Thomas Prescott Superpack (44 page)

Riley nodded at the gun.
“That’s a tranquilizer gun. Darts are filled with Ketamine, low level animal tranquilizer.”

“Are these hard to get?”

“In the state of Washington you need to have a license, but according to Herb, they’re readily available on the Internet.”

Isn’t everything?

We pushed through a second door to the sound of clattering hooves.
There wasn’t much for light, but you could hear the deep inhale and exhale of wildlife. Stalls were lined up on both sides of a dirty walkway and I guessed half of them were occupied.

I looked at Riley and asked, “What are they?”

Her lips flexed into a thin smirk. “Deer.”

Chapter 31

My eyes had started to adjust to the soft light, and I peered over the top of one of the stalls. A deer huddled in the corner. He looked like a Dave. Dave the deer. Dave’s eyes bulged and his ears sat back like two perfect isosceles triangles.

Riley walked to the far end of the building and propped a door open.
The bright light fed into the small room. She moved on down the row, stopping at the last stall on the left. Then she pulled open the stall door and stood back. The deer didn’t take much prodding. After about three seconds, it shot from the stall and into the sunlight. Riley said, “Feeding time.”

She pulled the door closed and said, “Let’s go watch.”

We went out the way we’d entered, hopped on the snowmobile, and followed the deer tracks leading from the building’s far end into the trees.
Riley parked the snowmobile at the tree line and said, “It won’t be long now.”

She shut off the engine and we were left in simple silence.

“Aren’t we going to follow the tracks?”
I found it odd that I was genuinely intrigued to watch this poor deer be slaughtered.

She shook her head.
“The deer has the advantage in the trees. The wolves will chase it out into the open.”

I nodded.

She was right, it didn’t take long.
From deep within the trees, came a soft rumbling and a sheet of snow fell from a large spruce. Emerging through the white was the deer. It was about a football field away, but I could see a look of panic on its face. Like John Elway scrambling out of the pocket. The wolves bounded behind the prancing deer, teeth gritted, kicking up snow like exhaust fumes. The deer shot out of the tree line about forty feet above us. The wolves came three seconds later—four in a tight group, then a group of five, then a couple stragglers.

The two of us swiveled in our seats.

The wolves made up the ground quickly in the open as Riley predicted.
The lead wolf was stride on stride with the deer, cutting off his path to the right. The deer started to its left where, unbeknownst to him, another wolf had materialized. The wolf tangled up one of the deer’s legs and the deer lost a step. That’s when the third wolf made its lunge. It latched onto the deer’s neck, where it hung for a split second. Then the deer went down and it was over. Dinner for eleven.

I felt my head shaking from side to side.
It was one of the more amazing feats I’d ever witnessed. Equal to, if not greater than, watching Bob Ross paint some trees.

Riley started the snowmobile and we slowly crept towards the feasting wolves until we were less than fifteen yards away.
A couple of the wolves traded glances our way, but for the most part their attention was on the deer.

Riley said, “We really shouldn’t be doing this.
The less human contact the better, but you probably won’t get another chance to see wolves this close in your lifetime.”

“Promise.”

She laughed and slapped my leg.

I asked, “How long have these wolves been here?” On closer inspection, only five wolves looked full-grown, the other six markedly smaller.

“Well, the two big white wolves are an alpha pair from up in Wisconsin.
Initially, we were going to wait for the pair to mate and have a litter, but it just so happened three weeks after we transported them here, the Professor rescued a wolf in Canada that birthed a litter. But the mother died during the pregnancy. Six cubs. Then three transports.”

“And you just throw them all together?”

“Basically. The alpha pair didn’t seem to mind the three transplants, but they didn’t want anything to do with the pups. Wouldn’t go near them. The alpha pair is responsible for the feeding, protection, training, and socialization of its members. It was the alpha male, which is rare, that finally came around. I witnessed it firsthand. We’d just finished feeding the pups—they were still on formula at that point—and Cujo came and nuzzled one of the pups with his head. From that day forward, they’ve been like a family.”

