run, either. Thought it’d be nice for a change.” His smile turned thoughtful. I considered that maybe there was a real guy hiding in there and not just a thug.
“You don’t have a pack at home?”
“Don’t need one. You?”
“Yes. A pack, a mate, the works. It’s kind of nice having people to watch my back.”
He looked back out the window, a cynical curl on his lips. “Too much trouble.”
A camera mounted in the corner of the room recorded the entire conversation.
I didn’t have anything else I wanted to say. Not much else I could say—I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what all went on in Macy’s head. I had another two weeks here to get his life story.
The elk were moving off, back to the woods on the far side of the meadow. The grass was so high it brushed their bellies. The idea of running through that meadow on four legs, with wind in my fur and the scent of wild in my nose, did appeal. But I’d rather do it with Ben.
One by one, the lodge’s residents woke up and drifted downstairs—except for the vampires and Dorian, who had retired to their sealed basement room before dawn. Breakfast was light—bagels, pastries, yogurt, juice—and so was the conversation. Tina caught me up on the doings of the other investigators on her TV show, Jeffrey talked about the books he’d been writing—self-help inspirational-type stuff about grief and moving on, the kind of thing I’d normally call drivel except this was Jeffrey, whose earnestness made it work. Grant was reticent, not giving any hint about the conspiracy he’d alluded to last night. Ariel sat at the edge of her seat and soaked it all in. I might have been expected to consider her the competition, except she was so darned nice about it. And she was in the business for the same reasons I was: She was insatiably curious about the supernatural, and she wanted to help people cope. She was one of the people
But the person here I was probably most curious about was Lee. He was the last one up, and I cornered him in the kitchen on the pretense of refilling my mug of coffee.
“Good morning,” I said, watching him pick through the breakfast food set out in the kitchen.
“Hi,” he said, wearing a charming smile. He wore a T-shirt and sweats, and his hair was still disheveled from sleeping. “You’re looking at me like you want something,” he said, glancing at me sideways. He didn’t sound put out. Amused, maybe. I must have had a pretty intent look on my face. I was trying to see the seal under his skin. I was still trying to figure out his smell. Not that I’d spent enough time around oceans to know, but I had the feeling he smelled like an ocean.
“Were-seal. I’m trying to imagine how that works.”
“Just the way you’d expect it to, I suppose.”
“Okay,” I said. “But how do you get bitten by a were-seal?”
His smile widened. “You’re out hunting seals by kayak, and you run into one that hunts you back.”
Well, of course. But what in that statement really got me: “Wait a minute. You hunt seals by kayak?”
He chuckled. “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Fair enough. I suppose it’s as good a way as any to give the cameras what they want, right?”
I shrugged. I was trying not to pay attention to the cameras. I wanted to do this show on my own terms, which meant asking my own questions.
He said, “Alaska still has a lot of little coastal towns that depend on subsistence hunting. So yeah, I hunt seals. Sometimes I don’t use the kayak.” He raised a knowing brow.
“Are we going to get to see what that looks like?” I said. “The seal half, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” he said. He looked out the kitchen window to the meadow and mountains. Every window here had a view. “That lake is freshwater. It just wouldn’t be the same. I tried to get them to move this to Alaska. Maybe for the second season.”
“So will you hate me if I make a ‘fish out of water’ joke?”
He gave me a long-suffering roll of the eyes.
After a quick breakfast, I explored the rest of the house, which even after a day was beginning to take on the scents and moods of its new residents. It was a wild mix of smells that I wasn’t used to, male and female, human, lycanthrope, and vampire, none of them pack or family. If I thought about it too much, if I let it get to me, it wouldn’t feel safe.
According to the info I’d been given ahead of time, the lodge was a rental. Usually, it was occupied by groups on various corporate retreats or hunters during hunting season. The lake was supposed to have good fishing. A utility shed at the back of the building held not only the lodge’s gas-powered electric generator and solar batteries, but a stash of equipment: fishing poles, kayaks and paddles, snowshoes and cross-country skis. I didn’t feel the need to get that adventurous.
The basement, where Anastasia, Gemma, and Dorian stayed, was off-limits, but I wanted to contrive a way to sneak down there at some point. Prurient curiosity was killing me. I knew that actual vampires didn’t go in for the coffin thing. So did the three of them share one big bed? Did human Dorian sleep while the two undead women were comatose during the day? Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t find any outside basement windows to peer into.
Upstairs, the rest of us had claimed most but not all of the dozen or so bedrooms. Two extra remained. One of them—the least inviting, stuck in the back northwest corner of the house, with no sun and no views—remained clean, crisp, and unused. The other, I couldn’t tell, because the door was locked. I rattled the knob. Still locked, and solidly. The door didn’t even wiggle against its frame.
“Huh,” I said and leaned close, pressing my ear to the wood, taking a deep breath to try and catch a scent. Nothing. Storage, I imagined.
But there was nothing like a locked door to make a place kind of spooky.
The kitchen had a back door, leading outside to a generous pile of chopped wood for the fireplace.
After investigating the lodge, I took an hour to study the lay of the land around it. Jerome was right; this countryside practically begged me to shape-shift and go running. The wide, grassy meadow went on for miles, ringed in by even more impressive woods, and it all smelled like it was teeming with good things to eat. Two paths led away from the clearing in front of the house: one led to the airstrip in the middle of the meadow, the other to a hiking trail into the surrounding national forest.
I turned my face to the sun, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath of the world. I couldn’t help but relax. I’d have to remember that over the next week. If—when—I got pissed off, count to ten and step outside for a moment.
Joey Provost cornered me on my way back to the lodge. He stepped off the front porch, making a beeline for me. I tried not to let it agitate me; he was just eager, not moving in for the kill. Probably. I stopped and waited for him.
“Kitty! Can I have a word?”
So many snarky ways to respond to that. I refrained; my smile was polite and fake. “What can I do for you?”
“We’re going to get started with the meat of the show tonight,” he said. “We’ve come up with this great idea, but I need your help.”
Uh-oh. I seemed to remember this clause in the contract I signed regarding playing nice when the producers made requests like this. Then again, it was only the first day—how bad could it possibly be? My smile didn’t get any less fake as I waited for him to explain.
“We want people to start opening up, start talking about themselves. Now, I’m not expecting big revelations. But we need to at least break the ice. I figure this is right up your alley. You talk to people all the time—your callers, the people you interview. You’re good at asking the incisive questions, and that’s all I need you to do here tonight. Just interview everyone, like it’s a mini version of your show.”
“You want me to do all your work for you,” I said.
“I wouldn’t put it like that,” he said. “I’d rather look at it as showcasing your talents to the benefit of the entire program.”
“Ooh, you’re good,” I said. That was the kind of lingo that sold shows to network executives.
“So that means you’re up for it? I’d like to see at least one question for each of the participants. And I’m sure you’ll have no trouble keeping the discussion entertaining.”
“That’s my job,” I said.
