Page 50 of Wolf Reborn

25

Birdhouse in Your Soul

Given the fact that his own cruiser was still upside down in a ditch on a winding back road, Miles wasn’t sure how he’d been suckered into going to check on the Lloyd cabin.

James had been apologetic of course, and Miles didn’t doubt for a second that he’d have offered to trade positions, but Miles was still one of the low men on the roster at the station, and he wasn’t qualified to hold the station up on his own and send James out to check a cabin.

Even so, he suspected James had almost offered anyway when he’d realized the cabin in question was just a mile or so from where Miles had almost died. He’d suggested they could call one of the deputies who was out already or put it off until the next shift, but that was silly.

There was no reason to pull a deputy out of a call they were already answering, or trade shifts, or make Gwen Lloyd wait until tomorrow to be able to go home. Miles was a fully trained sheriff’s deputy, and he was capable of driving one narrow snowy road.

He was trained in pursuit driving, as ridiculous as that was. It had been a requirement at the academy, so he had the skill. He’d been driving during Kismet winters almost half his life. One small animal running out in front of him on one occasion didn’t make him either a bad driver or incapable of doing his job.

“You keep telling yourself that,” he muttered, glancing down at the speedometer. Five miles an hour. At this rate, he’d be lucky to get to the cabin by his next shift.

Fine, so he was a little nervous. He had reason to be, okay? He’d almost died less than a month ago. The snow that had nearly killed him was still on the ground, and he was driving the same kind of car on the same kind of road, and it wasnotgoing to happen again.

When the cabin came into view, his relief couldn’t be overstated. Then he realized that the Lloyd “cabin” was one of the biggest on the mountain.

Of course it was.

Gavin’s family was rich.

The pack wasn’t exactly poor, but the pack house was built like a log cabin, sweeping traditional lines that hid the modernity and sheer size of the house inside.

The Lloyd cabin was a piece of art, strangely proportioned and gray and alien.

The drive had only seen one other car since the snows had started, so while the road was plowed, the most recent layer of snow only showed the tracks of the police cruiser and Gwen Lloyd’s SUV.

Just as Gwen had said, he could see a light on somewhere in the house. The kitchen, she’d said, and that made as much sense as anything.

The door was still closed, which seemed a minor miracle, given the state of it. The knob appeared to have been clawed out, then carefully set back inside the empty space.

He knocked, since that was protocol, even though he knew no one was supposed to be home. “Sheriff’s deputy, open up.”

A second later, the light flipped off. He wondered at the logic in that. Who thought, “Oh, if I turn the lights off right in front of them, they won’t know I’m here”?

Criminals did bizarre things sometimes, though, so he continued on with a sigh. He knocked again, this time more stridently, and realized why the door looked like it was still working. His knock pushed it open an inch, something inside the house creaking. Something had been pushed up against it on the inside.

With a sound like a record scratch and then a hollow thump that echoed off the snow, the doorknob fell out of its precarious hold—it had been pieced together like a puzzle, and held in place with whatever heavy object they had braced behind it.

A second later, quick footsteps sounded from the area of the light that had been flipped off, running farther into the house.

Miles sighed and put his shoulder to the door, hoping he wasn’t pushing over a priceless antique. Or from the look of the house, some priceless piece of modern art, which he was admittedly—and perhaps rudely—less concerned about.

When he got it out of the way, he was grateful to find it had just been an uncomfortable-looking high-backed chair. He didn’t have time to dwell on that, however, as the footsteps stopped, and the next sound was a door slamming.

Miles wasn’t going to lie, he was tempted to let them go. Not because it was less paperwork—though it was. But because he really, really didn’t want to have to arrest someone who had just been looking for a warm place to sleep.

The house didn’t look like it had been tossed or anything, and from the frigid feel of the place, the heat wasn’t on. There was just a tiny fire in the living room fireplace with a blanket nest in front of it. It reminded Miles too much of his and Gavin’s unfortunate adventure.

It was his job to do something, though.

Then his brain truly connected the dots.

A nest in front of the fire. A very small nest. The scent of wolf permeating the house, when Miles knew damn well Gavin couldn’t have been a werewolf the last time he’d been in this house.

A small four-legged creature running out in front of his car just a mile from here. Like a fox, he’d thought.

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