Chapter One
“Werewolves are real, but the legends are wrong.”
My eyes skimmed over the words once more before I folded my mother’s letter and returned it to its hiding place, the jewelry box on my dresser. It was the first thing I checked every time I came home. I sighed and sat on my bed for a moment. There were so many questions I wanted to ask her, questions only she would have answered.
“Gillian.” My dad’s voice carried through the house as he called my name for the second time.
“Coming,” I called back.
He’d cooked dinner to celebrate my homecoming. A wry smile crept onto my face. He didn’t cook. Not well, anyway. But he made the effort whenever I came home, even though I was never gone that long. I tried to come home at least once a month because I knew he missed me.
I opened my bedroom door and walked down the hall to the living room. We never ate in the kitchen; there was no TV.
A ball game was on but with no sound. A plate waited for me on the coffee table. I was relieved to see burgers. He could grill, at least.
Dad sat on the couch, eyes on the TV until I came into the room. Larry occupied the recliner while he ate his own burger. Larry was Dad’s “business partner” and had been around for as long as I could remember.
Larry paused eating and turned to look at me as I sat on the floor beside Dad.
“Hey, Larry,” I said in greeting as I reached for my plate. I was glad he was here. His near constant presence in our home while I was away at college helped keep Dad from noticing his empty nest. Mostly.
Larry winked at me then focused on his burger. I noticed him frown and sniff. Maybe Dad’s grilling wasn’t that great after all.
“So what’s new and exciting with your crowd?” Dad asked. His close cropped hair, a salt and pepper mix, looked like someone had added a bit more salt lately. I smiled at him, and his warm hazel eyes almost disappeared as the skin crinkled in the corners when he smiled back at me.
“Since we talked last night? Nothing.”
Dad called me just about every night I wasn’t home. Quick calls but I kept him up to date on my life for the most part.
“Nothing new? Nothing at all?”
I arched a brow, wondering why he’d asked again.
“He thinks you’re leaving something out,” Larry said. His low voice had so little volume I often accused him of mumbling. He insisted he was just soft spoken. His short dark hair, powerful build, and cold, sky blue eyes made his soft tones a little intimidating, until you got to know him.
“What do you mean?” I said looking up at Larry. There was only one thing I was keeping from Dad, and the root of my secret lay in the jewelry box in my room.
“Leave it go, Larry.” The warning in Dad’s voice was clear.
I glanced between the two. Dad didn’t look too happy with Larry. Larry met Dad’s eyes then took another bite of his burger, not saying anything further. I set my plate down and turned so I fully faced Dad.
“What does he mean? Do you think I’m lying to you about something?”
I didn’t think he’d be mad about the letter. Not really. My mom had died when I was very young. It’d been so cool to find something from her, just for me, when I’d gotten older. I knew he wouldn’t like the things she wrote or what I now knew, but I didn’t think he’d get mad. Still, I didn’t want to tell him if that wasn’t what this was about. It would just put more strain on his already overprotective shoulders.
Dad sighed and set his plate down. When he met my eyes, he looked uncomfortable.
“Boys,” he said.
That single word made me groan. Any relief I felt over the note’s continued secrecy washed away with the current topic. I reached for a throw pillow from the couch and tried smothering myself with it.
“I refuse to have this talk with you again,” I said, less than half joking. The pillow muffled my words. Dad grabbed the pillow and pulled it from my face with a laugh.
“That’s not what I meant. And I don’t want to have that talk ever again, either.”
I’d been fourteen when he traumatized me with a very clinical description of my body, sex, and impregnation. During that talk, he’d excused himself twice for a new hand towel to wipe the sweat from his face. By mutual silent agreement, we didn’t talk for two days after that.
“I just meant…” He sighed again and shifted uneasily on the couch. “If you wanted me to meet someone, you just had to say so. You shouldn’t leave him waiting in his car.”
I cocked my head and frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”
Dad glanced at Larry, his expression growing puzzled. Larry was studying me with a frown. I waited for one of them to clarify.
“The boy in the car across the street,” Dad finally said.
“What?” I hopped to my feet and rushed to the picture window. Pulling aside the curtain just a fraction, I caught sight of a familiar car. The driver, a guy I’d dated just once, stared at the house. His unruly blonde hair hung in his soft brown eyes. A smile curved his lips, and I knew he’d spotted me.
“Are you kidding me?” I stared at the driver as the car peeled away.
I couldn’t believe it. He’d followed me home. A weird boy just got a million times more weird, times creepy to the tenth power.
Dad stood behind me, looking over my shoulder. I’d fought so hard to go away to college. Dad would freak out and pull me back home if he knew I had apparently gained a stalker.
“What’s going on, Gillian?” He had that no nonsense tone that made me crinkle my nose. As much as I wanted to lie, I didn’t.
Turning away from the window, I went back to my seat. “I told you I’d gone on a few dates.”
He made a face and turned away from me as if he didn’t want to hear more.
“One was with that guy.”
My dad stopped and faced me, worry in his eyes. I hesitated, not sure what to say to make it so he wouldn’t overreact, and wished for the millionth time my mom was still alive. It was because of her that Dad was so overprotective. He’d loved her so much. Still did. Mom’s letter to me was right about one thing; he would do anything to protect me.
“It’s not a big deal,” I said finally. “He’s just trying to get me to go out with him again.” At least, I thought that might be why he’d followed me home. I didn’t really know. I hadn’t spoken to him since our one stilted date. He’d seemed nice enough then, though he had been just a bit too eager and a bit too clingy.
