Noah took his cue. “Did anyone ever find out who killed them?”
Paul shook his head. “The cops didn’t consider my family humans, didn’t know the truth, so no murder investigation. Any missing person reports filed hung in limbo. I moved around a lot, then came here to my uncle’s place.” He nodded at the cabin surrounding them. “He’d put me in his will, but I changed my name after inheriting, made out like I’d bought the place, and I keep a lookout.”
He smiled again. “Then one day, I found a scrawny kid who didn’t remember his name, where he came from, or how he got covered with some other shifter’s blood. I took him in but never found his family, no matter how hard I looked. I raised him.” Paul toasted with his coffee cup. He always left out the part about drug running to survive and keeping bags packed in case they needed to leave in a hurry.
Noah washed dishes while Paul puttered around the house. Pacing? Not Paul’s usual style. The people coming worried him? Or something else?
Not Noah’s business. Before he left, he gave Paul a back pat. “See ya, old man. I’ll bring back some nice, fat rabbits.”
Paul grinned. “I’ll be waiting.”
Right before Noah strode out the door, Paul clasped him into one of his rare hugs. Noah leaned in, absorbing the physical affection. “If I haven’t told you this week, I’m so glad I found the skinny kid in the woods.” Paul turned, heading back to the kitchen.
How odd. With his family on his mind today, maybe Paul needed the hug.
The moment Noah stepped into the clearing, the hairs on the back of his neck rose. No smoke from the chimney. No sounds from inside. No scent of cooking. Just loam, damp leaves, and possibly a few squirrels.
He crept to the back door. Three days. He’d been hunting three days. Any minute now, he’d see Paul bursting through the door, ready to dress the rabbits. Noah slung his kill onto the table by the back door and slowly turned the knob. Unlocked. Paul hardly ever locked the door, preferring a Smith and Wesson security system or sharp teeth to locked doors.
Still, all instincts soared to high alert.
Opening the door, Noah took a deep whiff. “Paul?” Nothing. No sound. No scent. The twisty feelings wriggling through his insides screamed of wrongness. Had a drug deal gone wrong as he’d always feared?
“Paul?” Paul sent Noah hunting whenever he planned interactions with humans. No "essence of human" lingered in the cabin.
No scent of Paul today or even yesterday.
Noah stepped through the kitchen area and into the main room, sniffing the air. Clean. Everything in place. No cheery fire in the fireplace, Paul’s bed folded into a couch.
“Paul?” Noah’s heart hammered. He’d constantly worried about Paul getting caught on one of his “business” trips. Or running into a trigger-happy local. “Paul!”
He dashed into the bathroom. Empty. The truck sat outside in the usual spot, unmoved.
Noah climbed the ladder to the loft. Initially designed as a weekend fishing and hunting cabin, this tiny log building wasn’t meant for full-time occupation by two men. They’d made due for the past fifteen years.
At some point, Paul came up here and made Noah’s bed. Back downstairs, Noah went. If Paul were here, he’d have appeared by now. Had he left the house, gotten hurt out in the barn or the woods?
Breath lodged in his throat, Noah dropped to his knees, flinging open the trunk Paul used as a coffee table and clothing storage.
None of Paul’s clothes. Noah’s heart tapped a hard beat. No! No! No! No! Not alone! Not again! He didn’t like being alone, hadn’t from the day Paul found him.
At the very bottom of the trunk lay a tiny green shirt. Noah lifted the thin cotton to the light. He remembered being cold. Too cold for a small child to be out in the woods alone, dressed in jeans, a short-sleeved shirt, tennis shoes, and a pendant hanging around his neck.
Covered in someone else’s blood.
Paul had kept the blood-stained shirt.
Noah kept digging. Worn out books Paul bought on sale and insisted Noah read.
He ran back to the kitchen. Behind canned green beans, corn, pickles, and plum jam, he found an old coffee can. The top appeared sealed, the can full. Flipping the can over, Noah felt along the edges to find the false bottom and open the hidey-hole.
Stacks of twenties. A pendant.
Papers.
Using the weak afternoon light, Noah spread out the pages onto the two-seater wooden table. Fuck. A deed for a cabin with twenty acres.
In his name.
