Page 21

HUNTER

H unter threw himself into the work to drown his sense of responsibility.

If he’d stayed around the night before, maybe the saboteur would have seen his truck and decided against risking the damage.

If Hunter was worth his salt as an investigator, he’d already have found the culprit and brought him to justice.

Trixie called the incident in to the Tok trooper when they broke for lunch, and Hunter balled his hands into fists as he listened in on the conversation and heard them brush her off.

“There’s nothing on my camera,” she said, discouraged, when she’d hung up.

“But I had it trained on the generator and tool boxes, not a blank wall. There was nothing to steal there. I didn’t hear anything last night, but it was done with hand tools, so I probably wouldn’t have.

And we’ve already rebuilt the wall, so it’s not like we have a lot of evidence for them to look at.

I wasn’t going to hold up the project to dust for fingerprints.

The expense was pretty minimal, we were lucky.

It’s on file, they’ll send someone if they have free time, but it’s more likely this is just a file that will be cheerfully ignored. ”

“I don’t think much of your local sheriff,” Hunter admitted.

Trixie looked conflicted. “He’s a state trooper. And I mean, he’s got a tough job. It’s probably someone local, and I’m the outsider. This is an unpopular job. And no one was actually hurt. He’s on the brink of retirement, so he wants to rock the boat as little as possible.”

“You like it here, though?”

Trixie’s face softened. “I really do. I’m going to miss my trailer here when the house is handed off. I love the area. I like the people, except for the jerk trying to run us off. It’s going to be a beautiful house.” She sounded wistful.

“You’d live here?”

She shook her head too quickly. “It’s too much house for me. I’d have to…I don’t know, turn it into a bed and breakfast. Hire a cook and a maid.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“It’s a beautiful dream,” Trixie said softly.

“They’re talking about bringing a rail line this way, and it could bring in a lot of tourists.

There’d be a lot of building opportunities.

Maybe I should let Jay buy me out and strike out on my own.

Combination bed, breakfast, and building company!

” She laughed it off, but Hunter thought there was a look of longing behind her eyes before she finished her lunch and launched directly back into work.

He didn’t linger to try to make plans that night after the work day, but drove back to his hotel and booted up his computer.

How could he tie Tiffany ex-Carthridge to any of this?

Setting the environmental company on the project with bad press was one thing, but deliberate sabotage was a whole new ball of yarn, and Hunter had no proof, not even anything slightly circumstantial.

Was Sam involved? It was convenient that he’d called out sick that day.

He still knew that Kyle and Keith were shifters, and he knew that a wolf was responsible.

If he could verify that they were wolves, that would put him a step closer to proof.

Google maps gladly showed him the layout to the Taylor farm.

It was close behind the Carthridge property, though the road access was a long way around.

After considering for a little while, Hunter left his truck prominently in front of the hotel and went out the back door, wandered over a block, and then took off into the forest. He shifted as soon as the trees closed around him, and snuffled his way towards the farm.

He approached from the back, sticking to the fringe of the forest. Keith had said they had sheepdogs, and he heard one of them bark as a cloud of birds took off.

Hunter shifted between bear and man, circling the farm curiously.

There were broad, empty fields that looked recently harvested, and several pastures of cows and alpacas.

It was an interesting mix of animals for a pack of wolves to keep, Hunter thought.

Closer to the house was a series of big, arched greenhouses that also looked like they were being buttoned up for the winter.

One of them, at the far end of the fields, reeked of weed, but that wasn’t illegal here.

Just as Hunter was wishing he had a smaller, more subtle shift shape so he could get closer to the house and see what was happening, someone came out on the porch and yelled, “Dinner! I’m not saving you any if you’re late!”

Hunter, shifting to take advantage of his better human eyesight, assumed it was a few squirrels at first, streaking for the house, then thought they might be weasels.

He finally realized they were meerkats , a solid half dozen of them that swarmed out of the bare field and rose up as boys from Keith’s age to barely in their teens.

They rough-housed and hollered and pushed into the house door, the promised sheepdogs howling and playing along.

Hunter could not be positive that Keith and Kyle were both in the mix, but if they weren’t, brothers that looked exactly like them certainly were.

Hunter didn’t do statistics like his brother Baxter, but he knew a likely thing when he saw it, and it was incredibly likely that Keith and Kyle were meerkats. He would have to go back to Trixie empty handed.

Thinking about Trixie seemed to cause a pang of sudden, unexpected anxiety and Hunter recognized it as instinct exactly as his bear gave a snort of concern. Something was wrong. Something was wrong with Trixie, and he had to go help her.

He shifted as he turned, and then crashed through the trees as a bear, the cold, mossy forest floor crunching beneath his paws.