White Wolf 2: The Call of a Soul (3 page)

“I’ll get my purse.” She threw open the desk drawer, grabbed her keys, and propelled herself out of the chair. The two men didn’t even flick an eyelid her way. She banged the drawer shut.

Both men shot her what’s-with-the-attitude puzzled frowns. Doc G. sent her a narrow-eyed glance. “Something wrong, hon?”

“Course not. Are we ready?” She busied herself, putting the keys into a pocket of the purse, then reorganized her wallet, the two extra hair clips, and the carefully clipped stack of coupons from Sunday’s newspaper. As soon as Doc G. locked the front door, she moved out from behind the desk.

“Mind going out the back, Mike? Easier that way.”

“Makes no difference to me.” One second Mike faced Doc G., the next he’d grabbed her coat from the stand and held it open for her.

All she needed. More up close and personal time with the man of her fantasies. The man whose mother detested every single member of the White family.

Melanie tried to keep as far away as possible. To not be aware of that sexy smell of his, to not feel the palpable heat radiating from him, to not shiver when his hand brushed her nape as he flicked the collar of her coat after she’d shrugged into the arms. Every nerve in her body crackled like a live electric wire.

Taking two hurried steps, she put Doc G. between them.

“Great seeing you again, Mike. Now that you’re back for good, there’re a few things I want to discuss with you.” Doc draped an arm around Mike’s shoulder, and both men headed for the back doorway. Neither man noticed Melanie picking her jaw up from the floor.

God definitely had gone on a hiatus. Mike Dorland was back in town for good. She’d just made the biggest ass out of herself in forever. And somehow he knew her most dangerous secrets.

Chapter Two

“Why’re you home so late?”

Melanie straightened from her bent-over tiptoe creep. Even in the dark, she could make out her sister, sitting against the headboard. Melanie heard a soft
click
and blinked when a muted stream of light illuminated Susie’s high cheekbones. The bulb in the lamp between the two twin beds didn’t quite have the wattage to reach the shadowed corners.

The room smelled of chocolate. Both sisters had serious chocolate issues. But because Susie had actually grown instead of remaining short like Melanie, the fattening delicacy didn’t sit on her hips and thighs. Susie was also the star of the local community college’s track team, and that meant she could eat a dozen chocolate bars and never gain a pound. “How many bars did you eat?”

Susie had the grace to blush. “Doesn’t matter.”

“What’re you doing up so late?” Melanie closed the door and set her shoes down at the foot of her bed. She stretched, arms high above her head, and arched her back.

“Started that journal I found at the bottom of Mama’s trunk yesterday. I couldn’t put it down.” Susie switched on the alarm clock radio. Classical music filled the cozy room like a murmur of rippling water. Melanie recognized the tinkling melody of Vivaldi’s “Spring.” The cottage’s thin walls afforded little privacy, but the two sisters had learned that once a constant background played, their brother, Gray, and their mother, Kitchi, would sleep through the sisters talking into the wee hours of the morning.

“Susie, I told you to put that back. It’s not right to invade Mama’s privacy like that.” Melanie dropped her purse on the dresser and then set her cell phone to charge. The phone was her prized possession given to her and paid for by her brother, Gray, who had provided phones for all of them out of his first paycheck. It had galled Gray to no end when Shuman, the reservation’s chief, had refused to allow them a landline.

“It’s not Mama’s journal. I think it might’ve belonged to our great-great-great-great-great-grandmother on Papa’s side.”

Susie grinned when Melanie did a double take.

“No way. Let me see it.” She walked over to Susie’s bed, sat on the mattress, and held out a hand.

Susie shook her head. “Sorry. No go. I hid it in the laundry hamper. I was going to put it back when Mama was having her shower, but I got so engrossed that I didn’t have time.”

“I’ll put it back when I get home from work tomorrow—I mean this morning—after reading it first, of course. Are there any dates? Names?” A burst of excitement lifted her exhaustion. Maybe there would be a clue about how to develop her maggishahwi healing skills. She knew hearing the last call of a soul shouldn’t be the extent of her capabilities.

