FOURTEEN
“Hey Titus,” I said into my phone, holding it slightly away from my face to keep from getting a glass splinter embedded in my cheek. “I know you’re asleep, and this isn’t an emergency, which is why I’m leaving you a rare voicemail instead of calling you back immediately.” I slid a bottle of water into the light nylon drawstring pack on my way through the kitchen. “Two things, real quick. First, I broke my phone, and seeing as that’s a business expense, I’ll be charging a new one to my business card, along with rush shipping to get it here tomorrow. I apologize again for my temper. Also, thanks for the upgrade.
“Second, I spoke to Eamon. Turns out Silas had a kid. Boy named Denny, last name unknown. I’m headed out to that old cabin right now to see if I can dig anything up or jar anything loose. Eamon thinks the boy would be twenty-two or so now. I’m not sure this is the guy we’re looking for. I don’t know anyone named Denny, which means he isn’t a regular, so he probably wouldn’t know my actual regulars well enough to have heard them talk about their sisters and daughters. But I’m looking into him just in case.
“Oh, wait, I was wrong. There’s a third thing. Turns out Vance knew we were going to search his—”
The phone beeped in my ear, cutting off the voice mail. Damn it. But I’d said most of what needed to be said. No need to call back, because if I called a second time, he’d answer, assuming it was an emergency. Then he’d order me not to go out to the cabin alone.
Since that order would be in consideration of my mental health, rather than of any physical threat, and considering that he hadn’t actually given that order, I felt entirely justified in ignoring it.
The bar was quiet when I went downstairs. The lights were off, the doors locked. It was nearly three in the morning. Technically, Friday had begun, but it still felt like Thursday night, because I had yet to go to really sleep.
I slung my small drawstring pack over one shoulder and headed out the back door, locking it behind me.
In my truck, I slid an old CD into the player, then set track nine to play on repeat. I spent the entire half-hour drive singing “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy).” It was my brother’s favorite song, when we were kids. Before either of us was old enough to know what that line even meant.
I sang at the top of my lungs, every word, because that way I wouldn’t have to think about anything other than my own off-key melody and the memory of my brother trying to hit Big Kenny’s low notes, before his voice dropped. Of little Davey dancing around us in the kitchen with her mop-stick pony, neighing on the chorus.
I sang it over and over, louder every time, until I saw a familiar tree on the side of the road. The cedar was broken in the middle. The dead top half was still kind of attached, forming a triangle with the ground as its third side, while the bottom half was still green and cedar-fat. I’d only seen that tree a few times in my life, but I would never forget it, or the narrow dirt road fifty feet beyond it, to the right.
My truck bounced as it rolled off the country highway onto the dirt road, then it bounced again and again, over potholes, tree branches and pinecones.
The road ended just like it had begun: out of nowhere. Like someone just got tired of cutting a road into thick forest, and quit.
I killed my engine and got out of the truck, then I stripped down to my birthday suit standing there in the dirt. In the dark. I shoved my clothes into the little nylon bag, along with my keys and my phone, then I threaded my arms through the straps that also formed the drawstring closure. I slammed the truck door and dropped into the dirt, where I shifted as fast as I could, breathing deeply through the pain. Through the pops, cracks, and groans of a body being forced into an entirely new shape.
Minutes later, I rose again on four legs that itched to run. I gave into that urge, racing so hard and fast that the little nylon bag stayed centered on my narrow feline back due to little more than my forward momentum.
My body knew the way. Or maybe my rage knew the way. Regardless, I wound up exactly where I’d intended to go with little conscious effort, and when I skidded to a stop on a patch of mossy soil, that pack slid down to hang against the right side of my rib cage.
I stood for a moment, staring at the cabin, huffing into the cold, dark night. I didn’t want to shift back. My cat form was powerful. It was fast, and nearly silent, and more than capable of ripping through flesh and into organs. Of leaving its mark in bone. Compared to my vulnerable human form, my cat-self felt largely indestructible.
But my human self could open doors.
I shifted back in the woods, then I hurriedly pulled my clothes and shoes on to fight back the cold, as I stared at the cabin.
When it was built, the little one-room shack might have sat in a clearing. Now, though, it just kind of stood there in the woods, one with the trees and underbrush. Exactly the same as the last time I saw it, except for a big hole in the roof, where a fallen limb had punctured it.
I couldn’t tell that a single soul had been here since Titus, Jace, Eamon and I left this place three years ago. I wasn’t sure there was anything left to find here, but the truth was that we hadn’t exactly lingered. I hadn’t even gone inside; my job was just to get them here.
With the drawstring bag hanging nearly empty at my back, I approached the door. It hung ajar, which meant the interior of the cabin had been exposed to the elements, possibly for the past three years. I honestly had no idea whether or not we’d closed it when we left, last time. I pushed the door open, and the hinges squealed, the sound thrust like a dagger into the softer, ambient forest sounds. An instant after that, the top hinge pulled free from the wood with a suddencrack, and the outer corner of the door slammed into the ground.
Startled, I leapt back, my heart pounding. Then I scolded myself for being skittish. There was no one here; I could tell that with every breath I took. The forest had claimed this place long ago.
I shoved the door back, wincing as it scraped against the floor, cutting an arc into the buildup of dirt and moss. Moonlight shone through the doorway, and when I pulled down vines that had grown over the open window, there was enough light for my shifter eyes to see by, even without my flashlight app.
Turning slowly, I took in the small space. The bucket still sat next to the bed, the sheets still draped over the edge where I’d tossed them. Handcuffs still dangled from one corner rail, though now they were grimy and rusted. Everything was grimy from years of dirt being blown in through the cracked-open door.
Not that anything had been clean, exactly, even back then.
There were bird nests in every corner and rodent droppings all over the floor. Spiderwebs stretched from bedposts to the edges of the other furniture: a dresser missing two drawers, a nightstand on three legs, and the old wood-burning stove.
A stack of old newspapers stood in the corner next to the stove, probably intended as tinder, and a couple of hardback novels lay on the edge of the nightstand. They were the old, leather-bound kind, with no paper cover or images, and they were all so badly moldered that the titles could no longer be read.
I brushed away the cobwebs on my way across the room, to keep from walking face-first into them.
The nightstand drawer creaked when I pulled it open. It was the old-fashioned kind with dovetailed joints and no rollers. The drawer held several wadded-up receipts too faded to read, a half-empty matchbook, a brittle roll of duct tape, and a yellowed bit of fabric.
