The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Andrea had the strangest feeling she was being watched.
Ridiculous
. Sean’s house was miles away from Megan’s. The creature couldn’t be here, not unless it traveled by car.
Or there was more than one.
Andrea glanced around. The steady chirp of crickets throbbed in her ears. Sean’s house stood proud on the edge of the lake, which glistened in the moonlight. She could see fairly well in the dark and glanced toward the sky. Not quite a full moon, but almost.
Creepy.
Andrea slammed her trunk closed and hurried inside her car. She kept a firm grip on the kitten as she started the car and sped away.
It wasn’t until she was close to the store that she laughed at herself and snuggled the purring kitten close to her neck.
“I don’t know about you, Kitty, but I think I need a vacation.”
Andrea closed her phone and bit down on the werewolf cookie she’d just purchased from a bakery on Main Street. She needed the sugar to calm her nerves.
She’d only just begun to feel less disoriented after what happened a few nights ago at Megan’s, so of course her boss
had
to call and rattle her again.
It wasn’t every day she was offered a promotion.
Normally, she’d be thrilled by the offer of a relocation to Los Angeles for a position as senior writer in that bureau. She glanced down at the last bite of her cookie and frowned.
California was an awfully long way from Sean and this crazy little town, though. She’d told her managing editor she would have to think about it and get back to him.
“Are you Andrea Lockhart?”
Andrea spun around and glanced at the young man wearing a camouflage jacket. He had spiky black hair, a goatee and a twinkle in his eye that took Andrea off guard. A young woman with blond hair and too much makeup cowered behind him.
“That’s me. And you are?”
The guy wagged a finger at her, and his body shook with excitement. “I knew it! I’ve been reading your blog and recognized you from your picture. Man, it’s an
honor
to meet you.” He grabbed her hand and shook it. His enthusiasm was startling. “My name is Matt. This is Tracey. We drove here from Nashville for Halloween to hunt the werewolf too. This is a great town, isn’t it?”
“Uh, yeah, it’s got a lot of character.” She tugged her hand free.
He smiled at her. “When I read your blog, I told Tracey, ‘Man, we got to drive down there.’ We staked out Bluffs Parkway last night, but we didn’t see anything.”
Andrea inched away, trying to make a subtle escape. “I think spotting something is just a matter of chance. Enjoy your stay. I’ve got to—” she pointed her thumb behind her and thought of an excuse, “—meet someone in a few minutes.”
The two visitors followed, and Andrea guessed this was what Jeff had been referring to when he’d called to offer her a promotion. He’d said her blog previewing the series on the Woodbine Werewolf was getting a lot of feedback. People loved it.
Her blog had received more hits than anything else on the
Naked Truth
’s website. Ever.
Matt stepped into pace beside her. “Maybe we could have dinner later. My treat.”
Andrea smiled politely and waited for cars to pass so she could cross the street. “I’m sorry, I’m pretty booked right now. I appreciate the offer, though.”
“It’s just that Tracey wants to be a reporter, and we both want to see the werewolf,” he continued, still following her. “We’d really appreciate it if you could spare a few minutes to talk with us and offer some advice.”
Andrea hurried across the street with the two of them on her heels. Annoyed, she stopped and turned to face them. She looked at Tracey. The poor girl seemed embarrassed to death. Andrea sighed. “If you want to get into reporting, experience is the key. Start small and work your way up. Multimedia is good because print is really suffering right now. Email me and I’ll send you a list of decent colleges to consider.” Andrea looked at Matt. “I doubt you’ll see the werewolf because I don’t believe in werewolves. Yes, I think there is an unknown animal around these parts, but I wouldn’t advise hunting it. You could get seriously hurt.”
With a smile and a nod, she spun on her heels and headed for her car.
The two continued to follow her.
“But you saw it, right?” Matt asked.
Good grief.
Yes, Andrea had blogged about her sighting. She was glad she’d published her account of what happened before Sean could print his story about it in the
Dispatch
. That was one advantage of online reporting opposed to print. Easier to beat the competition.
“I saw something.” She nodded. “What I saw scared the hell out of me. Why someone would deliberately seek it out for a casual sighting is beyond me. Spend a day in town. Enjoy yourselves. Just forget about the werewolf, okay?”
