“Sure, thanks. We’re fine.” CJ was glad the McKinleys were letting them handle this on their own. CJ took a whiff, trying to smell the woman’s scent. She-wolf and sweet, as if she’d been working in a candy shop—vanilla, sugar, maple, oranges.
“Pamela? I’m Laurel MacTire,” Laurel said as the woman took a seat on a blue-and-white floral chair perpendicular to the couch.
CJ rejoined Laurel and sat as close as he had before, bodies touching to show her he supported her totally.
For a long moment, the woman just considered Laurel. Then she finally said, “Yes.” But her voice hitched and her eyes filled with tears. Her spine was tense, her knuckles white as she fisted her hands in her lap.
“Pamela Houser isn’t your real name, is it?” Laurel asked, her words gentle as if she was trying to coax the truth out of the woman.
CJ hadn’t thought that. More that the older woman knew the man in the pit and had been close to him.
The woman didn’t say anything, but her jaw tightened.
“You’re…you’re Warren Wernicke’s sister, Charity, aren’t you?”
A couple of tears rolled down the woman’s cheeks. Her lips were pinched, and she nodded.
“We found his skeleton in the pit where I fell, didn’t we?” CJ asked, needing verification that the remains were those of Warren Wernicke.
“Yes,” she said so softly that if he hadn’t had wolf hearing, he might not have heard her response. “I’m…Charity. Though Warren called me Chair for short. But he was the only one who called me by that term of endearment.”
“Your brother, Warren,” Laurel said, getting clarification.
The older woman nodded and looked down at the floor.
“How did he end up in the pit?” CJ asked.
She shook her head.
“You don’t know?” Laurel asked.
“No.” Again, the word was spoken so softly that it was hard to hear. He thought she was telling the truth.
Laurel took the discussion in a different direction. “My aunt Clarinda was living with you in the house behind the Silver Town Inn, wasn’t she?”
CJ understood Laurel’s need to learn about her aunt, though he still wanted to know if Charity knew anything more about her brother’s death.
The woman’s face was already tight with emotion and grew even more so at the mention of Clarinda’s name. “She was living off my brother’s generosity and seeing another wolf. That’s what she was doing.”
Laurel clenched her teeth a little but didn’t say a word.
“Who was the other wolf?” CJ took hold of Laurel’s hand. He wanted to give her support, but not treat her like she couldn’t deal with this on her own. Yet, anything the woman said could be untrue. After all, she’d been living under a false identity. Then again, some wolves changed their identities because of the trouble with their longevity and humans growing suspicious of someone who didn’t age as quickly as they did.
“How do I know?” Charity sounded annoyed.
Laurel stiffened a little beside him. “You knew she was seeing another wolf, you said,” she reminded her.
“My brother was so angry with her. He knew she was seeing someone else. But he wouldn’t say who.”
CJ narrowed his eyes. “Because he didn’t know, or he just imagined she was and she wasn’t really?” CJ realized that they had a hostile witness on their hands where Laurel’s aunt was concerned. He hadn’t expected this.
“The woman didn’t do anything. She didn’t work for him. He didn’t want her to. He wanted to care for her. He loved her. Treasured her. Doted on her. He wanted to mate her, but she kept putting him off. And what did she do in return? Used him. Free room and board, smiled sweetly when it was convenient for her, and that was it. He kept broaching the subject of mating her. He adored her, no matter how she treated him. I tried to get him to see what she really was. I did all the household chores—cooked, cleaned, and kept the books. I adored my brother. The two of us had always been close. Until the night that she arrived.”
Thinking back on what Stanton Wernicke had said, CJ prompted, “So Warren took her in because he had no room at the hotel for her and—”
“Who said that? Of course, there was room for her. Only she didn’t have money to pay for a room. And my brother, who didn’t want to give up a good room to a nonpaying guest, decided to make other arrangements. I objected, but my brother just ignored me. She was a perfect stranger. What did we know about her? Nothing. And we needed another maid. Not that she would have been a good choice. She was spoiled rotten. Never lifted a finger around the place. Didn’t know how to cook. Didn’t want to learn. I doubted she would have done a good job as a maid.”
