: Chapter 4

Savannah

I was pretty damn sure that Jaxson Laurent had brainwashed the sheriff. How, I didn’t know.

On our way home, I tried talking things over with Kep, but he was implausibly committed to the theory that it had been a wolf attack and that no abductors were involved. Worse, he wasn’t going to investigate.

“I understand things seem muddled, Savannah,” the sheriff explained, “so look at it this way—if you had actually run down someone on the road, that would be manslaughter. And jail time. So let’s not dig too deeply, eh? It’s better this way.”

I sat on my hands to make sure I didn’t strangle him. Kepler’s point of view made perfect sense, but I knew what I’d seen standing in the middle of the highway, and it wasn’t a furry dog. I needed the truth. I’d been assaulted and nearly abducted, and it could happen again.

Frustration near to boiling, I gave up trying to talk to Kep and replayed the events in my mind as we rumbled down the moonlit road. Some things I just couldn’t make sense of—the claws, the glowing eyes, and the man in the black truck. But I understood a few things.

I’d been attacked by a couple. They were probably behind the other abductions. And they had targeted me, specifically.

Moreover, I was willing to bet that they’d grabbed Madison Lee—the red-haired woman on TV—by accident. They’d been looking for me. The tattooed man had even said, “We can’t fuck this up again,” right before they jumped me.

I sucked in a deep breath. Who the hell were they, and why were they after me? I had to find out. That was priority one. Unfortunately, it seemed like Laurent was whitewashing things over. He’d already gotten to the sheriff.

Who was he? Bad news, that was who.

He certainly wasn’t from the Wisconsin DNR. I’d checked his plates—Illinois. So who did he work for, then? The FBI? CIA? The men in black?

My godmother, Alma, had always had crazy ideas about government spooks. Maybe her theories weren’t so kooky after all.

And what was it with his eyes? The attackers’ irises had turned crimson when they came after me. Laurent’s had gone honey gold a couple of times while we were talking. I’d never seen anything like it until tonight.

My heart raced. Was he in league with my attackers? Either covering things up or working with them?

Probably not.

With those muscles and powerful frame, Laurent could have taken me then and there if he’d wanted. Just the thought of that sent shivers down my spine. There was no chance Kepler would’ve put up a fight. The sheriff was two years away from retiring—at least, everyone hoped so.

Then what was Laurent’s game?

My stomach churned with the endless possibilities, and I was nauseated by the time we finally pulled up in front of my godmother’s house.

Our place was impossible to miss, even in the moonlight. The yard was decorated with all sorts of strange things. Pinwheels, chimes, too many hummingbird feeders. Sculptures with glass balls that didn’t quite qualify as art but didn’t really count as anything else. They were like flashing neon signs that screamed, We are weird here.

“This is you.” The sheriff rapped his knuckles on the wheel. “Are you going to be all right?”

With a sigh, I heaved my tired bones out of the cruiser. “Thanks, Kep. Alma will set me right.”

“I’m sure she will.” He closed the door and waited for me to go in.

I picked my way along the meditation pathway that wound haphazardly around the house and up to the front porch. Alma walked it every day to realign her energy, but I was amazed that she hadn’t broken an ankle. The path was strewn with tripping hazards: hoses, rakes, and potted plants that had migrated from where they belonged.

I took the stairs of our rickety wooden porch two at a time.

Alma was sitting on the living room couch, sipping a cup of tea with a giant twig in it that I didn’t recognize. She brushed her long gray hair back from her face. “What’s the matter, honey? Your energy is completely off.”

I tried to speak but couldn’t find the words to explain what had happened.

“Gosh, Savannah, you’re hurt!” She jumped up and wrapped her arms around me, and the tension and terror drained from my body. If I ever needed my energy reset, her arms were the place to start. She was a font of goodness, calm, and inner beauty.

And she was all I had left in the world.

I looked down at my right arm. Blood had hardened along a set of claw-like scrapes. I snapped my gaze away, unable to think about how I had acquired those.

Alma got hot water and a washcloth and started fussing over my wound. My sweet godmother had taken care of me ever since my parents died six years ago, when our house had burned down. The ignorant local newspaper speculated that it had been a meth lab explosion, but I didn’t believe it for a second.

The night of their death, Alma had grabbed me from a friend’s house and brought me to live in Belmont. People might be coming for you, she’d warned. She wouldn’t say why, but I’d known my parents were mixed up in something. I’d even changed my name to hers—Caine—and we’d never gone back up north.

Alma forced the cup of tea into my hands. “Drink this. It will realign your chakras. And tell me everything.”

I breathed in the earthy scent and took a sip. It tasted like dirt and smelled like cow patties, but if it could clear my head, I’d drink a gallon of it.

Alma sat and wrung her hands as I filled her in on every detail. The claws and scarlet eyes she took in stride, but when I mentioned Jaxson Laurent and his effect on the sheriff, she went ashen. “A government man. Oh gosh, Savy, this is dire.”

My godmother lived in fear of the shadowy government men lurking in the corners of her imagination. I’d always assumed it was simply tin-hat paranoia, but now I pictured the man with the black truck stepping out into the headlights, a mysterious silhouette.

