Kiss of the Silver Wolf (8 page)

"Our child."

Charlene looked up.

Rebekkah stood in the kitchen doorway, a haunted look on her pale face. Her voice shook. “My daughter. My beautiful daughter. How she suffered from her guilt and shame. And none of it—
none of it
was her fault."

"Grandmother?"

"Yes, dear. I'm your grandmother. And that old fool
is
your grandfather."

Charlene shook her head. “Why didn't you just tell me at the funeral?"

Rebekkah gave her a sad look. “Would you have believed us?"

She had no answer.

"You had no history, no knowledge of your family.” Rebekkah shook her head. “Your mother didn't trust us to tell her the truth. Why would
you
? We had to
show
you the truth of who we are and how we live our lives. Does that make sense to you?"

"Yes—but—Joey—the boys—I don't understand what happened to them last night. And where did that pack of black dogs come from?"

Jethro's eyes widened. He shook his head, his voice gruff. “That's enough for today. Go. Take care of Joey. Go to work. But know that we love you, are here for you. Blood will tell, Charlene. We are your blood and you
belong
here with us in Eden. We will care for you and protect you. Don't forget that.
Ever
."

The mothers on the route called soft greetings and gave Charlene sideways glances. The boys seemed more subdued, less exuberant than most mornings. It was as if a gray veil had fallen across the normally sunny skies of Eden. Charlene wondered if it was because she knew their secret or if it was because they knew that she knew.
But how could they?

She parked the bus in the side lot at the Regional School and made her way into the library. Shoshannah glanced up at her from the reference desk, did a double take and took Charlene by the arm into her private office.

"Honey, you look terrible. What's going on?"

"Oh, that good, huh? No wonder the mothers have been giving me strange looks."

"I have never seen you looking so poorly. You always have a smile on your pretty face and your eyes light up when you say hello. You look like you lost your best friend.” She gasped. “Tell me you didn't break up with Zack."

Startled at the idea, Charlene shook her head. “This is about my grandparents—and Oblis."

Shoshannah's lips curled and she snarled, “Don't ever say that name again!” Tears glimmered in her bright blue-green eyes. Her voice fell to a whisper. “I'm sorry. Please don't speak that monster's name."

Painful understanding hit Charlene like a body blow. “Oh, Shoshannah."

"I was just a young girl. After—after he was done—he left me for dead out in a field, my throat slashed.” She pointed to a scar on her neck, and her metal bracelets jangled. “Your grandfather found me—saved my life."

"I'm so sorry. I didn't—"

"How could you? We tried to forget that terrible chapter in our community's life, but—” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and sighed. “The monster took away our innocence, but we survived. He didn't, thanks to
your
grandfather."

Charlene spoke almost in a whisper. “My grandfather is a
hero
."

"Yes. Yes he is."

"And the children—no one cast them out?"

"The children can be, shall we say,
aggressive
at times, but there are no orphans among our people. Don't you ever forget that, Charlene. No orphans."

Still trying to process everything, Charlene closed her eyes and thought about her mother and father, her brother, all alone in Baltimore, disconnected from this loving clan of relatives. Her grandparents were good, not evil.
What could have made Joanna so afraid of her own family?

Shoshannah's now chipper voice broke into Charlene's thoughts. “So, what brings you to my lair?"

"The Internet. I need to do some research. Is that okay?"

A bell rang and children's voices clamored in the distance. “Oh, look at the time. I'm supposed to be on first lunch duty today.” Shoshannah motioned for Charlene to sit at the desk. “Use my computer. There's paper in the printer. Help yourself to whatever you need."

She had the office, the computer and her scientific research skills. She also had a sinking feeling she was on the verge of discovering her mother's secrets and her own worst fears.