“What did she do while she was staying with you?” Laurel asked, her tone cool.
“Nothing!”
“She sat on the couch and stared out the window? Read books? Left the house each day? She had to have done something.” Laurel sounded totally exasperated.
CJ knew that the woman held a major grudge against Clarinda and everything she said was tainted by that hate. Was she jealous? He wished they could hear Clarinda’s version of the story. “So your brother disappears—”
“Right. And I had to take over the hotel.”
“And my aunt?” Laurel asked.
“Oh, she disappeared the night before that. I figured my brother had gone after her. And then he never came back. At first, I thought he had caught up with her, decided not to return, and they went off together. But he loved the hotel. And she just wasn’t mating him.”
Laurel took a deep breath and let it out. “Why wouldn’t she mate him? Did she say?”
“No. And my brother kept asking her. They started having arguments. I wasn’t supposed to be privy, but you know how it is with our wolf hearing. I was in the kitchen making supper so I wasn’t all that far away. They were loud. She started crying, and then she left. I heard my brother pacing across the floor in the living room. I came in to check on him.
“He growled at me to stay the hell out of his business. He knew I didn’t like her, so I guess he felt I’d say something bad about her to him, and he didn’t want to hear it. But I hadn’t planned to. He was angry and distraught, and I had no intention of making it worse. I was trying to lend him a sympathetic ear.”
CJ didn’t believe it. “When did he leave?”
“He was up most of the night, pacing or cursing. He managed the hotel through the next day, but when she hadn’t returned by nightfall, he went out looking for her.” Even though Charity’s words were spoken with annoyance, her eyes clouded with tears again, and he assumed she still grieved for the loss of her brother.
“Wearing a suit and his diamond stickpin?” Laurel asked.
“I guess. He was dressed that way for work, and he hadn’t changed when he went out.”
“You came to the pit when I had fallen down there. You visited him, didn’t you?” CJ asked, his tone reconciliatory. He knew she had to have realized her brother had died there, and she was drawn to the place, mourning him. No matter how much she hadn’t liked Clarinda, she must have still loved her brother.
“It was the anniversary of his disappearance. I always visit him at his grave and wish him well. I always wished I had gotten through to Clarinda. Done something differently so I wouldn’t have lost my brother.”
The thing CJ couldn’t understand was why Charity had also vanished. “Why didn’t you report this to the sheriff? To the pack?”
“I reported it to Sheriff Sheridan Silver.” She gave CJ an annoyed look. “And your father said he’d look into it. He said he never knew that some woman named Clarinda O’Brien was living with us since she never was involved in the pack, and she never showed her face in town. He acted like I had made the whole thing up! Like I was crazy. Even like I had something to do with my brother’s disappearance.
“Once Warren was gone, I could run the hotel the way I wanted to. But the truth was I hated the hotel. It brought in money, su
re, but I was happy running the household. Some of the drifters that came through the hotel were not…respectable types. And it was way too much for me to manage on my own. Then I hired someone to do the books, and he ran off with the money.”
The pack would have gone after the thief. “Did you report this?”
“No. My brother was gone. The money was gone. We had debts to pay. I would have lost everything. It just seemed…futile at that point. I’d begun to hate the hotel. I packed my bags and left. It was like once Clarinda arrived, we were cursed.”
“Why didn’t you stay and ask the pack for help?” CJ couldn’t understand why she hadn’t gone to Darien’s father, the pack leader at the time.
“I did when my brother disappeared. Fat lot of luck that did me.”
True, but she could have gone to the pack leader if she felt the sheriff wasn’t doing his job. “What was the fight between your brother and John all about?” he asked.
Her white brows shot up and she looked thoroughly confused, although he swore he saw a faint hint of panic. “John?”
“Your triplet brother.” CJ hadn’t thought he’d have to remind her she had another brother. Maybe they had all been estranged, but he didn’t expect that kind of reaction.
