Lycanthropy Files Box Set: Books 1-3 Plus Novella Read online

  Peter drove in immediately before us, and he was greeted by a petite woman with blonde curls and a cute snub nose. He took her into his arms and held her stiffly as she sobbed into his tailored suit jacket.

  “That must be Marguerite.”

  Lonna just watched the scene with guarded eyes. I knew how she felt. I’d met Robert’s wife the first time at a company party. He’d told me she was there because she’d formerly worked for the company, and he didn’t want it to look like we were together, but still, the situation had been extremely awkward. I remembered doing the point-by-point comparison—my hair was not as stylish, but I was thinner; her breasts were bigger, but mine didn’t sag; she’d obviously had some work done, and I was in the bloom of youth. But in the end, it didn’t matter. He’d gone back to her. Not that I blamed him, at least not in my rational moments. He’d built a life with her. I was just a pleasant diversion to make work more interesting.

  And Lonna was just a pleasant diversion for a man who had a weakness for beautiful women.

  “It’s not easy to realize you’re an attractive distraction,” I said softly as I put my hand on her shoulder.

  “Let’s go.” Her voice broke, but she smiled slightly.

  We turned to go, but we heard him call after us, “Lonna, Joanie, this is my wife, Marguerite.”

  We turned to meet the woman’s suspicious gaze. I couldn’t blame her. She must know what kind of man her husband was. She immediately turned her brown eyes on Lonna, and I could see the point-by-point occurring in both their heads. I couldn’t tell who won. Well, Marguerite, obviously—she was married to the cad, after all.

  “What time did you notice Lance was missing?” Lonna straightened her spine. I could see by the angle of her chin that she wouldn’t back out of the situation.

  Marguerite looked at Peter, who said, “The police don’t know it, but Lonna is a private investigator who’s also working on the missing-children case. She may be able to help.”

  Marguerite’s shoulders slumped. “At seven.” She spoke with a French accent. “I went to wake him for his breakfast, and he was gone.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I thought he was playing a joke on his Mama.” She accented the second syllable of Mama. “So I looked for him everywhere in the house. Then I saw the front door open.”

  “What time was that?” I admired Lonna for her gentle tone. She did very well hiding the emotions that must have been roiling beneath her professional demeanor.

  “About eight. We have a big house with many places for a little boy to hide.”

  I counted the windows. They did have a mansion. Lance would never have gotten lost in the small houses that had originally stood on the land.

  “Then what did you do?”

  Tears trickled down her cheeks. “I have already told the police this. Why do I have to live it again?”

  “Marguerite, honey, it’s okay. Just tell Lonna what you did then.”

  “I went outside and yelled for Lance. I looked in the pool. In the woods, but the brush is too thick. Then I called the police and Peter.”

  “Where are Ron and Leo?” I asked. “They live with you, right?”

  “They were out all night. I haven’t seen them.”

  Peter’s jaw tightened. “They never came in?”

  “No. For all I know, they went to the city to party.”

  I remembered Leo talking about his nephew and knew he couldn’t have had anything to do with the boy’s disappearance. I hoped.

  A police car drove up, lights flashing and siren blaring. For the third time that day, I saw Sheriff Bud Knowles.

  “Well, Doctor, you’ve just got your finger in all sorts of pies today, don’t ya?”

  “Sheriff Knowles, how good to see you again,” Lonna said as she held out her hand. “We were meeting with Counselor Bowman and the mayor when he got the telephone call about his son.”

  “It’s amazing how y’all always end up in just the right place at the right time.”

  “Amazing or unlucky,” I muttered. I didn’t care to stand there breathing in Knowles’s bacon breath or hearing the poor woman have to talk about her missing son in front of her husband’s newest girlfriend, so I wandered around to the side of the house. The ground was slightly damp, the grass struggling to grow in the shade of an oak tree. Something in the mud caught my eye: a large animal footprint.

