Within the first couple hours of work, I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to focus on anything pharmacy-related today. I was squirming in my seat, antsy to get out of here and back to solving a murder. It was taking me ten times longer than normal for me to do anything, and I had not accomplished anything productive yet today.

I caught a flash of my supervisor’s red hair out of the corner of my eye, and after only a second of hesitation, I followed her.

I caught up with her as she made it to her office. “Good morning, Carol! Is there any way that I could talk to you for a minute?”

She turned and frowned at me. I gave her a small smile with a hopeful look in my eyes.

“All right, come in my office.” She sat down in the chair behind her desk with a sigh of unhappy anticipation. I doubted anyone chased her down the hall early in the morning to give her good news.

“You remember Evelyn?” I had brought Evelyn to a couple of the civilian work functions where attending with your family was expected. Carol’s eyes lit with recognition. I didn’t have anyone else to bring to events like that, so I just introduced her as my grandmother. No one questioned it; Evelyn was the type of grandmother everyone wanted. Evelyn felt safe, and she was sure that wolves would not be able to infiltrate my workplace. “They are too rough to be able to blend with civilized folks,” she had sniffed.

“Of course. How is Evelyn doing?” Carol asked.

Carol and Evelyn had bonded over their love of baking when both had brought a pecan pie to a potluck. The memory of that event brought my pain of losing her sharply back into focus. I swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat and looked down at the floor, taking a moment to let the emotion pass before I could speak.

“She passed the other day,” I managed to whisper. My attempts at pushing my emotion down were not going well, and I could feel tears forming in my eyes. I squared my shoulders back, determined not to be so unprofessional as to cry at work. 

I met Carol’s sympathetic eyes as I looked back up at her. “I could tell you weren’t feeling yourself yesterday.” She leaned back in her chair and folded her hands.  “If you need time, we just received word that the Solace isn’t going out on their planned training exercises this week, so I have two extra pharmacists to add to the schedule.”

I was genuinely grateful at her offer. I was the type of person who never called out and hated to ask for time off. Our hospital was responsible for staffing the USS Solace, which was a medical ship that mainly was deployed for humanitarian efforts when disasters occurred. The Solace had just recently gone out to Puerto Rico after hurricane Irma had left a trail of destruction through the country. Almost a quarter of the hospital staff had gone on the ship then, but for training exercises a much smaller crew went.

“Yes, thank you.” I blinked away the tears that had formed and were threatening to drop at any moment.

She stood and motioned to the door. “Take the rest of the week, go home and get some rest. I’ll have LT Giles and LT Michaels cover your shifts.”

I tried to smile and murmur my thanks, but I had to hurry out the door before I managed to embarrass myself by letting any tears drop. I wiped at my eyes as soon as I left the office and tried to summon back my determination. I was getting frustrated with all the sudden mood changes and overwhelming emotions that kept hitting me. I tried not to make eye contact with any of my co-workers as I headed back to my desk. My emotions were still dangerously too close to the surface, and I did not want to have to explain my emotional state to anyone.

I grabbed my bag on the way out and was soon changed into civilian clothes and sitting in my car, unsure of where to go. The business card that the police had given me on Sunday was still on the passenger seat of my car where I dropped it. Since I was indecisive about where to go, I decided to stay right here and make some phone calls.

I dialed the number the detective had given me, but I was forwarded through a couple other people before I had Detective Finn on the phone.

“Hi, this is Anna. I met you in regard to the Evelyn Heights case.” I hesitated. I wanted to get info from him, but he might be more likely to share if I offered to help first. “I was calling because you had mentioned that you needed me to make a statement?”

There was quiet on the other side of the phone, but right before I was going to check and see if he hung up on me, I heard his voice. “We have closed that case already, but thank you for checking in,” he told me gruffly.

“Closed it?” I said in disbelief. “I heard that she was murdered? Did you catch the guy who –”

“Ma’am,” he interrupted me, “it was ruled as a natural death. There’s nothing to be investigated.”

My jaw dropped. “Natural?” What could possibly be natural about a werewolf attack?

“Yes, ma’am. It’s my understanding that the family has already claimed the body. You may want to contact them for details on the service they have planned.”

“I wasn’t aware that Evelyn had family,” I told him with a frown. Who would have claimed the body? Could it be the same pack that murdered her? Now were they trying to hide the evidence?

