Page 18

“Duncan was his name, yes?” Lorenzo asked. “The one you brought, the one with old-world blood.”

“Yeah. Was this recently?”

Like since Duncan had gone missing?

“The night before last,” Lorenzo said.

“Was it near a town? Specifically near a perfume factory that could double as a dungeon capable of holding a powerful werewolf?”

Judging by Lorenzo’s confused expression, he hadn’t heard much of that story. Radomir and Abrams might not be holding Duncan in a perfume factory again, but their lair wouldn’t be in the middle of interesting wolf hunting grounds, surely.

“It wasn’t near a town. They sensed him in the foothills of the mountains.” Lorenzo waved toward the northeast and the Cascade range.

“That’s unexpected.”

Lorenzo spread a hand, then opened the door. “I’ll let your mother know you’ll visit soon.”

“Okay.”

As soon as he left, I dialed Jasmine’s number as I again perused the list of addresses she’d sent.

“Everything okay?” she asked as a greeting.

“Lorenzo stopped by. He’s worried about my mom.”

“Oh, yeah. The bear thing?”

“Word gets around.”

“There are no secrets in a werewolf pack.”

“Deming,” I murmured, plugging the town for one of the addresses in on my map app. “That’s in Whatcom County, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, near Bellingham.”

There wasn’t a “street view” option for the address, and Google didn’t pop up so much as a Zillow listing for it. Unlike the previous evil-overlord-perfumery lair, this place didn’t have a business associated with it, at least not anything publicly listed.

“I need to take a road trip,” I said.

“Tomorrow?” Jasmine asked.

Tomorrow was Saturday, so I could more easily slip away from the apartment complex. “Yes.”

“Do you want company?”

I hesitated, not wanting to get my little niece in trouble, but she’d been helpful when I’d faced off against Augustus and my other cousins. Besides, she was the line to her father, geek werewolf researcher. I might need him to dig further into this place.

“Sure,” I said. “Bring gas money.”

“It’s notthatfar to Deming.”

“I know. I was joking.” Sort of. I had money budgeted for gas for the month, but the new uncertainty about my job and future prospects made me want to conserve even more than usual.

“How about I bring provisions?”

“Deal.”

8