Wren and the Werebear Read Online Free PDF

department."
    "That wasn't my decision," Wren said. She picked up her gun and swung it lightly between her fingers.
    "You didn't fight it."
    "My boyfriend was going to leave me if I took off on him for another week." The hair tie snapped on her fingers as she tied off the end of her braid.
    "We could run away together, Wren, you know. See Paris."
    "I've seen it.” Wren smiled despite herself. She’d never met Marty in person, but she imagined that he wouldn’t be quite as flirtatious face to face with her. Especially since he knew she had a gun. "Why are you calling me? You have a lead?"
    "A bear to put down." Marty coughed.
    "In California?" She peered at the airplane ticket. "Where's the information file on the subject?"
    "We don't have any information on file."
    "Name?"
    "No name."
    "Why are you contacting me now, Marty, if you don't even have a name yet? The tracker—"
    "The tracker was killed."
    "Then send someone who can actually track," Wren said, exasperated. "Send Chief."
    "It was Chief."
    "Chief?" The phone sounded fuzzy in Wren's ear. "It was Chief?"
    "The bastard got him," Marty said. "I'm sorry, Wren."
    Wren swallowed hard.
    "When?" she asked.
    "Last week."
    "Is there a funeral?"
    "You can't go," Marty said. His voice softened. "You know that, Wren."
    Wren's heart pounded hard. Instead of feeling any hint of sadness, all she had inside of her was anger. Chief was a good tracker. A great tracker. And now he was gone. She couldn't believe it. She coughed to try and get rid of the sickening lump in her throat.
    "So the guy knows we're onto him? He's probably gone already."
    "We don't think so," Marty said. "There's been no sign of movement for the past week through any of the genetic scanners on the major highways."
    "So he took a side road up to Canada. Why am I going to the airport again? I was just getting settled down."
    "That'll be the day," Marty said.
    "Seriously. With no info and no name? What are you sending me into?"
    "We're throwing a hail Mary on this one, Wren, because we don't have much time." She could hear the tiredness in Marty's sigh on the other end of the line.
    “Tell me.”
    "This guy has been killing regularly over on the East Coast, one victim every two months, like clockwork. We intercepted a letter to a PO box with ursine hairs on it, and it led us to California.”
    “What’s the timeframe?”
    “It's been over five weeks since the last one, and we're thinking he'll kill again soon."
    "A bear..." Wren murmured. "So he's on the east coast?"
    "That's where he kills. But California is the only lead we have for where he lives. And that's where Chief was killed."
    There it was again. Wren had to stop and wrap her brain around it. Chief was—had been—the best tracker in the business. And a damn good friend. She couldn’t process the idea that he was gone.
    "How is he getting to the east coast, then?” Wren asked, trying to keep her mind clear. “He can't fly there. He can't drive there. We would have seen it."
    "This guy's invisible," Marty said. "We knew it would be hard, near the end like this. There aren't that many shifters left in America, Wren, and the ones still around are getting harder and harder to find."
    "He could be anywhere along the California coast," Wren said. "He could be farther. How can you expect me to find him before..." She looked up to see the taxi driver's curious eyes peering into the back seat. He refocused on the road, and Wren shook her head. "Before anything happens again?"
    "We don't. But it would be nice if you were around once he gets back from his latest kill. We have agents dispersed over a ten-mile radius of the town the P.O. box is in. That's right next to the national forest where he got Chief."
    Got Chief... got Chief...
    "You think he'll go back there? Now that we're on his trail?"
    "I don't think he cares, even if he knows we're looking for him." Marty's voice spat angrily. "I think he's arrogant as hell, and that's what's going to take him