“I can give you the number for the liaison to the morgue. They might be able to help you,” he told me. I could tell by the impatient tone in his voice that he had already told me everything he was going to, so I accepted the phone number he gave me and thanked him for his help.

After I hung up the phone, I sat in the car for a few moments in disbelief. This was not what I was expecting at all. Could someone be covering up the fact that Evelyn was killed by wolves? How could they convince anyone that had actually seen her body that she died of ‘natural causes’?

I shook my head but called the number that Detective Finn had given me. A polite young woman named Violet answered the phone and informed me that the body had been sent for cremation by her son. I knew for a fact that Evelyn did not have a son, so this made me even more suspicious.

I asked her for contact details for Evelyn’s son. I told Violet it was so that I could help with planning the services and offer my condolences to the family, and she was more than happy to provide a name and a phone number. She told me Evelyn’s son’s name was Robert Heights. Evelyn’s real name was not Evelyn Heights, so I highly doubted that this man’s real name was Robert Heights. As soon as I was able to get off the phone with Violet, I called the number she had given me for ‘Robert Heights’ with my heart pounding.

Who would be on the other end of the phone? I was disappointed when the phone line rang once and then gave the ‘you have reached a disconnected number’ message. I sat in my car and stared down at my phone blankly. I had gotten nowhere fast with my investigation, and I now had even more questions than I did an hour ago.

I was having a difficult time processing that Evelyn was truly gone. It seemed unbelievable that she was suddenly torn from my life, not leaving much evidence behind. I was sad that I would not get to hold her hand one last time and say goodbye. It seemed unfair that someone had just gone into the morgue, taken her body, and disposed of it. She deserved to have her remains treated with love and respect, not disposed of by a stranger.

Rationally, I knew she was gone and that she wouldn’t care what had happened to her body, but I did care. I wanted to be able to say goodbye to her and make closure with her death. I wanted to plan a service for her so that I could celebrate her life with all the people who loved her.

I decided I wasn’t giving up just yet. How many places could there be in this area that provided cremation services? I could call them directly and see if I could stop things in time. I Googled it, and there were a lot more than I thought. Nineteen different places came up in my search, and I sighed; this was going to take a while.

I called each one of those places, pretending to be Evelyn’s daughter, ‘Emily.’ I figured if the mysterious ‘Robert Heights’ could get away with it, then so could I. Each one of those places had never heard the name Evelyn Heights before, and I had to sit through quite a few sales pitches on why I should use their services for the death of my beloved mother. After I had called each and every place within a thirty-mile radius, I felt the weight of failure pressing down on me.

It was possible that whoever ‘Robert’ was had taken Evelyn further away to avoid people like me, but I couldn’t call every single place in the country. The more I thought about this, the more upset I started to get.

Why had I waited this long? I should have done this immediately, not waited around and let someone steal Evelyn from me. Instead, I had buried my head in the sand and avoided dealing with the problem because I was too weak to handle it. I had a difficult time processing the emotions that came with loss, and so I tried to distract myself with other things.

Why did I have to be like this?! I had also assumed that I had more time. I had watched plenty of episodes of Law and Order, and investigations always seemed to take a long time. That’s what I get for trusting TV representations of real life. I should know better; I’ve seen quite a few episodes of Teen Wolf.

I needed to regroup and come up with a new plan now. I had to figure out a different way to approach this problem. I was going to have to take a step back and look at this from the outside so I could get better perspective.

My stomach chose that moment to growl, and I looked down in irritation. I had not eaten yesterday, other than the protein bar I had for lunch. I had eaten a bunch of snacks and Mountain Dew this morning for breakfast, but it clearly was not enough to make up for the past two days of starvation. Lunch would probably give me to opportunity to clear my head and then start over.

I decided to err on the side of caution and avoid my home for the time being. There was a bar and grill called Greenies not far from base that had great burgers, and I was craving real food. The snacks that I had hurriedly consumed earlier today were not ideal fuel for a wolf. The restaurant staff there did not care if you sat outside on their patio for an extended amount of time during their off-season slow hours, so I would have place to gather my thoughts for a while.

I headed in and waited in line to speak with the hostess. “Anna!” I heard a slightly familiar voice call. I looked around through the crowd of people that had formed behind me. My eyes were caught by a familiar pair of blue ones. It was the random guy I met yesterday, Cody. Was it only yesterday? It felt like that had happened years ago.

His eyes glanced quickly up and down my body as he headed in my direction. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your white coat, but not many people have your hair color.”

