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“Thank you.” She stood. “I’d like to write down these ideas. It helps me to think better, though I don’t know if there is any paper around.”
Both men stood. “We’ll look.”
The cabin was small enough that it didn’t take long to search. Alex combed through the cabinets next to the sink, Tawny looked upstairs in the bedroom, and Liam checked in the coffee table drawers and anywhere else.
Five minutes later, Tawny called from upstairs. “Got some.”
She came down and plopped on the sofa. “Okay. I’ll start with the last scenario you mentioned regarding these werewolf hunters that might have come down to Wildwood and are targeting the Grangers.”
“Before we tackle that option, let’s start with whether we believe Zach is still in the forest or not,” Alex said.
“He has to be here. If he isn’t, he would have contacted me.”
“His truck is not in the lot,” Liam said. “Have you considered he might have been kidnapped, and that those people hid his truck to make you believe he’d left town?”
From the way her chest caved in, it was as if Liam had sucked the air right out of her.
“Kidnapped? Why?”
Liam shrugged. “For ransom money, maybe? From what I can tell, the Grangers have a fair amount of wealth.”
“My immediate family is probably the poorest of the lot, but we’re far from destitute. My dad might be the sheriff, but he is a shrewd investor. Most look at my parents’ modest lifestyle and think we live paycheck to paycheck, but thankfully that’s not the case.”
“If not for the money, maybe someone took Zach because he was an easy target. No one was around to stop them,” Alex said.
She shook her head. “If his life were in danger, he would have hidden behind a rock or a large tree, shifted, and taken off.”
“Not if they shot him first, assuming we’re dealing with humans and not some werewolf clan, like the group Paul Franklin led.”
Tawny tossed the paper on the coffee table. “You two are downers.”
“We just want to help,” Liam said. “How about you draw a line down the middle of the paper? On the left side put the heading: not in the forest. On the right side put: in the forest.”
“Fine, though I don’t see that helping much.” She did as he suggested. “Now what?”
“Let’s tackle the most likely case,” Alex said. “Zach is in the forest. Since he’s not at the cabin, where could he be? And why would he be there?”
“He’s hurt, but he managed to find a cave so he could heal,” she said.
Alex smiled. “There you go. If the snow lets up and allows us to search, we’ll try the caves.”
“If Zach is in the woods, why isn’t his truck in the parking lot?” she asked.
“Good question. We can figure that out later. Where else could he be?”
“Again, he might have been injured, but this time a group of campers found him and are nursing him back to health either in the forest or outside of it,” she tossed out.
“The only problem with that is being a werewolf, he should have healed by now.”
She lifted her chin. “What if he was seriously injured? Like he was shot near the heart, or his leg was broken?”
“The leg would heal. The bullet close to the heart would probably take longer,” Alex said. “If that’s the case, that means someone tried to kill him.”
Tawny closed her eyes and groaned. “I can’t do this.”
He and Liam must have been on the same wavelength, because they both moved over and sat on either side of her on the rather short sofa. Alex placed her hand in his. “Tawny, we can tell this is really stressful for you. Why don’t we play some board games—since that’s all that’s here—and tomorrow we will explore the caves. Who knows, your brother might come waltzing in here all on his own.”
She opened her eyes. “Do you really think that’s possible?”
