The Wolf Gift (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 1)

"No, not the way it is," said Reuben calmly.

He helped Stuart put on one of the knit shirts that Laura had brought for him. The boy managed the jeans and the running shoes on his own.

He was bigger all over than Reuben was, with a broader chest and obviously longer legs. He had powerful muscular arms. But the clothes were okay. He sat back staring at Reuben. It was the boy face again, with freckles and the big alert eyes, though not the familiar grin.

"Well, you,re one splendid boy wolf, I,ll tell you that," Reuben said.

Silence.

"You,re going to be all right with us, Stuart," said Laura. She never took her eyes off the road.

The boy was too stupefied and exhausted to answer. He kept staring at Reuben as though it was a miracle that Reuben looked like a perfectly ordinary man.

Chapter Thirty-Four

HIS EYES SNAPPED OPEN. By the digital clock it was just after 4:00 p.m. The blinds were drawn. He,d been sound asleep for hours. There were voices outside the house, voices in front and in back, voices on the sides.

He sat up.

Laura was nowhere around. He could see the landline blinking. He could hear it ringing far off somewhere in the house, perhaps in the kitchen or even in the library. On the night table, his iPhone throbbed.

The TV screen flickered and flared in silence, the news crawl recycling the news he,d been watching when he went to sleep: SANTA ROSA PANIC OVER MAN WOLF.

He,d watched as much as he could before he,d passed out.

There was a statewide search for Stuart McIntyre, who,d disappeared from St. Mark,s Hospital during the night. His stepfather had been murdered by the Man Wolf at 3:15 a.m. His mother had been hospitalized. Sightings of the Man Wolf were coming in from all over Northern California.

People were panicking up and down the coast. It was not fear of the Man Wolf, so much as it was utter confusion, helplessness, frustration. Why couldn,t the police solve the mystery of the werewolf avenger? He saw clips now from a governor,s news conference, flashes of the attorney general, the redwood-and-glass house in Santa Rosa on its knoll.

Voices out there, around the house. Scent of any number of human beings, moving along the western side of the property and the east.

He got out of bed, naked, barefoot, and crept to the front window, cracking the drapery just a tiny bit, letting in the dull afternoon light. He could see the police cars down there, three of them. No. One was a sheriff,s car. The other two were highway patrol. There was an ambulance there, too. Why an ambulance?

There came a booming knock on the front door. Then another. He narrowed his eyes because it helped him to hear. They were moving around the sides of the house, yes, both sides, and hovering at the back door.

Was the back door locked? Was the alarm on?

Where was Laura? He caught Laura,s scent. She was in the house, moving closer.

He pulled on his pants and crept into the hallway. He could hear Stuart,s breathing. Looking into the front bedroom beside his own, he saw Stuart across the bed, dead asleep as Reuben had been only moments ago.

He and Stuart had both given in to sleep because they had no choice. He,d tried to eat a little but hadn,t been able to. Stuart had devoured a porterhouse steak. But both of them had been glassy-eyed, slurry-voiced, weak.

Stuart had said he was almost sure that his stepfather had shot him twice. But there were no bullet wounds.

Then they,d both headed for the beds and gone out, Reuben like a light pinched out in the darkness. Just gone.

He listened. Another car was coming up the road.

Suddenly, he heard the soft slap of Laura,s bare feet on the stairs. She emerged out of the shadows and came towards him, slipping into his arms.

"This is the second time they,ve been here," she whispered. "The alarm,s armed. If they break a window or push in a door, the sirens will blast us from all four corners of the house."

He nodded. She was trembling. Her face was white.

"Your e-mail,s filled with messages, not just from your mother, but from your brother and your father, and from Celeste. From Billie. Something very bad is going down."

"Did they see you through the windows?" he asked.

"No. The drapes are still drawn from last night."

They were calling his name down there, "Mr. Golding, Mr. Golding!" Hammering on the door in the back as they had hammered on the door in front.

The wind sighed and threw the rain gently against the windows.

He took a few steps down the stairs.

He remembered that crash that had awakened him the night Marchent had been killed. We,re living in a palace of glass, he thought, but how in the world can they justify breaking in here?

He glanced back at Stuart. Still barefoot, stripped to his shorts and shirt, sleeping like a baby.

Galton had just pulled up. He could hear Galton calling out to the sheriff.

He went back into the bedroom and drew near to the south-facing window again.

"Well, I don,t know where they are. You can see the same as I can that both cars are here. I don,t know what to tell you. Maybe they,re sleeping in. They didn,t come rolling up the road till early this morning. You mind telling me what all this is about?"

The sheriff wasn,t saying, and neither were the highway patrolmen, and the paramedics from the ambulance were standing back with their arms folded looking up at the house.

"Well, why don,t I give you a call later on when they wake up?" asked Galton. "Well, yeah, I do know the code, but I have no authorization to let anybody in. Listen ..."

Whispers. "All right, all right. We,ll just wait then."

Wait for what?

"Wake up Stuart," he told Laura. "Get him into the secret room. Fast."

He dressed hurriedly putting on his blue blazer, and combing his hair. He wanted to look like the picture of respectability whatever happened.

He glanced at his cell phone: text from Jim.

"Landed. On our way."

What in the world could that mean?

He could hear Stuart protesting in a drunken-sounding voice, but Laura was guiding him firmly into the linen closet and through the secret door.

He checked it behind them. Perfectly smooth wall. He put the shelves back in place against it, and hefted two loads of towels onto the shelves. And then he shut the door.

He crept down to the first floor, and made his way along the hallway towards the darkened front room. The only light came from the conservatory doors. Milky, dim. The rain teemed lightly on the glass dome. A gray mist sealed the glass walls.

Someone was trying the outside knobs one by one of the conservatory,s western French doors.

Another car had pulled up outside, and it sounded as though a truck had come with it. He didn,t want to disturb the draperies, even a little. Quietly, he listened. A woman,s voice this time. And then Galton - talking loudly into his phone.