Time for Chapter 3! Thanks to everyone who read and/or reviewed; I'm glad I've been able to entertain you all, and I hope I will continue to do so.

But enough waiting. Let's get reading!

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Lea, fortunately, was off-duty that night, so he was able to help us. We arranged to meet with him at five-thirty, provided that the first stages of our plan went well. Provided that… Well, that was a risky statement. In my experience, things rarely went exactly according to plan. I just hoped that it wouldn't throw us off entirely.

At five o'clock, I stationed myself in front of the warehouse where Clayton worked (his work information having been provided by Lea), ready to intercept him as he came out. Here was the first thing that could go wrong; he might have gotten out early, or he might be leaving a different way. But, fortunately, luck decided to remain in my favor, and, a few minutes after five, I saw the large, pale figure of Robert Clayton lumbering out of the warehouse and head towards his car. I walked forward to intercept him. "Mr. Clayton?"

He turned, narrowed his eyes at me. "Yes?"

I held out a hand, which he hesitantly shook. "My name is Sora Parker. I'm a private investigator."

Instantly, fear flashed across his face, a sign of guilt; if he had been innocent, what reason would there be to be frightened? "What do you want?" His tone had become harsher.

"I just wanted to check in with you," I replied.

"What?" he said. "What business is that of yours?"

"Well," I said, "Jane Porter asked me to."

He frowned. "What? Why?"

"Oh, she's just been concerned with you." I peered in at him. "You seem rather pale, Mr. Clayton. Are you doing all right?"

"That's none of your goddamn business," he snapped.

"I only want to help," I said calmly. "Miss Porter cares about you, and I want to make sure that she does not have anything serious to worry about."

His face lightened somewhat, though he kept the scowl; I imagined the mention of Porter reminded him that he had to keep up with appearances. "Well, that's nice," he admitted grudgingly, "but no, I'm fine." He turned to walk to his car.

"Are you eating well, Mr. Clayton?"

That was the kicker—if he really was a wendigo, he would detect the hidden meaning behind that statement, and while he might not actually suspect me of knowing, he would throw up his guard even further.

He froze, and in that moment, any doubt I had had vanished. "What do you mean by that?"

I guessed it took all of his self-control to not lash out at me. "Just checking. A healthy diet is important for a healthy body. Make sure you're getting a balance of vegetables, fruits, carbs, protein…"

He whirled around, eyes blazing. "Listen, you meddling piece of shit," he snarled. "Leave me alone, or…"

I narrowed my eyes. "Or what?"

He let his threat hang. "Just cut it out."

Time for the crucial bit. "If you're so certain, why don't you show her? Make her see that you're doing all right, and I won't have to check up on you. Invite her to dinner or something."

Clayton looked at me through narrowed eyes. I hoped that meant he was thinking over my proposal. "I'll think about it," he said.

Now for the final clincher. "Just make sure she doesn't drive through the westernmost part of the city. There have been reports about people disappearing there, most likely killed and robbed by some local scumbags." I shook my head grimly. "Terrible business. But I've heard the police are closing in, and the whole business should stop soon. I just think that if you have her over for dinner, say, tonight or tomorrow, the risk would still be there."

He kept his face expressionless, though a couple of tiny signs suggested that, inside, he was leaping for joy and the chance I had just given him. "Very well, Mr. Parker," he said curtly. "Thank you for your suggestion."

I forced back my surprise; he was actually thanking me? He must really be eager to eat Porter. "No problem, Mr. Clayton."

He nodded goodbye at me, then went off to his car. I turned and left, too, hoping that this first part of my plan would yield the results I wanted.

At five-thirty, I met with Donald, Goofy, and Porter in the corner of a local coffee shop. "You said your contact in the police will meet us here?" Porter asked.

I nodded. "He may be a little late, but he'll be here."