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Chapter Nine

Secrets within Secrets

Despite recalling her father's near daily explanations of his research, Charlene decided to do some digging beyond her memories of his work. Gorlin-Chaudry-Moss Syndrome was similar to, but in no way explanatory for the events of the previous evening. An extremely rare genetic disorder, children with this condition were often deaf, hirsute and developmentally delayed. In addition, bone plates closed prematurely, causing shortened or uneven limbs, hence the gait problems she'd seen in the boys. The disorder was possibly an “autosomally recessive trait.” She twisted a strand of hair. That meant the mothers would have to be carriers, too. But
only
the offspring of Oblis exhibited these characteristics. And not one scientific article offered
any
explanation for the changes she observed in her brother overnight.

On a whim, she clicked on the website for the Johns Hopkins Genetics Lab. And found
nothing
related to her father and his research.

Her stomach fell in a long swooping glide and her heart thudded in her throat. Where was his name? His list of publications? All the grants he'd garnered? What the hell was going on?

She decided to call Dr. Hoffman. After all, he told her, “
If there's anything I can do for you, call me."
What he could do for her was tell her why her father had been erased from their institutional memory as easily as she'd erased the cookies and web addresses from the Internet browser on Shoshannah's computer.

When she finally reached the lab by phone, an underling said the esteemed director might be around, but “deeply regretted” that he “truly needed” to know who was calling. When she identified herself, a quick intake of breath told her that her father's name wasn't
completely
forgotten. Hoffman came on the line shortly after the gasp.

"Charlene, my dear, how
are
you?"

"How long did it take for you to wipe out every trace of my father's work at your lab? A day? Two?"

"Oh, come now, my dear girl. It's not like that.” His voice fell to a whisper. “Let me close my door.” She heard a door slam and he returned to the line. “Your father was chasing after a non-existent disorder. That's why the NIH wouldn't renew his grant. Good God, Charlene, we've only just begun to understand the
magnitude
of his delusions."

"Delusions? My father wasn't mentally ill."

"He was obsessed, obsessed with a cure for your brother, so much so that he went off in bizarre tangents, into
cryptozoology
for God's sake! Do you know how that looks to funding sources? We were the laughing stock of the NIH Rare Gene Disease Program. If he hadn't died in the car crash, we would have been forced to fire him. And he
knew
it."

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly in a futile attempt to stop the alarm bells in her head, the ones that were taking her back to the medical examiner and the trip to the morgue to identify her parents. “Did you say cryptozoology?"

His voice now fell into a low whisper. “Yes. He was looking into cases of lycanthropy and harassing the psychiatrists for the medical records of the few lunatics they saw here who claimed they were werewolves.” He paused. “People were
talking
. My funding agencies were beginning to ask some very
difficult
questions. A fraud investigation would have destroyed the lab and many, many fine researchers’ lives. You
do
understand, don't you?"

A chill fell on the once cozy librarian's office.

"No. I
don't
understand, Dr. Hoffman. Please. I would like a detailed explanation. Tell me
exactly
what you mean."

"I couldn't cover up for him any longer, my dear. He
refused
to go to the Employee Assistance Program, see someone to stop this bizarre behavior. I had no choice. I
had
to tell your mother what he'd been up to, ask her to get him professional help.” He sighed. “Naturally, she was upset. Defended him. Said I was out to get him. Jealous of his brilliance. When I explained the exact nature of his—his
werewolf
investigations—she was shocked into silence. Thanked me for my concern. Said she'd speak with him.” His voice broke. “Next thing I knew, they were both dead. A week after the funeral, a Special Agent from the Department of Homeland Security showed up with a warrant and demanded we turn over all his records."

Charlene flashed on the bus accident and the dark-haired woman. “What was the agent's name?"

"Solomon. Like the king."

"Why did Homeland Security want my father's notes?"

"I have no idea what use his crackpot research could have been to them. I was happy to give her everything we could find and to take all mention of his work off our website.” He stopped speaking.

"Dr. Hoffman?"

