Embracing the Wolf (Ritter Werewolves #2)(14)
Author: Catherine Bybee

Someone was watching her.

Parents passed her by, moving around her as if she were a big rock in a small stream.

Her spine stiffened.

“Come on, mom.” Joey tugged her arm.

“Wait a minute.” I’m being paranoid.

“I’m going to be late.”

Kate started forward again. When her phone rang in her purse, she jumped. She retrieved her phone and glanced at the digital display. She didn’t recognize the number.

She pressed talk and slowly brought the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

Static and wind brushed against her ear with the hum of the line.

Nothing.

“Hello?” she asked again, trying to keep her panic at bay.

The school bell buzzed, the sound echoed in her phone as if in stereo. Whoever the caller was, they were somewhere on campus.

Panic gripped her throat, threatening to choke it off. She closed the phone and threw it in her purse.

“Come on.” She pulled Joey away from the school, back toward her car.

“What are we doing?” Joey’s little legs ran to keep up with her, his eyes suddenly large and flooded with fear and confusion.

“We need to go.”

“What about school?”

The kids ran in the opposite direction, all of them scrambling to make it inside before the doors shut.

Kate ran to her car with Joey’s hand secured in hers.

“What’s the matter, Mommy?”

****

Traffic backed up at the intersection before Joey’s school some thirty cars long. Richard punched in Kate’s number. Her voice mail picked up again. Richard hit the steering wheel in frustration.

“We’re almost there,” Max said from the passenger seat.

They left early that morning attempting to trace the scent of the wolf that prowled the night before. It never occurred to him Kate would take Joey to school. Then again, she had no idea the danger that lurked.

Max lowered the window. The warmth of summer already gripped the southland.

Richard turned his face toward the heat. “Holy shit, what is that?”

“You smell it too?” Max asked.

“Yes, I smell it.” Although he had no idea what

‘it’ was. The combination of stagnant waters and sweat deluged his senses.

“That was fast.”

“What is it?”

“Fear.”

Richard cursed the slow moving cars. “How the hell do you smell fear?”

“You’re going to smell everything from here on out.”

“I always thought smelling fear was a myth.”

“It’s not.”

Richard leaned out the window trying to catch a glimpse of Kate and Joey. “Dammit. Where is she?”

“Use your nose, Richard. It is probably her fear you smell, otherwise, it wouldn’t have hit you so fast.”

He wanted to question his brother further on the subject, but traffic let up, giving them the room to maneuver the car and speed toward the school.

Air left his lungs in a rush when he noticed Kate standing by her car fumbling in her purse. The way her head kept popping up and her eyes searched the road, he knew she was startled.

After darting around the two last cars in front of him, Richard came alongside her, slammed on his brakes, and jumped out of the car.

She swung her purse in his direction, taken back by his approach. Her weapon of choice hit him square in the jaw.

“Mom!” Joey cried by her side.

“Oh, no.” Relief flooded her face when she saw him. “I’m sorry.”

Her hand trembled so fiercely she could hardly hold the purse.

“What are you doing here?” His relief at finding her safe quickly changed to anger.

“Taking Joey to school.”

“It looks like you’re trying to leave.” Kate glanced behind her then back at him. “I think someone is watching us.”

The smell of fear started to subside, replaced by something else. He heard a branch snap in the vacant lot across from the school. His eyes darted to Max who had heard it, too.

“What?” Kate asked, sensing his alarm.

Max stepped out of the car with a pair of binoculars in his hand.

“Do we go after him?” Richard asked.

Max shook his head. “He’s already gone.”

“Who’s already gone? Richard…” she touched his arm. “What’s going on?”

Her alarm started to peak again. The smell returned.

“Get in the car.”

“What about school?” Joey asked.

Richard casually ruffled the boy’s hair. “What do you say you take a few days off?”

“Can I go swimming again?”

“Of course.”

Kate’s hand squeezed his arm. Her eyes questioned.

Leaning in close to her ear he said, “I’ll explain more in private.”

He went around her car and opened the door.

She handed him her keys.

“Meet you back at the house,” he called back to his brother.

Chapter Six

“Here.” Richard thrust the newspaper into her hands once Joey took to the backyard pool with Max and Janet.

“What is this?”

“Just read it.”

They sat in Max’s study where bookshelves lined one entire wall from floor to ceiling. A rolling ladder slid along its length to reach the books at the top.

Kate sat on the leather couch and opened the LA Times. “What am I searching for?”

“Page three, half way down.”

The article was hard to miss. In bold print, the title screamed, “The Wolf Strikes Again . ” Kate glanced at Richard then continued to read: A series of armed

robberies with follow up

abductions are on the rise.

The police have linked yet

another missing person with

an armed robbery. Officer

Devon Moore stated in a

recent interview that several

armed robberies involving a

hooded suspect brandishing a

weapon is holding up

unsuspecting restaurants and

convenience stores in the

middle of the night.

Eyewitnesses state, the

suspect is accompanied by a

wolf.

Last month’s “Wolf at

Wallys” headline reported the

stock staff of the store were

held up and locked in a back

office is the most recent

connection with a missing

person report.

Diane Michaels, mother

of two, didn’t come home from

work Friday morning. The

family and police suspect foul

play.

Another such crime was