We waited in silence. Just a couple of minutes earlier, Porter had received a call from Clayton inviting her to dinner at his house that night at seven. So the first part of my plan was successful. But I knew not to get cocky; there was a lot more to do, and so many more things that could go wrong.

About five minutes later, the door swung open, and in walked Lea, bright red spiky hair standing out like a flame. He walked over to our table, and we got up to greet him. "Good to see you, Lea," I said with a smile.

"Any time, Sora." He returned the smile as we shook hands, then greeted Donald and Goofy as well. "And you must be Jane Porter," he said, turning to her. "The name's Lea Fiers."

She shook his hand. "Pleased to meet you."

He pulled up a chair. "So, he told you about his suspicions?" I had told Lea the same thing I had told Porter, when we had arranged to meet up.

She nodded. "Have you ever heard of anything like that?"

"Yeah," he said. "I've heard of a lot of messed-up cases like that. And I'm not surprised that one has popped up here, given the sheer size of the surrounding population. Stuff like this does happen, though fortunately quite rarely." He turned to me. "So, what's up so far, and what will be up later?"

I told him of my conversation with Clayton, and how I had baited him into setting his trap. "And it worked; just a few minutes ago, Miss Porter—"

She interrupted. "You may call me Jane. I think we've reached that point now."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Certainly, Jane. Well, Jane just got a call from Clayton, inviting her to dinner tonight."

"And you think he's planning to kill her and make it look like the guys on the west side did it," said Lea. "Which, by the way, is a blatant lie; there's no activity of that sort going on en masse there or anywhere else at the moment."

I flashed him a sly grin. "Yes, I know that. And you know that. But I'm willing to bet Clayton doesn't know that."

"Ah." He nodded. "Clever."

"Thank you."

"I have to admit, I'm almost impressed."

I made a face. "Thanks. I'm almost not insulted."

He laughed. "Kidding. Good job, Sora." He returned to his businesslike attitude. "So, we've given Clayton the opportunity, and he's taken it. Now what?"

I held up my phone. "Now this."

Lea looked at it, then said in a mocking tone, "Wow. Brilliant plan, Sora. I don't think I could have come up with a better one."

"I haven't explained the plan yet, idiot," I said. "We'll use this to listen to what's going on in the house. We don't have access to any of the high-tech listening equipment, so we're going to go with this."

"Use it how?" asked Lea.

"I'll give it to Jane," I said, "and, before she goes in, Donald will call the phone, and she will answer, turn it on speaker, and leave it on. That way, she'll have a phone that's transmitting to us everything that's going on in the house."

"Will it pick up everything?" asked Lea.

"It'll pick up enough," I said. "So long as she keeps it in her shirt pocket."

Lea nodded, then frowned as he thought of something else. "And how will we be able to help her?"

"We'll be right across the street," I said. "If we hear that Jane is in danger, we can break in and help her. That's probable cause, right?"

"I'm sure it could pass," said Lea. "But…" He glanced at Jane, then turned back to me. "Mind if we step outside for a sec?"

"Okay." I got up and followed him out, noticing Jane's concerned look. "What's up?"

He frowned. "I'm still concerned about Jane. You're asking her to do something extremely risky. What if Clayton finds out?"

"He has no way of knowing that we're purposefully listening to them," I said. "And even if he suspects, we'll be right outside. This isn't like people wearing a wire, looking to get evidence, Lea. If things go south, we'll be able to respond in seconds."

"That might be too much," he said. "He could kill her in a heartbeat. What if he strikes her with a blunt or sharp object all of a sudden? Or what if he puts poison in her dinner?"

"I've thought of those," I said. "I…" I looked around, then said, more quietly, "I can't say she's entirely, one hundred percent safe from something like that. But I don't think he'll poison her if he plans to eat her; he wouldn't want to taint the meat. And she'll be on her guard, so it'll be difficult for him to catch her unprepared and strike her down unexpectedly."

"Then what are you hoping will happen?"