Dad gave me a hard look for several long seconds. I held my ground, not saying anything, acting cool about it. But I really wasn’t cool about it. Chuck had followed me home. After the date, I’d started noticing him around more. I could put up with his loitering around the dorm. I could put up with the long looks in the single class we shared. But following me home?
“Gillian, are you telling me he followed you home from school without you knowing it?” Dad said as if reading my mind. He didn’t wait for me to answer.
“Call the boys. I want him found,” he said to Larry.
Dads had occupations like mailmen, truck drivers...hell, even business executives. Not mine. He didn’t talk about his work in front of me, but comments dropped over the years brought me to believe a few things. First, my dad was an executive of a business. But, that business involved late night dealings and hushed calls. I confronted him once, demanding to know if he dealt drugs. His sidesplitting laughter convinced me that he didn’t. I hadn’t yet ruled out guns. But whatever he did, he had employees—sort of. When he called, they showed up. These boys weren’t exactly nice. Also, they weren’t allowed in the house when I was home. I’d only seen a few of them by peeking out a window. They were big. They were scary. And they did exactly as my dad or Larry ordered.
The second thing I’d come to realize was that my dad had never called, or even thought of calling, the police in his life. It was probably due to his occupation. Or maybe the things my mom wrote in her letter. Probably both.
Larry nodded and plucked his cell phone from his vest.
I cringed. “Dad, don’t. His friends might know he followed me home. If you hurt him, I won’t be able to go back to school.”
“Who said anything about hurting him? And you’re not going back. Not until I talk to this boy.”
“What?” I tried to keep my calm.
“Gillian, I love you. I want you to be happy, but there are some things about our lives you just don’t understand.”
His statement stole any further protest from me. There were things I understood that he didn’t know about. Things in my mom’s letter. Things I wasn’t ready to reveal because he’d freak out even more. His overprotectiveness would skyrocket, and he was stifling enough the way it was.
“I’ll send a few of the boys out to sniff around,” Larry said, hanging up the phone and standing.
I rubbed my hands over my face. Since reading the contents of my mom’s letter, I had gained a better understanding of why my dad did the things he did, why he reacted the way he did. He just wanted to protect me from the monsters out there. All the monsters.
* * * *
They’d found no sign of Chuck, and Dad’s overprotectiveness hadn’t just skyrocketed; it launched into outer space and collided with a comet in a splendiferous explosion of cursing and panic. His immediate reaction was to relocate me. At first, I’d put my new adult foot down and told him that I didn’t need to do what he said anymore. He didn’t try to bully me. He simply dangled a carrot he knew I couldn’t resist.
“Your mother has family all over the states. It would be better if you stayed with some of them for a while.”
I’d been begging to know more about her and her family since I found the letter. So, part of me was okay with Chuck’s stalkerish tendency. Because of it, I would finally meet some of my mom’s family. In short order, I found myself calling my roommate to explain I wouldn’t be back for a while—for a very long while if Dad had his way—and making plans where to stay.
“Aim carefully,” Larry said from somewhere behind me.
Behind my blindfold, I rolled my eyes. How had finding a relative gotten to this?
I rolled the dart—currently named “compromise”—back and forth between my fingers. If Mom had family all over the place, I wanted to go somewhere cool and exciting. Dad wanted to move me somewhere safe. But, I didn’t want to be stuck in a cabin in the woods, and he didn’t want me in some big city like New York. This was my chance to make the best of an increasingly ridiculous situation. The dart would settle the location. Simple, random fate.
I took a deep breath and flicked my wrist, hoping I’d hit something other than wall. There was a long moment of silence then the dart hit the board with resounding finality. I grinned. Pulling the blindfold from my eyes, I rushed to see where it had struck. Dad followed closely behind me. He and I eyed the board while Larry stayed where he was on a stool at the back of the room.
The dart had flown to the upper Midwest, not the East Coast as I’d wanted. Putting on a sad face, I looked up at Dad.
“There’s not a town in miles. I want to try again.”
“No way. A deal’s a deal,” he said completely unmoved by my puppy eyes.
“When you said you wanted me to quit college and move into hiding—”
“Seclusion,” he corrected.
“Fine, seclusion. Did I throw a fit? No. I didn’t say one word of complaint—”
“No, you said several words,” he said, giving me a mock stern look, which I ignored.
“All I asked was to have influence regarding the location. That isn’t a location, that’s the middle of nowhere. Why can’t I just pick somewhere?”
Dad shook his head and crossed his arms. I threw my hands up in the air. “Darts was a stupid idea.”
“The dart was my idea,” Larry said.
I rolled my eyes at him and removed the pins holding the map to the den’s panel board wall. A hole punctured a rural area of Montana. Land of sun and sky. Sky and mountains? I had no idea what it was the land of. I’d been trying for New York, but my aim had been way off. Staring at the map, I wondered what Montana had. It didn’t really matter. I knew what it didn’t have. Chuck. As long as he wasn’t there, Dad would like it.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm down. “How long?”
“Till this settles down.”
This meaning Chuck. Until they found him and convinced him to leave me alone.
“Not good enough. It’s not like this is a hurricane whipping around our heads. It’s one boy. I’ll give you two weeks.” It would give me enough time to meet my mom’s family, hopefully, and still not miss out on too much school.
He snorted. “It’ll take as long as it takes,” he insisted.
“I’ll give you two weeks,” I repeated.
“Nine months,” Larry said. “You can finish off school online this semester. Wait out the summer and do another semester there. It’ll be done by then.”
I wanted to pull at my hair. “Nine months is ridiculous. You’re both overreacting.”
Neither man budged.