walked slowly and surely back to my dad’s car. Then I slid inside and slammed the door shut.

When I looked down, I realized my nails had dug into my palms, leaving little half-moon gouges.

A few minutes later, the ME arrived and the deputies headed with him into the woods.

Sissy Hamilton wasn’t lost any longer.

***

The next two days passed in a blur. Everyone at school was talking about Sissy. Freshmen were crying, walking down the hallways with red-rimmed eyes and runny noses.

Upperclassmen were shocked. They talked in excited whispers and spent more time with the freshmen—time that didn’t include pranks and teasing.