"What am I hoping?" I exhaled. "The ideal situation is that Clayton invites Jane in, makes some threatening gesture or comment, advances on her, she calls for help, and we go in. We force Clayton to stand down, and he does."

"And you think we can get enough evidence to convict him? You don't have a whole lot so far, and with a good lawyer, he can worm his way out of what we'd get from tonight."

"But would he be able to think so well?" I countered. "He seems to have lost a lot of his rational thinking. Besides, we can get more evidence once we've investigated the disappearance of the Panns back in Lake Ojibwe."

"You can't get it now?"

"I don't want to risk Clayton making his move before we're ready. Besides, we've already set the bait, and he's taken it. We have to act now."

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "This is risky, Sora…"

"Of course it's risky," I said. "Did you think we could just ask Clayton and he'd tell us? Did you think we could drill into his head and find out all his secrets? Did you think we could give Jane some sort of magical, all-purpose protection? We're only human, Lea. We have limitations, and we have to work around those. This is far from perfect, but it's the best option I could think of."

He looked uncomfortable. "I guess…I just wish we had a better chance."

I nodded. "That's the case a lot of the time, Lea. But, unfortunately, we can't control that."

"No."

Lea being as satisfied as he was going to get, we went back inside, then went over the plans with Donald, Goofy, and Jane, preparing for whatever eventualities we could think of. At six-fifteen, Jane excused herself, saying that it would look suspicious if she didn't prepare at all for dinner. "And you need forty-five minutes?" I said.

The others shot me a look. "What? I want to make sure we use as much time as possible getting ready."

"Thank you, Sora," said Jane (we were both now on first-name terms), "but I'm as confident as I'm going to get, and I think it's best if we just go ahead and do this." She smiled nervously at us, said, "I'll see you tonight, then," and walked out.

Donald turned back to me. "Actually, I'm surprised she was willing to stay this late."

I frowned. "What is it with women and needing to take so long to get ready?"

Donald shook his head. "Sora, you just don't understand women."

"Apparently not. Care to explain?"

Lea interrupted. "Maybe later. Right now, we need to prepare."

I nodded grimly. "Right. Let's go."

Forty minutes later, the four of us were seated in Donald's black SUV, parked across the street from Clayton's house, a small dwelling on the outskirts of the city. On each of our laps was a gun, loaded and ready for use. Even the peaceful Goofy had one; we had convinced him to have one for show if nothing else, and he had only fired it five times in his entire career. This was partly because he left most of the shooting to me and Donald, and partly because he was often able to convince a suspect to stand down instead of engage in a firefight. I hoped that that might work tonight with Clayton, but I was nervous that his lack of rational thought might prevent that.

I sighed. "Got the jitters?" asked Goofy.

"Of course," I said.

He reached over and put a steadying hand on my shoulder. "I know how ya feel," he said, "but we'll do it. We'll save Jane and put a stop to Clayton."

I forced a smile. "Yeah," I said, emboldened by Goofy's confidence.

Suddenly, a car engine sounded in the distance, getting closer. Lea perked up. "This could be it," he said.

Sure enough, a tan sedan pulled onto the street, turned into Clayton's driveway, and stopped. "Call her now, Donald," I said.

Donald got out his phone, hit a button on his speed dial, and held it up to his ear. It rang once, then was answered. "Hello," said Jane.

I took the phone. "Hi, Jane. We're right across the street. Just yell if anything goes wrong, and we'll be right there."

"Okay." Her voice shook slightly, but she sounded determined.

"Don't worry," I said. "We're in control here. You'll be fine."

She paused. "Thank you." Then, I heard the sound become slightly muffled as she tucked the phone into her shirt pocket.

I nodded at the others. "Okay, let's go." I put the phone on speaker and held it up for the others to hear.