“Did you say Cujo?”

“One of Herb’s stupid names.
Herb named the five adults. I got to name the pups.” She paused. “Want to hear their names?”

“Do
I ever.”

“Well, there’s Cujo.
He’s the big one, the lead wolf in the chase. He’s big by even wolf standards. Somewhere around 165 pounds.”

I looked at Cujo.
He was watching the others eat. I didn’t like being terrified by something that I outweighed by twenty pounds. But then again, I wasn’t too hip on spiders either. It was slowly donning on me that I was sort of a pussy.

She continued, “The alpha female is J-Lo.
She’s the big white one on the right. The three transplants are the two gray ones, Quagmire and Carmen Electra, and the black one off to the side, Cartman.” She rolled her eyes and said, “I don’t know where he gets these names.”

I couldn’t wait to meet this Herb character.

Cartman was thirty yards from the others, a large chunk of deer draping from his snarling snout.
He was perfect black against the perfect white. He trained his eyes on me.

Riley laughed.
“He doesn’t seem to like you.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“He was the one wolf that never really meshed.”

“Like the weird uncle that shows up to Easter brunch with his friend Jake.”

“More like the weird neighbor who kills his family.” She added, “There used to be another wolf. Cartman killed him the first week.”

Double gulp.

I looked at the rather small pups trying to eat the meat, biting at the air, and said, “What are the pups’ names?”

“Ross, Chandler, Joey, Monica, Phoebe, and Rachel.”

I wondered if she was a huge
Friends
fan or if this was a weird coincidence. She gave a little giggle and said, “Yup,
Friends.
”

Matter solved.

So, I watched Cujo, J-Lo, Cartman, Quagmire, Carmen Electra, Ross, Joey, Chandler, Monica, Phoebe, and Rachel devour Bambi.

After about ten minutes, the pups started playing.
They would rub their heads together and Riley explained they were nuzzling, an important show of affection.

At one point, two of the pups made their way in our direction.
Riley whispered, “The one on the right is Monica. The one on the left is Phoebe.”

“Where’s Phoebe’s guitar?”

I don’t think she heard me. Or she decided to act like she didn’t hear me. I’m guessing the latter.

The wolves came right up to us.
Could have just been a pair of Labradors. Dark blue-black eyes against their fluffy gray fur. Jet black noses. Truly gorgeous animals. They both had thin collars around their necks. I assumed these were the tracking devices.

Riley reached out her hand and scratched Monica behind the ears.
Phoebe waited patiently for me to do the same. She bobbed her head from side to side and lifted her ears. She sensed my hesitation and took a couple more steps in my direction, burying her head in my lap.

Riley said, “Somebody likes you.”

I gently scratched the wolf behind the ears, Phoebe wrestling her head from side to side in obvious enjoyment. Then, in a flash, both pups took off back to the pack.

I looked at Riley and said, “They seem pretty tame.”

“The pups are usually pretty tame for the first year. As they get older they slowly lose it. But you never know.”

She took off her glove and showed me her right hand.
She had seven small scars on the fleshy skin between her thumb and pointer finger. She turned her hand over and revealed similar scars on her palm. “The wolf has an incredible bite. Their jaws can exert a pressure of more than 400 lbs. per square inch. Ross did this to me three weeks ago. I was petting him and then he just chomped down on my hand, wouldn’t let go. Forty-seven stitches.” She paused. “The second you stop respecting them as wild and vicious animals is usually one second too late.”

Touché.

A hollow, throaty bellow snapped my attention back to the wolves.
One of the darker wolves had its head snapped back and was howling at the heavens. I think it was Quagmire. Within seconds, all the wolves had their heads reared back and were doing the same. The pups’ noise was higher, something between a howl and yelp. A holp. The cumulative noise was a deep thunderstorm rolling through the mountains.

