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Chapter Nine
Edie
Anhourlater,Iwas going through a set of file cabinets I’d unearthed behind a pile of boxes.It had happened again, I realized; I’d gotten immersed in a scholarly article that documented allergic reactions suffered by wolves in captivity, and some unknown amount of time had gone by.I really needed to be more focused, I told myself.I leafed through the rest of the files in the drawer and found a thorough collection of literature about wolf anatomy and physiology.Thinking that I could donate it to the university in town, I closed the drawer and pulled open the one beneath.
The files inside were labeled with names.I pulled out the first one for Alvarez, Anita, and found a scant record of a woman’s life.A copy of her birth certificate, a computer-generated family tree that placed her in a nest of other Alvarez’s, and a death certificate that was almost forty years old.
I put it aside and opened the next, and the next.More Alvarezes.They were a large family who worked a hyacinth farm in Northern California.I found police records, school transcripts, even bank statements.Some files included pictures of the people listed.Some of them included pictures of wolves.
I stuffed the file back into place and slammed the drawer shut, trying to contain my shuddering breath.How had my father gotten this information?Had he stalked these people?Had he done something illegal in the name of research?
And most of all, why had he fixated on them?
My mind flashed to the map in the living room, with its concentration of dots in Northern California.There was another cluster here in Montana.Something clicked in my mind, and I opened the drawer again.My eyes skipped down the alphabet until I found Moreau, Angelique.With a sinking sense of inevitability, I flipped through the cluster of Moreaus until I found the files for Moreau, Jasper and Moreau, Melinda.
Moreau, not Moore.Theyhadbeen lying to me.
Melinda’s was thicker, so I started with hers.On top, there was a photo of a woman who was definitely Melinda, but decades younger than she looked today.The white streak in her hair was distinct, as was her smile.Her fact sheet had a large ‘A’ in the upper right-hand corner, and her file tab had the same designation.Her file contained several glossy magazine clippings featuring Twisted Pines Lodge, a resort hotel a few hours north of Missoula that Melinda owned and operated.Near Glacier, in fact: the same place where my father and mother had been camping the night they were attacked.
I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my father’s robe and looked up Twisted Pines Lodge.A slick website came up, full of gorgeous pictures of the Lodge in spring, summer and fall.I clicked around and saw they had a full schedule of all-ages activities and an onsite restaurant that sourced most of its food from their own gardens.The “About Us” page was sparse, simply saying that Twisted Pines Lodge had been in the Moreau family for generations.
I turned back to the file folder.My father had included a breathless transcription of a conversation he’d had with a homeless drunk who claimed that Melinda had taken control of Twisted Pines after killing the former leader, who he called Alpha.There were charts that seemed to track several metrics in the area: shifter encounters, missing persons, car accidents.They all had dropped significantly starting in the mid-80‘s and stayed low.
There was also a brief article about a rollover crash that killed Jackson Moreau and his one-year-old daughter, Ruby.
“My dad died when I was a kid,” Jasper had said.The old grief in his voice had touched me, made me open up to them.Made me feel tender toward them.
Made me foolish about them, I thought bitterly.
I went through Melinda’s file twice before I turned to Jasper’s.It was much thinner.The only picture it contained was a young Jasper with his arms around two boys who shared his features and a young black boy who looked like he’d been hauled into the pose.He was no more than fifteen in the picture, but the worry line between his eyes had already started to form.I did the math—his father would have died four or five years before.All of the boys were smiling for the camera, but the only one that still had the innocence of youth in his eyes was the toddler looking up at his big brothers with awe.
I’d done my fair share of thinking about Jasper in the last few days, but I’d tried hard to confine my thoughts to the offer he’d made on the house.It was much more confusing and embarrassing to think about the offer I’d seen in his eyes as we sat next to each other on the top step, in the flare of the setting sun.Now, my mind offered up a perfect replay of the moment where his eyes had flicked down to my lips and I’d tipped my mouth up in invitation.
And then he’d run for it like the house was on fire.
I had likely been mistaken about the attraction I saw in his eyes.And wasn’t that for the best?My father, apparently, had been stalking him and his family.That wasn’t exactly a strong basis for a relationship.
I exhaled heavily and started into his file.He also had a fact sheet, but it was far less detailed than his mother’s.He’d gotten his college degree and MBA online, which he used as the general manager of Twisted Pines Lodge.It also seemed like he was a certified horse-riding instructor, and gave lessons at the Lodge.He was unmarried, with no children.
As I shuffled through the pages, another photo slid out.It looked like it had been taken at a distance, at night.A wolf was walking through a field, and he’d turned his head briefly to the camera.
My breath caught.Prickles exploded all over skin as my mind ground to a halt.The picture was fuzzy, the details unclear, but I couldn’t shake the absolute certainty that the wolf in the picture was Jasper.
I suddenly felt like I was falling, but it was just my knees going watery.His photo was still in front of me, his eyes staring directly into mine.No, I tried to tell myself, not his eyes.It was a wolf, a wild animal.There was no way that the man I’d met could turn into this.
My father was insane.
I was not insane.
Therefore, it was not Jasper, no matter how much my senses screamed it was him.
I spun away from the file cabinet.There were four more drawers to go through.What surprises might they hold?What else might I believe if I kept following my father down this path?
This wasn’t my house.
This wasn’t my life.
This wasn’t my madness.