“What triplet brother?”
Was she kidding?
“Warren and I were twins. We didn’t have any other siblings. Well, wait, yes, years later Mom did mention she had a baby that was a stillbirth. So I guess we started out as triplets. But we never thought of ourselves like that. Maybe she named the other baby John. I don’t remember if she ever told us even. But she didn’t have any other living children. Just Warren and me.”
CJ glanced at Laurel. She quickly said, “There are three brothers staying in Silver Town who are claiming they are the sons of John Wernicke.”
Charity was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Maybe they are.”
Laurel looked so exasperated. “You just said your mother didn’t have another living son.”
“She didn’t. But it doesn’t mean that the three brothers don’t have a father named John. However, he wasn’t related to us.”
CJ sat back on the couch. “Well, hell. How did they know about Clarinda and a supposed love triangle?”
“Maybe they’re related to the man who was her lover? How do I know? Are they new wolves or old?”
“Now that I don’t know,” CJ said.
“We’re new wolves. Not royals. Our bloodlines haven’t been lupus garou forever. Our parents were humans turned. If the brothers are several generations lupus garou and can hold their human form during the call of the full moon, then they’re not related to us by any stretch of the imagination. They could be distant cousins. Our dad did have one brother. He was killed in one of the wars, but never had a mate or any offspring as far as we knew. But it’s possible, and that would make his offspring fairly new wolves like us. It will show another hole in the brothers’ story, if they’re royal wolves. Full moon tonight.” Charity smiled. “Good time to check.”
Somehow, CJ had to convince Darien to lock the Wernicke brothers up and then watch them. If they didn’t shift, good chance they were royals.
“Is this going to take much longer? Unless you think I killed my brother, I’ve got to get back to the candy shop. I have a new girl there, but she’s rather hopeless.”
“Just a few more questions we need answers to. Why did you come and check on me when I fell in the pit?” Though CJ suspected Charity wouldn’t have killed her brother, she might have murdered Clarinda, as much as she seemed to despise her.
“I was curious if one of Sheridan’s sons would really investigate the disappearance of my brother and reveal the truth. When I left Silver Town, I left for good, figuring my brother and Clarinda were enjoying running a hotel somewhere else, having gotten rid of me, and had found their happily ever after. It angered me to think that, of course. Yet another part of me hoped that’s what had happened and that my brother hadn’t met with foul play.”
Charity let out her breath. “I stayed away for a good decade, mated, and lost my mate, but in all that time, I couldn’t quit wondering what had become of my brother. I kept looking for him, searching for clues. I even did Internet searches, hoping I’d find him somewhere. As you know, we often change our identities over the years because of our longevity.”
“How did you find him in the pit?” Laurel asked.
“I was taking a run out there. Still searching for clues that my brother hadn’t left the area. I kept thinking he wouldn’t abandon the hotel and not me either. I smelled something dead, an elk, and curious, I came to see what had killed it. The smell was coming from a pit. The deadfall had fallen through. It was winter and the sun was shining brightly. But it was still too dark in the pit to see clearly, as deep as it was. You know how things can keep nagging at you? Well, that pit kept nagging at me. Why would someone cover up a pit, then catch an animal for supper, and not come and remove the beast? Why would it be rotting down there?”
“The hunter was long gone?” CJ asked.
“Could have been. Still, I had to know. I left to get a rope and a lantern. I didn’t have any way to climb in there, without being afraid I couldn’t get back out. So I just lowered the lantern into the pit. And what I saw horrified me. A skeleton, and the light reflecting off my brother’s diamond stickpin. So who killed him? Someone in your pack. I couldn’t approach anyone. I didn’t know who had done it.”
CJ looked at Laurel. She had worried about the same thing.
“I heard that Sheridan had died. Thinking he was the one who had been involved with Clarinda, that he killed my brother and she ran away, I decided it didn’t matter.”
“Yet you continued to come here. To visit the area,” CJ said.