I looked at Riley and said, “I thought they only howled when there was a full moon.”
Did
Underworld 2
teach us nothing?     

“They howl for lots of different reasons.
Basically it’s to show fellowship to one another and strength to others.”

“I thought that’s what chugging beer was for.”

She thought this was incredibly funny.

I noticed a movement to my left and turned.
Just at the edge of the tree line was a man on cross-country skis. He was dressed from head to toe in white, with one of those white masks covering his face, so only his eyes and mouth were visible.

I cocked my head at him and Riley said, “That’s Professor Koble.”

“He just follows them around on his skis.”

“Pretty much.
If we weren’t here he would probably be eating with them.”

“He’d eat raw deer?”

“I told you he was a little different.”

 
I don’t know if I would classify a guy who thinks he is a wolf as different. I’d file that under off-his-fucking-rocker.

We watched the wolves for another couple minutes, then Riley started up the snowmobile and we headed back the way we’d come.
I watched the Professor at the edge of the trees. He held his gaze on us, much like the wolves had earlier.

Halfway into the trip, Riley stopped the sled and asked if I’d like to drive.
I scooted up and she slid in behind me. I hit the switch and said, “Hold on tight.” I added, “And not to the handholds.”

She wrapped her arms around me and dug her head into my back.
Ten minutes later, I parked the snowmobile where we found it and turned off the ignition. We were about to hop off when I turned and asked, “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I’ve got to do a quick round in the morning, but that’s about it.
Why?”

“My sister got me tickets to the Seahawks’ playoff game on Sunday.
I wasn’t going to use them, but since you’re such a diehard fan and all.” Actually, I’d been planning on taking Harold, but when I’d asked him if he was a Seahawks fan, he told me that aside from all the pooping, he supposed they were okay.

Anyhow, Riley pursed her lips and said, “Are you asking me out on a date?”

“It would appear that way.”

“I’d love to go to the game with you.”

And then she kissed me on the cheek.

Chapter 32

A soft creaking noise jarred me awake and I opened my right eye. The bathroom door was ajar and a steamy fog slowly dissipated into the bedroom. Riley was standing in the doorway, a lime green towel wrapped around her. She had another towel and was drying her hair with it. Needless to say, at this point I decided to open my left eye. She noticed my eyeing her and said, “Hey, sleepyhead.”

I smacked my lips a couple times. “What time it is?”

“I don’t know. A little before eight.”

“
A.M.
?”

She nodded.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

I smacked my lips a couple more times before asking, “Are you by chance a morning person?”
I’d heard these people existed but had never actually seen one in the flesh.

She nodded again.
  

Ten demerits.

She continued drying her hair.
I continued to stare at her. She asked, “Did you have a nice sleep?”

I raised an eyebrow.
“Sleep would denote having one’s eyes closed and resting.”

“I guess there wasn’t much of that last night.”

“No. No, there wasn’t.”

I closed my eyes and said, “Can you put some clothes on so I can go back to sleep.”

 “Maybe I don’t want you to go back to sleep. Maybe I want to have my way with you.” 

I pulled up the sheets and looked down.
Paddington was in a sex-induced coma. I said, “I don’t know if that’s going to be possible.”

She sighed and continued drying her hair.

As I stared at her, a barrage of thoughts raced through my head.
How they got there and why, I have no idea. Did I regret sleeping with her? I didn’t think so. Of course, if I ended up asking my local pharmacist some rather peculiar questions the following week, than I might. But it went deeper than that. It was like having eggnog before Thanksgiving. It’s always there on the shelf, and it always tastes good, but you know it will taste that much better if you wait until Thanksgiving. Then again, I hadn’t gotten a whiff of eggnog this year. No, I was fishing dead women out of Puget Sound. So maybe this, Riley, was my eggnog.

If you want to dig deeper, and I did, it all came back to Alex.
But I wasn’t thinking about Alex. I was thinking about someone else. But I was starting to give myself a migraine and there was a very attractive woman standing half naked in my bedroom.

