A Feral Darkness (37 page)

      
"He'll figure it out," Masera said, watching him go—and then added thoughtfully, "Or else his chiropractor's going to make out." But despite his light words, when he turned to her, he had his serious face on. "What's wrong?"

      
She knew why she'd come to him, but those weren't the words she heard leaving her mouth. "Mickey stopped by early yesterday morning," she said. "He had a message for you."

      
"He did?" Masera evidently found the idea as startling as she had, the way his brows drew together.

      
"So he said. He wanted me to tell you that it was changed to Thursdays, same time. And not to go to the first time, or you'd be sorry, but if you were sorry, you'd better keep your mouth shut."

      
Well, it meant something to
him
. "Mickey's a fool," he muttered, anger shutting down his features.

      
"I don't suppose you'll tell me what that's all about."

      
"No." He looked right at her, captured her with the strength of it.

      
She felt like growling at him. She
did
growl at him. But she didn't pursue it—not now—and she had enough on her mind that she didn't even linger over it, nursing resentment. Standing there in front of him, with the flush of emotion still on her cheeks, her thoughts went straight back to the front of the store, drawn with the same horror that makes people gape at accident scenes.

      
"Maybe I should ask again," Masera said, pulled out of his anger by her disquieted distraction. "What's wrong?"

      
Brenna wrinkled her nose. "Nothing, I hope. I mean—" and she stopped, not even knowing where to go. "I don't even know why I'm here—"

      
"Because I'll understand," he said. For the first time she noticed that he had a new bruise and scuffle mark on his cheek, and a cut on his chin. Things might have been quiet for her, but it looked like whoever'd roughed him up the first time had come back for a small second helping.

      
"I think I'm being—" she hesitated. "That maybe the past month or so has gotten into my head. But I can't—I don't—"

      
"Brenna."

      
"I think," she said, squeezing the words out, "that Elizabeth has rabies."

      
But he didn't laugh, and he didn't say she was being ridiculous. He looked at her, his eyes hooding as he considered her words. "If she's showing signs—"

      
"Then it's too late," Brenna finished miserably. "I'm wrong. I have to be wrong."

      
"What you have to do," he said quietly, "is tell her."

      
"How can I? What can I say? It's a
feeling
, nothing more. Based on one day's observation by
me
, and I've never seen anyone with rabies."

      
"She's got a boyfriend. Unlike HIV, rabies
is
passed in the saliva. If you're wrong, her doctor will say so."

      
Brenna closed her eyes.
It's not happening it's not happening it's not happening
. "She's my
friend
."

      
"That's the point," he said, and his hand brushed her shoulder, a brief reassurance. "And it's why you came to talk to me. Because you knew what I'd say."

      
At that she opened her eyes and scowled. "You think you know everything," she said, and spun away from him, stalking down the aisle and startling customers with her expression all the way back to the grooming room. Being angry at something made it just a little bit easier to live with what faced her there.

      
"Brenna," Elizabeth said in surprise, holding Jeremy Cocker's leash and his customer card. She wiped surreptitiously at a small gathering of thick saliva in the corner of her mouth. "What on earth's the matter?"

      
Brenna told her.

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

CHAPTER 14
ISA
Frustrations & Hindrances
Brenna pounded nails. Angry pounding, each impact banging out a word in her mind.
It's! Not! Fair!

      
Not fair that she'd been right about Elizabeth. Not fair that her friend had gone downhill so quickly, and only a day later, was isolated in a hospital. Not fair that Brenna wasn't allowed to visit.

      
To say good-bye.

      
She slammed a final nail into place—
not-fair!
—and reached for the drill, aiming it at the holes she'd just marked for the replacement hinges of an interior barn gate. The barn itself was a hodgepodge of old and new, with huge main timbers and thick original boarding. One side served as a garage for small farm machines and equipment storage, while the middle contained a grain area, a closed tack room, and a work space where horses could be fed, saddled, shod, and treated. The other side and along the back held run-ins for pastured horses—sections where horses from separate pastures could find shelter, and interior areas for isolation. There were no stalls; there had never been stalls. And try as she might, Brenna had never been able to conceive of a simple way to convert the barn—with its limited electricity and complete lack of plumbing—to a dog facility.

      
In its prime it had been an active, low-key boarding barn. And if she fixed a few important things—like this gate from one section of the horse runs to another—she might yet get a few co-op boarders in here. A few more dollars of income, though she'd likely eat it all with upkeep.

