Page 110 of Not Your Ordinary Shifter

She nodded, frowning as she picked up her teacup. “Once more. Last night. Only not as long and this time we heard rustling. Like someone was weaving in and out of the sage brush. Weird, right?”

Johnathan frowned. “Were there any tracks when you got up?”

Annabelle shook her head. “Either they covered them with as many times as they crisscrossed the path, or it was all in my head. There was nothing out there when Jerome went looking. Not even a peep on our cameras.”

“Odd,” he muttered, drinking the rest of his tea. “Do you mind if I look around your property?” Better to ask before he went out there. Didn’t need Jerome shooting him without asking questions first.

“Sure. I’ll let Jerome know you’re going to be out there.”

“I hate to ask a dumb question, especially since you didn’t see any footprints. What about smells? Anything out of the ordinary?” It was a long shot. Besides their three children, Jerome and Annabelle adopted three more from the orphanage. There was bound to be mixed scents everywhere, but if the animal making the noises was foreign, their scent might be easier to detect and track.

“No,” she replied. “I wish I could tell you how all this was possible, but it’s a mystery to me.”

Johnathan understood. “I had to ask. It was a long shot anyway. With kids and other known animals in the area, getting a bead on something foreign to the area, might’ve been easier to decern as out of the ordinary.”

Annabelle nodded. “Jerome said the same thing. He’s got a good nose. So does Hayden and Kalkin. If neither of them could smell whatever it was...”

“Right.” Johnathan took the last bite of his cookie then grinned when Annabelle handed him a bag. “You wouldn’t be corrupting an investigation by giving me cookies, would you, Miss Blackhorn?”

She laughed swatting at him. “Silly boy. I remember you coming in here all the time for a bag of these. Guess I packed them up out of habit.”

“Well, you can “habit” a bag my way, every day,” he said, winking at her.

“Tease,” she chuckled. “I hope you find what’s out there. It wasn’t fake, Johnathan. Jerome and I both heard the... Whatever it is.”

“That’s why I came to you first. I knew you’d never lie about an occurrence. I’ll keep you posted on what I find. Thanks for the cookies, Mrs. Mar—Annabelle.” His cheeks burned as he turned away. Not from embarrassment, though. Out of grief and missing Mrs. Martin.

“I miss her too, Johnathan. Every day. It’s not the same without her.” She squeezed his shoulder. “You’re welcome here whenever you want to be closer to her.”

He nodded before he exited the shop and went to the next person on his list, Malcolm and Marie. Since he was only a few blocks from the orphanage, he walked the rest of the way to the house not far from the Raferty homestead.Leaving the Past Behindhad been his home for many years. He met Marie and Penelope first and became friends with them over the years. That was the one thing aboutLeaving the Past Behind, no matter whether an orphan was adopted or not, they were still family to everyone who worked there, including the Rafertys.

When he arrived at the house, the kids excitedly moved about out front, decorating for Halloween. Someone, and their name rhymed with Flacolm, had bought one of those giant skeleton-torso/head-combs, and a pumpkin skeleton man that came out of the ground. Jonathan shook his head as one of the little boys chased some of the little girls with the arm and hand, trying to scare them.

“Looks like you have your hands full today,” he said by way of greeting to Marie.

Marie laughed. “I should be scolding the little terrorizers, but they’re having so much fun. Can’t stop that around here.”

No, they couldn’t. “Kalkin put me in charge of this.” He showed her the yellow call slips. “There’s one from you and Malcolm in here, and I wanted to hear what you had to say.”

Marie frowned. “Ah, yeah, that.” She exhaled roughly. “Kept us up all night three days ago.”

“Didn’t get a good look at whatever it was, did you?” he hedged, hopeful, but pragmatic.

“No.”

“Well, damn,” he said, knowing he was still on a wild goose chase. “Can you tell me the noise you heard, if any?”

“Yeah,” she said, hooking her thumb to where the kids put up the decorations. “As long as you don’t mind supervising while we talk.”

“Not at all,” he said, following her. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been here. Seems like yesterday you were welcoming me home.”

Pink tinged her cheeks. “It was my favorite part of my job, welcoming you and them, home. I knew it was the first time most ever heard those words and I wanted to be the one who said them.”

“Made me feel safe,” Johnathan replied.

“Mission accomplished,” she murmured, before clearing her throat. “Anyway, the sound. It was a whistle. High and low pitch. Sometimes at the same time. I thought it was a fox at first but Malcolm, he didn’t think it was. When I heard whatever it was, the creature sounded far away. When he went outside, he said it was closer to the house.”

“Let me guess,” Johnathan added, “no tracks when you checked in the morning? Or where you thought there should be some, the ground was untouched?”

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