The Better to Bite(63)

Now it was too late.

Her dark gaze dropped to the journal. “Give it to me.”

I wanted to help Cass, I truly did, but… “No.” Because right then, I didn’t trust her. “People’s lives are in here, we can’t just—”

Cass lunged for me. Valerie screamed. I scrambled back, slamming into Valerie, and holding that journal as tightly as I could.

“Everybody, freeze!” Deputy Jon’s voice cut through the chaos.

We all froze. Cass was right in front of me, breath heaving hard. I couldn’t see Valerie. She’d jumped back when I hit her.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Jon demanded, coming in with stomping feet. “Didn’t you see the yellow police tape? This scene is off-limits! You could be destroying evidence, you could be—”

“They’re trying to steal from the shop!” Cass burst out.

I blinked as my jaw dropped.

She jabbed a finger at me. “They broke in here—”

Um, yes, guilty on that score.

“And they were trying to steal my gran’s journal! Make them give it back to me!” I saw the bright, almost feverish light in her eyes.

Vengeance. That was all that Cass wanted right then. I couldn’t really blame her.

But I couldn’t let her out all the wolves, either. Or worse, attack them.

Cass might think she was tough, but I doubted she’d survive a confrontation with a werewolf. So far, not many folks had.

Jon frowned at me. “That true, Anna? Did you break in here?”

Valerie cleared her throat. “I’m pretty sure the door was unlocked, sir.”

Grateful, I fired her a quick look over my shoulder. Wow, she’d moved fast. She was almost out of the room. One foot in, one foot out.

“Hmmmm.” Jon didn’t sound particularly believing. I turned back to face him.

“She’s taking gran’s journal!” Cass yelled, her hands fisted now. “That’s stealing!”

I raised the journal. “You should take this,” I told him. “Take it, and give it to my dad.”

“No!” Cass was crying and breaking apart before my eyes, and I hurt for her. “Give it to me! Give it—”

But Jon had already opened the journal. His eyes narrowed slightly as he flipped through the pages. When he neared the end, I saw him hesitate. I knew he’d seen what I’d seen—

His name.

Deputy Jon looked up at me and nodded slightly. “I’ll be taking this piece of evidence in to the station.”

My breath expelled in a relieved rush.

Cass started to sob harder.

“Anna, I want you to come to the station with me. I’ve got some questions for you about that unlocked door.”

Figured.

He inclined his head toward Valerie. “You make sure Cass gets back to her aunt’s, would you?’

“I-I will.” Valerie sounded very subdued. A new attitude for her. But then, maybe I didn’t know her at all. Maybe I just saw the outside, what she wanted me to see.

Maybe that’s all anyone ever saw. If we looked past the surface of our friends, would we see monsters inside? Or just lost souls?

I glanced back at her once more. She’d tried to cover for me. “Thank you,” I mouthed the words.

Deputy Jon led me toward the back door.

“This isn’t over,” Cass whispered. She glared at me as I walked past her. “Why would you want to protect them?”

I didn’t get a chance to answer her. Jon’s hold on my hand tightened, and he pulled me outside.

He put me in his squad car. In the back, figured. He slammed the door and hurried up to the driver’s side. He didn’t speak until he was seat-belted in the front. “Are you afraid of me?”

I thought about it for a few seconds. “No.”

He grunted and cranked the engine. “Remember that.”

I’d try.

“How long have you known about me?”

I could lie and say since I saw his name listed in the journal, but what would be the point? “Last night. When you came back in the house.” He’d tried to catch a scent, like an animal would, and his teeth—let’s just say they’d been a bit sharper than normal.

“That journal can destroy a whole lot of families in this town.” He drove forward, nice and slow.

I saw Rafe on his motorcycle. He was staring at the deputy’s car, at me in the backseat, with stunned eyes.

“It can stop a killer, too.” My hands dug into the seat. “And don’t you think it’s time the rogue was put down?” Rogue. I knew that term, and I used it deliberately. I’d learned it in a science class, a lifetime ago. A wolf who left its pack.

He didn’t answer. Just kept driving.