“No dates, but I think it must be very old. As far as I can figure, it’s the legends of the Cwaatchii. How we came about. The writing’s difficult to read. I don’t understand half the words. If only…”

Melanie filled in Susie’s unsaid words. If only Papa hadn’t been injured. If only the doctors hadn’t given him addictive-to-the-max pain pills. If only when the doctors stopped prescribing the drug, he hadn’t turned to alcohol to alleviate his debilitating agony. If only one of their parents had taught them about their heritage. If only Gramps and Papa hadn’t died and Mama and Jack Daniels hadn’t become best friends. So many if onlys. She sighed.

“You won’t be able to finish it in one go. I know you understand more than I do, but the ink’s blurred in a lot of places, and it becomes a fill-in-the-blank puzzle.” Susie rolled her eyes. “I swear my head’s spinning trying to figure out all I read.”

Melanie reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand. “Do you realize what this might mean? If we can figure it out, we all won’t be so in the dark. Especially Gray. He’s had no alpha male model to guide him. I know he’s way past the mentoring age, but it could fill in some blanks for him. He doesn’t complain, but he’s become so reticent.”
Secretive
was the word Melanie wanted to use, but Gray and Susie had a special bond, and Susie would go all defensive if she voiced her other concerns about their brother.

“Yeah. I know. I worry too. Lately all he’s done when he comes home is eat and sleep. He doesn’t consider making it into the Arena Football League and then being kept there for three years as a good sign.” Susie drew her knees up and propped her cheek on them.

“He’s still playing for the Warriors. They haven’t dropped him from the team.”

“Yeah, but I think his twenty-fifth birthday hit him hard. He figured he would’ve been called up to the NFL by now. He’s depressed about the whole situation.”

“Oh my goodness, look at the time.”

Melanie glanced at the clock: 2:37. She yawned.

“You should go right to bed. You have to be up in two hours.” Susie gave her a gentle push. “Change and tell me why you’re so late. Then we’ll hit the sack.”

Melanie yawned again and forced herself to stand. She pulled off her uniform as she related Pincer calling Doc G. and then sat on her bed to roll off her socks.

“Who was killed?”

“Eddie Mato.”

All the color drained from her sister’s face. “Eddie Mato?”

“Yeah. I didn’t expect that one either. But he
has
been in trouble with the law before.” Though Eddie hadn’t struck her as the violent type.

“There hasn’t been a murder in Chabegawn since Boyd Dorland was killed all those years ago. And Eddie? Why would anyone kill him?” Susie brows pinched together, and she shuddered.

Melanie frowned. “Wasn’t he shot a while back trying to escape from some woman’s bedroom when her husband came home unexpectedly?” When her sister’s mouth went slack, she added, “I’m not saying he deserved to get killed, but he wasn’t exactly a role model.”

“No one deserves to be murdered,” Susie muttered, twisted around, and pummeled her pillow with one fist.

She studied her sister. Why did Susie look so guilty?

“How did it happen?”

Shrugging, she walked around the bed. “Nobody told me and I didn’t ask.”

But Melanie had seen everything, smelled everything, and the whole scene had disturbed her more than she wanted to admit. Why had she scented the same stench that stuck to the cub’s body at the murder site?

“Well, it’s sure to be all the buzz tomorrow at the college,” Susie declared and punched the squished pillow again. “Someone will know the details.”

“When did you become so bloodthirsty?” Melanie shook her head. Why was Susie acting so strangely?

“I’m just curious. Did you see? The body, I mean.” Susie hopped out of bed, retrieved a cotton nightdress from Melanie’s dresser draw, and threw it to her.

“Doc G. wouldn’t let me get close, but I saw enough.” Melanie caught the bundled nightie, fought the nausea that welled in her throat, and tried to erase the images that formed in her head. “I doubt you’ll find out much at school. Sheriff Pincer was adamant about that. Lectured me about how sacrosanct a murder scene is.”

“Is that why you won’t tell me what it was like?”

Melanie pulled the nightgown over her head and faced Susie. “Okay. But you have to promise not to say a word to anyone.”

“Does that include Gray and Mama too?”

“I doubt either will ask, but if they do, you can tell them. The body wasn’t in one piece, and there was a ton of blood. Satisfied?”

“Not in one—” Susie almost knocked Melanie over in her mad dash to the bathroom.

“What on earth?”

The sound of violent retching explained her sister’s actions. Melanie hurried over to the sink and dampened a washcloth. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you the details.”

Susie puked again.