I lifted up the sheets and whispered, “
Psst. Psst.
Wake up.”

He rolled over but said nothing.

Lazy dick.

Riley finished drying her hair, then walked up to the edge of the bed.
She slowly unraveled the towel and let it fall to the floor. She had small, firm breasts, a perfectly toned stomach, and a thin strip of chestnut brown pubic hair. She raised her eyebrows.

I pulled up the sheets and Paddington winked at me, which is always a good sign.

. . .

An hour later, I was walking Riley downstairs.
She was wearing the same jeans and sweater she’d worn to the game. I was wearing a plaid comforter, toga style. My plan was to walk Riley to the front door then proceed to the couch where I would sleep for the better portion of the day.

That is, until the doorbell rang.

I would have preferred if it’d been the mailman. Or one of those annoying kids selling holiday wrapping paper. I wouldn’t have minded if it’d been one of my nosy neighbors dressed up as Bryant Gumble. Or Ethan with a sawed-off shotgun. Or an Arab holding a can of Anthrax. Or a ten-year-old kid holding a blood test. Or James Patterson holding his latest novel. It wasn’t.

Erica was wearing dress slacks and a black sweater.
She smiled and said, “Do you even own clothes?”

I think she was referring to the fact that two of the three times I’d opened the door, I’d been clad in linens.
I gave a goofy smile and said, “I’m waiting for Kohl’s spring clearance.”

She laughed and said, “Can I come in for a minute?”

I mentally pulled out a grenade and stared at it. “Um.” I pulled the pin with my teeth. “I, um.” I put the grenade in my mouth. “I don’t know if—”

Riley poked her head out and said, “Hi, there.”

3 . . .2 . . . 1 . . .

I opened the door all the way.
Riley sidled up next to me, stuck out her hand, and said, “I’m Riley.”

Ka-BOOM!

Erica threw a shifty look my way, then took Riley’s hand and shook it. “Sorry, um, I’m Erica.”

A long silence ensued.
I mentally dug the large piece of shrapnel from my throat and said, “Cold today.”

Riley and Erica glanced at each other, then looked back at me.
They both nodded. I looked up, then said poignantly, “Might rain later.”

They both kept quiet.

“Just saying. It might.”

Erica did a half turn and said, “I’m gonna take off.
Good to see you Thomas.” She turned to Riley, gave a little head bob, and said, “Nice to meet you.”

Riley nodded at her and said, “Actually, I have to get going anyhow.”
She gave me a peck on the cheek, flashed a smile at Erica, then walked briskly to her car and drove off.

Erica and I both watched as her green Jeep pulled onto the street.
Erica looked at me and said, “She seems nice.” She actually said this to the invisible person standing to my left.

“She’s my favorite cousin.”

Erica narrowed her eyes. I’m not sure she bought the cousin bit. And I’m not exactly sure why I was selling it.

“Do you sleep with all your cousins?”

“Just first cousins.”

She didn’t seem to know how to take this.
Anyhow, it was chilly outside and I said, “So do you still want to come in?”

I didn’t wait for a response.
I walked inside, leaving the door open behind me. I made my way into the kitchen and grabbed a box of waffles from the freezer. As I popped four waffles into the toaster, I heard the front door close. I waited for footsteps but heard none. She was gone.

I took a deep breath.
How could I have handled this encounter with Erica differently? And why did I care? The last thing I wanted—
needed
—was to fall head over heals for another girl. I shook my head. I wonder if I could take legal action against Alex for screwing me up so badly.

The waffles popped up. Two were perfect and two were barely cooked.
I took the cooked ones out and transferred the uncooked ones to the working slots. Then let out a scream. A long one that had almost nothing to do with uncooked waffles.

“Are you okay?”

I turned to my left. Erica was standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

I cleared my throat and said, “These waffles are taking forever to cook.
It’s very frustrating. I think it has something to do with the chocolate chips.”

“If you say so.”

