Cry Wolf (14 page)

Ronnie and Carolyn Alten reminded Andrea of the husband and wife in the
American Gothic
painting. Skinny, with tiny eyeglasses perched on his nose, Ronnie stood almost a foot taller than his wife, who seemed far more reluctant to discuss the events of two nights ago.

“Never mind her,” Ronnie said when his wife left the room to retrieve tea for everyone. “She didn’t want me tellin’ the sheriff what I saw either. Says it’s bad luck and we shouldn’t ask for trouble.”

Andrea could totally relate.

Sean leaned forward. “Do you mind sharing with us exactly what happened the other night, Mr. Alten? I promise we’ll be discreet with the information we tell others.”

Andrea noticed a folded newspaper on the table beside him, a crossword puzzle nearly completed. Good to know he still had a sharp mind, she thought as she leaned forward to listen to his story.

The couple was getting ready for bed one night when they’d heard footsteps on the ceiling of their bedroom. With a glance out the back door, Mr. Alten saw a “funny-looking bear” jump off the side of the house and run into the woods.

“Yesterday, Carolyn was tendin’ to some plants when she found the footprints.” Ronnie tapped his hand against his leg. “I also found the fur, caught up in the gutters. I don’t know why that wildlife officer who came out didn’t seem to care too much. He seemed to think it wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary, but I know what I saw. What I saw wasn’t ordinary, you hear?”

Sean smiled at Mrs. Alten, who had just returned with tea. “Did you see anything?”

She aimed an uncomfortable look toward her husband. “I was inside when it all happened. I only went outside at the last second. I’m afraid I didn’t see any of what Ronnie saw.”

“But you heard the footsteps on the roof?” Sean asked.

She nodded. “I also found the footprints in my flower bed, out beside the house. They aren’t like anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“May we see them?”

“Come on, I’ll show you,” Ronnie said before his wife could answer.

Sean exchanged looks with Andrea as they followed the older couple outside. She hadn’t said much. She was still trying to come to terms with the reality of everything that had happened to her since yesterday.

She’d quit her job. Slept with Sean. Seen a werewolf.

Even if she didn’t believe in werewolves per se, Andrea had to admit the Altens’ tale made for great storytelling.

She and Sean knelt beside Mrs. Alten’s flower bed. Mr. Alten had the foresight to drape some plastic over the area to protect it from the rain. Sean moved the plastic aside for a better look. The footprints were big, that was for sure. The pattern seemed to show heavy footprints right at the side of the house, walking up to it. Andrea looked around to see what the person—if it had been a person—had used to climb onto the roof. She saw nothing but an old oil tank nearby.

“Andi, look,” Sean prompted, and she turned to see him point out the indentation marks at the toes of the clearest footprint. “Remind you of anything?”

Nodding, Andrea turned. “Where did you find the fur, Mr. Alten?”

He nodded toward the oil tank. “In the gutters, right up there.”

Sean excused himself long enough to retrieve his camera from Andrea’s SUV. He made sure to take photos of the footprint for later comparison to Reed’s. As he snapped photos of Ronnie Alten holding the tuft of fur, Andrea took the opportunity to speak with Mrs. Alten. She had a feeling the woman wasn’t telling them all she knew.

“Find anything out?” Sean kept pace beside Andi as they walked to her car. In the three years he’d been reporting the werewolf, this had to be the strangest sighting yet.

“Maybe.” She glanced back toward the house as she walked. “Mrs. Alten pretty much confirmed everything her husband told us. She’s actually quite embarrassed about the whole thing. She’s worried people will think they’re crazy if word gets out about what happened, which I can completely understand.”

Sean tossed his camera bag in the back as he climbed into her rental. “And?”

Andi put her seat belt on, looking preoccupied. “She did say something strange.” She looked at Sean. “She said when she came outside to check on her husband, she didn’t see anything as much as she smelled it.”

“Smelled?”

Andi nodded. “Last night, did you smell anything before you found the faux werewolf trying to maul me?”

“Faux werewolf?” He couldn’t help but smile at the quirky description. He glanced away from her distracting features. “Actually, I did,” he said with surprise.

She turned sideways in her seat toward him, her right thumb thumping a rhythm against the dashboard, animated by her thoughts. “See, that’s just it. What drew me into the woods last night was a smell. This foul, rotting smell. I decided maybe it was just a skunk, but now I’m starting to wonder…”

“And the footprint Reed found,” Sean added, following her reasoning. “Maybe there
was
something at Bluffs Parkway last night.”

