A Feral Darkness (21 page)

      
"Even if he's not, it's a chance to look things over."

      
So why did he sound like he'd prefer it if Rob
weren't
around?

      
She didn't bother to ask. He wouldn't answer if she did. At that, she had to wonder why she
was
coming along. She didn't have to wash Sunny's dish. There were other things she could do with this day—walk over to Emily's, for instance, and cry on her friend's shoulder. Or she hadn't been to visit her mother for a while, and she could take some of the little fried apple pies she'd made a few days ago; her mother always loved those. Or she could read the big fat book she had waiting in the kitchen, or target shoot, or kick around in the barn—maybe she'd fix the broken doors and advertise for a horse tenant.

      
Face it, Brenna Lynn. You're too curious to walk away.
Curious about what Rob Parker might be up to, sudden neighbor that he was. And curious about Gil Masera, which was his own fault. If he'd answer short and sharp instead of
not
answering short and sharp, she wouldn't have anything about which to be curious.

      
So she turned down the lane with him, offering a quick, oblivious smile when he gave her another glance.

      
The branches snared their sleeves, barely leaving enough room to walk abreast. They would scrape along the sides of any vehicle on the lane—more evidence of Rob Parker's long absence. She wondered why he'd come back now...why
now
, this moment, he'd suddenly seemed so drawn to her property. Turn-about seemed fair enough—and reason enough to give if he was here and found them.

      
If she made it there at all. Druid hung back suddenly, giving what was fast becoming a familiar whine, a staccato
whine-whine-whine
with a sharp edge to it. Masera hesitated as she did, looking almost relieved—but Brenna didn't have time to think that through, because Druid had had enough, and
again
, after so many days of quiescence,
again
he threw himself back and shrieked and gibbered and cursed. And again, when Brenna would have handled it, she staggered herself, slapped by a massive whirl of strength and breath-stealing fear, a black cloud on her vision and tight chills up her spine.

      
She didn't resist when strong fingers clamped down on her arm and dragged her back down the lane a short distance, then further yet, to the road, when Druid didn't calm—although by then she had her own wits back, enough to step on the leash and crouch and speak sharply to Druid—and then to praise him when he stopped, looking as dazed as he ever did. But he did what he had never done; he responded to her praise, taking a hesitant step and pushing his solid head against her thigh.

      
Only until Masera's hand once more closed on her arm, pulling her upright so abruptly she was too startled to bristle. His voice was low, but it didn't need to be any louder, not as close as he'd pulled her to himself. "What was that?"

      
"Druid—" she started.

      
"Not Druid. You felt it, too—just like at the spring. Brenna Lynn, what
was that
?"

      
"You felt it?" she repeated, still shaken—but not so much that she didn't hear the inanity of her own words. Of course he'd felt it.
He'd felt it
. And at the creek, too. She wasn't crazy, she wasn't imagining things—she wasn't even ill or overworked.
What would he have seen and felt if he'd been there when Sunny disappeared
? And had he felt what she felt at the spring? She had the feeling
yes
and she opened her mouth to ask him about it, but then—

      
Then her brain started to work again and inside her chest she went as cold as the bounding darkness had ever left her.
Brenna Lynn
. He'd called her Brenna Lynn.

      
Her mother called her Brenna Lynn. And Emily sometimes, and Sam.

      
No one else.

      
Just as she hadn't told him the phone number he'd rattled off to his Basque friend, or how to get to her house.
Masera battered from a fight. Masera buying pit bulls. Masera checking up on her.
She stepped back from him, nearly tripping over Druid; he scrambled out of her way.

      
"Just what are you up to on that hill?" Masera asked, closing in on her again, somehow using the scant difference in their heights to look down at her. "What did you
do
?"

      
His words were nonsense; all that mattered was that he had his hand on her arm again and without thinking, she shoved him back, shoved him hard. Made him stagger, and the surprise on his face only fed her anger. "Back off!" she snarled at him. "
Brenna Lynn
! I never told you that!"

      
For an instant, his surprise turned nonplussed, his startled reaction far too easy to believe. "I must have heard it at work."

