Pack of lies, p.1
Pack of Lies, page 1
Also available from Charlie Adhara
and Carina Press
The Big Bad Wolf Series
The Wolf at the Door
The Wolf at Bay
Thrown to the Wolves
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Cry Wolf
Pack of Lies
Charlie Adhara
For my mom,
who taught me to love a mystery,
but not how to solve one.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Excerpt from The Wolf at the Door by Charlie Adhara
Prologue
The unexpected part of grief was just how boring it could be. The derivative nightmares. All those empty hours spent in bed waiting for the sun to rise. How much of life had become reliving—relentlessly running the same regrets over and over in your mind until meaning slipped away like worn-loose wheels.
It wasn’t that he’d expected to feel better by now. He’d just thought he might have found a different way to be sad.
Julien sat on the floor of a bedroom that hadn’t been his in over thirty years, plaster dust under his nails from prying the molding away, and a stack of papers in his lap. A hazy Los Angeles sunset bled through the curtains and spilled over the pages as he carefully flipped through them, illuminating his brother’s notes along the margins in golden light like messages from beyond the grave.
Downstairs the worried shuffling of his stepfather approached the bottom of the stairs, hesitated, then turned away again. Julien had purposefully waited to stop by when he knew his mother was out of the house. She wouldn’t have been afraid to come up here with him. Sometimes when they spoke on the phone, he’d hear the street sounds in the background and know she was sitting on Rocky’s bed, talking to him from her dead son’s room. Where are you? he’d ask.
Home, she’d say. Just home. Why?
There were little signs of her in here too, now. A scotch glass on the bedside table. A half-finished biography on the bed. But in all that time she’d spent in here, the little hidey-hole behind the dresser had gone unnoticed. Julien hadn’t expected to find anything there now. It had been years since either he or Rocky had been young enough to squirrel away smokes and booze in the wall.
But it hadn’t been empty at all.
Julien turned to the next page and paused. Outside, a car drove past the house, music rising and falling, its bass jarring and out of sync with his pounding pulse. Instead of formulas and coded messages, someone had drawn a crude map of a mountain with a river snaking down its slope. His brother’s cramped handwriting was scrawled across the middle, to the left of what seemed to be a waterfall.
Begin at the base of the wolf’s tail.
Follow the backbone to the muzzle.
Pluck its fangs.
This at least was different. The only questions now—where the hell was Maudit Falls and what was hidden there worth killing for?
Chapter One
It was exactly the sort of place you’d expect to see a monster. A lonely mountain road, a forest so old it creaked. Hell, it was even a dark and stormy night. Or dark and snowy, anyway. But the way the wind was hurling restless flurries against the windshield as the trees swayed vengefully overhead was enough to put even the most assured traveler on edge.
Julien Doran had never felt less sure of anything in his life, and he’d hit that edge at a running jump about two weeks and two thousand miles ago. Right around the time he’d turned his back on everything—the shambled remains of his family, career and common sense—at the suggestion of a dead man.
He might still get lucky. He might never make it to the elusive Maudit Falls and instead spend the rest of eternity driving up and down these mountain roads until, eventually, he’d become just another one of the dozens of urban legends the area seemed to collect like burs.
They could call him Old Doran. The Fallen Star. Forty-four years of carefully toeing the line distilled down to this one inarguably absurd decision, and told at bedtime to frighten children into obedience. Don’t you know better than to throw your life away on a lie, little one? Do you want to end up like Old Doran? A man who turned down the first role he’d been offered in four years to instead take a secret flight across the country. A man who thought he could open a wound so recently closed, it still wept at the edges. A man who went looking for a monster.
Listen, they’d say. If you listen really closely, you can still hear his voice echoing through the mountains, calling out, What am I doing here? What did I think I could change? Did I miss my turn?
Julien glanced at the GPS on his phone, but it was still caught in an endless limbo of loading, the service having cut out about fifteen minutes ago.
“The town proper is on the other side of the mountain,” the clerk at the last rest stop had told him. A woman with metallic-rose eyeshadow, a name tag that said Chloe and the unmoving smile of someone sick of delivering the same canned dialogue to every wide-eyed, monster-hunting tourist who passed through. “You’ll see plenty of signs for Blue Tail Lodge as long as you stay on the main road. But whatever you do, don’t get out of your car after dark. That’s when Sweet Pea is his most dangerous.”
Chloe had gestured with rote unenthusiasm to the huge display by the counter. A rack covered in souvenirs, and a six-foot-tall cardboard cutout of an ominous, pitch-black figure with glowing green eyes. It had hooves for feet, long, delicate claws instead of hands and the flat face of a primate, obscured by shadow. The figure was standing up on two legs but sort of stooped over, arms held awkwardly as if caught midway through dancing the monster mash.
“Mr. Pea, I presume,” Julien had said, reaching out to touch one long cardboard claw. Then he pretended to shake its hand and added in a deep, formal voice, “Mr. Pea’s my father. Please, call me Sweet.”
