Page 78 of Quest of the Wolf

A text popped up. It was from Austin but contained only an address. A Maple Falls address.

Did he want me to drive up and rescue him from trouble? If burglars had broken in or some other crime was being committed, wouldn’t he have called the police instead of his mother? He didn’t know that I was a werewolf and had any power. I’d done my best all during his childhood to ensure that.

Watching the highway and not slowing down, I pasted the address into my phone’s map program. I’d already decided to divert from chasing Duncan to find Austin.

“Looks like it’s north of town by… whatever that lake is called. Silver Lake.”

“Town?” Jasmine asked. “Doesn’t Maple Falls just have a tiny grocery store and a gas station? It’s even smaller than Deming.”

I shrugged. I hadn’t been up that way in ages.

“Population two hundred forty-seven,” she read off her phone.

“That ought to make it easy to find Austin then.” Which I was determined to do.

Again, I called him back. Again, he didn’t answer. Had a kidnapper or robber taken his phone? Or hurt him so that hecouldn’tanswer?

“Do you think someone forced him to call you?” Bolin asked.

Jasmine looked over at me.

“I don’t know,” I said.

I hadn’t thought that, but I immediately latched onto the idea. That made more sense than my eighteen-year-old son calling his mom for help that didn’t involve cooking, cleaning, or laundry.

“But… I need to go there and figure out what’s happening.”

“Yeah.” Bolin put his violin away.

Too bad. I needed some battle music now.

I took the turn for Maple Falls. Even though this was the main route through the area, the weather had caused people to retreat, and there was little traffic as twilight descended. Now, the snow stuck to the road as well as the ground.

I kept glancing at the phone for another call or more texts. To say I was a distracted driver was an understatement, but I couldn’t help it. At least the traffic map didn’t show any accidents ahead. Fifteen minutes, and we would be there.

“Uhm.” Bolin took my phone from my grip.

At first, I thought it was because he objected to me fiddlingwith it while I was driving, but he didn’t comment on that. He held the screen up so that it was side-by-side to his phone which was still tucked in the dashboard holder.

“If the GPS tracker is still on him,” Bolin said, “Duncan is right in that area.”

“As a bipedfuris,” Jasmine whispered.

Fresh fear swept into me. What if Radomir knew all about my son and his current location? What if he’d commanded Duncan toattackAustin?

I drove faster, hardly caring when the tires slipped on the snowy pavement and we skidded onto the shoulder. Bolin scrambled to find a secure spot in the back, and Jasmine gripped the oh-shit handle.

“We’re fine,” I said. “It’ll be fine.”

But would it?

24

“If it helps,”Jasmine said as we reached the Maple Falls gas station and store, a building with a modest clock tower on the roof, “the address he sentison the internet, listed as an Airbnb.”

She waved her phone, but with night encroaching and the snow coming down hard, I didn’t glance over.

“Can you find anything about a contest that mentions it?” I asked. “One that would have closed and declared a winner a week or so ago?”

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