The Mountain's Shadow

now for a new era.”

“How pompous!” Wine sloshed in the glass as I set it down. “He’d be great in politics.”

Gabriel looked up from the bread. “Worse arguments have been made for relieving people of their birthrights. This used to be Native American country before the settlers came through.”

“Good point. So he couldn’t come up with any good explanation either?”

“No, only a strange one. The Piney Mountain residents seem to feel the developers have brought an evil spirit upon them. Did you have any luck with Louise?”

“No.” I lowered my eyes. “I didn’t get to talk to her.”

“What happened?”

“She didn’t show up for work today. The sheriff didn’t know anything, either.”

“He wouldn’t,” Gabriel said.

“Why didn’t you say something before now?” Lonna’s tone accused me of a grave sin of omission, so I decided to commit one and not tell her about the CLS victims in our midst.

“I got a little distracted, okay? Leo and Ron knew my grandfather, and they’d seen the spot where he disappeared. They took me there.”

“Did you find anything?”

I lied. “No. But at least I got a mental picture of the crime.”

“Some of us can do our jobs without getting distracted by a cute piece of ass.”

“And some of us can do our jobs without sleeping with one.”

We locked eyes. Gabriel cleared the bowls and beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen.

“I come up here to protect you, and this is the thanks I get?”

“Oh, that’s rich!” I threw my napkin down. “Since when does protecting me entail getting into the first pair of trousers you come across?”

“I wouldn’t have if I’d known about Louise.”

“Not like we could do anything anyway. The sheriff has his eyes on us. He’s not the only one.”

“Your job was to get information from the locals.” She pitched her voice low and dangerous. “I wouldn’t have spent so much time with Peter if I’d known you couldn’t even manage that today. I was going to interview Ron and Leo tomorrow.”

“What is my job, Lonna? I. Have. No. Job. I have no boyfriend. I have no ability to find either right now, not until I figure out what happened to my grandfather!”

“Ladies, would you like dessert?” Gabriel came in with three dishes of chocolate mousse on a silver tray. His eyes begged for us to be finished.

“I’m done.” Lonna slowly folded her napkin and placed it on the table. “I’ll be upstairs reviewing my notes on the missing-children case if anyone needs me.”

I put my head in my hands as I listened to the angry click of her heels on the hardwood floor. “I think I need something a little stronger, Gabriel.”

“Yes, Madam. An Irish coffee, perhaps?”

“Decaf. I’ll be on the balcony.”

The motion-sensor light clicked on as I opened one of the French doors and slipped outside. The house was built on the mountainside, so the basement level was actually a ballroom in the back with a patio under the balcony that could be used even in the rain. The night was quiet as though the hills slumbered, and far away I could hear the river. An owl hooted somewhere in the woods, and then I heard a howl. The bone-piercing cry chilled me to my marrow, and I didn’t see the wolves in my mind’s eye, but rather another presence, this one infinitely menacing and ready to snatch up victims without notice. I wondered at this and at the fight Lonna and I had just had. It wasn’t like either of us to confront each other. Something about this place was unsettling. Too many had gone missing. What could be out there?

“Your coffee, Doctor Fisher.”

“Thank you.” Before he could step away, I asked, “Gabriel?”

“Yes, Madam?”

“What’s out there? The wolves, I know, but I heard something else.”

“These hills are full of tales, Madam. Perhaps you heard the evil spirit of which Ms. Lonna spoke.”

I shivered as the realization of what we’d planned to do that night hit me. “Lonna had wanted to go and see if she could catch whatever’s taking the children in action. After hearing that cry, I’m glad we fought. I think she’s forgotten.”

“I wouldn’t recommend going out clothed only in human flesh, not on the night of a full moon.” Gabriel took a sip of his coffee, and I wondered what he could see out there in the gloom, what he could smell with his ultra- sensitive nose. “There is old energy in these hills. And old creatures.”

“And the boys are out there hunting?”

“They are with their pack and are therefore protected.”

“I hope so. Why don’t you go?”

“I don’t feel the need. Not tonight. Being near them helps me to stifle my own desires.”

“Why?”

“I have no pack.”

“That makes two of us.” I noticed he held a glass mug of Irish coffee as well. I didn’t care. “Cheers. To us lone wolves.”

“Cheers, Doctor Fisher.”

I smiled up at him over the rim of my glass mug. “Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.”

His elegant lips curled into a smile. “Perhaps not.”

I leaned against the doorframe. In spite of my quivering rage, it didn’t rattle, so I had to satisfy myself with glaring into the gloom instead.

“Well?” I asked.

“Well, what?” came from the lump on the bed.

“Did you find out anything else that was useful?”

“Bug off.”

“You’re supposed to be a P.I.,” I reminded her.

“Remember the Oliver case?”

“The one where you found out it was the teacher abusing the child, not the father?”

“Yes. Peter knows it. One of his law firm partners defended the guy.”

“You’re not convincing me he’s a worthy person if he was with a firm that defends perverts.”

“He said my work was brilliant, that he couldn’t have built a case against it.” The lump rolled over, and I felt her looking at me. Her eyes glowed in the darkness, and I stepped back. “I just wanted the appreciation not to end. Do you know what it’s like when your purpose, your career, is affirmed like that?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“Oh, Joanie, I’m so sorry!” She burst into tears.

“Sleep it off, Lonna.” I sighed and closed the door behind me.

And woke up.

Dream analysts say every character in one’s dreams symbolizes some aspect of the self. The Lonna in the dream was the part of me that had sold out, that had turned tail and run before I could discover the truth. I’d felt too ashamed to protest my termination because they’d all suspect I had been having an affair with my boss.

“Nothing like the honesty of the mind at three a.m.,” I told myself as I strained to hear the sounds of the night. Nothing. No voices, no wolves. Not even the bone-shuddering cry I’d heard.

I rolled over to go back to sleep, but my eyes wouldn’t close. Something was horribly wrong. Then I heard it, from the bottom of the driveway, grunts and the swish of something being dragged. Fear paralyzed my stomach while my heart thudded against my ribs. It was the same feeling I’d had the night of the fire, the one that urged me to hurry, to find something meaningful in the data as something closed in on me. The same feeling I’d had the night Andrew died.

Footsteps, a muffled exclamation, then the front door opened and closed. I rose, splashed some water on my