Page 13

CHAPTER 12

“MAYBE THEY REALLY do live with wolves,” Officer Randall says, rubbing his aching temples. He’s spent hours trying to track down leads, but he keeps coming up empty-handed. Nobody around here’s ever seen these kids before. There’s no one matching their descriptions in the NCIC database. “I mean, they’re dirty and smelly enough.”

The chief sighs as he glances back toward the kids pacing their jail cell. The boy snarls and bares his teeth. He does that every time Chester looks in his direction.

Isn’t anyone missing these two? the chief wonders.

Or did someone want them gone?

“My dog has better manners,” Randall adds. “Shep knows not to snarl at people, or snap at ’em, or piss in corners.”

It’s true these kids seem pretty feral. But something isn’t adding up for Chester Greene.

“I did some reading about kids raised by wolves,” he says. “They don’t act like human kids at all. They don’t ever laugh or smile. They only want to eat raw food. Most of them can barely talk.”

“Well, that boy hardly says a damn word,” Randall points out.

“Doesn’t mean he can’t.” The chief takes a sip of his coffee, forgetting that it’s gone cold. He grimaces. “If these kids were really raised by wolves, we’d be lucky to get a yes or a no out of them.”

“That girl’s kinda mouthy.”

“Exactly,” the chief says. “And ‘raised by wolves’ isn’t even what you’d call it, anyway. It’s more like the kids I read about were tolerated by wolves. Not raised by them. All the wolves really did was decide not to eat them for dinner.”

“So you’re telling me wolves wouldn’t win any parenting awards,” Randall says.

“Yeah,” Chester says grimly, “and you know who else wouldn’t? Kai and Holo’s parents. Who the hell are they, and where the hell are they, and why aren’t they looking for their children?”

“Well, they’re not exactly charming,” Randall points out. “I mean, if they were my kids—”

“You’d spank ’em or ground ’em. You wouldn’t abandon them in a forest.”

The back of the chief’s neck prickles, and he realizes he’s being watched. He turns around. The kids have stopped pacing, and now they’re just staring at him. Their eyes seem unnaturally wide in their thin faces. “You all right back there?” he calls.

The boy snarls. The girl hits the bars with her fist. “You act like we’re zoo animals or something! But you don’t have any right to keep us here.”

Yep, she’s mouthy all right. He admires her feistiness. Too bad she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. “We do have the right, actually,” he says. “Our little jail here is what we call a Type 1 detention facility, which means it’s all set up to keep folks for a few days after they’re arrested.”

“No one’s pressed charges, have they?” Kai demands.

“Not yet,” Chester allows.

He doesn’t tell her this, but he’s asked the owners of the Grizzly to forgive and forget. They’re not the nicest folks he knows, but he’s hoping they’ll come around. He’s offered to pay for the damages.

“In that case, you’d better let us go,” Kai says.

“For one thing, charges might be forthcoming. And for another, you’re minors,” he says. “I can’t just open the doors and turn you loose.”

“But you can ,” Kai insists. “We know how to take care of ourselves.”

He looks pointedly at their filthy clothes and raises his eyebrows. “I’d say that’s open to debate.”

“We know how to hunt,” Holo says.

Chester grins. “Yeah, you did a great job hunting down and killing all those bags of Doritos.”

Holo flushes and turns away.

“You’re not funny,” Kai tells him.

Chester shrugs. “I thought that was a pretty good one. But we can agree to disagree.” He takes another sip of coffee. Damn it, still cold. “Look, I don’t like doing this to you,” he tells her. “But I don’t have any better options right now.”

Kai steps up to the bars like she’s ready to fight. “You’d better start figuring some out, then,” she says.