The Better to Bite (Howl #1)(55)

“Whoever did this…” I motioned with my hand. “Was very, very angry.”

“We shouldn’t be here,” Valerie said, voice hushed. “This is wrong.”

That she made me laugh. “The girl who stole my necklace is worried about doing something wrong?”

“I didn’t steal it!” Not so hushed anymore.

I winced. “Keep it down, okay?” But her face was flushed and her eyes glittered with righteous anger, and I started to believe her. “If you didn’t take the necklace, then who did?”

“Someone who wanted to frame me. Someone who wanted the principal mad at me and someone who wanted the whole school to think I was a thief!”

“Someone who doesn’t like you much, huh?” I stood behind the counter now. The cash register drawer was open and full of money.

“Yes,” her disgusted voice followed me. “I guess that would pretty much be the whole school.”

My gaze snapped up to her. “What are you talking about? You’re Team VIP!”

She blinked.

“Uh, you’re the popular one,” I tried to explain. “Head cheerleader and—”

“Only because Kristen broke her leg at the beginning of the summer.” She wasn’t touching anything. She looked too afraid to touch anything. “If she hadn’t, I would have just been another girl in the line.”

Huh. “Every time I see you, you’re surrounded by people.”

Now her smile was bittersweet. “And how many of them do you truly think give a shit about me? When the wolf came after me in July, right after Brent’s big party for the Fourth, how many people do you think believed my story about the attack?” Her hands fisted. “They laughed at me. Said I was drunk. No one listened to me because no one cared.”

Been there, done that.

“No one…” Her eyes darted to a smashed photo of Granny Helen and Cassidy. “But her.”

And now Helen was gone.

I inhaled on a slow breath. We didn’t have a lot of time. I figured deputies would be coming by to search the place soon. My gaze scanned the wreckage once more. All of the books in the shop were on the floor, flipped open, some with pages ripped out. Drawers had been yanked out and tossed across the room. Rage, yes, but…more.

“Someone was looking for something.” But what?

“From the looks of this place,” Valerie said, frowning, “I’d say he must have found it. I mean, come on, just look at—”

“He didn’t find it.” I spoke with certainty now. “That’s why the place is so wrecked. He got angry when he didn’t find what he was looking for.”

“Yes, well…” She rubbed her arms. “We’re not gonna find anything in this mess. Whatever the guy was looking for, it’s long lost by now.”

I felt that slight internal shift in my body, the one that told me that my difference was kicking into play. “The attacker lost something,” I said, to push my power or gift or whatever the heck it was into better focus. “I want to find what he lost.”

I took one step toward Granny Helen’s back room. Another. Another. I could feel the pull. The beaded curtains had been yanked down so I walked straight inside that back room and found more wreckage waiting for me. Tarot cards littered the floor. The death card stared up at me.

“We should get out of here,” Valerie muttered, voice tense. “Like, now.”

“Not yet.” I knelt in front of that death card. I picked it up and stared at the white skeleton as it glared back at me.

“That’s just scary, okay? Let’s go!”

I put the card down and my fingers smoothed over the wooden floor. The surface was old, faded a bit. I pressed against the wood.

“Anna, seriously, we need to—”

A soft snick filled the air and the piece of wood lifted softly. I slid my fingers underneath that crack and pried the wooden slat up more.

“How did you know that was there?” Valerie’s voice had risen a bit.

I didn’t answer her. My fingers touched somethingdeep inside that dark hole. I clutched it tightly, lifted it up, and found an old, leather-bound journal.

The floor creaked as Valerie closed in behind me. “What is that?”

I opened the journal carefully.

1692.

Just a date at the top of the page, one scrawled in shaky, faded hand-writing. The pages had yellowed, become very brittle, and I turned them carefully.

More dates. And…names.

Then one word. Curse.

I turned the pages faster and faster. At the end of the book, I reached the last entry. Five years ago. I saw the names listed. Brent Peters, Rafe Channing, Giles Donovan, Catherine Falk…

“It’s a list of them all,” I whispered and excitement had my hands trembling a bit.

“What?” Valerie was right behind me now.

Carefully, I closed the old book. “I have to get this to my dad. Helen—she found a listing of all the cursed families. She knew the wolves!”

A door squeaked open. Not a door at the front of the shop. The back entrance, the door just a few feet away. My head whipped toward that door, and I saw Cassidy standing on the threshold. Her eyes widened in surprise. “Anna? Valerie? Wh-what are you doing here?”