The Mountain's Shadow (24 page)

“And when will you return?”

“Probably tomorrow. You may reach me through my solicitor, Lawrence Galbraith, if you need me before then.” I’d be damned before I gave him my cell phone number.

“I’ll do that.” With a respectful tip of his hat, he was gone.

“What are you going to do about…” Gabriel inclined his head up the stairs.

“If he knows what’s good for him, he’s already gone.”

Gabriel smiled and watched the sheriff’s car pull out of the driveway. “You should go as well, then.”

“I guess I should.”

“Please be careful.”

“Can’t watch over me down there, huh?”

“I shall be miserably bored while you’re away.”

I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

Leo caught up to us in the garage. He carried his duffel bag and walked with a determined step.

“What are you doing here?” I glanced outside to see if the sheriff’s deputy’s car was there yet. “You know they’re looking for you!”

“I said I was coming with you.”

I glanced at Lonna, but she held her hands up. “I’m staying out of this.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I fixed him with my sternest stare.

“If the sheriff is looking for me here, then doesn’t it make sense for me to be somewhere else?”

I couldn’t fault his logic.
 

“Besides, I need to go by UAMS and get Ron’s and my medical records. I have a release-of-information form from him in my bag. That way we can see if we got flu shots from the same batch.”

“Didn’t you get them at the same time?”

“No, we were on different rotations.”

“Okay, so you have a valid reason to go. But what about me? Knowles said something about obstruction of justice.”

“If we get caught, I’ll tell them I forced you to take me. Look, I’ll hunch down in the back of the car until we’re out of town.”

“There’s no way you’ll fit.”

“Then put my duffel in the trunk.” He unbuttoned the top button of his shirt…and kept going.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I couldn’t help it, I watched him undress. Fine black hair covered his chest and stomach, but I could still see the tense muscles underneath. Running through the woods might not be good for the paws, but he was in excellent shape. I’d never been much for hirsute men,
but damn!

“Ah, Joanie? Perhaps we should give him a moment of privacy.” Lonna grabbed my arm, and we walked back into the hallway.

“There you go, ruining the show.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think I want to see that show.”

We heard a whimper, and a moment later, something wet licked my hand. I looked down into Leo’s eyes in a black canine face.

“I guess we’re going to have to take you now, aren’t we?”
 

The wolf’s lips parted in a snarl.

“Okay, okay!”

He barely fit in the backseat, let alone the well, but we covered him with a blanket. A casual glance wouldn’t reveal too much, I hoped.

“Are you ready to do this?” I asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be. Leo?”

A noise between a bark and a yip came from under the blanket in the back.

“Does this mean I’ll be able to say whatever I want to you, and you can’t talk back?”

“Not necessarily, elf-girl.” The words brought me back to seeing them that night on the lawn with the deer, and I remembered that I was dealing with a predator whose animal brain was now in full gear.

“Gotcha. And don’t call me elf-girl.”

“What?” Lonna looked from me to the blanketed lump in the backseat. “I didn’t call you elf-girl.”

“No, but he did.” My heart skipped a beat. “What did you hear?”

“Just a woof or something.”

“So I can understand them and you can’t.” Just like I had understood my brother from the cradle. I remembered my father yelling at him, telling him to speak like a human boy. I had tried to protect Andrew because his speech sounded muffled, but I could still make out what he said.

I didn’t breathe easily until we got out of the Crystal Pines gates and on the road. Even then, I felt uneasy about our passenger and the trip in general, especially with this new revelation. Did that mean I was genetically predisposed? Or did I have some other, more sinister talent?

Chapter Fifteen

Grief has a funny way of sneaking up on you. It’s like one day you’re out getting groceries or something, and then
wham!
It punches you in the middle of the chest, or maybe the solar plexus, and it would bring you to your knees if you weren’t afraid of dropping the eggs.

It’s a good thing Lonna was driving when it happened to me. Leo snoozed in the backseat, still in his lupine form. I was watching the road signs as I used to when I was little, looking at the towns we passed, their posted populations, and trying to remember which had been the smallest when I had been a lot smaller. For a moment, I was back there with my mother, her perfectly manicured hands tight on the wheel, her knuckles white, and her teeth clenched with the desire to be away from “that godforsaken place”. It seemed like every town, no matter how small, put a new obstacle between me and Wolfsbane Manor, the only place where I felt loved and protected.

I snapped back to the present when Lonna asked if I needed a bathroom or coffee break.

“You looked like you were in another world there.”

“I think I was.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing.” But the images crowded my mind, and the words caught in my throat in their rush to be the first ones out. Would I tell her about the pretend balls we held, when we would go down into the ballroom and dance with our candles, which would cast weird shadows on the ceiling and make the eyes of the painted woodland animals glow? Or should I tell her about the long hikes we’d take down to the river and the stories he’d tell me about the trees and bugs? What about his patience for my hundreds of questions? It had always taken me a few days to wind down and get used to being quiet after my visits up there.

“We’ll be going back soon,” she promised me with a pat on my arm.

I nodded, too choked up to say anything. Leo gazed up at me with expressive canine eyes, his losses echoing my own. It seemed that we had all lost something up there. Or had maybe found something but hadn’t been able to hold on to it. The only question would be what Lonna would have to sacrifice.