"Oh, my dear, I've said too much. I'm sorry. I really must go.” He hung up and the dial tone buzzed in her ear like a million angry flies.

She placed the receiver into the cradle and stared at it for a very long time, not really seeing the phone, the desk or the office.

One part of her was convinced Hoffman's concern was all self-serving, his unctuous sympathy a ruse to cover his overweening ego and agenda to promote the genetics lab. The other part felt a twinge of guilt for even thinking that about the man. He'd been her father's boss for years. Dad never complained about him. Not once. If they'd been at odds, she would have overhead something, right? Then again, she hadn't been living at home for the past two years.

Exactly
when
did her father's obsession drive him away from scientific explanations and into supernatural ones? How long had it been going on? Her mother would have
never
encouraged him to search for a cure for a disease that her brother
did not have.
That would have been a waste of time, money—and career suicide.

What possessed her father to think this tangent was a
viable
research path? Her mother was a nurse, not prone to flights of fancy. In fact, she'd discouraged Charlene from her occasional forays as a child into any supernatural reading, calling it “irrational, superstitious garbage.” Knowing her mother's animosity toward all things outside the scientific realm, how
would
her mother have dealt with her father's bizarre quest? Had Hoffman's call to her mother provoked a fight between her parents—and the subsequent car crash?

And what was Homeland Security looking for, first in her father's notes, now in Eden? What the hell was going on? She pulled the woman's card out of her pocket and stared at the phone number.
Should she call Special Agent Solomon? Would the woman tell her the truth?
She put the card away. Not now. Not until she had more information.

Jethro—Grandfather—said Joanna had contacted Jessie when she was pregnant with Charlene.
Was she
really
trying to reconnect with her sister? Or was it an attempt to discover if she carried that elusive recessive gene? Eden wasn't the only place with secrets—but it seemed like a good bet that these other secrets started here.
Secrets within secrets within secrets.
Joanna stayed in touch with Jessie. And Jessie was friends with—

She leaped to her feet. The
only
person she hadn't pressed for more information was the one she'd been
sleeping
with. If she hadn't been blinded by lust, she would have been on her game—poking at him with her scientific reasoning, asking hard questions. Instead, when she asked about his past, he dazzled her with his smile, neatly side-stepping any real replies. He
had
to know more than he had told her. One way or another, she was going to get some genuine responses out of Zack.

She found the charmer rocking on her front porch when she arrived home with Joey. He held a large bouquet of red roses and a bottle of wine. When they locked gazes, his eyes filled with concern. Zack joined her at the bottom of the ramp and placed his hands on her arm.

"Let me help you."

She shook his hand away. “I'm fine, thank you. I can take care of my brother."

Joey's face lit up when he saw the man and he signed, “Zack, Zack, Hi, Zack, Zack. Hi, hi, hi."

Charlene wanted to cry and laugh at the same time.
Was Joey keeping secrets, too?

She fed Joey, then Zack assisted her in bathing him without saying a word. As soon as Joey's head touched the pillow, he began to snore. She wished she could sleep like that. Unworried and innocent. Safe.

She pulled Joey's door closed and walked toward the kitchen, Zack trailing behind her.

He reached out, grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him. “You have a hell of a bruise. Let me put something on it for you.” He touched her forehead and pulled back at her wince. “I know you had a bad night—and a rough day."

"Really? Now how would you know that? The grapevine buzzing its way to you? Jethro maybe? What about Shoshannah? Did she give you a shout and tell you all about my visit with her?” She glared at him. “You're the only one around here without a J name. Does that mean something? That is, you and Oblis."

The color drained out of his face. “I am
nothing
like that viper."

"You
seem
to be a nice man. You are
great
in bed, I'll grant you that. But, I have to wonder why the bum's rush? How could you
really
be in love with me? You
barely
know me. Or was fabulous sex just a way to keep me from asking hard questions about my aunt and my mother? Hell, for all I know you're working for Homeland Security."