Moon Dance (5 page)

Death happened. Killing
happened.

Still, Cole hadn’t killed
anyone in years.

There wasn’t any point in
avoiding killing people. But, near as he could figure, there wasn’t
any point in doing it either.

The way Cole saw it, life
happened, and he didn’t see any point in trying to alter its
course.

Except for the fact that
he’d called Dana and tried to save her.

See, it was her. She confused
everything.

He could conduct his
existence in perfect consistency with his worldview except when it
came to her. She threw him off balance. She shook his
foundation.

Anyway, these days, he
steered clear of Enoch and the others for the most part. He steered
clear of everyone. He lived out in the woods on top of a mountain,
miles from civilization. He had a shack that he’d built himself. It
was just a room with a bed, a sink, and a wood stove. He didn’t
bother to bathe or even to dress most days. Sometimes he cooked
food the human way, but he spent more than half of his time in wolf
form.

He prowled the forest, killing his prey
and eating it raw, prancing in the darkness, howling at the moon,
resting in the brightness of the day.

He liked being the wolf better. It was
simpler.

When he was human for too
long, he’d spend time thinking about Dana. He’d think about how
she’d almost made him believe he could be human and normal. But
that wasn’t to be. Cole was a beast. He was a predator. He belonged
in the wolf skin, and when he was human for extended periods of
time, it itched.

He had a few things to tie
him to civilization. One was a cell phone. Service out here was
spotty, and he barely remembered to keep it charged. He had
electricity by way of generator when he cared to use it, which
wasn’t often. Another was a car. He did most of his traveling in
wolf form, sometimes carrying clothes on a pack on his back so that
he could get dressed when he got to his location. But occasionally,
he needed transportation, and the beat-up Subaru was good for
that.

From time to time, he’d go
out and find a job. Something transient to make a little money. He
didn’t need much, but it was impossible to cut himself entirely off
from the world.

There was still a spark of
something human in him. No matter how long he spent as a wolf,
something drew him back.

Still, he preferred his
solitary existence, and he didn’t have any desire to have it
disturbed. In fact, he didn’t think that any other person had ever
been out to his shack.

Until today.

He heard the car plowing its
way up the mountain road when it was nearly a mile away. Even in
human form, his hearing was sharp. It wasn’t even really a road,
not exactly. It was two tire ruts running between the trees. Grass
grew in between them, and in the winter, it was impossible to get
in or out using the road.

It was a tribute to his
confirmed wildness that he was more curious than alarmed. He’d been
alone too long, had forgotten that there were things out in the
world that wanted to hurt him. So, it wasn’t until the men were
getting out of the car with their tranq guns that he realized who
they were.

SF trackers.

The phone call.

A long time ago, he
remembered that he used a different disposable phone every time he
called Dana. But this time, he hadn’t even thought about
that.

Was it because he’d trusted
her?

He should have known better.
She wasn’t to be trusted.

He lunged, shifting in
midair. He thought he’d try to run from them.

But they shot him before he even hit
the ground. Two tranq darts burrowed into his pelt.

As sleep claimed him, he
wondered if this would mean that he’d get to see her
again.

He wanted to see her.

CHAPTER THREE

That afternoon, Dana had to give up on
cleaning, because Piper went into one of her clinging spells. The
little girl did that sometimes.

Most of the time Piper was a
big ball of energy, running around and gleefully destroying things.
She liked to get into drawers, pull out all of the clothes, and
scatter them over the floor. She liked to yank books off of
bookshelves and use DVDs as blocks. She especially liked throwing
things. Hurling anything she could across the room was basically
her favorite pastime.

But occasionally—and
generally whenever Dana was trying to do something—Piper would
suddenly decide that what she wanted was to be close to Dana. She
would cling to Dana’s legs and whine to be picked up. Sometimes,
Dana fought her, but today, she’d been feeling so guilty for having
that brief moment in which she wished Piper was never born that she
immediately whisked her daughter into her arms.

She cuddled on the couch
with the little girl. Piper wrapped chubby arms tight around her
and laid her head on Dana’s chest. And the two of them just curled
around each other there until they’d both fallen asleep.

Dana didn’t woken up until
later, when Avery had come home.

He climbed onto the couch with the two
of them and put his arms around them both.

That was perfect, as far as
Dana was concerned. She liked it, and the wolf liked it. This was
her pack, and she loved being close to them, all of their bodies
smashed into each other. She liked the warmth. She liked the
togetherness.

Avery was home early because
he’d been at the office since before the sun came up. He didn’t
make any comments about the messy house. Instead, he held them
close, and it was peace and bliss.

Until Piper woke up and
started crawling over both of them. “I hungry, Mommy. I hungry,”
she said.

Of course she was. Piper was
always hungry, but whenever food was set in front of her, she threw
more of it than she ate.

“
Maybe we should order
something,” said Avery.

“
Really?” Dana was
surprised.

“
Well, yeah, with everything
we’ve been going through today, it seems like the last thing you
should be trying to do is make dinner.” He brushed his knuckles
over her cheek.

Dana thought she might burst
with gratitude. “That sounds wonderful.”

He grinned at her.

“
I’ll drive out and pick it
up,” she said.

“
You don’t have to.” He got
up off the couch. “I can do it.”

Dana got up too. “You’ve
been working all day, babe. I can run to the pizza place. Besides,
I think I’d enjoy getting out of the house.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why
do you want to leave so bad?”

