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Chapter Three
Jasper
Withintwentyminutes,mymother had devised a system for going through the hoarder’s castle that was Professor Matthew’s house.The things on his desk were likely to be the most important, she reasoned, so it made sense to start there.She sat in his chair—the only one in the room that wasn’t piled with stuff—and promptly started sorting things into piles.If she had to read a few of his documents to figure out where they belonged, well, that was just part of the process.
I wasn’t sure how much time I’d bought us.At least Mom had caught on quickly.She’d given Edie the fake last name we used when we were out in the world.She was good at charming people, but I wasn’t sure how long we could keep up the ruse.I concentrated on gathering as much information as I could.
Problem was, there was more information here than I could gather in a lifetime.
The Professor’s house was clearly a gold mine of information, but we were taking advantage of a grieving, lonely woman to get it.The way she’d looked when she talked about her father abandoning her for his quest to prove the existence of shifters made my heart turn over in my chest.If my mother hadn’t come out of the bathroom when she did, I don’t know what I would have done.
That’s not true.When her eyes had filled with tears, I’d been overwhelmed by a compulsion to take her in my arms.She looked so lost, with her East-Coast outfit and discreet diamond jewelry amidst the chaos of her father’s home.Now, my eyes kept dragging over to her where she with my mother, going through the desk.I couldn’t stop looking at her.Every time I looked at her, I saw another gorgeous feature.The way her neck curved between her ear and shoulder was divine.When my mother made her laugh, the smile that split her face lit up the room.She had the curvy figure of a goddess and hair like a sunburst to frame her angelic face.
I blew out a breath, embarrassed by my own thoughts.What was happening to me?I’d never been so thoroughly overwhelmed by the mere presence of a woman.I refocused my attention on the box I was looking through, which had the promising label “Project A, Box 1.”
We’d come here to see Professor Matthews because he claimed to be the foremost expert on shifters.His videos on YouTube had been scholarly, thorough, and occasionally accurate.If he knew anything about shifter biology that could explain my mother’s condition, we needed to know it.
Even if that meant lying to the woman I was almost certain was my mate.
“Finding anything interesting over there, Jasper?”
My head whipped up, and I realized I had barely looked at the papers I’d been sorting.“Uh…it looks like a study of wolf attacks here in Montana from late seventies.He’s trying to find incidents that occurred when the packs were supposed to be elsewhere, based on the wildlife trackers from the Forest Service.”
My mother tapped her finger against her lip.“Hmm.That doesn’t seem important to me.Does it seem important to you, dear?”
I looked down at the data in my hand, which showed multiple wolf encounters around Twisted Pines.I checked the year.It was right after the previous Alpha, Victoria, took over the clan.“I don’t think so,” I said, guilt twisting in my gut.
Edie shrugged.“Fifty-year-old wolf tracking data?Trash it.”
I put the files back in the box and set it with the rest of the Project A boxes.There were dozens of them stacked next to the fireplace.I wondered which one contained the year my mother challenged Victoria for the Alphahood and won.Professor Matthews surely would have noticed the abrupt cessation of activity in the area.Did he think the clan had moved on?Or been wiped out?
I studied the couch, which had been taken over entirely by a collection of books.There were glossy photobooks of Montana scenery mixed in with cheaply-published pamphlets with names like “Skinwalkers: The Secret Menace” and “The Beast Within.”Textbooks thick with annotations jostled against paperbacks that claimed to tell stories of real monsters.To my surprise, there was a plethora of romance novels that had shirtless men posing with wolves on the cover.The spines were well-broken.
I suppressed a laugh, deciding not to mention to Edie that her father had a taste for steamy novels.Instead, I pulled a banker’s box out from under the couch, coughing as dust came up.The lid slid off easily, and I found myself staring at a picture of my own parents.
It was a newspaper article about the young couple that had converted their family home to a B&B on the western side of Glacier National Park.The article was full of phrases like “authentic Montana experience” and “breathtaking scenery,” but I couldn’t take my eyes off the photo they’d used at the head of the article.My mother and father were standing on the porch of the Lodge, back before we’d expanded it to surround the whole building.He was staring directly at the camera, probably telling a joke to the photographer.My mother, the white streak prominent in her waist-length hair, was turned to him and laughing, one hand on her pregnant belly.
I tipped the box.It was full of clippings about Twisted Pines Lodge.Some of them I’d arranged myself—getting the Lodge into travel magazines was a big part of our advertising.I could see where he’d highlighted passages or scribbled notes to himself in the margins.Clearly, Professor Matthews had pinpointed the Lodge.He knew what we were.
Against my wrist, my heartstone pulsed.
“What’s in there, Jasper?”
I swallowed hard.“Receipts,” I heard myself say.“Old ones.Looks like trash to me.”
“This place is nothing but trash,” Edie said, stretching as she rose to her feet.“I really appreciate the effort, but I think this is a waste of time.”
“No such thing,” my mother said.
Hating myself, I rose to my feet, holding tightly to the box.“I can start taking some of this out to the trash for you.”
My mother’s eyes narrowed, but Edie just waved her hand.“If you don’t mind, that would be great.I’ll probably need to order a roll-off for all of this junk.”
She pulled out her phone and presumably started searching for trash pick-up.I carried the box out the front door, feeling like a thief.
Even after I’d tucked the box in the back of my SUV, the contents didn’t feel any less dangerous.Professor Matthews had known about us.In the videos of him I’d watched, he’d demonstrated that people reported shifter encounters across years and cultures.Though he’d claimed that shifters still existed, he’d never come close to naming a specific person as a shifter.
Had he known about my mother—about Twisted Pines—all along?