The brush off went over Matt’s head. “Right. So, I have a theory,” he said, making a big gesture with his hand. The look on his face was serious. “I think aliens visited this town a few years ago and left their pet behind on accident. Now it roams the countryside waiting for them to return. Yeah?”
Uh, no.
Andrea shook her head. At least he was creative.
“Look, it’s always nice to meet a reader, but I really have a lot of work to do. If you’re just looking for a cheap thrill, there’s a Halloween attraction in town called Werewolf Woods. I hear it’s fun. That’s your best chance of seeing a werewolf, right there.”
She climbed into her car and closed them out. She felt sort of bad seeing their disappointed faces through the glass, but really, what did they expect? It irked her a little that of all the serious stories she’d written throughout the years, the only one to generate such a response was a series on supposed werewolves!
Her cell phone rang. It was Sean.
“What’s up?”
“Where are you?”
“Leaving Main Street,” she said as she started her car. “I stopped for a snack after I left the library. Why?”
Andrea heard papers shuffling. “How about we spend a night on the town? Things have been pretty stressful lately. It would be nice to relax for a while.”
A night of no work sounded fun. She and Sean had yet to have an actual date amid all of the chaos.
They had spent the past two nights at Megan’s house in case Sean’s sister had any more unexpected visitors. She hadn’t, so they had decided to return to Sean’s tonight.
“What kind of fun can you have in this town?” Andrea wondered aloud.
He chuckled. “We have a movie theater, a few good places to eat, a country nightclub, or we could go to Werewolf Woods. I promised Reed I’d come out one night and see him in costume.”
Andrea just wanted to forget about werewolves for one night. “I vote for a movie or the nightclub, but I’m warning you—I don’t drink beer, and I can’t dance.”
“That sounds like a challenge I can’t resist, Sunshine.” She heard the smile in his voice. “I’ll meet you at my place. I should leave work around six.”
She glanced at her watch. That was almost two hours away. Andrea ended the call and headed to Megan’s house. She smiled, thinking of Kitty. The little critter was really growing on her. It was kind of sweet to wake up in the morning with a purring cat on her head. Sort of soothing. It would be tough to leave the personable pet behind.
Tough to leave Sean too.
It had been almost a week since they’d made love, but Andrea felt closer than ever to the man. They’d both been busy with work, but they’d squeezed in some private time in the evenings whenever Megan had put the kids to bed. A stolen kiss here and there, a gentle caress or two in passing, and plenty of heated glances kept Andrea both distracted and frustrated each day. In fact, it was a wonder she’d gotten anything written at all. She’d never been in love before. It was a wonderful, terrifying, time-consuming feeling.
Andrea took her attention off the road long enough to glance at the bag containing the fruit of her latest research. At least she had accomplished something worthwhile today. Her search through the city’s archives had shown her where construction had taken place since 1980, one of the earliest dates entered in Old Man Martin’s journal. Sure enough, around the time of Martin’s first documented sightings of the animal, some forested land a mile away from his farm had been razed to make way for a new post office. She could also pinpoint current construction near most of the recent sightings.
Her theory that the creature’s habitat had been invaded had some factual support now.
Andrea arrived at Megan’s and packed up her and Sean’s stuff along with the kitten. Fifteen minutes later, she was at the vet’s office.
“Everything looks good,” the elderly vet told her after the exam. Considering the fight the kitten had put up, Andrea was surprised the vet didn’t have a scratch on him. Kitty ran back into his carrier—she supposed she’d have to stop calling him Kitty now that she knew he was a boy—and glared at her from behind the cage opening.
“Thanks, that’s fantastic.” There was a commotion from the lobby and Andrea imagined some of the animals waiting were fighting. Lord knew she’d witnessed enough of that the past two days with a two-month-old kitten and playful dog in the same house. “Sounds like you’re busy.”
“Yep.” He wrote something on the chart. “It’s the strangest thing. The past month, people have been bringing in animals like crazy. Mostly it’s bad behavior and wounds from fights, but I’ve seen an awful lot of new pets too. It’s like they’re coming out of the woodwork all of a sudden.”
Interesting. Megan said the dog Jason and Kelly had named Buddy had just wandered up to her house. His arrival coincided with the creature sighting at Megan’s house, the same day. Could there be a reason?
Andrea accepted the pamphlets on kitten care and made a mental note that the little fur ball would have to be neutered. She cleared her throat. “I’m sure you know who I am and why I’m in Woodbine.”