Chloe’s smile hadn’t flickered, which was very fair. Rocky would have known what to say. He would have known the right questions to ask, the right words to use, the best attitude to strike to get Chloe on his side, talking and spilling secrets that couldn’t be sold on a souvenir rack.
“Have you ever seen it?”
“Me? No.” Chloe shook her head. “But my sister’s ex was out hunting and swears it passed right through the campsite. Tore into his cooler and stole all his coyote traps.”
“Wow. That’s...” The way it always was. No, I’ve never seen anything. But my dentist’s kid’s teacher’s nephew woke up in the woods with less beer than he’d remembered packing and a missing ham sandwich. Alert the media—they walk among us. “That’s something.”
“Are you in Maudit for—”
“The skiing,” Julien cut her off quickly, and launched into his own canned dialogue, taking the opposite approach to Chloe, his voice a little too bright, smile too mobile, overselling his story. “I would never have thought of North Carolina for it, but a friend recommended the slopes here. He said it’s snow without having to freeze your, ah, nose off.”
“We get our fair share. And plenty more than that up the mountain,” she said, watching him closely, the beginnings of the same frustration in her eyes he’d seen in dozens of people trying to place the face behind the glasses, the fading stubble, the lines that grief and age had carved in unequal measure around his eyes like permanent tear tracks. “I’d pack an extra pair of thermals if you’re skiing Blue Tail this weekend, though. For your, ah, nose? There’s a cold front coming.” She tapped the box of single-use heat packs by the register pointedly and Julien dutifully placed a handful on the counter.
He attempted a casual nod at the looming cutout. “Why ‘Sweet Pea’? Not exactly the most intimidating name.”
“Well, he doesn’t need it, does he? Anyone around here knows you don’t want to be caught out at night with a monster like that, whatever you want to call it.” She plucked a deck of novelty playing cards off the display and placed them on the counter next to the heat packs. “Everything you need to know about Maudit Falls and its most infamous residents is in here. Only $21.99. You know, something to do when you’re not skiing.” That’s when her eyes had widened in genuine excitement. “Hey, aren’t you...”
Of course he’d bought them. How could he not? Sweet Pea wasn’t the monster he was hunting. But it was why Rocky had first come to Maudit Falls, and Julien was here because of him. Why else would he book a vacation in a town whose idea of a fun roadside souvenir was fifty-two spooky local legends? Why else had he done anything at all this last waking nightmare of a year?
Now, as he took a particularly sharp curve up the narrow mountain road, Julien wished he’d left the cards behind and bought a map instead. One a little easier to follow than what Rocky had left for him. This simply could not be the way into town. It wasn’t even plowed, for goodness’ sake. Just sort of tamped down, which gave the road a colorless, unfinished look. Like nature itself had been peeled back to expose a slippery layer of quilt batting. On the other hand, it wasn’t like
An animal leapt in front of the car. Julien had a split second to register the huge, dark shape darting out of the woods, the twin reflection of headlights bouncing off inhuman eyes, staring directly at him, before he jerked the wheel instinctively to the right at the same time a thud rang in his ears.
Weightless slipping. The feeling of suddenly being airborne without getting out of your seat. And then the car dropped down with tooth-cracking finality, directly into the snowy ditch.
For a long moment the world felt impossibly still and silent. Empty. He couldn’t hear himself breathing. He couldn’t hear himself think. Julien lay against the steering wheel, dazed, pain-free and peaceful for the first time in over a year. Then, like a lever giving way, his body sucked in an agonizing gasp of air. With it, the gears of his brain began to grind once more, and it all came flooding back.
“No, no, no,” Julien whispered. He disentangled himself from the locked-up seat belt and opened the door, barely thinking, and then had to catch it when the gravity of the tilted car sent it hurtling back into his shin. Julien climbed quickly out of the ditch and stumbled down the road, unusually clumsy. “Please no. Please, please, please.” His hands were shaking, a low, constant tremble, and his arms felt so light, so flimsy that he had the nonsensical urge to let them float above his head, like untying two trapped balloons.
Julien squeezed his fists tight at his sides. Enough. Do something. No one else will. He scanned the road, walking back to where he’d swerved, looking for the animal. Not wanting to see it—needing to find it.
But there was nothing there.
Julien found the gouged snow, dark with dirt where he’d first slammed on the brakes and skidded off the road, but that was the only sign of the violence he’d braced himself for. No body or blood. No fur or feathers. No sign that he’d hit anything at all. Except he had.
Hadn’t he? That awful soft thud. Not soft in volume but in texture, if sound could have such a thing. Body-soft. Maybe it hadn’t been hurt. He hadn’t been going fast. Not at all. Even slower than the limit, with all this snow. Maybe the animal had been able to roll over the car and just keep running?
Julien stalked from one side of the road to the other as if he’d find some clue as to what to do now. As if the animal might have left a note with a sad face and its insurance information. He’d never hit anything before in his life. If it had been there in the road, he could call...animal control? Some sort of wildlife rehab, maybe? But would they send someone to hike into the woods at nine at night to track down a wild animal that may be injured or may be fine?