      
And in the meantime, worried about Elizabeth, she found it mightily satisfying to drill and hammer and bang things around with vigor, and then step back to find she had managed to construct something in the process.

      
The gate wasn't a thing of beauty. Weathered old boards, horse-nibbled and greyed, clashed with the stout new crosspieces. But it hung true enough to open and close easily, and the new latch snicked shut with a satisfying firmness. She'd add a chain; that would discourage horses who were clever with their tongues. She stood back, admired it, and looked around for something else into which she could pound nails.

      
And discovered that there, between the big double-sliding doors leading into the grain and tack area, stood her brother. Silhouetted against the early evening light, his shape—a little taller than her, arms a little akimbo, left shoulder slightly lower than the right, receding temples in his bushy hair evident even in outline from this angle—was too familiar to be obscured by such a thing as lack of three-dimensional detail.

      
"Russell," she said simply, a single word that encompassed both surprise and welcome, and hid the sigh she felt inside. Russell was not there to support her in her anger and sadness. He might think he was, but that's not the way it would turn out.

      
"Need some help?" he asked.

      
"I'm done, I guess." Fix-it puttering was a solitary chore, she'd always felt. She bent at the waist, limber enough to gather the tools without crouching down—but not quite endowed with enough hands.

      
"Here," he said, and came to take the drill and drill bit case from her so she could deal with the rest. "Sorry you didn't hear me drive up. Some fierce little watch dog you've got out there."
Not
, he meant, with that lightly sarcastic tone. "Odd little fellow. One of your strays?"

      
"Yes," she said, no longer rising to a jibe she might have lunged for as a teen. "He's a good dog."

      
"I figured as much. The kids are playing with him. Last I saw they'd taken him out to the old paddock to toss sticks for him."

      
Brenna stashed the tools in the old tack room and latched the door. "They won't have much luck. He's pretty clueless. He's good for a tussle with kids, though. They amuse him. Is Marie here, too?" She hoped. At five and seven, the boys were just a little too young to be left alone off home turf, and a little too wild to trust—they'd likely pull down one of the old fences and proudly present the results to her while Russell beamed.

      
"Nope," Russell said. "She's not feeling well tonight."

      
Wanted a well-deserved break from the boys, Brenna thought. Russell loved them dearly, but he counted his contribution to parenting as the sperm he'd donated and the hours he put into his flooring store to support them. She took them through the gate she'd just reinstalled, pausing to watch it click into place—
yesss
—and led Russell out the back way to discover that Druid had already learned an important lesson—Russell's boys did not equal Emily's girls. He was willing to romp, but he shadowed rather than interacted with them. That suited Brenna. She leaned against her stack of old, greyed hay and watched.

      
"Sorry about your friend," Russell said, shifting awkwardly and finally putting out an arm to lean against the hay.

      
"Thanks," Brenna said. "I guess it's made the news, then?" They'd wanted to stick a microphone in Brenna's face at the store, to ask questions like
what's it like to know it could have been you?
but Roger had forbidden it and for once she was just as glad for his Pets!-protective management.

      
They hadn't bothered her here. She guessed it wasn't the same without the store as background.

      
"Oh, yeah." Russell nodded, distracted, as he discovered her shooting targets jammed between the hay bales and pulled them out. "What's this?"

      
As if it weren't perfectly obvious, and as if he weren't really asking for an explanation—
justification
—of
why
she was target shooting.

      
"Targets," she said simply, taking them from him and putting them back where they'd been. "They stay dry in there."

      
"You know, you can always stay with Marie and me if you get worried about being out here alone."

      
That startled her into giving him a surprised look. "Worried? Are you here because Mom told you I was worried?"

      
"I'm here," he said, "because
Mom
is worried. About the dog packs, and she told me you'd lost your hound in some weird way."

      
"No one ever saw that dog pack," Brenna said. "A lot of people assumed it. Could have been a particularly bad-acting coyote. You know they're in this area now." Words for Russell. She knew better than to believe either explanation.

      
"A coyote? Kill a dog the size of that red hound you had?" Russell gave her an annoyed big-brother look. "I haven't been living in town long enough for you to pull
that
one on me, Brenna."

      
She shrugged, rubbing her hands up and down her goose-bumping arms. Working, she'd been warm enough. Standing in the shadow of the barn, she wasn't.

      
"The point is, she's beginning to wonder if it was a mistake to let you have this place."

      
A prickle of alarm made the goose-bumps bigger. "I've kept it up just fine. It's what I was doing when you got here, in case you didn't notice."