Page 144 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

She peered around the depot as she made her way on bare feet down the platform in nothing but a long t- shirt.

One that I recognized as Clay’s. That only served to stoke the flames of my rage, and my upper lip curled back.

Clay curled a clammy fist around my arm, silently urging me back into silence.

I clenched my teeth hard enough to crack one as I watched, white knuckle grip unfaltering on the binoculars as I recited what I was certain were lies to calm me down.

This doesn’t mean she’s guilty. This doesn’t mean anything. She didn’t get on the bus.

She might just like hanging out at vacant bus depots in the middle of the night.

Bull-fucking-shit.

The glow of Sam’s eyes flashed our way as she scanned the area one last time before closing herself inside of the phone booth. She dropped a few coins into the slot and dialed. The glass panes of the booth were so clouded from age that I couldn’t see her very well.

Clay cursed as she began to speak. I listened as hard as I could, but wasn’t able to pick out anything discernible. I pulled back from the binoculars for a second to look at Clay, wondering if he could hear.

He shook his head sharply, and I went back to watching, grinding my teeth to dust.

She shouted something angrily that sounded like ‘fine?’ Or maybe ‘mine?’ It was too smothered by the glass encasement of the phone booth to tell. Right after she shouted, she slammed the receiver down and shoved out the doors of the booth, stamping back toward the shadows where she came from.

I opened my mouth to ask Clay something, but he clamped a hand tightly over my lips to stop me and put a finger to his own to silence me.

I realized only a few seconds after he did how the wind had shifted directions.

He gently nudged my head toward the earth and began quietly rubbing dirt into my silvery hair, pressing both of us to the ground as we carefully slid backward to get beneath the cover of the wide branches of the pine.

Between it and the dirt, she shouldn’t be able to scent us.

My scalp itched as we waited for what felt like ages before finally daring to move or speak. She had to be far enough away by now that it was safe.

“You think she scented us?” I mouthed more than said, just in case, and Clay ran a hand through his own dirt-clogged black hair and blew out a breath.

“Don’t know. Doubt it, though. She looked distracted.”

His eyes darkened.

“Do you think we can star-69 the call she made?”

“I doubt that works on a payphone, and if we go anywhere near it and she comes back—”

“She’ll scent us.” He nodded.

I mulled over the possibilities for a few minutes before asking the question I knew both of us wanted the answer to. “Who do you think she was calling?”

Clay began gathering our things back into my small pack with a grim expression. “I don’t know, but we need to find out.”

“This may not even mean anything.”

He looked at me like I might be daft, and I had to admit, it sounded stupid even to my own ears. There was something shady going on—there was no denying it. But was it regular shady or the really bad kind?

Clay was right, we needed to find out.

“We know she’s been here more than once. For all we know she comes every damned night. She’ll be back. We just have to be ready.”

I lifted a brow as Clay reached out a hand to help me stand and brushed his fingers roughly over the top of my head, scattering bits of dirt back to the earth before moving to take my jaw into his grip, tipping my head up.

“How?” I asked, genuinely wondering what the actual fuck we could do here without blowing our cover or resorting to the interrogation Jared craved.

“We bug the phone booth,” Clay said like it was the simplest thing in the world.

“Are you serious?”

He dropped his hand and turned to head back the way we’d come from the Chevelle, making me scurry to follow him.

“I know a guy,” he muttered, careful of where he was stepping to avoid making any unnecessary sounds. I tried to follow his footsteps, but still managed to sound like a drunk elephant by comparison. For a guy so damned massive, I’d never understand how he could be so deadly silent.

“How very mysterious.” I rolled my eyes. “Care to elaborate?”

“His name’s Joe. He’s the private investigator I hired to follow Devin when we ran him out of town.”

I shuddered at the reminder of that psycho, remembering the map and images I’d discovered hidden in Clay’s workshop.

How he told me that he had needed to make sure that Devin had truly left.

That he wasn’t ever coming back. To make certain I was safe.

It was the only compromise he could make with himself to keep his wolf from going full protector and hunting the bastard down.

Devin had wound up several states over. He was probably beating up on another girl these days and it made me sick to think that, but it was the truth. The madness I’d seen in his eyes the night he turned me, and many nights before that one couldn’t be cured.

The best anyone could hope was for that fucker to get hit by a bus.

“You’re still in contact with him? I thought you cut him loose a few years ago?”

“I did, but I still have his info. He said he could get me anything I needed. I’ll have him bug it so Sam won’t recognize his scent.”

“How soon do you think he could do that?”

“For the right price?” Clay asked with a raised brow, considering. “I think I could have him do it by tomorrow.”

I chewed my lower lip, imagining another night without finding Destiny. Without Luke, or Trey, or Todd. I sealed my eyes against a lancing pain in my chest and nodded.

“Okay. Call him. Do it now. We don’t have any time to waste.”