The front door opened and Nelda stuck her head out. "Valerie!" she yelled in tones of impatience.
Valerie kept walking. She felt sorry for what Nelda had been through years ago, but she wasn't in the mood to be sniped at.
"Valerie!" Nelda yelled again, and this time there was something in her voice that made Valerie stop and turn around. Fear. There was fear in Nelda's voice.
"What is it?" she called out to her.
"Do you have any idea where Teddy is?"
"No, why would I? What do you mean?" She hurried back toward the steps.
"Her aunt just called. Nobody knows where she is. She's missing," Nelda said, standing in the doorway, her eyes wide with alarm.
* * * * *
"Well, Camden and Festus, of course, are the best trackers. So they'll be the ones to find her." Elmira stood by the parked cars on the roundabout in front of Morgan's house, trying to talk over everyone else. She looked at her sons with a smug expression. "It will be excellent publicity for the Rosemont pack when we find her."
"I'm not riding with him," Festus said sullenly, glowering at Camden. The two of them had traded punches the day before, and Morgan had sent them both outside to run a hundred laps around the house and threatened to send them back to California if they didn't stop acting like cubs.
"Ride with someone else, then," Elmira said, waving her hand dismissively.
"Fine, come with me," Valerie said, exasperated. "It makes more sense to split up, anyway, so we can cover more ground."
"Hud is by far the most superior tracker in the pack," CoraBelle said haughtily as they climbed into their SUV. "We'll take the south part of town." They screeched off, wheels churning up a spray of snow.
Valerie had already called Morgan and told him to meet her at the shanty town as fast as he could safely drive there. The last place anyone had seen Teddy was at the rec center, where she'd gone to get breakfast. Everybody was going to start out from there and fan out.
The Juniper Police department was out looking for her too, but shifters would have a better chance of finding her, since they could scent her trail.
"At least it's not snowing," Valerie said, as Arthur came hurrying up to them.
"Are you kidding? It's freezing." Nelda was actually in tears. "You humans are ridiculously puny. She'll get frostbite, and it's very hard to find attractive gloves when you have no fingers."
She looked at Arthur, blinking hard. "We'll find her, won't we?"
He seized her hand, and she looked at him in surprise – but didn't pull her hand away. "We won't stop looking until we find her," he assured her.
He let go of her hand and climbed into the driver's side of her car. She got in the passenger side, and they roared off.
Valerie climbed into the front seat of the Mercedes SUV that Morgan had insisted she drive once they'd agreed on the mating deception, and Festus climbed into the passenger side, glowering. As she pulled out, she saw Honoria and Homer running out the front door, waving at her.
"Don't stop for them. They're no good at scenting anyway," Festus said, his tone sullen.
Valerie stopped her car to wait for them and looked at him in exasperation. "Does your whole life have to be a fight?" she said irritably.
"Mother said that's what keeps you strong."
"You know what else keeps you strong? Thinking for yourself. And not being a grown man who quotes his mother all the time," she said, as Honoria and Homer scrambled into the back. Festus let out a growl of anger and looked out the window.
"Hurry up," he said as she pulled out of the driveway. "I don't want Camden to find her first."
"Yes, because that's what's important right now." She seriously wanted to bitch-slap him upside his furry head, but she didn't have time at the moment. She was concentrating on negotiating the snow-slick roads and trying not to picture what could be happening to Teddy. How long could that skinny little girl last outside in the snow?
"Do you think she's all right?" Honoria asked anxiously as they drove.
"Maybe she just went to somebody's house," Homer suggested.
As Valerie rounded a curve, she tapped on the brake.
Nothing happened. It was like stepping on a sponge. She was speeding up, not slowing down.
"Hold on!" she cried out with alarm. "The brakes aren't working!"
They were careening down the road. If they went any further, there would be a steep drop-off to the right, and they'd be at risk of plunging a hundred feet into a rocky valley.
"Brace yourselves!" she yelled. She gripped the wheel, her knuckles white, and steered straight into a snowbank.
The car slammed into it hard, and she heard Honoria and Homer cry out from the back seat. The airbag exploded in her face with startling force, and she was stunned for a moment, sitting there with the car wheels spinning. She quickly reached over and, with shaking fingers, turned the ignition off.
"Is everyone all right?" she called out, ears ringing.
"We're fine," Honoria said from the back seat.
"Festus? You okay?"
"Of course I'm all right," Festus said angrily. "What do you think I am, some kind of weakling?" He quickly climbed out of the car and stomped off.
Valerie, Honoria and Homer climbed out too. Honoria called Morgan, then stuffed her phone back into her purse. "He'll be right here," Honoria said. She peered closely at Valerie. "Are you all right? Your lip is bleeding."
"I'm fine. Just shaken up," Valerie said, hugging herself. Her hearing was staring to go back to normal. "You sure you kids are okay?"
"We're good. You know how we shifters are – we can take quite a beating," Honoria assured her.
While they waited, Festus paced unhappily and muttered, glancing at his watch. Obviously worried that somebody might rescue Teddy before he had a chance to. Whiney little jerk.
Morgan arrived minutes later, a tow truck right behind him.
He leaped out of his car and rushed over to them, frantically looking from one person to the next, searching their faces.
"No broken bones? Do we need an ambulance?" he demanded, his voice harsh with worry.
"I'm fine, although I'm so traumatized that I think a shopping spree is in order," Honoria said cheerfully. "I mean a post-Christmas shopping spree. I'm thinking Paris."
"Japan has cooler tech stuff," her brother suggested.
"You two are hilarious," Morgan said with annoyance. He hurried over to Valerie, looking into her eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked her as she stood there rubbing her shoulder where the seatbelt had cut into her. He reached over and rubbed her shoulder sympathetically. First time he'd touched her in days.
She shrugged his hand off and took a step back, and he gave her a look of puzzlement. She turned away, biting her lip; she didn't want his pity.
"Been better. Been worse," she said coolly. "Have they found Teddy yet?"
He shook his head, frown lines creasing his forehead. "Not as of a few minutes ago."
"Son of a bitch." Valerie felt cold fear descend on her. "Take us to Juniper, right now."
"You should probably go to the hospital for a quick-" He saw the look on her face. "Nope. Okay. Let's go, then."
They all piled in his SUV and headed toward Juniper.
"What exactly happened with the car? Roads too slick?" he asked as they drove.
"No, I lost the brakes. The car was fine when I left the house, but the brakes went out when I went around a curve."
He scowled. "I see," he said, his tone ominous.
They drove in silence. Valerie knew the wheels in his head were turning, and hers were too. It seemed too much of a coincidence that the cabin had caught fire and then Morgan's car's brakes had gone out.
Everybody knew that she was the only one who drove that car.
Nelda was still the one most likely to want to get rid of Valerie alone. And she wouldn't have known that her son and daughter were going to grab a ride with Valerie.
Elmira had seen Festus climb into Valerie's car and hadn't said a word, so it couldn't be her. Hud and CoraBelle were also possible suspects, although it would make more sense for them to sabotage Morgan's car than Valerie's.
They arrived in Juniper ten minutes later.
As they pulled up to the rec center, they saw Arthur dash up, carrying a shivering Teddy in his arms.
"Oh, thank God." Valerie heaved a sigh of relief as Morgan parked the car.
Arthur ran inside the building, and Valerie, Morgan and the others quickly followed.
For once Teddy wasn't talking a mile a minute. Her lips were blue and her teeth chattered. They stuck her in front of a radiator and fed her hot chocolate as her shivering slowly subsided and a paramedic who'd been waiting on scene checked her out. There were no signs of frostbite, fortunately.