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“A week ago, two wolves turned up dead,” she said, slowly.
“We know,” Kade said.
“Since there have been ongoing ...disputes... between the wolves and the bears in this area, they sent me to see if we could figure out what happened,” Charlie said.
“Who’s they?”
“A joint task force of the FBI and the Department of Fish and Wildlife.”
Kade raised his eyebrows.
“It’s a pretty weird partnership,” she admitted.
There was something in the girl’s voice that gave Daniel pause. Why would they send just one person out, especially when something could go so wrong like this?
What isn’t she telling us?He thought.
“What do you think happened?” he asked.
Again, Charlie seemed to choose her words slowly.
“They sent me because the only thing wolves trust less than bears is humans,” she said. “We knew that if we went in, arrested everyone, and tried to get you all to talk, you’d clam up faster than we could say boo.”
She had a point.
“But it seems like the wolves don’t want me around for some reason,” she went on.
She paused, and Daniel could practically see the wheels in her head spinning.
“We thought a bear killed those wolves,” she finally admitted. “I’m not sure of that anymore.”
Daniel and Kade exchanged a glance.
“You think wolves killed their own people?” Kade said, his gruff voice sounding a little surprised.
“I’m not sure,” Charlie said. “But it’s more complicated than we originally thought.”
There’s still something,Daniel thought. She’s holding back.
He took another look at her face, the pain shining through clear as day, and he felt that same snarl he’d felt before.
The same snarl that said, I’ll protect her at any price.
He wished he knew what was really going on. The silence between the three of them stretched out, and finally Charlie spoke up again.
“Thank you for saving me,” she said, quietly.
Kade just nodded, and Daniel stood there, feeling like he had too many limbs and also like conversation was impossible.
Then her stomach rumbled.
“You should eat,” Daniel said, remembering what Hunter had told them.
He took a quick mental inventory of their kitchen.
Not a lot of human food.
“Do you like... plants?” he asked, frantically trying to think what to feed Charlie. Since it was autumn, their garden had mostly withered away, and it wasn’t like they’d exactly been canning and prepping for the snows.