  I looked over my shoulder, and sure that all the others were either engrossed in the conversation with Knowles or searching other parts of the yard, I knelt down. It was a wolf print. I hadn’t ever seen one, but I could tell. It must have come through the side yard before snatching the child.

  I shivered. Did I think the black wolf had something to do with it? Louise had warned me about it, but I didn’t know what it all meant—just that now one of the “aristocrats” had disappeared, and my newfound research subjects were in that much more danger. Or were they the danger? Either way, I needed to know where they were.

  “Can you believe this? That poor woman.” Lonna’s voice startled me out of my mental calculations as to where Ron and Leo were and how far they could have gone. I hastily straightened up and stepped on the paw print with my left foot, which obliterated it. The last thing the guys needed was a mob of wolf hunters to descend on the woods.

  “I thought she was the enemy?”

  “C’mon, Joanie, she’s just misplaced her son. We must take care of her bruised ego and coddle her.”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t become you. Neither does jealousy,” I said. “But she probably could use some tea. Or something a little stronger.”

  “If Peter actually invites us in, I’ll offer.”

  “How big of you.”

  “Now who’s sarcastic?”

  As we walked toward the door, Marguerite looked up, and her eyes met mine. I felt guilty even though I hadn’t done anything. This time. Still, the whole situation had a sense of déjà vu. I could feel Lonna squirm under Marguerite’s gaze. I knew from painful experience that it would be best for Lonna not to set foot in the Bowman house.

  One weekend I’d needed to drop by Robert’s house to work on a manuscript. The office wasn’t an option because the company, in an attempt to save power, wasn’t running the air-conditioning on weekends, and it was a hot, muggy Memphis summer day. Robert met me at the door wearing a crisp short-sleeved white button-up shirt and khakis. The outfit set off his tanned face, neck, arms and legs, and his dark hair was still damp from his shower. He didn’t smile, though. His expression was so somber he could have been opening the door to his doom.

  “Sarah is in the kitchen testing a recipe. The one here is nicer than at her apartment. Are you okay with this?”

  “Yes.” I choked on my heart, which felt like it beat in my throat. I was afraid that if she saw me, she’d know something was up between us beyond the mentor/junior researcher relationship. We hadn’t actually slept together at that point—we had only flirted, but the way the emotional attachment was going was abundantly clear to both of us. And we had an invited article submission deadline, so the domestic gods had to be placated that day.

  “I brought this,” I told him and held out a bottle of red wine. My anxiety made nonsensical words trip off my tongue. “I, um, thought you and your wife could share it later.”

  “Sarah doesn’t drink, but I’ll enjoy it.” He looked me over from head to toe. Unfortunately there wasn’t much to look at. I had dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.

  “Trying to look the nonthreatening student?”

  “Why would I be threatening?” Gads, why was I flirting with the man with his almost ex-wife in the house?

  He smiled, that dazzling, perfect-teeth-in-a-tanned-face, boyish, impish smile that made my heart skip a beat. “Why, indeed?”

  “Rob?” A woman’s voice called from inside the house.

  “Yes, dear?” he called over his shoulder.

  “Is that your assistant?”

  “Yes, we’ll be right in.�
� He gestured for me to follow him. “She’s made cookies.”

  “Do they have alcohol in them?” I muttered as I walked inside through a two-story foyer and straight back to a large white kitchen with an island. It smelled heavenly, like gingerbread. Why anyone would bake on a day like that was beyond me, but apparently the Cannons didn’t worry about high air-conditioning bills.

  Sarah Cannon was tall, willowy, and the perfect match for her husband. Beside her I felt small and plain. Her opinion, too, apparently, as her eyes flicked from my face to my casual attire. I could see the verdict: no worries here, just another plain female scientist working with the husband. I doubted she remembered me from the company picnic.

  She smiled. “Welcome. I’m so glad you and Robert are able to work here today.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It smells great in here.”

