“I’m sorry,” he said, talking fast, eyes scanning somewhat wildly. He either had a serious case of A.D.D., or something else was going on. “But I’m a little confused. You need a ride, right?”
“Maybe. Mostly, I need some information.”
“Okay, now I’m a lot confused.” Paulo gave me an easy laugh, although his eyes never stopped scanning.
A.D.D., I thought. And bad.
“First,” I said, “why are you confused?”
“Because I usually pick up Gunther at this address.”
“Only Gunther?”
“Yes. What’s going on here? Do you need a ride or—”
I stepped forward and reached out to his mind. Holy sweet hell, that was a scrambled, nearly incoherent mind. I reached deeper, through the chaotic miasma of thought streams, and found his core and told him to relax and to answer my questions, and that I was a friend.
He nodded, and for the first time, his eyes settled down, and settled on me. He exhaled. I suspected this was the first break his mind had had in years. Decades, perhaps.
“First question,” I said. “Why do so many Lyft cars come down this street?”
“It’s because Gunther tips so well. Usually $200.”
“But I thought the app summoned drivers, not the other way around.”
He nodded, smiling easily. He was good-looking, in a round-faced, wide-eyed sort of way. “It does work that way, in theory. But some Lyft drivers will game the system. After all, the system pings the closest driver, so we’ll sometimes patrol areas where known big tippers live or work, hoping to get pinged. With Gunther, we know we can make an easy $200, especially when it starts getting close to the full moon.”
I blinked. “What do you know about the full moon?”
The driver shrugged, still looking at me, eyelids dropping a little. Now that his rapidly-running mind had shut off, he was getting sleepy.
“We Lyft drivers sort of figured it out, since he’d been doing this for so long.”
“Doing what for so long?”
“Grabbing a lift up to Big Bear. Turns out, it’s every full moon.”
“Has he told you why he leaves every full moon?”
“He told me he’s an amateur astronomer. That he has a cabin in the woods where he has a telescope.”
My heart thumped once, twice, loudly, excitedly.
“And why does he tip so much?”
Here, the Latino driver paused and fought against my control, but I silently encouraged him to continue and he finally nodded. “He pays us to keep quiet about the location.”
“Have you seen the cabin?”
“No, but I drop him off at the same spot every time.”
“Why don’t you take him to the cabin?”
“I dunno. I just do what he says.”
“Did you take him this last time?”
“No, but I kinda hoped I hadn’t missed him.”
“Which was why you were patrolling nearby,” I said.
“Right.”
“When do you usually take him up to the cabin?”
“Usually two days before, sometimes three.”
“Will you take me to the cabin, too?”
His eyes flicked over me and he smiled. “Of course, Samantha Moon.”
“And after you take me to the woods, I want you to forget we had this conversation.”
He gave me an easy smile. “I’ll do my best.”
And with that, I slipped into the front passenger seat of the Prius and we were off.
Chapter Thirty-four
I checked the time: just past 2 p.m.
Sunset was in four hours, and it was a two-hour drive up to Big Bear, which was higher and further back than Arrowhead. I thought about that as we drove, then nodded. Yes, Gunther kidnapped them in Arrowhead...and then brought them back to Big Bear.
He has a vehicle up there, I thought.
Why he left his car in Orange County, I didn’t know. I suspected it was an attempt to cover his tracks. Of course, the Lyft drivers themselves might start getting suspicious. I had a thought.
“Are you aware of any Lyft drivers disappearing?”
Paulo was still feeling the effects of my earlier mental prompting, and so he answered easily enough. “Two of them over the past few months, actually. Both were found killed in their cars. Both in Orange County. There’s a running joke that being a Lyft driver in Orange is the new most dangerous job.”
I nodded. The bastard was covering his tracks there, too.
As my own Lyft ride commenced, he drove through Orange and headed for the 22 Freeway. I imagined Gunther standing on, say, a boulder, overlooking a popular—or perhaps not-so-popular—hiking trail, and hunting his next target.
Perhaps he used a tranquilizer gun. Or perhaps he used a real gun, and shot them in, say, the foot. Or perhaps he ambushed them or trapped them or lured them into his car.
I didn’t know, and it wasn’t important how he found them. Since none had survived, I might never know. What mattered was stopping him from preying on the innocent. From killing tonight.
And ever again.
My own entity, of course, would prefer me to kill and maim and torture and to control. And, if I gave her half a chance, she would possess me fully and do it for me.
It did take some fortitude to take on these entities, to fight against them...and to not give in.
Had Kingsley given in? Was he weak by allowing the thing within him to feast on the rotted deer carcass? Maybe, maybe not. I didn’t know just how far Kingsley had let the entity out. Maybe they had come to some agreement: if Kingsley feeds it what it most wants, perhaps it lets him live a normal enough life. Not feasting on a human corpse was, perhaps, Kingsley drawing the line. Maybe.
I didn’t know, but what I did know was this: there would be no agreement between myself and Elizabeth, the woman inside me, the woman who fueled me, the highly evolved dark master...and perhaps the highest evolved of them all.
No compromise. No getting out, ever.
The bitch picked the wrong person.
Moving on. Admittedly, I was nervous as hell to confront Gunther, even if he was half the size of Kingsley. Either way, he was going to be trouble. Perhaps more trouble than I was ready for. I patted my purse next to me, which concealed the Smith & Wesson. This gave me some comfort. Not much, but enough.
I considered calling Allison for backup. She might be needy as hell sometimes—even dingy—but man, oh man, was that girl a force to be reckoned with.
Still, I thought, chewing my lip as we eased onto the freeway, there was no way in hell I was going to expose her to the ferociousness of a werewolf. No, she was out. Fang could be of help—a lot of help. I pulled out my phone and clicked on the messenger and nearly sent him a text.