In two seconds, he was in front of me. He caught my hand, freezing my fingers. “Where did you get this?” The lines around his mouth had deepened even more.
I lifted my chin. “Recognize it, do you?”
His gaze held mine. “Anna…”
“I met this nice lady in town.” Semi-nice. Semi-scary. “Seems she knew mom. She gave it to me.”
“Helen.”
I nodded.
He dropped the necklace and stepped back. “I figured you’d start talking to her, sooner or later.”
“It was sooner.” Not soon enough. “And, Dad, I know.”
He turned away. “Helen is, well, most folks call her eccentric. She tells lots of stories, and you can’t always believe what she says.”
“Oh?” I stood up and my knees didn’t tremble. “I can’t believe her when she says there are people in Haven who can transform into wolves?”
I saw his shoulders stiffen.
“And I can’t believe her when she says that I’m descended from the witch who cursed them?”
He glanced back at me. “Just how much talking have you been doing with Helen?”
“Enough.” I climbed down the rest of the stairs. “Enough to know that you haven’t been telling me the truth.”
He didn’t deny it.
“I thought we left Chicago to get away from the monsters,” I whispered as I shook my head. “But here…”
“There are monsters everywhere.” He faced me.
“People!” I threw at him as anger churned inside me. “Crazy, twisted people who hurt and kill but here in Haven, there are werewolves! Real freaking monsters!” And just saying it out-loud sounded insane, but it was true. I glared at him. “When were you going to tell me?”
He didn’t answer.
“Dad, these werewolves out there are thinking I can break their curse, I can’t just—”
His eyes narrowed to tight slits. “Who said that?”
“Is it true? Can I stop this?”
His shoulders sagged a bit. “Nothing can stop this. Nothing. Believe me, every damn thing has been tried. Over and over, for centuries.”
“Then someone needs to tell that to the wolves.” I wrapped my arms around my stomach and rocked back and forth. I didn’t want the wolves after me. I didn’t want to wind up like—
Sissy.
“The wolves in this town haven’t killed any humans for over one hundred years.”
My chin lifted. “No, Dad, you mean they hadn’t been killing them, not until someone started attacking the hikers about six months back.”
His jaw clenched. “I didn’t know about that when I took the job. If I had—”
“What?”
“Then I never would’ve brought you here.”
Here. Haven. Where nightmares were reality and people were dying in the woods.“Do you know who the werewolves are?” I asked because I knew he was keeping more from me. I could feel it.
“I know some,” he said quietly. “But there could be more. So many more.”
He sounded like Rafe. “What are we going to do?” I asked him. “We have to stop them.”
“I—”
A fist pounded against the door. “Please! Help me!”
I knew that desperate voice. Cassidy. I rushed forward, but my dad beat me to the door. He yanked it open, and Cassidy, with long trails of tears on her cheeks, stumbled into his arms.
“Please, Sheriff Lambert!” She was shaking and crying and I almost couldn’t understand her. “Gran!”
“Cassidy?” I reached for her, but she didn’t even seem to notice me.
“Calm down.” My dad’s voice was pitched to soothe. “Just calm down, and tell me what’s going on.”
Cassidy’s breath heaved out. “My…gran. She’s gone. When I came—came back from the game with Jasper, the shop was wrecked…”
I saw a blank mask slip over my dad’s face. “Did you call the station?”
“N-no…I came to you.” But then her eyes turned to me. “I knew you could…find her.”
She wasn’t talking to my dad anymore.
“Please.” Her whisper. “There was bl-blood in the shop. She’s gone, and I-I have to find her. She’s lost, and I don’t have anyone else!”
Lost.
“Anna…” A warning note had entered my dad’s voice.
Too late. The power inside me had already snapped on. In my mind, I could see Granny Helen. She wasn’t in town. Wasn’t at her home. Her broken body was in the woods, huddled under the branches of a weeping willow.
I yanked my gaze away from Cassidy’s desperate eyes and ran through the open front door.