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I charged up the stairs and started throwing my clothes in my suitcase.I could go straight to the airport and take the first flight east.I’d sell the house; my mother seemed to think that was the best idea, and clearly I wasn’t thinking straight.When I was back in Baltimore, I would consult a discreet psychologist.Once I got back to work, it would be easy to push Montana to the back of my mind.
I would stop sleeping in, stop engaging in flights of fancy.I would stop wondering about climbing mountains, stop thinking about what might be on the other side of them.I would stop myself from thinking about shifters ever again.
Some interrogative part of my mind kicked in.Just for a thought experiment…what if Jasper was a shifter?What if Melinda and every other person in that file cabinet was able to shift into a wolf?
Well, it would explain why Jasper had been so eager to buy the house.He wanted my father’s research so he could bury it.
I shook my head.It was just as likely that my father had been stalking these people, and they’d come here to confront him about leaving them alone.Maybe my father was preparing to expose them.Whether or not it was true, it would certainly upend their lives to be accused of being a family of shapeshifters.Maybe Jasper had been trying to protect me from the truth about my father.
If that was the case, he deserved to know what my father had been theorizing.Who had my father shared his information with?Once something was on the internet, it never truly died.Melinda was ill, and she certainly didn’t need the stress of some sort of online harassment campaign accusing her of being a monster.
I paused in the middle of packing and sat on the edge of my father’s bed.My phone was still on the TPL website.This time, I looked at the photos more carefully.The Lodge was a sprawling Victorian- era mansion, standing proudly against a dramatic vista of mountains and sky.The description said that it lay between the western side of Glacier National Park and the Flathead forest.I scrolled down and found more pictures: a steamy spa where two women reclined in mud masks, children laughing deliriously as they played in a mountain stream, a campfire gathering under a star-filled sky.
It looked like there were private cabins that dotted the property, along with the rooms in the Lodge.Curiosity whispered.In answer, I clicked on the “Reservations” button.
The prices for the rooms made my eyes widen, and the price for a private cabin made me puff out a breath.I made a good salary, but I also had student loans.Luxurious vacations weren’t part of my life.My father had left behind a surprisingly large bank account, but I’d barely thought about it because I’d been so caught up in the house.The responsible thing would have been to put his money toward those loans or bulk up my retirement savings.
It would definitely not be responsible to spend a solid chunk of it on a luxury vacation on a Montana ranch.
Besides, I wasn’t really thinking about going there.
Was I?
I licked my lips.Only Jasper and Melinda had seen my face.If I kept my head down and stayed well away from the Moreaus, maybe I could find something that made all of this make sense.Failing that, I could tell the Moreaus that my father had been stalking them.
The mystery nagged at me.I’d spent my whole life thinking that my father was insane and worrying that I would follow in his footsteps.Didn’t I owe it to myself to find out if there had been any truth behind his delusions?
I looked at my half-packed suitcase, then down at the phone in my hand.For my entire life, I’d been following the path my mother laid out for me.But my father was in me too.And I owed it to him to finish what he’d started.
With shaking fingers, I clicked “Book Now.”