  “Sarah is working from home today, too,” Robert explained. “She’s the head recipe tester for the Memphis Gazette.”

  “Our AC in the office is out, so it was bake at home or not at all, and there are always deadlines. At least this way I can write that it works well in a home kitchen.”

  I put on my friendliest smile and deliberately ignored the differences between her and her husband’s stories. “And she gets to write that her husband liked it as well.” And his “assistant”. My stomach growled.

  “Precisely,” said Robert. “Well, speaking of deadlines, we should get started. The office is downstairs.”

  When we emerged after three hours of manuscript drafting and editing as well as stolen looks, caresses and kisses, Sarah was gone on some errand.

  “Did she leave the cookies?” I looked around, hungry after smelling them for so many hours.

  “I don’t know.”

  We searched the kitchen, but there was no sign of them. I ended up leaving earlier than I’d planned because I was faint with hunger, and they didn’t seem to have anything easy to fix for snacks. Doubt crawled into the back of my mind that maybe Robert was lying about being separated and that Sarah had sensed or seen something. You could never tell with some women.

  I could tell with Marguerite. Lonna seemed oblivious, but I saw the looks Peter’s wife gave her. The woman may be distressed about her missing son, but she knew what had been going on. In spite of the warmth of the morning, a chill went down my spine.

  10

  Marguerite’s anger, disappointment and hurt showed on her face when she looked at Peter. Her expression said she needed his comfort, not that of two strangers, one of whom may have slept with her husband.

  Sheriff Knowles and the other policemen conferred, then put their equipment away. “We’ll be in touch, Mrs. Bowman,” he said. He didn’t—couldn’t?—meet her eyes. I wondered if he’d done this so many times by now he couldn’t face one more parent in pain.

  A tear trickled down her cheek. Peter waved to them and snapped his cell phone shut.

  “I just tried Ron’s and Leo’s cell phones. Neither of them are answering. Dammit, they should have been here! They should be out there earning their keep and searching for Lance.”

  Marguerite turned to him and crumpled into his arms. He had to drop his cell phone to catch her.

  “Here, let us help you,” I said, and together we got Marguerite inside to the sitting room. Peter held her somewhat stiffly.

  “I’ll make some tea,” offered Lonna.

  “No. I mean, that is not necessary, Ms. Marconi.” Marguerite raised her tear-stained face. “I would rather go lay down. It has been an exhausting morning.”

  “We understand, and we’ll leave you alone now,” I said and tugged on Lonna’s arm. I led her to the car.

  “Why did you do that?” she asked.

  “Are you insane?” I turned the key in the ignition, perhaps a little too hard because the engine protested. “That woman has just lost her son, and she probably wants to kill you. Jealousy and loss don’t make a good combination.”

  “You’re probably right.” She drummed her fingers on one leg. “But I want to be there to comfort him.”

  “That’s his wife’s job. If he lets her.”

  “He’ll comfort her, but there’s not much coming the other way. He told me yesterday the marriage has been cold since the son was born. Two years, and hardly any sex. I think that’s why he was so quick to jump into bed with me.”

  I bit my tongue over any words concerning her motives. It would be a lesson she’d have to learn on her own: married men didn’t need to be rescued from bad marriages, only from themselves.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Better now that I’ve been moving around. I think I just have some sort of bug. Maybe this mountain air isn’t really that healthy for me.”

  “I think we need to find Ron and Leo and tell them. I have a bad feeling about what Peter might do.”

  We drove into town. Tabitha’s was open for lunch, so we inquired as to whether Ron was working that day. He wasn’t. Leo was also nowhere to be seen.

  I had the horrible feeling that whatever it was, it had gotten them. The bollywog or whatever it was the mayor had told us about. That it had slithered out of its cave or bog and had snatched the guys, maybe one, and then the other had jumped in to defend his pack-mate and had gotten swallowed as well. And then the hideous creature, which grew in my imagination, had gone to Peter Bowman’s house. With a whistle or croon, it enticed the child down the stairs, out the front door, and into its massive, fang-lined craw.