Charity brushed away a tear. “Yes. If my brother had been killed, and Sheridan had done it, Clarinda might have run off, fearing for her life. But what if she didn’t? What if I came across her body next? So I kept looking—to find closure.”
CJ thought about how his father had Clarinda’s locket. He felt his stomach knot again. But what if his father had only found the locket? What if he didn’t know who it belonged to and never followed up on it?
The truth was, as sheriff, his father was too methodical to let something like that go. He would have investigated the case until he learned the truth.
“I understand. One other thing. Before I fell into the pit, the deadfall was covering it up.”
“Yes, someone did it every time something fell in the pit.”
“Why?”
She gave him a sly look. “That was another reason I kept going back to the area, watching, waiting for—him.”
“Then it has to be someone still in the area.”
“Or someone covering for someone else. I always wore hunter’s spray so he wouldn’t smell my scent in the area. But so was he.”
“Hell, you should have let the pack know,” CJ said. “We would have looked into this.”
“Like Sheridan did? No, thank you.”
CJ shook his head. “All right. Well, we’ll damn sure look into it now. I want to thank you for all your help, Charity. Will you be staying in the area?”
“Yes. I own a successful candy shop here. I enjoy Green Valley and don’t have any plans to leave. Stop by there anytime, if you like.”
“We will,” Laurel said, and this time she offered a small smile.
“I’m sorry about Clarinda’s disappearance. If I knew what happened that day, I’d share.”
“Thank you,” Laurel said.
“Can we drop you off at your store?” CJ asked.
Charity hesitated, then nodded. “Thank you.”
“Hey, Ryan, we’re going to drop Charity off at her shop,” CJ called out. He knew that even if Ryan hadn’t been purposefully listening in, he would have heard some of the discussion, so he probably heard she had another name.
Ryan came out of his office and said, “Okay. Just let us know when you
have those gift boxes of chocolates ready to pick up and I’ll drop by. Did you want to go by Charity or Pamela?”
“Pamela.” The woman’s whole outlook seemed to brighten when Ryan mentioned the candy order, and she smiled at him. “I’ll give you a call.”
After they said their good-byes, CJ drove them into the town of Green Valley. Charity’s candy store was simply called the Candy Store. It was housed in an old Victorian house painted purple with white trim, the inside bright and white to emphasize the carousels of displays, colorful suckers hanging from the ceiling, jars and barrels filled with neon-colored candies, and gift boxes of chocolates displayed for every occasion.
“I know where I’m going to start my Christmas shopping,” Laurel said, and Charity’s expression softened a bit.
“I’ll give you a discount,” she offered.
Laurel laughed. “You have a deal.”
“Oh, and take this,” Charity said, pulling a card off her counter. “It has my number on it if you ever want to talk. If…there’s anything else you think of and need to know. And…if you learn what happened to your aunt, I’d love to know too.”
“We’ll let you know,” Laurel said, and then she gave Charity a hug.
Both women’s eyes were filled with tears, and CJ was at a loss as to what to say.
But then Laurel started to shop for candy for gifts, and everything seemed fine.
After spending over a couple hundred dollars on boxes of special candies for everyone who had helped Laurel and her sisters, she and CJ thanked Charity again and headed out.
“I think that was a step in helping Charity to heal,” CJ said as they drove back to his place, the truck filled with the fragrance of sweet treats.
“I was glad to. And I really was delighted to get so much of my Christmas shopping done in one fell swoop.” Though she was wondering what she was going to get for CJ. “So what do you think? About everything Charity said?”
“It’s hard to say. She held a real grudge against your aunt, so some of the things she said were colored by that. It happened quite a number of years ago, so that will make a difference memory-wise. As to whether she had a triplet brother named John—one who fathered Stanton Wernicke and his brothers? I don’t think she had reason to lie. Which means that the brothers just coincidentally had the same name and thought they’d try to take advantage of the situation by claiming kinship. They probably suspected Warren and Charity were dead and couldn’t come back to tell the truth concerning their supposed kinship. Or, the brothers weren’t named Wernicke that far back. It’s just a name they’ve used more recently.”