Dr. Randall smiled. “Of course.”
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“You can ask.”
“If there was some kind of predator around, would that cause erratic behavior in these animals?”
He thought about it and nodded. “Yes, it would.”
“Do you have any idea what the predator could be?”
“I didn’t
say
it was a predator.” He looked thoughtful. “Coyotes maybe. We’re seeing a problem with them in the entire Upstate.” He turned and washed his hands in a sink. “I hate to be rude, but I’ve got lots of patients to see today. Just give us a call once you decide a name for this little guy, and we’ll note it on his records.”
Andrea paid her bill and loaded the kitten in her car. She felt sad, wondering if the werewolf or whatever it was had separated the kitten from its birth family. She knew Megan had checked the lost and found ads to see if Buddy was someone’s lost pet, but Andrea had never thought to check for the kitten.
Then again, Andrea was glad she’d found it. She’d seen what someone had done to one black cat at the altar inside the Martin house. Those same sickos might cruise the pet classifieds in search of new victims. No, the kitten was staying with Sean, no matter what.
Her cell phone rang again. This time it was Reed.
“Are you near a TV?” he asked.
“I’m in my car. Why?”
“I had the TV on cable news, and they just ran a segment about your blog. It was so cool! It was all about the sighting you had, plus a little history about the Woodbine legend. You gotta get to a TV and watch for it. You know they repeat everything a hundred times a day.”
Andrea groaned. Halloween was just over two weeks away. Networks were looking for holiday-themed pieces. Kind of odd that they hadn’t contacted her directly for a quote, though.
She was watching the segment when Sean made it home half an hour later.
“Hey, what’s—”
“Shhhh!” She held up a hand to stop him. She turned the volume up on the television. The two-minute long segment ended, and Andrea sighed.
The reporter hadn’t called her, because he’d interviewed her managing editor. She suspected Jeff had told the network she wasn’t available so he could control any information given.
The narrator for the piece had all but mocked Andrea’s blog. He’d played on the stereotype of tabloid reporters being untrustworthy and painted her writing as pure entertainment.
“Jackass.” She clicked the television off. She didn’t know who she was angrier with—Jeff, for not telling her about this, or the cable news channel for mocking her credibility.
She looked at Sean. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.”
He’d seen most of the piece too. He stopped her from pacing by grabbing her shoulders from behind. He slowly massaged the tension away. “Relax. You and I have both been in this business long enough to know how it goes. It wasn’t a personal attack on you, just on the legend itself.”
“I know.” She felt herself relax. “Wow, you’re
sooo
good at that.”
“Feel good?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She lowered her head and enjoyed the massage. “Can you follow me everywhere and do this all the time?”
Sean pulled his hands away and smacked her on her rear. “Sorry. We’ve got too much work to do.”
She snapped out of her reverie. She watched as he went to his kitchen and pulled a bottle of milk from the fridge. “Work? I thought we were going out?” He drank straight from the container before grabbing a bowl and pouring some milk into it. Andrea hurried to stop him. “Wait! Don’t give him that. The type of milk people drink is actually bad for cats. It can give them diarrhea or make them sick.” She took the bowl away. Andrea figured she might be pretty smart when it came to most things, but she knew nothing about pets.
Nada
. So she’d memorized the first chapter of the cat care book she’d picked up at the vet and had been surprised by some of the information.
Sean grinned. “So you finally took it to the vet? Do we have a son or daughter?”
How sad that neither of them had known how to tell, she thought, smiling a little.
“Congratulations.
You
have a son.” She retrieved the special milk she’d purchased for the kitten. “He’s quite healthy and now has all of his shots. I’ll give you money to have him neutered before I leave.”
Sean winced—either at the thought of being neutered or her leaving, she wasn’t sure. “Don’t worry about it.” He put the milk back in the fridge. “I know we had plans, but duty calls. My city reporter got sick and can’t make tonight’s council meeting, so I have to cover it. You’re coming with me.”
It was her turn to wince. Council meetings were notoriously boring and tedious to cover. “No, thanks. I’ll just watch TV with the cat while you’re gone.”
He grabbed her bag and tossed it to her. “No, I think you’ll want to come. Remember when the mayor said he planned to introduce a werewolf-themed parade to the agenda? He must have added it late. It was on the revised agenda city hall faxed us today.”
Andrea groaned. So much for a night off from all things werewolf.