The car door opened. Due to the dim light and distance, we could only barely make out the shape of Jane getting out of the car and walking to the front door. She rang the doorbell, and waited a couple of minutes before the door opened, and the large figure of Robert Clayton filled the doorway. "Jane!" we heard him say through the phone. "So good of you to come." The sound wasn't perfect, but we could hear well enough.

"Well, thank you for inviting me over, Robert," returned Jane.

"Please, come in."

She stepped inside, and the door swung shut, leaving us with no more visual connection to her. "She's in the belly of the beast now," said Donald in a low voice.

I motioned for him to be quiet; if Clayton heard us talking through the phone, it could ruin our entire plan. Fortunately, he had noticed nothing, and we heard the two exchange pleasantries as Clayton took Jane's coat. "A shirt and skirt, Jane?" Clayton commented. "You dressed up like this was a business meeting?"

"Do you not like it?" I couldn't tell if the disappointment in her voice was pretend or genuine. If she was acting, she was good at it.

"Oh, no, it's not that," Clayton assured her. "It's not what I expected, but not a disappointment, either."

I could almost hear the hunger in his voice, and found myself hoping that he would make his move sooner rather than later, so I wouldn't have to listen to him for much longer.

"What do you have for dinner tonight, Robert?" Jane asked.

"Oh, I've got a surprise cooked up for you," he said. "You'll have to wait to see what it is."

I could guess what that meant. I guessed Jane did, too, and I could only imagine what it must take for her to do what she was doing.

"Well, how long do I have to wait?" she asked. "Is it ready yet?"

"Almost," said Clayton. "But…" His voice dropped, and we had to lean in to catch what he said next. "I had another idea for what to do tonight."

I blinked. I'll admit, I hadn't been expecting this. This could make things a lot more awkward.

"What's that, Robert?"

"Well…how about we work up an appetite before dinner?"

There was a pause, then, "Robert, that's rather…forward."

"I apologize, Jane. It's just…you look so enticing. I could just eat you up."

Well, he was getting there, but it was rather unsettling.

"Why, thank you." Jane paused. "But I don't know, Robert. We've only been dating for a week, and this is the first time I've ever been to your house."

"Other people don't wait this long."

"Well, I'm not other people." Jane's voice rose. "Come, Robert. You don't just want me for that, do you?"

"No, no. Of course not." Clayton was pulling all the stops; I could hear his voice becoming smooth and polite. "But a woman as good-looking as you, Jane…why, a man can hardly restrain himself."

There was a brief silence. I bit my lip. Now Jane had to contend with someone who wanted to have sex with her, as well as wanted to eat her. This would complicate things. Then, I heard the sound of what was unmistakably kisses on the phone, and winced. I did not want to hear this…but if I had to in order to save Jane, I would. Looking around, I saw my companions with similar expressions. Except…Donald didn't look hopeful, did he?

"Robert…" I heard Jane say.

"Come now, my sweet," he said. There was more silence, but as I could still hear Jane's breathing (rather heavily, I might add), I knew she was okay. At least, for the moment.

Then, disaster struck. "Here, I'll take your phone," said Clayton.

"Oh, no, I've…" Jane trailed off.

There was a pause, then Clayton said, "Who's Donald?"

"D-Donald?" said Jane.

"Yes, Donald. According to your phone, he's calling you right now."

None of us breathed. This was terrible. Our cover was blown.

"Donald?" said Jane again. But then, "Oh, Donald! That must be my cousin Donald."

"You never mentioned a cousin."

"I haven't told you everything about myself, Robert. No, I'm sorry, I must have pocket-dialed him."

There was another brief silence. Then, Clayton said, "Well, we won't be needing him tonight…" and ended the call.

Total silence dominated the SUV. Then, I whispered frantically, "Shit! He hung up!"

"Yeah, I think that's pretty obvious," said Lea. "What now?"

"We have to improvise," I said.

"Can we call her back?" Goofy suggested.

I shook my head. "That wouldn't work. She wouldn't pick up; Clayton's right there."

