Chapter 29

Barry broke into a nervous sweat as he hurried to his vehicle which was parked across the street from Aubrey’s boutique. He had been close to spilling the truth to her a few minutes ago, had that Eric fellow not shown up to interrupt them. If Barry was being honest, he was very tired of this charade with Aubrey, but he needed to keep up the act because his wealth depended on it.

As if on cue, his phone rang, displaying a hidden caller ID that meant it was his faceless benefactor calling. Damn it!

“I guess things didn’t go well with your lady friend,” the caller said.

“Uh…I—wait, what? How did you know that?”

“I know a lot of things, Barry,” he drawled.

“Are you spying on me?”

“I wouldn’t call it spying. I was merely checking on my investment. And speaking of which, you do realize that the future of your career depends heavily on the success of this project, don’t you?”

Barry swallowed hard. “Listen, things aren’t going as I expected. Aubrey seems to be emotionally entangled with some guy from her hometown.”

“I don’t give a shit if she’s about to get married to her sibling or whatever.” The caller sounded angry. “You had a simple assignment—get close to her and find out who the leader of the clan is. How hard can it be?”

Barry stifled a sigh. He had a feeling that he was dealing with a psychopath. If not, why was this lunatic so convinced that a bunch of people living in a small community in Fairbanks had werewolves living amongst them? In what world did that even make sense? Yeah, so there were hundreds of books and movies that claimed that werewolves existed, but those were just fiction. There were no werewolves in real life!

“I understand what you’re saying,” Barry began tentatively. “But I need to establish some sort of friendship with her before asking her such a wild question.”

“Wild question, you say?” the caller asked in a sinister tone. “Perhaps, you should ask your father about it?”

“My father?” Barry was confused. “What does he have to do with this?”

The caller chuckled. “I already told you that I didn’t find you randomly. Someone pointed me in your direction, and that someone is your father.”

Barry refused to believe it. His estranged father had led this faceless man to him? Why?

“Your father was on the verge of a breakthrough when the scandal of ’97 happened. Remember that?”

The scandal of ’97 referred to that awful incident when a bunch of armed policemen stormed their home in the middle of the night to arrest his dad for kidnapping Theresa-Rose White and locking her up in their basement to conduct unauthorized experiments on her. That night had been the most terrifying experience of Barry’s life. The policemen had come out of the basement with a frail-looking and unconscious 16-year-old Theresa-Rose who still had all sorts of wires attached to her body.

Strangely enough, her family hadn’t pressed charges and his dad had gotten off without even a detention at the police station. He’d asked his father what had happened but instead of an answer, his father had threatened to beat him up if he ever asked him that question again or even blabbed to anyone about it. His mother’s drinking had gotten worse, and shortly after that horrible incident, she had left his dad. That was one of the many reasons why Barry had left the town after graduation without a backward glance. Now, here he was being forced to revisit his painful past because of this wealthy lunatic who kept getting crazier by the day.

“Your long silence tells me that you do remember,” the caller continued. “Your father and I are on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that will change the history of mankind forever. You thought I was insane when I told you that there were werewolves living amongst us, didn’t you? Whether you believe me or not, nothing can stop what we are about to achieve. I merely thought it would be a good idea to bring you on board since your father is the brain behind this project, but I can see now that we made a mistake involving you. We’ll be moving on to Plan B.”

“Wait, what’s Plan B? Where’s my father? What are you people planning to do?”

“Don’t worry about it anymore, Barry. It’s no longer your concern. You will hear from me again soon.”

“What’s going on? Talk to me!” Barry screamed into his phone, but the call had already ended.