She drew back. “I was just
trying to—”

“
You meeting him
somewhere?”

“
Who?”

“
You know who.” Avery’s
voice had dropped to a growl.

“
Cole, you mean?” She put
her hands on her hips. “Well, how would I have managed that, Avery?
You took my phone, so it’s not like I talked to him. And what do
you think I did? Somehow predicted that you’d suggest we order out
so that I could run off and have a secret tryst with him? Get
real.”

“
You seemed really happy
when I suggested that we order out is all.”

“
Because I’m sick of cooking
all your meals like a slave.” And now she was yelling.

“
Jesus, Dana.” Avery
dragged a hand over his face. “You’re not a slave. You don’t have a
job. Cooking meals
is
your job.”

She turned away from him.

Piper wrapped her arms
around Dana’s leg. “Who Cole, Mommy?”

Avery’s jaw tightened. “Now,
look what you did.”

“
Me?” she said. “I’m not the
one who’s acting ridiculous and jealous.”

He held up both his hands in
surrender. “You know what? You go to the pizza place. But, you
know, for once, I’d like to come home and not have everything turn
into a war between us.”

She decided to let that
alone. Things were not a war between them, not always. Maybe
between her and Piper they were, but Avery was exaggerating. As
usual.

She grabbed the car keys and left the
apartment.

The twenty minutes out of
the house were a sweet, sweet solace from everything else in her
life. She loved driving. Hell, she loved fighting traffic. She
loved sitting in the restaurant and waiting for the pizza to be
made. Because all of it happened on her own terms. She could set
the radio to whatever station she wanted. She could make whatever
decisions she wanted. She was blissfully alone, no one chattering
at her or screaming or scolding.

When she got the pizza and got back in
her car to drive home, she shut the car door and abruptly burst
into tears.

“
I hate my life,” she
whispered.

It was some kind of sick
joke, that’s what it was. She’d spent her whole life hearing about
happily-ever-afters. All the movies ended with the couple walking
down the aisle, gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes. The
message was clear. Once you were married, once you found the right
man and had a family with him, that was supposed to be it. Well,
here it was. Dana had reached the ultimate goal of every woman in
the movies. She was married to a good-looking man who supported
her. She had a beautiful daughter. She didn’t have to work, because
everything was provided for her. So, why
wasn’t
it a happy ending? Why wasn’t
she happy? What more was it going to take?

But there was no time to
fall apart, because if she took too long, she knew Avery would be
suspicious, and she didn’t want to deal with that.

Instead, she pulled herself together,
scrubbed away her tears with her palms, and headed back
home.

When she let herself back into the
house, Avery was on the phone.

“…
no, there’s no reason to
bring her in to talk to him…. There’s no reason for her to go near
him ever again…. It would be traumatic for her. It might bring up
old memories. You realize the man tried to kill her, don’t you?…
Well, whatever you heard about what happened in Brockway is just
rumors. She doesn’t want to see him, trust me.”

Dana put the pizza down on the
breakfast bar. Who was Avery talking to? And who was he talking
about?

Avery hung up the phone.
“Hey, you’re back already. That was fast.”

She folded her arms over my
chest. “What’s going on, Avery?”

“
We brought in Randall. I
got Jeff in IT to trace the call to your phone. We found his cell,
and the signal led us right to him. They’ve already got him in one
of the interrogation rooms. Apparently, he asked for you, but I’m
not putting you through that.”

She swallowed. Her whole body was
starting to shake. Cole was here? He was in one of the
interrogation rooms in headquarters?

She wanted to see him, she
realized. She wanted to see him
badly
.

Avery opened up the pizza
box and took out a slice. He kissed her quickly on the cheek. “I’ll
be back, babe.”

She couldn’t say anything.
She watched him walk out of the apartment, and she
shook
.

* * *

Avery
’s heart was beating in his chest, pounding out a crazy
rhythm. He hadn’t realized that the prospect of seeing Cole again
would make him so nervous. But now that it was happening, he was
glad. He wanted this man to be locked up forever. Safe from Dana,
so that he could never hurt her again.

And maybe he wanted him away
from Piper too. Just on the off chance that Cole might…

No, Cole wouldn’t. He wasn’t
the kind of man who’d care about things like that. About
children.

Avery was met outside the
interrogation room by Ursula King, head of the tracker division.
She used to be his boss. She was a no-nonsense African American
woman who wore her hair in long, tiny braids. She crossed her arms
over the lapels of her gray suit. “Brooks, he’s insisting on
talking to Gray.”

Avery shook his head. “She
doesn’t want to see him.”

Ursula gave him a hard look,
as if she didn’t believe him.

Avery looked away. Ursula
could think what she wanted. He’d do everything in his power to
protect Dana, to protect his family, to protect his pack. If he had
to lie, so be it. “Look, I was there for everything. I know
anything that Dana would know.”

Ursula sighed. She opened the door to
the interrogation room and let him inside.

The room was small and
unadorned. There was only a table in the middle of the room. Max
Jones, one of the trackers, sat on one side.

Cole was on the other side.

Avery hardly recognized him.
Every other time he’d seen Cole, the man’s appearance had almost
been proper. He usually sported short cropped hair and a pair of
glasses. He was a thin, wiry man. Avery had always found him nearly
effeminate, and that was part of the reason Cole disgusted him so
much.