We all thought for a second, then Goofy made another suggestion. "Well, they didn't go much past the front door, did they? Maybe we could go up to it and listen."

"Put our ears to the door and listen?" said Lea. "Well, I can't think of any better ideas."

Quickly, the four of us got out of the car and dashed across the street and Clayton's front lawn to the front door. Crouching next to it, we leaned our heads in and strained our ears. "I can't hear anything," whispered Goofy. "Do ya think they're still there?"

I couldn't hear anything, either. But then, I caught something. Something small, but there. "Does…does that sound like someone choking?"

Lea leaned in. "Maybe. Or…someone being strangled."

We all looked at each other. "Probable cause?" I asked.

But before Lea could answer, there came another sound, much more audible: the sound of something heavy falling to the floor. Closely following that was a hissed exclamation, that sounded to me like, "You bitch!"

"That's probable," said Lea, straightened up, and knocked on the door. "Mr. Clayton? This is the police."

I kept my ear to the door, and heard Clayton say, "What? You brought them here?"

"Mr. Clayton, please open the door," called Lea, a little louder, getting his gun ready.

Still no response. As I listened, I heard a sort of low croak, and Clayton saying, "Then die."

"Go!" I yelled to Lea. Not asking questions, he kicked the door, and it flung open, to show Clayton leaning over Jane, one hand clenched around her throat and one drawn back in a fist, ready to punch the life out of his girlfriend. "Don't move!" yelled Lea, pointing his gun at Clayton.

Clayton glanced up, snarled, then dropped Jane and ran. "Get back here!" yelled Lea, running after him. I ran into the house, closely followed by Donald and Goofy. Jane sunk to the floor, gasping for air. "Look after her!" I barked and Donald and Goofy, then joined Lea in the chase.

We followed Clayton out the back door, which led to a wooded area. "He either went in there or went around the house," said Lea.

I nodded. "You check the house. I'll go into the woods."

"It's dangerous to separate, Sora."

"Do you want to catch this guy or not?"

Lea made a frustrated exclamation, but nodded. I raced out the door and into the trees while he surveyed the back of the house carefully, gun at the ready.

I was more confident Clayton was in the woods; the wilderness was more a wendigo's scene than a house. "Clayton?" I called. "You can't hide from me."

I looked around me, keeping alert, then continued. "I know what you are, Clayton. You're a wendigo, right? Turned to cannibalism after you emptied your funds into the casinos?"

The forest was still dead silent. "You shouldn't have picked the Panns, Clayton. A young couple, expecting a baby? I will hunt you down for that. You will never be able to get away from me. I know all about your kind. I will know where to look, how to look. Give yourself up now, or face worse consequences."

Behind me, a leaf crackled. I spun around just in time to see Clayton lunge at me. Instinctively, I raised my gun and fired twice, hitting him in the torso. He staggered back, with small cries of pain. But that was not enough to fell him for good. As he recovered, he looked up at me, pure hatred in his eyes.

I aimed the gun at his forehead. "Don't make me do this, Clayton. There are other ways."

Apparently, he didn't think so. With a roar, he charged at me, and I pulled the trigger.

A final shot sounded out, and a bullet hole appeared in the middle of Clayton's forehead. He stood still for a second, then toppled over, a screech emitting from his throat as he did, getting fainter and fainter. I knew that that was the sound of the wendigo spirit dying. And good riddance, I couldn't help but think.

I approached the body cautiously, and nudged it with my foot. Clayton made no response. I walked around him, then knelt so that my face was inches from his. "You sought out to hurt others," I said harshly. "Well, this is what happens to those who do." Then, I rose, and turned back to the house.

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Well, that concludes Clayton's reign of terror. Next time, we'll move on to someone else...

Also, a quick note: I'm back at school now, so I'll have class and work and stuff to occupy my time, and I may not get around to updating as quickly as I have been doing so far. But, I'll try to keep the waits as short as I can.

Until next chapter!