To Tell An Altswood Lie (The Altswood Saga #3)

Chapter 13 - Wolf

Chapter 13 - Wolf

"What do you mean it's fake?"

Dad looked around, making sure no one milling about the front yard had overheard my sharp hiss. Officers were taking statements from party-goers, and no one was allowed to leave until they had said their piece. So far, no one had reported seeing anything, though that was hardly a surprise.

"I mean that exactly," Dad whispered lowly. "The blood is fake. The animal guts are Halloween props."

At this point in my time on Bottle Island, I didn't think my maximum level of surprise could be surpassed. But here I was, doing a double-take at the gruesome scene that Dad had roped off with police tape.

Of course it's fake, I realised, wanting to thump myself over the head. There was no terrible smell.

"That's—that's—" I couldn't finish my sentence. What kind of person could strangle a woman to death in her own bed but couldn't kill a real animal to leave a gross message?

"Perhaps 'a killer was here' doesn't mean I am the killer and I was here," I whispered to Dad. "Perhaps it means You're overlooking Luca Fern as the killer and she was in this house. This could be nothing but the work of a disgruntled prankster."

Dad sighed deeply, and shrugged. "Both are valid points, Loosh, but we just don't know." He glanced at his cellphone with a frown, viewing an incoming message.

"Tony!" he barked. "Where the hell is Jolene?"

The pale officer with the ginger goatee whipped his head up, startled to attention. "She said she had a family emergency, sir."

"And Louws?"

Tony pulled a face that said everything. Even the police force had its petty rivalries with co-workers.

"Alright, I need to sort out these truancies," Dad muttered to me. "We keep quiet about this scene being fake, understand?"

I nodded. The more that people knew, the more they would conclude exactly what I had: perhaps an amateur had done this to make a point about me and Gabriel.

But then why not use our names? Why remain so incredibly vague?

I rubbed my hands over my arms. It was starting to become chilly, and I was regretting my choice to go sleeveless with every breeze that blew over. When Dad was called away to discuss something with Tony, I looked around the yard, seeing Gabriel, Annabelle, and Jules each being grilled by an officer with a notepad.

Slowly, taking advantage of a rare moment when no one was paying any attention to my questionable actions, I inched towards the area that was cordoned off.

They hadn't put a tarp cover over the entrails, since it wouldn't be rotting or attracting insects any time soon. There was only police tape that I easily hopped over, and a shortage of officers on watch as I turned on my phone's flashlight to examine the little bits and pieces.

I wondered if they could pull a handwriting analysis from the message. At least it didn't try mimic mine again.

"A killer was here," I muttered beneath my breath, reading the words slowly. "Do you mean it?"

The garage door wouldn't answer me, so I continued moving my flashlight along the scene.

"Intestine," I muttered. "Rib bone. Claw. Oh, eyeball, that's fantastic."

Nothing in particular jumped out at me. I had hoped that perhaps there would be a hint left behind, another breadcrumb in this killer's bizarre need for us to find their identity. But this was utterly normal—as normal as a fake display of gore could be.