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Her eyes widened in shock. “Catch up?”

“Okay, so catching up would imply that we actually hung out in high school.” I winced. “And that was my loss. If any of my old crew is still hanging around, I’ve got a hunch that they are not the kind of people who’d share a beer with the current me.” I motioned to myself. “And I sure as shit don’t want to drink white wine at the country club pretending I don’t notice their Botox.”

Shay let out a strangled giggle.

“I’m not far off, am I?”

Her forehead wrinkled. “Maybe not,” she said, not expanding. Even now she was not one to talk shit about the girls who had made her life hell in high school.

Class act.

I shouldn’t get her tangled up in my shit.

It was cruel of me. She was nice. Shy. Innocent.

But she could also make my life a lot easier.

“Give me your phone.” I held out my palm.

She blinked in surprise, peering down at my extended hand a few breaths before reaching into her sensible purse to retrieve her phone.

“Here, I’ll give you my number.” Snatching the phone from her, I wrote myself a text, saving my contact as “The New Hadley, not the old bitch.”

I gave her her phone back. “I’ll text you. We’ll sort out a time when you’re free.”

She blinked again, holding her phone in her hand like a deer in headlights. I didn’t know if she’d wanted to create some kind of weird friendship with me, but she was going to now.

“See you round, Shay.” I gave her a wink before going to the counter to check out.

I wasn’t one to believe in fate, but finding a contact who could give me info on the dead campers could be construed as some kind of sign.

Or maybe it was a small fucking town with one good gas station.

Morning came hard, fast, and unpleasant.

I needed java.

Stat.

I didn’t sleep well at the best of times. Being back in my hometown was far from the best of times. I’d stayed up until the wee hours, drinking and researching the latest killings in Dreadwood Falls.

My sleep-addled brain worked over what I’d found the night before.

A couple. Mid-forties, going on a hike that should’ve taken them a few hours. Tourists out camping. Their tent had been ripped open, as had their chest cavities. Donny was a great hacker and had gotten me the crime scene photos. They were characteristic of a werewolf attack. Brutal. Gory. Would make a small-town rookie cop lose their lunch. Me, though? I chowed down on a cheeseburger while clicking through them.

“Want to know something weird I dug up as I got curious about this place?” Donny asked as she talked me through what I was looking at.

I didn’t need talking through. If I were to guess, I would’ve thought Donny wanted someone to talk to. She was as close to a hermit as someone could be in this world, and she enjoyed it. Or to the naked eye she did. But even I, with my hatred of the human race, wouldn’t be able to survive in that cabin in the mountains with no one to talk to but an aging Great Dane and a bitchy cat.

Though I wasn’t someone known to humor people, I was willing to do it for my oldest acquaintance.

“Something curious about where?” I asked, distracted as I inspected the wounds. Though the attack itself looked chaotic, the actual death blows were sharp, clean. Methodic. The attack almost looked … controlled. Like the chaos of the campsite and the other gashes and bites were merely for show. They were there to keep up the narrative that this was the work of a wild animal. Covering its tracks?

Curious.

“Dreadwood Falls,” Donny replied.

I froze, my burger halfway to my mouth. “What?” I tried to sound casual.