Part 65 (2/2)

Reaching over, he flipped the switch, and something inside the sink drain began making a horrible, dangerous-sounding racket.

”s.h.i.+t!”

Flipping the switch the other way, he turned it off quickly.

When Rinna came, he'd make her show him how to turn on the lights. But he'd pretend he hadn't encountered the noisemaker in the sink.

THE wolves spread out, fanning through the woods, looking for Falcone and his men.

They were all carrying the whistles Ross had given them-the ones with fake bird calls. No ordinary wolf could have blown the whistles. But they knew how to shape their muzzles to do it.

If any of them came on anything interesting or urgent, he could sound an alarm. Of course there were real birds in the woods, but they could use a different pattern for the fake calls. Hopefully, the guys they were tracking wouldn't know the local bird songs.

They stayed within a couple of hundred yards of each other, but in the thick underbrush, they weren't always able to see each other.

Logan's frustration grew as he tried to pick up Rinna's scent. He'd thought he just had to head toward home. But so far he hadn't located her.

He was starting to think his theory was wrong when he heard the metallic cheep of a cardinal.

Lance had found something! Finally.

Or had he? The call had sounded strange, like his brother wasn't fully focused on what he was doing.

Hearing the underbrush to his right stir, he stiffened. A gray shape emerged from around a blackberry thicket, and he saw that it was Ross.

His cousin stopped beside him and gave him a questioning look, then fumbled his whistle into his mouth and gave a short toot.

Logan nodded.

Lance's signal came again, more m.u.f.fled than before. Logan stopped short, trying to fix the direction. The sound had come from his left.

He trotted forward, then saw Lance through the underbrush.

Whistle in his mouth, he blew a short note, expecting to get Lance's attention. But his brother stood stock-still, and he didn't turn.

Ross tipped his head to one side, then pawed the ground-their sign for danger.

Logan nodded, and they both started slowly forward. But when he saw Lance waver on his feet, he sprinted toward his brother, then felt a terrible pull tugging him toward a pile of leaves.

A familiar pull. Instantly he knew it was from one of the traps that had almost killed him before Rinna had gotten him out of the d.a.m.n thing. But the range was less than last time, as if someone had changed the calibration.

Not bothering with the whistle, he lifted his head and howled. But the wolf call didn't even get his brother's attention.

Rus.h.i.+ng forward, he bounded to Lance's side and knocked him to the ground before he could take another step toward the trap.

Now that Logan was so close, the terrible pull tugged at him. But the previous experience gave him some idea how to resist. He set his will against the trap even as he fell on Lance, holding him back when he would have stumbled forward toward his destruction.

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