The Hunters’ Girl
Chapter One:
The Job
Cooper Reyes wasn’t lazy. He’d managed to earn his own money since the age of sixteen and was no stranger to hard work. But somehow, he just wasn’t wired to work a nine-to-five job. For him, it wasn’t so much the hours as it was being tied to certain place without being able to leave. He’d tried everything from a lumber mill to working at a Jiffy Lube changing the oil in cars (thinking this might provide more variety), but nothing felt right. Each moment he spent stuck in any one place made the skin at the back of his neck start to itch until all he could think about was leaving.
By odd luck, in his early twenties, this led him to a job as a bounty hunter, and a few years later, by even odder luck, that led to him starting his own business with a partner… hunting things that nobody else wanted to hunt. Sure, the money was spotty, and he never knew when the next job might turn up, but he always paid his bills, and the skin at the back of his neck never itched anymore.
In early March, on a Tuesday morning, between jobs, he was out behind the log cabin in Quinault, Washington, where he lived, splitting wood for the stove, when he heard the back door open and close again. Half turning, he lowered his axe to see his business partner, Lee Nevada, walking toward him through the trees.
“Just got a call,” Lee said, still holding a phone in his hand.
“Sound legit?”
“Maybe. But we’ll need to drive to Idaho.”
Though both men were tall, over six feet, and in their late twenties, they were a sharp contrast otherwise. Cooper’s father was from a Salish tribe of Washington State, and his mother was a natural blonde. He’d inherited his father’s dark hair and his mother’s blue eyes. While slender, he was a good deal stronger than he looked. He’d grown up in the Pacific Northwest and had never known a life without rain, moss, and evergreen trees.
Lee, on the other hand, looked like a cross between a soldier and an all-American football player. His jaw was solid, and he carried his strength in his arms and chest. After a six-year stint in the army, he still wore his sandy-colored hair short. He’d grown up in Georgia, the sixth of seven children, and spoke with a slight Southern lilt. But he’d never liked heat or steamy humidity, and on his first visit to northwest Washington, he’d quickly decided he was never going back.
“So, what are we talking?” Cooper asked.
“Ghost.”
Cooper nodded. Ghosts accounted for most of their paying jobs. In the past year and a half, the two of them had hunted everything from vampires to werewolves to shifters to the occasional animated corpse. But those jobs were fewer and farther between. Ghosts paid for the property taxes, groceries, beer, and put gas in the tank.
Setting down the axe, he followed Lee back into the cabin. Although they called it a cabin, as it was made from logs, in truth, it was more of an old two-story house, with a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and large bedroom downstairs, and three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Cooper had inherited it from his grandmother.
Neither he nor Lee cared much about décor (or housekeeping), so the place tended to be somewhat of a mess, with beer cans lining the kitchen counter and dishes piled in the sink. They played poker once a week to see who would get stuck cleaning the bathrooms. The wiring needed repair, and they couldn’t use the microwave and the toaster at the same time. Besides a few space heaters, the main heat source was a wood stove. But the place was home, and it suited them both fine. It had everything they needed, including cell phone service and high-speed internet.
Lee walked to the kitchen table and picked up a canvas backpack, which already appeared to be stuffed with necessary supplies and equipment. Then he lifted a sawed-off shotgun from its place on the wall.
“Where in Idaho?” Cooper asked.
“Few miles outside of Boise.”
Cooper nodded.
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Less than an hour later, as they were driving into Aberdeen, Cooper slowed for traffic.
On jobs, they always drove his 2003 Jeep Cherokee. Though it was seventeen years old, with over 160,000 miles, it was more dependable than Lee’s old Ford pickup, which tended to break down at inopportune times.
“So, what do we know?” Cooper asked.
“This one could get bad. Got a couple of dead pets already,” Lee answered, leaning back on the passenger side. “Client’s name is Mary Faulkner. She and her wife—”
“Wife?”
“Yup.”
Cooper nodded. He didn’t judge. “Go on.”
“She and her wife bought an older house to remodel. Everything was fine until last week when they were working in the basement and broke through a locked door into a storage room, as they didn’t have a key. They must have woke something up ’cause the trouble started that night.”
When Lee spoke, he always elongated the first syllable in words like “everything,” but he also dropped the ‘y.’
“More than just screams in the night, I’m guessing?” Cooper asked.
“Yeah. Dishes and pans flying in the kitchen. TV going on and off. They found their parakeet dead first, frozen solid to the bottom of its cage. Yesterday, they found their dog on the kitchen floor… same, frozen solid.”
Cooper winced. It always bothered him when pets paid such a price. “Any actual sightings?”
“Not yet, but the women moved out after finding the dog,” Lee said. “They’re staying in town. I’ve got both addresses.”
“How’d they find us?” Cooper asked.
“The website.”
“Good.”
When they’d first launched the business, Cooper created a website advertising their services. He chose the name Permanent Solutions Unnatural, thinking there was a nice ring to it. He always liked to know how and where people learned of their… expertise. And he preferred clients who went through the website—as this kept things more professional. There was a contact email address, but people nearly always called instead of writing. Most of their clients were desperate and shaken, and they liked to hear another voice when asking for help. This was understandable.
“How soon is Ms. Faulkner expecting us?” he asked.
“Tomorrow. I knew we had a ten-hour drive ahead, and we’d need some sleep tonight.”
“Good,” Cooper said again.
Clients paid for travel expenses, but only after the initial interview and the client had officially engaged the services of Permanent Solutions Unnatural. Still, in the year and a half that Cooper and Lee had been running the business, after the initial interview, no one had ever decided not to hire them.
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About ten-thirty that night, they pulled into Boise and found a room with two beds in a Quality Inn. Cooper was thinking about ordering a large pizza and having it delivered. Now that they’d secured accommodations for the night, he didn’t feel like getting back in the Jeep—or even leaving the room.
But within a few minutes of stepping through the door, Lee set down his gear and paced restlessly.
“I think I’ll go out for a while,” he said. “Find a bar.”
Cooper was well aware this was a euphemism for hooking up with a woman, but he was used to Lee’s tendencies when they traveled. Lee liked women, and they liked him. He wasn’t the settling down type, and he never pretended otherwise. He never lied about himself, and he made it clear he was only interested in a night or two at most, and yet he still always managed to get laid.