I ran my hand over my ponytail self-consciously, trying to smooth it down a bit. He was right, not many people had white blond hair without the help of peroxide. I was dressed casually right now in jeans and a long sleeve tee. The jeans were snug, but the T-shirt was comfortably loose. In comparison to my clothing from yesterday, it probably looked like I had instantly shed 30 pounds, though.

He looked good in dark wash jeans and a snug T-shirt that showed off his amazing physique. All rational thoughts went out the window when he was close enough for me to pick up the faint scent of his aftershave; my body was responding to him, despite my best efforts.

“I was just coming here to pick up lunch. There aren’t exactly any decent options on base,” he told me with a warm smile. He stood a little too close to me, and I flinched away. I hated when I reacted like that.

I grinned a little to try and hide my discomfort. When uncomfortable, I usually tried to rely on my off-beat sense of humor.

“You don’t want to try your luck at the galley?” I teased him. The galley was the cafeteria in the hospital. Sometimes they had decent options, like Taco Tuesday, but other times it was a roll of the dice.

He smirked. “Last time I braved the galley, I questioned them about if my chicken was supposed to be pink on the inside. They told me yes, it was just cooked medium rare.”

I snorted and then quickly covered my mouth in embarrassment. He didn’t seem to notice the awkward moment and continued.

“I was going to just pick up a few options for you since I don’t know what you like, but I’m glad you are here so I don’t have to agonize over the decision.”

I gave him a confused look.

He pouted jokingly, “Oh, don’t tell me you forgot about our lunch date. You would have broken my heart if you stood me up.”

My eyebrows raised in surprise, but the hostess saved me from answering. “Table for two?”

Cody looked at me. “Patio OK?” he asked.

I blinked in surprise, and the hostess took that as assent. No doubt she wanted to get everyone moving; the waiting area was filling up fast with the early lunch crowd. She grabbed some menus and started out towards the patio. Cody gestured for me to go ahead of him. I really did not want to waste time on social interactions right now, but I did feel like a jerk for completely forgetting about him. To be fair, though, I never actually agreed to a date.

Cody and I were the only ones on the patio. It was a cool day for Virginians. Not a lot of people wanted to hang out here after the temp went below 70, and today it was a crisp 63 with a breeze. I enjoyed the cooler weather and looked forward to fall every year.

 I slid into a chair at the table that the hostess indicated. She waited for Cody to take a seat before leaning forward to put a menu in front of him, giving him a great view of her cleavage.

To my surprise, he did not seem to notice and had kept his eyes on me. She tossed a menu across the table at me before huffing and turning on her heel. I fought the urge to roll my eyes as she shot me a dirty look over her shoulder before she opened the door to go back inside.

If any of this had happened a week ago, I would be ecstatic. I had a hot guy practically stalking me, and he was currently looking at me with an interested look on his face. But right now, I just wanted to get this over with so I could get on with my planning.

Neither of us had opened the menu yet, so I decided to break the ice and move things along. “So, do you know what you want?”

“This place has amazing burgers!” he told me enthusiastically. This guy must really like food. That made sense, considering he might eat a lot to maintain his muscle mass.

I smiled at his enthusiasm. He looked a little embarrassed at my amusement and rubbed his chin. “Or you know, they have girl stuff like salad or chicken, too.”

I rolled my eyes at the assumption. “Nah, I want the barbecue bacon cheeseburger. Have you tried that one? It’s a true culinary masterpiece.”

He looked surprised but pleased. “Oh, yeah. That’s what I’m getting.”

We grinned at each other, and I relaxed a little as the waitress came over to introduce herself. She positioned herself so that her body was angled towards him and away from me. As she spoke, I could see that she had flirt mode turned on high. When she got to the part of her spiel where she asked if we wanted to start with drinks Cody, smiled at me.

“I think we are ready to order. What would you like?”

As I placed my order, she scribbled impatiently on her notepad. No doubt she was eager to get back to flashing her bedroom eyes at Cody. He placed his order as well, then thanked her and leaned forward toward me and placed his elbows on the table. She looked irritated, as it was clear he was politely dismissing her, but she flashed one more smile at him before heading inside to put our orders in.

“We are finally alone,” he said in a joking manner.

I glanced down at the table as my brain scrambled for something to say. “Yeah,” is all I managed to come up with. I was completely out of my depth here, because flirting and dating were not things that I did on a regular basis.

