Page 57 of A Bear's Secret

The other shoe had to drop.

“Start the bacon, will you?” Barb asked.

Austin went to the fridge just as Sloane emerged.

“There she is,” Barb said. “That boy woke up.”

Sloane made a face. “I know,” she said.

Barb shook her head.

“He’s lucid now,” she said. “Debbie — she’s my friend who’s a nurse, Austin knows her — called me this morning with the latest gossip.”

Sloane swallowed, and Austin could see her go pale.

“Apparently, he was sent by the FBI to track down a feral wolf,” she said. “And instead, someone got him with his own tranq gun.”

Austin and Sloane just stared at Barb, the fridge wide open, cold air pouring out.

“He wasn’t FBI. He couldn’t have been more than twenty,” Austin said, the first to recover.

“Twenty-three,” said Barb. “Fresh out of training.”

“You’re sure he’s lucid?” Sloane asked.

Barb just shrugged.

“They didn’t send him,” Austin said. “There’s no way. He’s still hallucinating.”

“Apparently he also told the police that he was attacked by a half-rhinoceros, half-spider monster,” she said.

Barb shrugged. “I asked Debbie to keep me posted, and she did,” she said, cutting biscuits into circles. “She said he stopped talking crazy and stared making sense. That’s all I got. Don’t stand there with the fridge open, I’m not paying to cool the whole house.”

Austin shut the fridge door, then opened it, grabbed the bacon, and shut it again.

“Oh, and someone burned the mayor’s house down last night,” she said. “Didn’t you hear the sirens?”

Sloane turned bright pink, then just shook her head and went to the coffee maker.

Austin had an even worse feeling about Trevor, and had no idea what he could do to help his mate.

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