The Better to Bite (Howl #1)(47)

I stared through the glass at Rafe. His gaze held mine. “Why?” I demanded.

Deputy Jon had already climbed in the car. He cranked the engine and the cruiser pulled away. But Rafe—he’d tried to answer. I hadn’t heard him clearly, but I thought his lips had moved and he’d said— Don’t trust him.

I watched the tail-lights vanish down the road. Another cheer erupted from the field behind me. After a moment, I headed slowly back into the stadium.

***

I left the game early. After the weirdness on the field, I just wanted to go home. I dropped Jenny off at her place and drove back to my house. The roads seemed even darker, and I realized that thick clouds had covered the moon.

A storm was coming.

My dad still wasn’t back at the house. I figured he was notifying the hiker’s family or maybe even dealing with Rafe. The old house seemed too quiet and far too big, and I wondered how my grandmother had felt, living there alone for so many years. When we’d first come to town, I’d learned that my grandfather, Peter Lambert, had died over twenty years ago.

If he’d lived, would he have wanted to meet me? Or would he have been like my grandmother? Not caring enough to even bother with a phone call.

Sometimes, I felt like the house was suffocating me.

I pushed those feelings away, just like I always did. I locked the windows. Bolted the doors. Double-checked and triple-checked the locks.

And I waited. Just me and the ghost of my grandmother. That was what it felt like, anyway. Because even though all of her belongings were gone, this place was hers.

Not mine.

After about thirty minutes, the phone rang. I grabbed it instantly.

“Anna?” Dad’s voice, sounding tired. “Baby, I’m sorry, but I’m going to be late tonight.” A murmur of voices sounded behind him. “Very late.”

My fingers tightened round the phone. “Dad, we need to talk.” I even used the voice. The one he’d taught me. I knew by his hum of silence that he got that our talk would be big.

It definitely would be.

“Everything okay?” There was an alert edge to his words.

No. “I need to talk to you about this—this place.” About monsters and men and nightmares that could become real. “I’m going to stay up until you get home.”

Silence. Then… “Okay, baby. We’ll talk tonight. I’ll get home as soon as I can.”

I wondered if he’d give me the answers I needed. I put the phone back in the cradle and waited.

***

He came home just after one that night. I heard his key slide in the lock, and the door squeaked open seconds later.

He looked tired, but his gaze was alert and worried as it fixed on me. “Anna?”

Yeah, I had all the lights on in the house. Learning that you’re wolf prey would make anyone want some lights.

I sat near the bottom of the stairs.

Dad shut the door behind him, locked it, and frowned at me. He still had on his uniform, but it wasn’t so nice and neat. Stained from the woods, wrinkled.

“You found Susie Harper,” I said.

He didn’t show a flicker of surprise. Why would he? Dad knew my secrets. I just didn’t know his.

“Will the ME find claw marks on her bones, too?” I asked. Then, I pushed, “Marks that belong to a wolf?”

He put down his keys. “What do you think?”

I thought I didn’t like his measuring stare. “I think you’ve been holding out on me, Dad.” I’d actually searched the house while I waited for him to get back. I’d wanted to find out something about my grandmother. Something, anything. She was my past, and apparently, in Haven, past was key.

But there had been no trace of her in the house.

“You know exactly what’s killing these people,” I said into the silence between us, and I began to play with my necklace. “You know—”

In two seconds, he was in front of me. He caught my hand, freezing my fingers. “Where did you get this?” The lines around his mouth had deepened even more.

I lifted my chin. “Recognize it, do you?”

His gaze held mine. “Anna…”

“I met this nice lady in town.” Semi-nice. Semi-scary. “Seems she knew mom. She gave it to me.”

“Helen.”

I nodded.

He dropped the necklace and stepped back. “I figured you’d start talking to her, sooner or later.”

“It was sooner.” Not soon enough. “And, Dad, I know.”

He turned away. “Helen is, well, most folks call her eccentric. She tells lots of stories, and you can’t always believe what she says.”

“Oh?” I stood up and my knees didn’t tremble. “I can’t believe her when she says there are people in Haven who can transform into wolves?”

I saw his shoulders stiffen.

“And I can’t believe her when she says that I’m descended from the witch who cursed them?”

He glanced back at me. “Just how much talking have you been doing with Helen?”

“Enough.” I climbed down the rest of the stairs. “Enough to know that you haven’t been telling me the truth.”

He didn’t deny it.

“I thought we left Chicago to get away from the monsters,” I whispered as I shook my head. “But here…”