“What do I do?” I mumbled, too exhausted to think.

“You gotta get out of town, Savy!”

Then she darted from the room, leaving my jaw flapping in the wind.

A moment later, Alma rushed back in, dragging an empty, oversized suitcase. “I was always afraid this day would come.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s gotta be the sins of your parents coming back on you. When I brought you here, I knew it was only a matter of time before someone came looking.”

Had my parents really been so deep in the shit that people would come hunting me six years later? “It can’t be my parents’ mess,” I protested. “There’ve been four other abductions.”

Alma pressed a slip of paper into my hand. “Honey, I don’t know if it was related to the explosion that killed them, but they knew someone would come.”

I unfolded the paper to find a note—to my surprise, one written in my father’s hand: If anything happens to us, watch over Savannah. Get her away. If you think there is danger, or if anyone comes looking, send her to Laurel LaSalle, 7546 Wildhaven Ave, Magic Side, Chicago.

Confusion tore through me, and I had to steady myself against the doorframe. My parents had known. What in God’s name had they been wrapped up in?

I looked up from the note. “Who is Laurel LaSalle?”

“Your aunt.”

The world spun, and I shook my head, not quite comprehending. “I have an aunt? And you knew?”

My heart raced. I tried to steady my emotions, but it was impossible, and anger crept under my skin. As long as I’d lived, my family had just been me, my folks, and Alma. I clenched my jaw. Why had she kept this from me?

The old woman sat on the low couch and looked down at her entwined fingers. “I knew you had family in Illinois, but that’s neither here nor there. Your parents always said that if anything happened to them, they wanted me to raise you here in this town. That no one else was to be involved.”

The reality of the situation rolled over me as I reasoned things out.

I’d never met an aunt. Never even heard of one. My folks had died when I was sixteen, and Chicago wasn’t far. There had been plenty of opportunities to meet in those sixteen years.

This wasn’t Alma’s deception.

I let the note droop in my hand. “They didn’t want me to know.”

She nodded. “Your folks never told me much. They were wrapped up in some kind of bad business, though I’m not sure what it was. They went up north to disappear. The only thing your mom ever told me is that your dad came from extremely dangerous people. Deadly people.”

I dropped down on the couch beside her. I have an aunt.

Alma sat quietly, perched rigidly on the edge of the cushion. I could almost taste her emotions—a bitter chicory taste, like dandelion root.

“Why didn’t my aunt come for me? After Mom and Dad died?”

She shook her gray hair and took my hand. “All I know is that your folks loved you more than anything in the world. And if they didn’t want you to know about your family in Chicago, then it was for your own protection.”

“So what about now?”

“It sounds like the boogeyman has come to town.”

I swallowed hard, and we sat silently, hand in hand, with only the sound of the wooden chimes clacking outside.

Finally, I stood. “I’m being hunted. The backwoods couple targeted me.”

Alma nodded. “Sounds like.”

“I have no idea why they’re after me, but I need to figure it out. The local authorities think I’m a nutter, and the whole thing is being whitewashed by a government man in a black truck.”

“Typical.”

“There’s a chance that this could be linked to my parents, and they left a note that if ever someone came looking for me, I should go—”

“Don’t tell me!” Alma interjected.

“What?”

“Ah, ah, ah.” Alma plugged her ears. “If a government man comes asking me where you’ve gone, I sure as hell don’t want to know the truth. As far as I know, you’ve gone off to Tuscaloosa for art school, like you always planned.”

“But you already—”

Alma shoved me toward my room. “Get your butt in gear and get packing for art school!”

I shook my head in a daze. I loved Alma, but she was a certified, tin-hat nutter.

Man, I hoped it hadn’t worn off on me.

Suddenly, my stomach sank. “My car is in the shop. Randy had to tow it.”

Alma pulled a wad of cash out of her pocket and held it out. “Get him to fix it, fast.”

I pushed the money back. “I can’t take that.”

“I’ve been saving it up. You’ll need it to get that hunk of rubbish to wherever you’re going.”

Surrendering, I accepted her gift, then yanked a small bag from under my bed—the sleepover bag I’d had the night our house burned down. It was full of unmentionables and dust, but also a few things I’d need if I ever had to run. My stomach twisted. All these years, I’d kept a bug-out-bag under my bed, as if some part of me knew that I’d never be safe.

I started haphazardly hurling underwear and socks inside. Was I really going to split town?

I’d never been one to run from my problems. Usually, I just kicked them in the nuts and made them pay their tab.

These aren’t your typical kick-em-in-the-nuts problems, Savy.

But the man with the black truck had warned me not to leave town. More than anything, that told me shit was going down. In my experience, when someone told you to stand still and close your eyes, you needed to duck the hell out of the way.

Maybe a dangerous family was just what I needed right now.

“I’m not running,” I said to my socks and unmentionables. “I’m going to figure out why the hell people are hunting me.”

To do that, I needed to find out about my family in Chicago, and why they were so dangerous that my parents never risked telling me about them.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Too bad I didn’t like to cook.