A rational thought from deep down in my brain tried to surface thought the web of confusion that clouded my brain. I had wanted to ask him something yesterday. Ah, yes. The ‘reading reports about me’ comment he had made. I looked at him as I tried to think of a way to bring it up. Why did he have to be so good looking? It was difficult to focus when he was looking at me with those gorgeous eyes.

He drummed his fingers on the table and tilted his head to one side. “You know, I haven’t ever seen a female wolf out in public before without at least one of her pack-mates with her. Where is your pack?”

I froze, ice running through my veins. All thought instantly left my brain. How could he know what I was? Was he one of the wolves who had chased after me? Was he one of the men who broke into Evelyn’s house? Could he be one of the murderers?

He saw the wide-eyed panic on my face and raised his hands defensively.

“I didn’t mean that in a threatening way. I was just curious,” he said gently.

I could try to run from him and hope he wouldn’t chase me in public, but I thought about my determination to find Evelyn’s killers and raised my chin. I could run, or I could hold my ground and try to get some justice for Evelyn. I hid my shaking hands under the table and replied with a bit of challenge in my voice, “Where’s your pack?”

“Touché,” he grinned, then hesitated for a moment before continuing. “I’m part of the Seaside Pack.”

I frowned. “I thought there weren’t any packs in the area?”

“There weren’t, at least not until about 6 years ago.” He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair. “Which means you had to have been out of the loop for at least that time. We were huge news when Austin claimed some territory out here and started gathering wolves to him.”

I groaned to myself. If only he knew; I had been ‘out of the loop’ for a lot longer than six years. I had never been in the loop to begin with. But this was my chance to get some information out of him.

Cody seemed relatively unthreatening, and even though Evelyn was constantly telling me how dangerous other wolves were, I did have a craving deep down to be near my own kind. There was so much I didn’t know about myself and the world I was excluded from. I tried to justify staying here at the table instead of running.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to talk to him for a bit and see what information I could get. It was unlikely that he would harm me in such a public place, and he had done nothing so far to indicate he intended to try.

The waitress picked that moment to come out with our drinks and try to flirt with Cody some more. He once again politely assured her that we had everything we needed, but I was kind of grateful for the interruption, because it gave me time to compose my thoughts and figure out the best way to question him without giving up too much info about myself.

He finally succeeded into getting her to return inside. “She is certainly persistent.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s one word for it.”

He chuckled, and I switched our water glasses.

“Just in case,” I assured him as he laughed.

I plunged right in. “So how much of this area is your pack’s territory?”

“Most of us live in Seaside, but our pack goes all the way out to Emporia, up to Richmond, and down to the North Carolina border.”

I paled. Emporia was almost an hour west of here, so my home and my job were right in the middle of their pack lands.

I couldn’t just come right out and ask if his pack had murdered any older ladies recently, so I decided to start with an easier question. “So, uh, how friendly is your pack to random wolves that you might find on your land?” I ran my hands up and down my thighs nervously as I waited for his answer.

He considered his answer for a moment. “Depends on the wolf.”

“Could you perhaps give some example scenarios?” I asked hopefully.

He laughed. “I guess. So, in our hypothetical scenario, is our mystery wolf hiding from another pack?”

“No.”

He gazed into my eyes steadily. “Has she ever harmed another person, human or not?”

I held his gaze. “No.”

“Would she be willing to meet with the pack-master?”

I dropped my gaze at that question. Evelyn had taught me that there is nothing I should fear more than meeting a pack-master. I took a deep breath.

“Why would he want to meet me?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re on his land. Of course he would want to meet with you to see if you are a danger to his pack.”

I looked at him incredulously. He wanted to know if I would be a danger to his pack? I couldn’t help it and started to laugh. Cody also saw the humor in that statement but quickly regained his serious look. 

“Looks can be deceiving sometimes. You could be a spy for another pack looking to move into our territory. There has been some evidence lately of other wolves here on our territory...”

I sat up abruptly in my chair. Could he be talking about Evelyn’s murder? Was it possible that his pack had nothing to do with it? Maybe they could help me get to Evelyn’s old pack.

They might be motivated to help me if they were angry enough about another pack killing on their lands. I was probably going to have to meet with their pack-master if I wanted to or not. I would rather go on my own power than be dragged there.

I returned his serious look. “Can you honestly promise me that no harm will come to me if I agree to meet with him?”

“I promise.” He smiled. “Austin is a good man, and we don’t mean you any harm unless you intend us harm.”

