Bruce got up from the rug.
"Let me go and find out if it's her?" he suggested.
"Okay, go in the direction of the sound," Lyle agreed.
"What about our guests?" Bruce asked.
"We will tell them that you had to go and check out something," Dolores responded.
"Okay, I won't be gone too long because I still have to get you guys to the airport," Bruce promised.
The singing stopped, so will you still be able to track her down?" Dolores asked.
"I will go over there where I last heard it and maybe she will start singing again," Bruce replied with a hopeful look in his eyes.
"Good luck," Lyle said as Bruce walked off.
The deejay played more upbeat music now.
Bruce frowned in frustration at this. He walked fast so that he could get away from the noise.
"Okay, she should have been around here," he told himself as he reached the area just before the lake.
He looked around and saw no sign of anyone. There was no singing either. He looked across at the lake and could not spot any boat on the water, but there were two boats on the shore on his side of the lake.
"She can't be gone across the lake so fast," he told himself, scratching his head.
"Then maybe she went over to the opposite side of the woods. But then, that's where she said her friend lives, so maybe she's gone to that same friend again?" he asked himself.
He began to walk in that direction.
"My senses can't tell me where she is if I'm in human form. I will have to transform, but how do I speak to her then? It won't make sense," he told himself.
So, he walked, trying to listen for sounds of movement.
"Where can she go so fast and why isn't she singing anymore? Did she perhaps see us and notice me coming over? But then, why would she too shy to hang around and wait for me?" he asked into the silence.
Just before he walked again, Bruce heard a sound close by. Someone or something had just moved.
"It could be an animal, don't get your hopes up," he told himself as he looked in the direction of the sound. He stood still for a while, waiting.
Suddenly the sound was behind him, quite close and he spun around. There in front of him stood a white wolf. He knew immediately that it was no ordinary wolf. It could not be Mishka either because it was most certainly a familiar female wolf.
"What is Jean's friend doing here?" Bruce asked himself with a sneer as he stared at Theresa. She was not from this area, so it was clear that she only came to spy on him.
"So, who are you spying for? Yourself or your friend?" Bruce asked silently.
The white wolf glared back at him and snarled before turning around and disappearing into the woods again.
"She thinks I'm going to be so disturbed that I will go after her to interrogate her. Well, I'm not in the mood for that. Jean must have suspected that I didn't tell the truth about going out of town, so she sent her friend to check out what was happening at my home," Bruce told himself, snorting in irritation.
"Let Theresa run along until she's tired," he told himself.
"Let me try and see if I can sense the singer's whereabouts using my normal senses," Bruce told himself as he continued to walk along in the direction of the bridge where he had last spoken to Mishka.
"Wait, what if Theresa already caught up with her? Could she have done something to Mishka before she showed herself to me?" Bruce asked himself in a sudden panic.
"Maybe that's why she wants me to follow her?" he continued as he stood still in his tracks.
"But, what are the odds about Jean knowing anything about my interest in Mishka? How would Theresa know on her own? Lyle and I have never confided in any of the models, so nobody could have passed on gossip," he thought as he forced himself to stand still and breathe in deeply to calm his nerves.
"So, Theresa can't just harm Mishka unless there's someone amongst the models who kept seeing Mishka come around to my house during the past week? Maybe there's a spy there who reports about unusual events?" Bruce asked himself as he tried to think.
"But then, can Jean boldly tell Theresa to follow Mishka? Where did Mishka disappear to so soon, though?
If it wasn't for Lyle and Dolores who also heard the singing, I would have thought that it was only my overactive imagination," he told himself as he sat down on his hunches.
"Maybe I should have followed Theresa to find out what she was doing here. Can she still be around or did she go straight out of the forest?" he wondered to himself.
"She did look angry, though," he told himself. "Can it simply be because we didn't invite her and Jean to the farewell picnic? But, they did not respond to the invitation to come to the dinner party during the week, so why would they want to attend a picnic?" he asked himself.
"I have to find Mishka though, even if I have to change to my wolf form," he thought for a moment before another realization hit him.
"What if Mishka is watching me from a distance and she sees me transform? No, that can't happen. I have to tell her about my story in person, much later in our acquaintance," he told himself.
"I can't risk calling out to her either, or can I? Bruce thought next as he stood upright again, and began to pace around in circles.
"I will have to take a chance, no matter what. So, let me call out. Theresa might not come back here," he told himself.
"Mishka!" he called out, cupping his hands around his mouth. He then waited for a reaction. There was no response.
After a short while, he was ready to call out again when he heard a sound behind him. He turned around slowly and looked around himself.
A distance up ahead, he saw a white wolf again.
"That isn't Mishka because I can't sense her being a wolf for sure. So then it's still Theresa. Why hasn't she left and why would she respond when I call out for Mishka?" he asked himself as he stared at the wolf which was also looking in his direction.
"What do you want or is there something that you want to say to me?" Bruce asked in a low tone of voice as he clenched his fists.