  “Joanie? Joanna? Attention Doctor Fisher?” Lonna shook me by the shoulder. “You were off in your head again.”

  “I just wish we could find them.”

  “Let’s go back to the house. It’s lunchtime anyway. Then maybe we can look more this afternoon.”

  “Are you sure? Don’t you have an investigation to follow up on?”

  “I need to review my notes and see where to go next. Which parents to interview first and so on. Besides,” she added with a grin. “It’s good to see you falling in love again.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got that look in your eyes. You’re on the hunt.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Or did I? As much as I didn’t like to admit it, I was fascinated by these werewolf-men and their primal charm. The question was, which one could I possibly be falling for? Did I have to pick just one?

  With a little grin, I drove out of the town and turned the car toward Wolfsbane Manor. If anyone could help find a werewolf, it would be Gabriel.

  He’d found them, or they’d found him, and they were all sipping beers on the back balcony when we arrived. Gabriel leapt up when we walked out, but the concern on his face quickly melted into a smile. The tension of the previous day wasn’t there, and I wondered what could have reconciled the werewolves.

  “Madam, these gentlemen have some news about a strange wolf, perhaps even about your friend who died this morning.”

  “We followed it through the woods until we reached a stream near Highway 14,” Leo said. “Then we lost the scent.”

  “So we traced it the other direction to see where it had come from,” Ron picked up the thread, “and ended up here.”

  A shiver ran down my spine.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Lonna. “And what do you mean, ‘lost the scent?’ Do you have a dog?”

  “They were tracking an unfamiliar wolf.” Gabriel held the door open. “I have lunch ready for you, ladies, if you’d like to move into the dining room.”

  Introductions were quickly made since they’d gotten a glimpse of Lonna the night before, but when she shook hands with Leo, he and Ron shared a look. It was fleeting, but I was watching their eyes to see how they reacted to her, so I caught it. They spoke to her with interest, but it was more polite than lustful.

  “Did you see anything last night?” asked Leo. I glanced at Gabriel, who put a finger to his lips. He hadn’t told them. He went into t
he kitchen and brought out plates of cut fruit with crackers and chicken salad.

  “I. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought I saw something outside the kitchen window, but I’m not sure. I fainted.” It pained me to show that weakness to them. Part of me screamed that they were predators and I shouldn’t give them any opportunity to attack me. But we were all in it together now.

  “Did you ladies find anything interesting out from the Mayor?” asked Gabriel.

  “Just the same old line.” Lonna speared a pineapple slice with her fork. “But Peter Bowman was there.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Leo. “He’s the town lawyer.”

  I took a deep breath. It seemed as good a time to tell him as any. “Leo, Lance is missing.”

  “What?” His reaction, so genuinely panic-stricken, proved his innocence more than any protestations. I filled the guys in on the events of the morning.

  “And Peter’s looking for you with thunder in his eyes,” Lonna finished.

  “I’m sure he is. I’ll bet he’s ready to blame his little brother for this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then Marguerite can’t blame him,” said Ron. “Things are rocky between them, as you well know.”

  Lonna blushed.

  “It’s not your fault, Ms. Marconi,” Ron told her. “I know how charming he can be. And how deceitful.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. When I first came to Little Rock for residency, he invited me into his home. I later found out he had done it, not out of cousinly love, but in order to gain access to the hospital.”

  “For what?” asked Lonna.

  “Fertility drugs. And the female residents. To get Marguerite pregnant and keep himself entertained.”

  “Did you ever report him?”

  “No. By the time I figured out what had happened, my credibility was shot, and the girls were too intimidated by that time to say anything about him.”

  “Excuse me,” Lonna said and pushed back from the table. “I don’t feel well.”

  “That’s usually how those relationships go,” Leo said as she ran from the room. “Better she find out now.”