Silver Moon, I Wait No More novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Accused

A murmur went down the creek bank.

It wasn't words. It was lower than words.

I held Bodie tighter inside Ross's jacket.

"I just took my son out of that trap," I said. "In front of all of you."

"You took him out of your own trap," the old man said. "To look like a hero. With the whole pack watching."

"I've been in Spokane since Friday."

"The trap's been here longer than that."

He turned to the pack, his cane planted in the mud.

"Three of our own died on this ridge this year. In silver. We said hunters. We said humans."

He pointed the cane at me again. "We were right. We just didn't look close enough to home."

"That's insane," I said.

"Is it?" The old man raised his eyebrows. "Who in this town lived with the heir? Who knew the paths he walked? Who could touch silver with bare hands?"

People were looking at me now.

Wet, naked, furious people.

Some of them I had served coffee to at the Cold Creek Diner, I realized.

The big quiet man who always tipped in quarters. The woman who ordered her eggs raw in the middle.

I had never known what they were.

They had always known what I was.

"Delaney," the old man said. "Tell them what you told me."

Delaney came out of the trees at last.

She walked slowly, holding her bandaged wrist against her coat, and stopped beside her father.

"A year ago," she said, "the night before I found Nash, I saw Jolene on Pike Ridge. Coming down the creek path. Alone. At midnight."

"That's a lie," I said.

"She had a bag over her shoulder. It clanked." Delaney's voice cracked in a pretty, practiced place.

"Who would think that about her? She was the mother of the heir. But I've thought about it every night since."

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