“All right,” I agreed. I wondered what I had just gotten myself into, but I was determined to turn what could be a hopeless situation to my advantage.

A man came out on the patio carrying a tray with our food. Our waitress must have given up on Cody, because she was nowhere in sight.  My mouth watered, and I was eager to sink my teeth into the first real meal that I had in days. I might as well enjoy it, as this could end up being my last meal if things didn’t go well with meeting the pack-master.

Cody and I devoured our meals in a contemplative silence. My mind was on how I was going to manage this situation so that instead of being murdered by a pack of wolves, I convinced them to help me hunt down some murderers. I don’t know what was on Cody’s mind, but he seemed deep in thought.

Our waitress sauntered outside towards our table; I guess we hadn’t seen the last of her yet. She asked Cody if he liked his meal and if he needed anything else. He declined, and she turned back in disappointment. She flicked a glance in my direction, and I took the opening to ask for separate checks out of habit. After a couple meals with Kelsey and her friends, I had quickly realized that if I didn’t ask for a separate check, I got stuck with the entire check.

She shrugged and headed back inside.

“You’re not really like other girls, are you?” Cody asked softly, almost to himself.

It was my turn to shrug, and I played with the last lonely fry on my plate, trying to scrape up enough ketchup onto it to be able to eat it without pouring more from the bottle. 

Cody’s phone vibrated, and he pulled it out. “Austin wants to know if you can come to the house tonight after work?”

So, their pack-master already knew that I was here with Cody. Good thing I agreed to the meeting; I wonder what he would have done if I had said no. I wasn’t sure if I should lie and pretend I needed to go back to work to buy myself some more time, or just try to get this over with as soon as possible.

I opted for as soon as possible, because having to sit and wait for a couple of hours in a state of pure anxiety seemed like torture to me.

“I’m actually done work for the day.”

“Huh, I guess I should have guessed that, because you don’t really look dressed for work.”

I just sighed. “Do I need to wear fancy clothes or anything to meet your pack-master?”

He grinned. “Fancy clothes?”

“You know, something other than jeans and a T-shirt? I kinda want to make a good first impression.”

He just smiled. “Believe me, what you are wearing now will impress him just fine.”

I frowned at him, not sure what he meant by that.

Our waitress came out with both of our checks. Her phone number was written on his, of course. I didn’t bother to hide my eye roll this time, but she didn’t even notice. I pulled some cash out of my bag, because I didn’t want to wait for her to run my card and come back again. I had enough interaction with her already.

Cody must have followed my train of thought, because he also drew some cash out of his wallet and placed it on his check. We stood up at the same time as the waitress continued to chatter at him. Now that he was standing, she had to tilt her head up at him, as he was a good foot taller than her.

He looked at me in exasperation, but I just grinned and headed for the door.

“Excuse me, I think my date just left,” I heard him say to her as I opened the door and started to walk through. He had called this a date earlier as well, but I was sure that he was just using that as a pretense now.

He clearly had recognized me as a wolf during our first meeting and had been sent to bring me to the pack-master. I had to have been deluded to think a guy like that would ever have an interest in asking me on a real date.

He caught up to me, and we walked through the restaurant towards the front door.

“Do you collect stalkers everywhere you go?” I teased him, once again resorting to bad humor in my anxious state.

He opened the door to the outside and gestured for me to go first. “It’s never the girls that I want to have stalking me,” he answered, and I laughed.

“She seemed pretty, though,” I told him shyly. I wasn’t sure about how he felt about having to ignore the advances of a pretty girl in order to take me to my sentencing.

“Yeah, pretty annoying,” he reassured me.

We shared another grin, and he gestured to a black truck. “This is me.”

“Okay, I can follow you there.” I started to turn to where I was parked.

He looked embarrassed. “I actually need to bring you there.”

I looked at him suspiciously, thinking of all the nefarious reasons behind that decision.

“I promise, I will take you home right after,” he assured me. “No funny business.” He had turned on his most charming smile, and I tried my best to remain immune to it.

“What about my car?”

He looked over to where I had gestured to my car. “I can follow you home, then we can go to the house.”

I thought about pointing out that the logistics didn’t make sense. My house was in the opposite direction from Seaside. But I decided to let it go; it had been a while since I went home, and I really should attempt to fix my hair and put on a little bit of makeup before meeting the pack-master.

“All right, so you can follow me.”  I headed toward my car, not waiting for verbal agreement.