The diner yields one useful thing, though it takes me an hour of sitting with coffee to get it. Two men in a back booth are talking about feed deliveries; mundane, boring, except that one of them mentions a schedule change. “Truck won’t come through Tuesday anymore. Garrett moved it to Thursday on account of the east road being used.”
The other man nods. “Makes sense. Less traffic the better.”
Garrett. East road. Being used for something that requires less traffic.
I note it. Pay for my coffee. Leave a good tip because the waitress kept my cup full without hovering, and that kind of competence deserves acknowledgment.
By early evening, I’ve walked the main street twice and mapped the town and surrounding suburbs in my head. I know where the side roads go, which buildings are occupied, where the wolf scent concentrates, and where it thins. The whole town is saturated. There’s no part of Cedar Falls that isn’t pack territory.
Briar is sitting on the motel bed when I get back, boots off, marking a folded map with a pencil. She’s been in the hills since dawn, and she smells like dust and juniper.
I flop down on the second bed and stretch out with a groan. It’s been days of driving and tension. The knots between my shoulder blades could form a nice macrame basket.
“Picked up some scent trails,” she says without looking up. “Old. Months, not weeks. Ravenclaw signatures.”
My chest tightens. “Show me.”
She turns the map. Clean pencil lines trace a route running southeast through the hills. “They enter from the north, move through a corridor, and disappear south past a creek crossing about four miles out. They didn’t stop.”
“Through the heart of the territory?”
“Within half a mile of what I think is the main compound. That’s not a mistake. You don’t route wolves through someone’s core land without cooperation.”
She’s right. And it confirms what I already suspected. Whoever runs this town didn’t just let the families pass through. They managed the transit.
“Can you track past the creek?”
“Tomorrow. The trail’s exposed down there: wind, open ground, older scent. I’ll need light.” She looks at me for the first time. “You get anything from town?”
“A name. Garrett. Sounds like he’s the one making decisions about road access. And a delivery schedule that got shifted to keep one of the roads clear.”
Briar nods.
“I need to get somebody talking,” I say. “Nobody in this town will give me anything sober and sane in broad daylight. But there’s a bar.”
“So go.”
“I was thinking you could—”
“No.” No hesitation. “I’m not a bar person. And you need to go alone. You’re the face. I’m the feet.” She means it practically—I work the people, she works the terrain—but there’s something else in the way she says it. The faintest edge of amusement. “You’re more… approachable. But you should wear something different.”
Approachable? I’m guessing she means I don’t look like I bite.
“I’m wearing jeans and a shirt,” I say.
“Exactly.” Briar stands, crosses to her bag, and pulls out something I don’t recognize at first. Dark fabric, compact. She tosses it to me.
I catch it and hold it up. A dress. Short, fitted, the kind of thing designed to make men lose track of what they were saying mid-sentence. It’s a deep wine color, soft fabric, and it would hit me about mid-thigh.
I stare at it. Then at Briar.
“Why do youownthis?”
“It’s useful.” Her face is perfectly impassive. “People talk more when they’re distracted.”
“This is a weapon.”
“So wear it.” She sits back down and picks up her pencil. “Let off some steam. Might do you good. Get lucky if you feel like it. Just don’t compromise the mission.”