How to Howl at the Moon Read Online Free PDF

He was a gifted tracker and incredibly tenacious when trouble came down, but he wasn’t the brightest pup in the lit t er . When Lance was alone again, the itch inside was bigger and more irritating than ever. Timothy had lied about his name. Lance wasn’t exactly surprised. The question was: why? Lance couldn’t let it go. He hesitated, then picked up the phone and called Sam Miller at District Headquarters in Fresno. Lance usually tried to keep dealings with Fresno as light as possible, preferring Mad Creek to stay off the radar. But they had resources he didn’t.
    “I need a background check on a Tim Weston aka Timothy Traynor recently of Santa Barbara.” Mrs. Fitzgibbons might have been coy, but her property deed was in the system along with her current address.
    “Sure. What are you looking for?” Sam asked.
    Lance told Sam about his suspicions, and Sam promised to run the check rig ht away. Then Sam told him more horror stories about the gang activity they’d seen in Fresno. It was a gateway to the California mountains and hearing about the increased activity there did nothing to soothe Lance’s nerves.
    Even before he’d hu ng up with Sam, Lance knew he was prepared to go further to find out what Tim Weston was up to.
    Much further.
     
    *                          *                         *
     
    Tim coaxed Bessy up the road that led from downtown Mad Creek to the cabin. He ’d had to run to Fresno for more supplies, and it had first rained , then snowed, all the way home . The late season flurries would no doubt be melted by noon tomorrow, but it was still awesome . T he road was steep , though, and Tim knew one of these days Bessy would peter out halfway up, the little engine that couldn’t. Luckily she climbed gamely on, despite the white stuff on the road.
    He’d bought another two dozen of the cheap est plastic seed trays they had at the gardening center. They’d have mold problems over the long-term, but they were good enough for his first season. And he’d hit Costco and loaded up on mac and cheese and canned tuna too. The prices were way better than anything at the small grocery store in Mad Creek.
    Mad Creek. The place was starting to feel like home. He liked it. He’d lived in Southern California all his life, never been anywhere else. But despite the fact that most of his cultural references to the woods came from films like Friday the 13th and In the Woods No One Can Hear You Being Disemboweled he actually found the mountains quite peaceful. He loved the nip to the air that allowed him to wear his old canvas jacket. He liked that the air smelled of green and growing things rather than sun and sand. And he adored the weather. He was so used to 70 and sunny that any sort of weather at all was a rare treat. It had been mostly cloudy and cool since he’d arrived. And now snow! Heaven!
    He liked everything about Mad Creek, except, maybe, for Sheriff Beaufort. Tim still couldn’t believe he’d stood up to the man the other day. But he’d been pushed far enough. After his dad, and then what’d happened with Marshall, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t be so gullible, wouldn’t be a pushover anymore. It was the only way he could live with himself. The sheriff might be way hot, but he was obviously the kind of dickhead who got off on power trips. He liked to throw his weight around. Well, he had no grounds to be on Linda’s property, and Tim didn’t have to put up with that. He wasn’t doing anything wrong.
    Okay, maybe he was doing something a little wrong. Those rose hips had technically been the property of Roots of Life since Tim’s stupid employee contract gave the company full rights to everything he did or thought or shat while he’d worked there, even though he’d grafted those hybrids at home. But Marshall had already made enough money off Tim’s creations, and he didn’t even know about the rose hips.
    Tim hoped.
    Besides, he