Claude snorted. “Do you want a drunken Shepherd on a search and rescue? He would shoot up this town.” Claude stretched out his long arms and scanned the area. “Now, what do you want me to do?”
“The tracking device is out here. Find it.”
“I still think she tossed out her shoes, and we’re out here for nothing,” Wyatt said.
Claude reached inside the back of the van and pulled out one of Raven’s old shirts. After a deep breath, he threw it back. “It helps when my senses are impaired.”
“You’re langered. How much did you have to drink? Because I don’t think you can walk a straight line, let alone track anyone’s scent.”
Claude narrowed his golden eyes and poked Christian’s nose. “Challenge accepted.” He ran at Chitah speed into the grass, but he also stumbled and fell.
Christian had seen the team drunk, but they were so inebriated it was a wonder they were still conscious. He strode back to the front of the van.
Gem reached out and picked grass off Christian’s forehead. “I’m sure she’ll turn up soon. I bet she’s already back at the mansion. Did you have anyone check the roof? It’s possible she got home hours ago and fell asleep up there. You know how she gets.”
“Aye, I checked. She never made it home.”
Worry filled her eyes, but Gem was searching for an explanation. “Maybe she had the same idea as you fellas and drank too much before attempting to walk home.”
Christian gestured to Wyatt. “What’s on that computer of yours?”
Wyatt opened up a plastic wrapper and admired a chocolate cake with white filling. “The blinking light.”
Christian gave him an icy stare.
After chomping into his pastry, Wyatt set it down on the dash and put on his loose beanie. “Look, I’m three sheets to the wind. I smoked a doobie before you called, and maybe I had another drink for the road. If you get me worked up, I’m gonna get paranoid and have a panic attack. Nobody wants to see that.”
Gem played with the quartz pendant around her neck. “I haven’t heard the word doobie in an awfully long time. Did you know that they’re starting to make it legal?”
Wyatt reached for his chocolate pastry. “If only I cared about human laws.”
Christian tipped his head to the side. “You’re not concerned about brain function?”
Wyatt furrowed his brow. “It’s only temporary. It’s not like it affects my hippopotamus.”
Gem giggled. “You meanhippocampus.”
“You see? Who needs the internet when you have a word nerd?”
Christian turned around as Claude approached the van.
Winded, Claude took a breath and swayed before tossing a bag at Christian. “Found the boots. Raven’s scent is barely on them anymore. There’s no scent trail, so it’s probably been out here all day. I didn’t see any footprints immediately around it, so I think she must have thrown it from the road. Maybe they carried too many bad memories of the club.” Claude widened his eyes all of a sudden as if waking himself up. “What was in that bottle Viktor gave us?”
Wyatt licked his fingers. “I don’t know, but some things aren’t meant to ferment for that long.” He pulled another cake from the box and used his teeth to open the plastic. “I still remember when they used to wrap these in foil. Why do you think they call them Ding Dongs?”
Christian pounded the top of the van and made everyone jump. “What’s nearby? Where the feck are we? This isn’t the way home, so where was she going?”
Gem gazed through the front windshield. “I bet she got lost. That happened to me once while flashing. I got turned around and wandered outside city limits.”
Wyatt nonchalantly wedged half the cake in his mouth and then took out his phone. After a few finger swipes, he set the half-eaten cake on his closed laptop. “Ten-mile radius shows a few farmhouses, a place that sells yard art—”
“Oh, I’ve always wanted to go to one of those places!” Gem chimed in before giving Christian a solemn look. “After we find Raven, that is.”
Wyatt kept swiping, his upper lip coated with brown crumbs and white cream. “Nothing, nothing, a cemetery, a garden center, a gas station—”
“Go back to the cemetery,” Christian said, fearing that Houdini had done the unthinkable. “How far?”
“Five minutes that way.” Wyatt pointed straight ahead. “Pleasetell me we’re not going to a cemetery. I can handle an old one, but this is a human cemetery. That means they’ve got freshies all over the place.”