      
"Nice try," she said, her voice still raised with anger, all but yelling into the silent spring woods. No one around; no one driving by on the country back road. She took another step away from him, but she wasn't frightened yet. "
They
don't know."

      
"I heard it
somewhere
," he said, exasperation showing through. He didn't try to close the distance between them.

      
"You didn't," she said coldly, anger banking down. "Did you think I wouldn't notice you knew my phone number? Or that you bought two pit bulls only hours after you told me you were between dogs for a while?"

      
"Ah," he murmured. "I thought I saw someone in the parking lot." He ducked his head, pressing a finger between his brows as if it would somehow help him think his way out of this. "Brenna—"

      
"You know what?" she interrupted. "For a while I thought, you know, it didn't matter if I don't particularly like you. It didn't matter if I didn't even really trust you—what mattered was that you're good with dogs. You might be able to help Druid, that's what counted. But that only goes so far.
Only so far
."
This
far.

      
She drew the Cardigan into a heel position, unthinking protectiveness. "Send me your bill, Masera. And stay out of my way."

      
"Brenna—" he held out his arms in a helpless, beseeching kind of gesture. No doubt he couldn't find the words—because no doubt there
weren't
any.

      
He didn't really get the chance to try. A third voice broke in on their confrontation, distant but getting closer by the word. "Hey! This is private property!"

      
Druid growled when Brenna started, lowering his head and slanting his ears back suspiciously. When she saw the man who approached them, she felt like doing the same. Tall and skinny with a watch cap covering all traces of his hair and leaving a scabby goatee trying to make up the difference, he came at them with a cocky walk, a stride with excessive arm and hand movement. Excessive confidence, too.

      
"We," Masera said, his eyes getting that heavy-lidded look, "happen to be on the shoulder. Of the very public road." Which they were. At the moment, anyway, and Brenna was willing to bet the man hadn't seen them anywhere else, but had come in response to Druid's screaming.

      
If he had, he didn't mention it. He looked disappointed, as though he'd hoped to catch them with their toes over some sort of invisible line. "That don't change the facts. This is private property."

      
Brenna snorted. "Of course it is. It's
all
private property around here. Maybe your buddy would do well to keep that in mind."

      
He frowned at her. "That's supposed to make sense?"

      
"It'll make sense to Rob, if you tell him. Or don't. I don't care." Brenna gathered up the leash and stalked back down the road, Druid at her heels and grabbing wary looks over his shoulder.

      
"I wouldn't," Masera said to the man. "Doubt he'd like you making a scene like this." In a few quick strides he'd caught up with her—or nearly caught up with her, because she wasn't having any of it and poor Druid's short little legs flew to keep her pace.

      
She wanted to ask him what
that
was supposed to have meant, but she didn't. She didn't say anything at all, not until they'd gone through the fence, across the pasture and back up the hill, and were heading for the barn gate. Even then, she didn't look at him when she said, "Send me a bill."

      
"Call it a favor," he said.

      
"No." Favors like that always cost her, somehow. One way or another, she'd pay. She'd owe him.

      
She still didn't look at him, but she heard the shrug in his voice when he said, "I didn't think so. See you around, Brenna. Stay inside at night."

      
Brenna shuddered, and slammed the porch door closed behind her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHAPTER 10
URUZ
Assertion
Brenna spent the rest of Friday doing what her hand would allow of her, and was glad enough to learn it included target practice. She made mental effigies out of the targets and put Masera in there along with Roger.

      
She aimed for the spot assigned to tender portions of their anatomies.

      
She called her mother and told her Sunny was gone, her mother told her brother, her brother called her. Somehow he made it sound like he thought she'd be better off in town so she wouldn't have to deal with such things, instead of that he was sorry for her loss. She cried, and she called Emily, and Emily insisted that she come over for a picnic in the Brecken family room, where they all discovered that Druid, in the presence of little girls exclaiming, "Can I give him a potato chip,
pleasepleaseplease
" was quite capable of sitting up on his haunches. Unlike a dog with longer limbs, his short front legs didn't fold neatly at his chest, but stuck out to make him look like a child reaching to be picked up.

      
Upon returning home she went straight to bed, and refused to think about the strange jumble of events that her life had suddenly become.