“Exactly.” She sighed. “I sure would have loved an excuse to get a sample of that fur.”

“Excuse? Who needs excuses?” He pulled out a ziplock bag with some of the fur trapped inside. He’d tucked it inside his jacket pocket when Mr. Alten had shown him the sample.

She reached for it, obviously excited. “You got some? That’s great!”

“How about a late lunch?”

Andrea blinked and shook her head. “Would you stay focused, please?”

“I am focused—on lunch,” he teased. “Relax, Lockhart. I’ve got an idea.” He pulled out his own cell phone and dialed Reed. “Hey kid, taken a look at those photos you took yet? Good. Meet me and Andi at the office in thirty minutes.”

She sat back against the seat and slid her sunglasses on. “What are you up to, Hunter?”

He grinned and started the engine. She’d find out soon enough.

“I still can’t believe I’m doing this.” Andrea shifted closer to Reed. She pointed to the computer screen in front of him. “The head wasn’t
that
big, and the eyes were more menacing. Smaller.”

Sean’s idea to have Reed create a rendering of the creature she’d seen had resulted in probably the most frustrating hour of her life. Though Reed was pretty good at drawing freehand, he couldn’t recreate the perfect image of what she’d seen. Making matters worse, Sean was smothering her. Every time she moved, she bumped into him. Even now, he leaned over her to watch the progress on the screen. His scent—strong and musky and sweet—teased her senses like an aphrodisiac, reminding her of all the wicked things he’d done to her in bed last night. Not to mention all the things she’d done to him.

The sexual tension between them had been simmering beneath her skin all day and had finally come to a boil.

She cleared her throat. It was awfully warm in the office.
Focus.
“The fur was also longer. No, longer. Yes, that’s better.”

“Sure?” Sean’s breath tickled Andrea’s ear.

Enough!

She blew out a puff of breath and stood. “It’s close but not perfect. I think it’s as good as it’s going to get.”

Reed printed out the image of the animal. “This is pretty close to what I remember seeing too. What do you think, Sean?”

Sean looked at the drawing and frowned. He glanced at Andrea. “You saw
that
and stuck around?”

She crossed her arms and nodded. “Honestly? That thing wasn’t half as scary as most of the people I’ve met since I’ve been here.” She sent Reed a sideways look. “No offense.”

The teenager laughed and shook his head. “I’m gonna go check on the pizza guy. He should be here by now.”

She had the feeling he planned to sneak a cigarette while he was out there too. With a disappointed sigh, Andrea picked up the printout and stared at the drawing. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. She felt her heart speed up simply by looking at it. Those eyes—

She felt hands settle on her hips from behind, felt Sean’s body press against her. She spun to face him and backed up against Reed’s desk, putting space between them. “Sean.” She glanced toward where Reed had exited. “W-we’re working here.”

“Everyone’s entitled to a break, Sunshine.” Sean’s sensuous mouth curved upward. “You know what they say. All work and no play makes Sean a very dull boy.”

She felt her face heat, remembering that Sean hadn’t been very dull last night, not at all. She opened her mouth to speak but the words struggled to come out. Why was she like this around this man?
Stay firm.
“Look, Hunter, we should—”

“Hey, pizza’s here!” Reed came around the corner with two pizza boxes in his hands. “You wouldn’t believe that guy. He tried to charge us more than what we were told on the phone. Don’t worry. I settled it with him. Who wants first choice?” He was either oblivious to the tension between her and Sean, or he chose to ignore it.

Three slices of pizza and a brainstorming session that lasted almost two hours later, Sean knew only one thing. They weren’t any closer to answers than they had been before. So far, they’d bounced around the theories that they were dealing with a real flesh-and-blood animal—not a werewolf in the Hollywood sense, but an unknown animal—or that it was nothing more than a hoax.

Reed was the only one willing to consider the animal was a supernatural shape-shifter, and his list of suspects was longer than last week’s front page story.

Andi stopped pacing. “Okay, so we need to eliminate the mayor, the town’s teens and Tom Davis as suspects trying to hoax this thing. If we still can’t explain what we’ve found, I say we bring in an expert.”

“I don’t think it’s a hoax, but—” Reed hopped down from Sean’s desk and snatched the last piece of pizza. “I can ask around school, see if anyone will admit to anything there. Even if they won’t tell me, I can get my friend David to ask. He’s good at getting people to open up.”

“I’ll question the mayor.” Sean shrugged.

Andi nodded. “I’ll contact Davis, see what he says.”

