Zach finally started the car again and pulled away from the curb. He’d call her on his lunch break—to make sure she was all right, and just to hear her low, musical voice in his ear—and then this evening, he could pick her up again. He’d talk to Joel today, so he’d be able to tell her honestly that it was completely all right for her to come stay with them.
It was all going to be fine. There was no reason to get anxious. Teri was safe, she was all right, and they were going to be together forever.
Zach drove to the Park on autopilot, parked, and went into the main office to check in.
Cal was there waiting for him. “Zach,” he said. “Have you heard from your brother?”
Zach frowned. “Not since he left last night.” He pulled out his phone to check—sure enough, no messages. “Why?”
Cal looked him in the eye. His voice was dead serious. “Joel went missing overnight.”
***
“I cannot believe you would be so thoughtless.” Teri’s mother was raging around the living room, walking in circles as though she couldn’t contain all her feelings while standing in one place. She’d started repeating herself twenty minutes ago.
“You could’ve been hurt! You don’t even know this man, and you let him pick you up in his car and take you wherever he wanted to go?”
Teri rubbed her eyes. “Yes, Mom. It’s called a date.”
“Don’t get smart with me!” her mother flared. “We were ready to call the police and have them start looking for you?”
Teri had watched enough TV to know that a person had to be missing for 48 hours before the police would look for them. On the other hand, given her mother’s performance to the Glacier Park staff, she could probably convince the cops that Teri was brain-damaged and had seven broken bones, and had been kidnapped off the street by an unknown man.
“I was fine, Mom.” She was hoping that if she kept her voice absolutely toneless, her mother would get bored more quickly than if she’d managed to provoke Teri into a real emotional reaction.
“You couldn’t have known that! You’d just met this man. And Lillian tells me that you knew he was a...one of those unnatural creatures.” Her mother’s lip twisted in disgust. “An animal.”
“Yes, Mom.” Deadpan. No emotion. She could do it.
Her mom’s face was a parody of disbelief. “I thought Lillian had to be mistaken. You knew, and you went on a date with him, and...you stayed out overnight?” Suddenly, a light seemed to dawn on her mother. “Did he do something against your will? Did he keep you somewhere even though you wanted to leave? You can tell me, Teri. I won’t be angry. I’m calling the police right now.” She reached for her phone.
All at once, Teri lost the tenuous thread of control she’d been hanging on to. Anger seemed to suffuse her body like a miasma, like she’d just lost her identity as Teri Lowell, and just become Woman Furious At Her Mother. Her hands clenched into fists and she could hear her heartbeat in her ears.
“How dare you.”
Her mom froze, one hand on her phone.
Teri took a step forward, amazed at how her usual wariness of her mom had just melted away. “How dare you say something like that about him? About a man you’ve never met? How dare you assume he’s a criminal just because he’s a shapeshifter?”
The moment of shock was gone. Her mother lifted her chin, unrepentant. “If you knew the sort of things those animals were capable of...”
“Things you made up! Things that have never happened. You always told me they were dangerous and they hurt people. Where are the people they hurt? Who in this town has ever been...mauled by a shapeshifter? Name one person.”
“Are you saying that I lied to you?” Her mother’s entire body took on an offended posture. “I would never lie to you, Teri! Do you really believe I’d—what, make up stories to get my way? I can’t believe you.”
This was the sort of thing that always worked on Teri. Her mother would get upset, or offended, or angry at something Teri had supposedly done, and Teri would immediately back down to keep from making it worse.
Well, it was already worse. And she wasn’t backing down. This time, she cared about something else more than she cared about whether her mom was angry with her.
“You did lie,” she insisted. “Shapeshifters are just like normal people!”
“They’re dangerous, Teri, and you’re going to get yourself in trouble. I don’t believe that you haven’t already. You were out with that man all night!”
“You can’t even listen to me! I told you exactly what happened. I went on a date with a man, I chose to stay out overnight with him. I’m telling you now that all of that was one-hundred-percent my own choice, because I liked him and I wanted to. And you can’t even hear me, can you?”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” Was that a hint of panic in her mother’s eyes? Was she worrying that her control was slipping away?
Well, good.