Page 78 of Awakened
Marie shook her head as she handed Bonnie a crisp fifty. “Bonnie bet you couldn’t make it through the visit without losing your cool. I bet you could because . . . well, that doesn’t matter now.” She patted my thigh under the table.
Still laughing, Bonnie said, “I also bet you’d put the alpha on his ass, but I figure we would’ve got a call about that.”
“Didn’t put the alpha on his ass. The future luna? Now that’s another story.”
Marie smirked while Bonnie and Taylor’s eyes went wide.
“What’d you do?” Taylor sounded worried.
“I snapped her wrist when she tried to slap me a second time.” I gingerly took a sip of my tallboy as they silently exchanged looks—that is, until Taylor slid a twenty out of their wallet and pushed it toward Bonnie.
I threw my hands in the air. “You guys have no faith in me!”
Grabbing my shoulder, Marie squeezed. “No, honey. We just know you.” The entire table fell into laughter, and I couldn’t help but join in. It felt good to laugh at myself. I’d been taking everything so seriously that I had honestly lost my sense of humor.
After the room calmed down a bit, I turned to Marie and said, “I want to look more into this gathering and these Old Church Packs. I have a bad feeling about the whole thing.”
Marie nodded. “I’ll give you everything I have on the packs, though we haven’t had too many run-ins with them. You might want to reach out to Blue Moon. I remember your old man having some dealings with an Old Church Pack based in Illinois a few years ago.”
“Really? I don’t remember that . . .”
I racked my brain. That must have been right before Dad died. He had started to keep to himself and was so cagey and weird about work that I didn’t push it. I figured it was confidential sheriff business.
I should have kept trying.
Marie shrugged. “He came down here on a lead and was gone within a few hours. He never filled me in, so I figured he handled it. That was a few months before we got word of his passing.”
My whole body tensed. Dad’s death wasn’t a passing. It was a snuffing out of an influential pack leader. I was never able to prove it was murder, but I didn’t believe my dad was mauled. The authorities in Kirksville were ill-equipped to handle a werewolf’s death, and by the time state officials showed up, the case was cold. They ruled it an animal attack, but I knew it wasn’t. I just knew.
A sick excitement gripped me—I had a possible lead in my dad’s death.
I needed to check all of his files. When I inherited the house, I scanned them all in and recycled the paper—boxes and boxes of paper. The man had never fully embraced technology. The four full filing cabinets and the stack of well-used VHS tapes were proof of that.
I’d never looked through his files. I figured they were just full of boring pack stuff that Brandon might need one day and that officials would’ve collected anything important when Dad passed. Clearly, I should have been more involved.
If my dad was on to an Old Church group and they are capable of covering up a murder, what else are they capable of?
After another hour of chatting and trying to decide when it was acceptable to leave, I said my goodbyes and hurried home. I had almost a whole week until I was due back at work, and I knew exactly how I would use that time.
Thursday, Sarah found me at the dining room table surrounded by books, papers, and empty takeout containers.
“Michael and I are leaving this afternoon for Aiden’s wedding. Promise me you’ll shower tonight. It’s been a few days.”
Without taking my eyes off the laptop, I waved her away. “Sure, sure.”
“I’ll give Brandon and Emily your love.”
“Great.”
Sarah grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her. “Promise me you’ll sleep tonight.” I started to argue, but she interrupted me, “In your bed, Les. Not at this table.” When I rolled my eyes, she added, “Clearly, you can’t be trusted. I’ll have Zach come by to check on you.”
“Fine. Leave.”
Everyone’s very vocal judgment of my behavior annoyed me. If I wanted to smell like a dumpster, eat nothing but processed sugar, read through six hundred and forty-two official files, andthen do it again and again, that was my business. Even Zach had been on my ass not to get too obsessed with The Gathering.
I worked chronologically through my dad’s notes. The first documents were from the first year we were in Kirksville. I wondered if the files from Chicago were somewhere else. I would have to ask Brandon.
The first few days of reading yielded little information. The Blue Moon Pack was squeaky clean in terms of inter-pack conflicts and seemed to be on the up and up, but by Wednesday night, things got interesting.