“You know, we could be looking at this from the wrong angle,” Sean pointed out. “Someone like Harry Winslow could have staged your sighting with the plan to wait until you printed your story so he could expose it as a hoax simply to discourage future investigations.”

“No one could have possibly known I’d be on that road at that time of the night.”

“Unless they were following you,” Reed said. “Harry might do it, too.”

Sean remembered how the loudmouthed robust man had slung the mayor around in public. He was definitely the type to try to manipulate Andi. Following her was a possibility.

Andi sighed and threw up her hands. “So we have a hundred suspects and no way to be certain any of them will tell us the truth. Why should we even bother?”

“We should bother because it
could
be real.” Reed stopped pacing and took a seat in front of one of the computers. “If it is, can you imagine what it would mean? We’re talking about a new species here. And
we
would be the ones to discover it. And if it’s a shape-shifter—”

“Whoa.” Andi clamped her hands on Reed’s shoulders in reassurance. Sean felt a twinge of jealousy seeing the obvious, easy bond she shared with the teen. “Settle down, hot shot. I wasn’t suggesting we give up.” She rubbed her hands together. “All right, let’s go over our game plan.”

After they’d brainstormed some more, Reed had to excuse himself. “I’ve got to head out to Werewolf Woods. We’re doing a run through tonight. Our big opening is in a week and a half. You two should come out after we open.”

Sean visited the haunted Halloween attraction each year with his niece and nephew, but the thought of taking Andi as his date held an appeal he couldn’t deny. Would she squeal and curve into him for protection? Probably not, but he bet they’d have fun anyway.

Andi shrugged. “Sure, if I’m still here.”

“Oh, and hey, did you want to maybe go check out that old haunted farm, Andrea? It’s on my way if you want to go now.”

Sean caught the not so subtle look Andi shot in his direction. She obviously didn’t want him to know she was considering a visit to the old farm. “Uh, I think we’ll save that for later.”

Smart lady. The place was a deathtrap. Sean would have to try to stop them if they’d planned to go.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea.” Reed shrugged into his jacket. “Why don’t we get together sometime and have a werewolf fest? I’ve got a ton of DVDs of werewolf movies. Maybe it will give us some ideas for our story.”

Sean smiled and shared an amused glance with Andi, who hopped off the desk she was sitting on to throw her paper plate away. It was obvious Reed just wanted them to spend more time together. Sean knew, even if Andi didn’t, that the kid would jump at any chance to spend more time with her.

Yeah, well. So would Sean.

“We can do it at my place.” Sean tossed his empty plate into the trash. “Pick a day.”

“Soon.” Andi licked leftover sauce from her fingers, which conjured all sorts of naughty ideas. “Otherwise I might not be here.”

Funny how she kept pointing that out every other sentence.

After Reed left, Sean picked up some of the photos they’d printed. Andi pressed against him when she leaned over to claim her jacket. He almost stopped breathing, feeling her curves so close to him. What had this woman done to him? He hadn’t reacted this way to a woman since…try never.

Sean’s father had once told him he’d known Sean’s mother was
the one
by the way he’d almost stopped breathing every time he saw her, by the way he’d reacted to her in a way he’d never reacted to another woman before or since. They became engaged after knowing each other only seven days, and enjoyed a long, happy marriage—cut short only by his mother’s death. Sean had always wanted the same kind of relationship. He’d never expected to find it, so he’d sworn off marriage and substituted meaningless sex with willing women.

Now he wondered.

“I’d better get going,” Andi said, sneaking a glance at the picture he held. “I’ve got lots to do for someone who is suddenly unemployed.”

Unsettled by his thoughts, he put some space between them. “You want to grab dinner or something later—at my sister’s?” Her eyes turned wild, reminding him of a cornered animal’s. She opened her mouth to protest, but he beat her to it. “Hey, I promised her I’d ask.”

She tugged her hair free from her collar, seeming to think about it. “Maybe. I’ll call you later.”

“No you won’t.”

She, at least, had the decency not to pretend otherwise. “I came here to do a story, Hunter. Not to be a social butterfly. I’ll think about it. Your sister was nice enough to offer, so I’ll be nice enough to try and work it out.”

He didn’t press her on it. As much as he’d like to spend more time with her, he also suspected it would be in his best interests not to. She obviously wanted space, and he wasn’t the type to push.

Oh hell. Who was he kidding?

He reached out and pulled her to him. “Sean!” she protested a second before he claimed her mouth with his. Her hands pushed against him. Then she moaned and melted in his arms. He sat back on the desk, and she nestled between his legs, against him.