Melanie stooped and patted her sister’s back. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I shouldn’t be preaching.”

Sitting back, Susie swiped a hand across her mouth and shook her head. “Not in one piece. That’s sick.”

“Here.” Melanie gave her the damp towel. “Water?”

Susie nodded. “It’s just that I knew him. You know?”

Melanie stood and filled a glass with water. “I know. And you’ve never been good with gory stuff. You can’t even watch a horror film without gagging.”

“I don’t know how you do it. Deal with blood and all that gross stuff.” Susie reached over and pulled the flush handle. “Don’t go all maggishahwi concerned on me. I’m okay now.”

Melanie choked back an automatic
no you’re not.

Susie’s knuckles whitened when she gripped the edges of the toilet seat and pushed herself up to standing. She took the glass from Melanie and drank the liquid in one go. “I need to brush my teeth.”

“You going to be—”

“I’m fine,” Susie snapped.

Melanie swung around, went back into the bedroom, and perched on the edge of the mattress. Susie’s reaction to the news of Eddie’s death was surprising. Then again, her sister faked an outer toughness that hid her inner sensitive nature.

“Don’t look so grim. I’m not going to puke again.”

Susie certainly didn’t look okay. Her face was even paler, and she stumbled more than walked to her bed before crawling back under the sheets.

The temptation to go over and hug her sister was muted by Susie turning on her side away from Melanie. “Want me to make you a cup of tea? Or maybe hot chocolate with marshmallows?”

“Nope.”

Melanie buttoned her nightdress.

“I know Eddie has a rap sheet, but who in Chabegawn would kill him? It gives me the creeps thinking it might be someone we know, maybe even someone on the reservation.” Susie rolled over to face Melanie. “Mama works at the casino. She could be passing by the killer every day.”

More like multiple killers, considering the violence of the crime, but Melanie didn’t want to make her sister worry more than she was already. “I heard Pincer saying jealousy was probably the motive behind the killing. Some angry husband or boyfriend.”

“There’s one good thing about this—Pincer’s in charge. Since he’s been sheriff, things have gone back to the way they used to be.”

By some unspoken agreement, no White family member ever referred to Gramps and Papa’s deaths, though they’d both died on the same day less than a week before Boyd Dorland’s killing.

Melanie snorted. “Yeah. He did a great job of solving Chabegawn’s only murder.”

“Until this one. You gotta get over it, sis. Pincer’s been good for this town. And I don’t—”

“Gray have early morning football practice?” Melanie didn’t want to have the same argument they always had about the sheriff. Susie liked the man, Melanie didn’t.

“No. He warned me not to make any noise when I get up. Wants to sleep in. And Mama’s going in late too. There’s a special event at the casino tomorrow night, and Geraldine asked her to help again.” Susie rekneaded her pillow.

Lately Mama’d been earning a ton of extra money with those special events. “I think she enjoys doing them.”

“Are you kidding? She loves it. Heck, anything’s better than being in that cashier’s cage all night. So bo-ring.” Susie crossed her eyes.

Melanie pattered into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face.

“Coach ran us ragged tonight. My ass and quads are going to burn like crazy.”

Now that sounded more like her sister. “Did you put on that ointment I made for you?” Melanie hung up the damp towel.

“I did. But I don’t think even that miracle paste will work.”

Susie had the covers up to her nose when Melanie returned to the bedroom.

“I promise I’ll be extra quiet in the morning.” She slipped under the sheets.

Susie switched off the lamp. “Night, sis. Love you.”

“Love you back.”

Melanie stared at the ceiling.

Her grandmother had begun training Melanie in the ways of the maggishahwi prior to her untimely death. Another if only. Melanie knew it was her lack of knowledge that only allowed her to hear a last call. Gramma had been able to anticipate, to feel that first wound, and try to rescue.

Some days life seemed too overwhelming. Like today, first Mike and the cub, and then Eddie. How on earth was she going to face Mike after that searing kiss?

Melanie lay awake, replaying the feel of Mike’s coarse tongue in her mouth, and a flash of heat peppered beads of perspiration all over. She threw off the bedcovers.

Susie lapsed into a soft snoring.

Would she ever get him out of her system? Eight years had passed since she’d first met him in their senior year. And not once in those eight years had she been attracted to any other man. The truth was that she’d had several opportunities to date other men.