Lonna dropped me off at Galbraith’s office at five minutes until two, then drove off to take Leo to her apartment, where he could transform back to human and dress. Then she’d drive him to UAMS and go to her office, which was right down the street from the hospital complex.

The air inside Galbraith’s foyer was stuffy, and I wondered if the air-conditioning was broken. If so, that would motivate me to get this meeting over with quickly. I hesitated at the door, all too mindful of what had happened the last time I was early. Leo seemed to be a different person every time I saw him, which made dealing with him unpredictable and oh-so-exciting. I was happy to hear that the relationship between him and Kyra Ellison was one-sided, as much of a bitch as that made me.

Galbraith opened the door himself. “Doctor Fisher, there’s no need to stand outside in the heat. Why don’t you come in?”

“Um, thanks.”

“I apologize. The air is broken in the foyer. I’ve called the maintenance crew, but there’s no telling when they’ll be here.”

“Typical.”
 

“There’s someone who’s been wanting to meet you.”

“Actually, it’s to see her again,” said a voice I hadn’t heard in years.

“Iain?”

A tall figure emerged from the gloom in the back of Galbraith’s office, where three chairs sat around a low, round table with an antique coffee service. Iain McPherson. I hadn’t seen him since the International Behavioral Genetics Society meeting in London a few years ago.

“Joanna, you still haven’t managed to hit five-two have you?” he taunted as he enveloped me in a bony hug. Between us, we may have had enough body fat for one normal skinny person. He’d always reminded me of a greyhound with his lanky build and long nose.

“Iain, you’re as obnoxiously British as ever.”

“That’s Scottish, young lady.”

“Uh-huh. Technicality. You’re still part of Great Britain.”

He rolled his eyes. He had a few more wrinkles around them and a little more gray, but he had hardly changed at all. He was still the same old Iain, whom I’d joked was my conference husband even though he didn’t share his bed with women.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as we sat down. Galbraith passed me a white porcelain cup and poured coffee out of a silver pot.

“Your grandfather and I had been corresponding. He said he was close to a breakthrough and would let me know how it shaped up soon, but then I heard nothing from him.”

“He’s, ah, deceased, we think.”

“I’m so dreadfully sorry to hear about that.” He leaned over and squeezed my hand. “Galbraith had seen the letters I sent Charles and had contacted me to that effect. Of course I had to come and see if he had left anything, if I could pick up where he stopped.”

“Right. That’s what I’m trying to do as well.”

“You’re no longer with Cabal?”

“They got bought. There was a fire. Just bad timing all around. I got laid off.”

“Why would a company that has so much to gain with the new gene therapies lay off their most promising epidemiologic specialist in CLS?”

I looked away. “I don’t know. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“What about that chap you were working with, Robert?”

“He’s still there.” I didn’t say anything else and hoped that he would get the hint. He had known there was something going on between the two of us, but I didn’t want to discuss that in front of Galbraith.

“I see.”

Galbraith cleared his throat. “So you had some questions for me?”

“Would you like me to step outside?” asked Iain.
 

“No, that’s okay. I think I may need your help with this matter soon.” I took a deep breath. “I know that the circumstances surrounding my grandfather’s death are somewhat suspicious.”

Galbraith inclined his head.

“I was wondering if he’d actually made arrangements recently. Did he seem to think he was in danger?”

“He essentially told me that he was going into the field and would likely encounter peril there. He wanted it to be expressly stated that he wanted you to have the bulk of the estate. I had the impression he counted on you to continue his work.”

“Were there any safe-deposit boxes or anywhere else he might have left papers or notes for me?”

Galbraith frowned. “Not that I can recall, but I will look through the documents again to see if, in my dotage, I misplaced something. There was one folder that he wanted me to hold for you until you had become more acquainted with the Manor and its secrets.”

And the werewolves.
“What do you know about this butler he arranged for me? You said there was something I needed to know.”

“Yes, Gabriel…” He tapped the arm of his chair. “His last name escapes me at the moment.”

“It’s McCord,” Iain said. “Gabriel McCord.”

“You know him?”

“If it’s the same bloke I’m remembering. He was a member of the Society in the UK, sort of a research assistant, but he wasn’t at the meeting you came to. He certainly was interested in your work, though. He made copies of all the slides and notes I brought back.”

“When was that?” Galbraith asked.

“Five years ago, to the month.” I did some mental calculations. “You’re missing the meeting right now, aren’t you?”

“I am, but it’s worth it to see you again.”

“Flatterer.”

“That’s interesting,” Galbraith said as he got up and moved around to his desk to pull out a file. “I believe your grandfather had me start looking for domestic help at about this time last year, and this Gabriel person contacted me in response to the advertisement we placed.”

“My grandfather actually looked for a butler?”

“He was planning on having some renovation done on the house, and he wanted someone to keep the mess and chaos at bay while he worked. He had a woman from the village who would cook and clean for him occasionally, but he needed something a little more permanent.”

“That must have been Louise.” I tried to block the memory of the last time I’d seen her. “Who also died under suspicious circumstances.”

“Really?” Iain raised an eyebrow at me. “Does death always follow you, or is this a recent development?”

“It has ever since the fire.” I fingered the tip of the scar at my collarbone. “That’s when the chaos started.”

The braying of a car alarm startled the three of us.

“That’s my rental!” Iain jumped and headed toward the door. “What could have set that off?”