The waffles popped up a second time, a perfect golden-brown. I drenched the waffles in syrup.

From the doorway Erica said, “How do you feel about murder for hire?”

It took me a moment to process her question. I was also processing a quadruple-decker bite and garbled, “Noda gance.”

She took a seat at the kitchen table and I joined her.
I offered her a bite of waffles but she respectfully declined. That she was here spoke volumes. I guessed that their case—and by
their
, I mean, Erica, Ethan, and the entire state of Washington—had folded since I blew the whistle on the videotapes.

I asked her about this.

She said, “Gray met with the judge that next morning and showed him the tapes. It’s obvious he was in his office when his yacht was being taken out. It’s a third-party video surveillance so there’s no way the dates and times could be tampered with. It’s about as solid an alibi as you’re gonna get these days.”

I nodded.

This didn’t grant Adam Gray absolution from his wife’s murder, but it did put a large dent in the prosecution’s case.
There was still the matter of his fingerprints on the gun, the gun itself, and motive, which, the more I uncovered about the couple, only seemed to intensify. 

Erica finished, “The judge dismissed the case on the spot.”

Ergo, she was asking me, aka the grand poobah of cunning and wizardry, to do some information gathering. For the first time I wondered if she was here of her own accord or if she’d been prodded by my pal Ethan. Or more logically, she was here to make certain that I was staying clear of the henhouse as promised. 

On this note I asked, “And you are here because?”

She moved backward a couple inches as if I’d physically pushed her. She stammered, “Because I respect your opinion and I wanted to know what your thoughts were on Adam Gray hiring someone to kill his wife.”

“I thought you wanted me to keep my nose out of this.”

“I do. But I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that you aren’t going to.”

 
Acceptance is the first step to recovery. Speaking of recovery, I was having what my psychiatrist referred to as trust issues. As in, I didn’t trust people who weren’t named Thomas. I didn’t even trust all of these. Especially that Bjorn guy.

After a few awkward seconds, I said, “Well, I’d have to say the odds are slim Adam Gray would outsource his dirty work.”

She nodded.

“I mean, this guy refuses to send a paralegal to research any minute detail he may need for a case.
He’s hands on, start to finish. If Gray killed his wife it would have been done perfectly and you and I wouldn’t be here right now because Ellen’s body never would have been found and Adam would smell of roses.

“Seriously, this guy has an unhealthy relationship with order that hovers around OCD.
Now, I’m not saying he’s Howard Hughes, but he isn’t far off. The only thing Adam Gray is guilty of is being an irrational neat freak, an awful husband, a negligent father, and a prick. Somebody wanted him to go to jail for his wife’s murder. You find whoever had it out for the two of them, Ellen and Adam, and you’ve found your murderer.”

“Makes sense,” she said dryly.
She stood. “Well, I’d better be going.”

I walked her to the door and had my second awkward foyer moment of the day.
My record is three.

Erica stuck her hands in her pockets and glanced up at me.
I had an overwhelming urge to grab her face and kiss her softly. Almost as if something was bubbling inside of me and the only way to release it was to flush my lips with hers. I’d never felt the bubbles with Riley. In fact, I’m not sure I’d felt the bubbles with Alex. At least not to this level. But I have a rule that I don’t kiss two different women in the same twenty-four-hour time period. I’m a class act like that.

I patted her on the shoulder and said, “Thanks for stopping by.”

I’m quite certain these were not the parting words Erica was seeking. She did sort of a half smile and said, “Do me a favor and tell—Riley is it?—that I’m sorry if I was rude earlier. I’m sure she’s wonderful.”

“I’ll be sure to do that.”

She added, “I mean, she is your
favorite
cousin.”

We both gave a forced laugh.

She opened the door and started down the drive.
She gave a little wave as she headed in the direction of her car. I almost called to her. I almost ran to her. I almost turned her around and kissed her the kiss I’d played over in my head since the day I laid eyes on her.

Almost.