Julien blew out a long breath that clouded in the air and reluctantly walked back to the car. With no cell service it was a moot point. He’d need to hike down the road until he could get bars, anyway. He’d need a tow truck, too. The very top of the windshield was shattered and long cracks ran like roots over the rest of the glass. The rental company wouldn’t be pleased.
The right front corner of the car was flattened, as well. A pool of headlight glass was sprinkled like multicolored confetti in the snow. Congratulations! You fucked up big-time! Oddly, there wasn’t any other sign of damage in the front. Not that Julien could tell. Nothing on the hood either. Almost as if the only point of impact was the windshield. Was that even possible? If so, maybe the animal really was less injured than he’d feared.
Julien got closer to examine the roof. Even with the car at this awkward angle he was tall enough to see two distinct dents, right in the center. “What the hell?”
Julien ran his hand over one. It was about the size of his palm but distinct. More than a mere ding. As if something heavy had...what? Landed on its feet, then launched itself into the air and kept running? The paint was scratched, too. Four short contrails behind each dent.
Carefully he dragged his own four fingers down the white marks, and the back of his neck prickled as if someone was watching him.
Julien turned, scanning the road and the dark forest beyond. “Hello?”
Barely more than a whisper, his voice still sounded disrespectfully loud. It was only then he realized just how quiet the surrounding woods were. Unnaturally quiet. Like every living thing was collectively holding its breath.
Julien took a couple steps into the road, and his boots made a soft creaking sound on the tightly packed snow. “Hello? Is someone there?”
No one answered. Nothing made a sound. Well, of course not. What had he expected? Sweet Pea to waltz out of the trees doing his best Lurch impression? You rang?
Julien snorted at his own uneasiness. What did he know about the natural amount of noise wild animals were supposed to make, anyway? The closest he ever got to nature in L.A. was when his ex-wife Frankie sent weekly photos of Wilbur the mountain lion sneaking over her fence at night to drink out of the pool. He’d gotten one early that morning in the airport getting ready to board.
Call me back. I’m worried about you. And so is Wilbur!
He’d call her eventually. When he had good news. Or at least something better than this. If he told her he was in Maudit, he’d have to explain why, and right now he couldn’t even explain it to himself. He couldn’t even think it without wondering if the whispers were true. That maybe after years of being wound so tight, something in him really had just snapped.
Julien hauled his bag out of the car, ignoring the subsequent ache in his chest where the seat belt had bit into muscle and skin. There wasn’t any sense second-guessing it now. He was either going to find what he was looking for in Maudit Falls or he wasn’t. If the latter was true, he’d have proof that Rocky had been wrong, and there was nothing hidden on this mountain but superstition and perilous infrastructure. And if the former...well. He’d cross that bridge when he came to it. Hopefully in a working car.
Either way, he wasn’t going to find anything sitting around alone in the dark. He’d done plenty of that these last fourteen months already. Julien began the long trek back down the road, phone in hand.
Ten minutes later, the cold air killed his battery.
“Dammit,” Julien whispered. Then, wondering why he was bothering to whisper, yelled it again as loud as he could, followed by a string of every curse he knew. Considering his upbringing on the back lots of Hollywood, that occupied a significant amount of walking time.
It took another fifteen minutes of swearing before Julien finally came across the lone turnoff he’d passed before. Maudit Falls Retreat, claimed a very discreet wooden sign tucked back into the woods. It wasn’t abandoned or a service road at all—it was some sort of place of lodging. Julien felt a wave of relief. Here there’d be people, power, maybe even a bed for the night, if he couldn’t get a ride on to Blue Tail Lodge. Julien took the turn.
Even less effort had been made to clear the snow, and soon the legs of his jeans were soaked with frigid water. He began to shiver and his fingers felt thick and clumsy with cold. Despite the urge to break into a jog and get the hell out of the dark already, Julien stuck his hands under his armpits and kept his steady, careful pace. He’d hardly be able to tell people he was here for the skiing with a broken ankle. When researching the area, there hadn’t been anything online about a Maudit Falls Retreat. No mention of it in Rocky’s notes either. Hopefully that meant it was a small, word-of-mouth bed-and-breakfast as opposed to shut down entirely.
Five minutes later, he realized neither was true as the road spilled into a clearing in front of a large, gorgeous building.
“What are you doing hiding all the way out here?” Julien murmured, impressed despite himself. Two stories, expansive and surrounded by a wraparound porch, the retreat was a mass of polished wood, stone and glass. Most of the front seemed to be windows, and past the reflected moonlight, Julien could make out a low light inside. He tried the heavy wooden double doors, and to his relief they opened.
The lobby was even prettier than the outside—soothing in juxtaposition to the intimidating exterior. The back of the room was mostly taken up by a large wooden reception desk while to the side a couple of comfortable-looking chairs and a couch were centered around an enormous stone fireplace. Wide pine plank floors were polished to a soft gleam that reflected the light of the fire burning low. That and an old-fashioned green glass desk lamp were the only sources of light. The room was completely empty.