“What do you do to me?” she murmured against his neck when they came up for air several seconds later.

“Question’s mutual, Sunshine.” He wondered if Reed locked the door on his way out. His fingers found their way beneath her shirt, and her body trembled where he touched.

She stiffened, and he sensed a change in her mood. He pulled her close to kiss her, but she was fingering a stack of papers beside him, craning her neck away from him to read them.

“What’s this?” She pushed him away firmly and picked up the printout. He didn’t know what she was looking at, and he didn’t care. “You wrote a story about my sighting?” She looked at him, horrified.

He’d written a quick brief when they’d been brainstorming. Nothing major. “What do you think?”

Her eyes flashed fire. Her mouth tightened. “You
can’t
run this.” Uh-oh. She was mad.

“Of course I can. You’re my story, Andi, remember? And these two sightings together are newsworthy.”

“You can’t run this.” The paper flapped as she waved it. “It’s my sighting. If it gets out, it will be because I put it out.”

Damn stubborn woman.
Sean’s anger rose. “So now you’re trying to censor what happened?”

“Of course not.” She took a deep breath. “Sean, don’t do this to me. Don’t put me in this position.”

“Andi, I know how hard it is to come forward with a sighting. Most people keep quiet because it’s so difficult, but you’re a reporter. You know the importance of telling people what you saw.”

“There’s nothing I can do to change your mind about running this?” She held up the paper like a weapon between them. Sean stood firm in his decision. He was running the story in next week’s paper. He pressed his lips together in response.

“Fine.” She slapped the papers flat against his chest, hard.

“Andi—” he began, but she was already out the door.

It was definitely spooky.

The old farmhouse itself had faded into the landscape, partially hidden by twisted vines and clinging foliage, which had long since crept up the sides of the two-story building. She’d have to mention this one to her friend, Kenneth, who scouted for movie locations. The aged porch even let out a creaking groan when she took her first step on it.
Sheesh.

She told herself to get a grip and took another step.

“Hello?” she called out, to be safe. It would be her luck to get cited for trespassing if, God forbid, some crazy redneck did happen to still live here.

She waited a few seconds. Her only reply was a loud chirp from an unseen bird.

“I’ll take that as, ‘No, Andrea, no one lives here. Come on in.’”

She had the strangest sensation she was being watched. Taking one last glance at the woods surrounding her, Andrea wiped her sweaty hands on the leg of her jeans and arranged the camera hanging from her neck into a more comfortable position.

Moving a dirty window screen aside, she pressed her face against the grimy glass. There was no sign of life, no sign of anything but dust and dirt and some graffiti spray painted on the inside walls of the room. The door was unlocked, so she didn’t have to think about jimmying the window open. Actually, the door almost fell off its hinges when she pushed it, but she managed to steady it and keep the bottom hinge from breaking.

“Sam Raimi, you would love this place,” she whispered. He was one of her favorite filmmakers. She called out again, “Hello? Anyone here?”

Nothing.

Her eyes skimmed the room, and she mentally noted the dirty, uncarpeted floor; the dusty framed photos hanging crookedly on the walls; the uncovered furniture now faded from time and exposure. She lifted her camera and took a few shots. There was some graffiti—odd drawings and such—staining the room with the reminder that trespassers had been here before her. Reed had mentioned the owner disappeared almost twenty-five years ago. The deeds she’d researched showed the house still belonged to the Martin family, most likely because they had never been able to sell the place, thanks to its haunted reputation. Still, it was sad that no one had respected the property left behind.

“So, what happened to you, Mr. Robert Martin?”

Andrea wandered from room to room trying to gather clues about his disappearance and to decide if she could relate it to her story on the werewolf. She hoped to find evidence of the cult activities the Werewolf Club had mentioned—it would be the seasoning on the whacked-out story she was writing.

She found it on the second floor.

She was snapping photos of the graffiti and red bloodlike splashes of paint tarnishing the walls of the upstairs hallway when she caught whiff of a foul stench emanating from a room to her right.

She struggled to catch her breath.

Not the same or as bad as the smell in the woods last night, but bad enough. It stank of mildew and decay. Andrea propped open a nearby window for ventilation, waited a second for it to make some difference and approached the suspicious room. As she got closer to it, she caught sight of a large black pentagram drawn on the floor. She didn’t consider herself especially superstitious, but she still hesitated before stepping across the threshold of the room. Maybe it was a sixth sense, but she felt a sudden, distinct sensation of something…evil.