Heat of the Moment (22 page)

Static nattered through the mike. Since Candy let go of the transmit button, he figured the ambulance was on the way.

“Is my mom—”

“Gone.”

His heart gave such a lurch that he grabbed the edge of the reception desk.

“Sorry! Not dead gone, but actually gone, as in run off again.”

The joy that Owen felt that his mom wasn't dead and gone fled as he came to the conclusion that she'd been the one doing the assaulting, rather than the assaultee.

Only one thing surprised him about that.

How in hell had she gotten a knife?

 

Chapter 17

The tweezers slid over the edges of the object, then I pulled, slowly and gently, until it slid free. Joaquin shoved the steel bowl that had previously been on the floor in front of me. The tinny clatter echoed in a silence broken only by Pru's drugged breathing and the distant wail of a siren.

“Is that a silver bullet?” he asked.

“I'm not sure.” I'd never seen one before.

“Why would someone think she was a werewolf?”

In the process of flushing the wound, I bobbled the tool. “A what?”

“Silver bullet,” he repeated in the same tone my brothers often said. “Duh!”

I refrained from cuffing him in the head only because he wasn't my brother.

“She isn't a werewolf.”

“If she were, a silver bullet would have killed her on contact.” Joaquin handed me the antibiotic syringe.

“That's insane.”

“Hey, I'm not the one who shot her with a silver bullet.”

Who had? Deb had mentioned calling the DNR to report Pru's odd behavior. I'd asked her not to. I doubted she'd listened, but I also doubted the DNR had had time to send anyone yet, let alone someone who carried silver bullets.

And while we'd heard a gunshot earlier, that bullet had not been the one I'd found inside the wolf. Even if I ignored Pru's statement that she'd been shot a hundred and fifty miles from here, she would not have an infection from a wound inflicted today.

A lot of questions I had no answers to. Along with the tiny problem that the answers I did have had come from listening to a wolf and believing what she'd “said.”

I finished cleaning, injecting, stitching, bandaging, then picked up a cone of shame.

“You're going to put that on a wolf?” Joaquin asked. “She'll bang it against every tree in the forest.”

“I'm not letting her go until the stitches are out.” I doubted she'd come back in seven to ten days for their removal. And leaving them in would only cause another infection.

“You going to keep a wolf in the kennel?”

“Where else?”

“The dogs will go ballistic, and the guinea pig might have a stroke.”

I wished he'd stop making good points. “I'll have to keep her here.”

“Isn't that kind of dangerous?”

Less dangerous than keeping her at my parents'.

“You have office hours tomorrow,” he continued. “I doubt she'll lie in the corner nicely. She's more likely to eat the customers.”

“She's not a normal wolf.”

“Which might be why she got shot.”

“Abnormal doesn't make her a werewolf.”

“What does it make her?”

Pru's paw jerked. I heard a single word.

Not
.

Not what? Not a werewolf? Or not, not a werewolf?

I needed some sleep.

“If you're going to put that cone on her you'd better do it,” Joaquin said. “She's coming around.”

I slipped the blue papery plastic apparatus over Pru's head and tied it securely. “Can you go into the kennel and get some bedding, dog food, and dishes?”

Joaquin frowned, but he did it. As soon as the door shut behind him, I spoke. “I know you're awake.”

Pru sat up. She turned left, right. The cone followed.
Get this off.

“It'll keep you from licking or biting your stitches.”

I'm not an idiot.

“You're not a werewolf either.”

No,
she agreed.

“Who thought you were?”

Edward.

“Who's he?”

That's almost as long and complicated a story as who I am.

The door to the kennel opened, barking flowed out, the door closed, steps approached, and I lowered my voice so that only she could hear.

“As soon as I get rid of the kid, I got nothin' but time.”

*   *   *

Owen had no trouble finding Peggy's car. Not only was the bronze SUV parked sideways across the eastbound lane of Route GG. But it was on fire.

How had Peggy neglected to mention that? To be fair, being stabbed might make her a bit forgetful. It also might make her BBQ.

He parked the pickup on the shoulder about a hundred yards back, leaped out, ordered Reggie to stay. The dog did, but he started barking, gaze on the fire. Infernos always had that effect on him.

Owen approached the flaming car, hoping to yank out Peggy and then get far enough away that neither one of them would be incinerated when the gas tank blew. He was about ten steps away when his gaze was drawn to a body in the ditch on the other side of the road.

He was nearly there when he heard the telltale
whoosh.
He dived, covering the woman as pieces of SUV fell all around them. Reggie barked louder. The distant wail of sirens wasn't helping.

Beneath him, the body stirred, and Owen rolled free to reveal a plump, grandmotherly woman with short hair fading from gold to silver. She wore an ID badge around her neck that confirmed she was Peggy Dalberg.

Her eyelids fluttered, opened. Her eyes were light blue and full of pain. One pale, veined hand clutched at her stomach. Blood pulsed between her fingers to the beat of her heart. The other she held to her neck.

Owen was half afraid his mom had gone for the jugular too, but the only blood on Peggy's neck were a few drying streaks in the shape of fingers.

“Help will come soon.”

Owen yanked off his jacket and pressed it to her stomach. She winced.

“Sorry. We gotta keep pressure on this.”

She lowered her hand from her neck. She'd been branded with the head of a snarling wolf. That wasn't his mother's MO.

Neither was fire. Didn't mean she hadn't done it.

“Mary,” Peggy whispered, and blood bubbled on her lips.

Owen had seen injuries like this in the field. If he wanted to find out what had happened, he needed to do so pretty damn fast.

“Mary McAllister did this?”

“No.”

“Who did?”

“Woman ran into the road, had to stop.”

“You know her?”

Peggy shook her head.

“Did my mom?”

“Seemed to. Mary called her—”

Peggy coughed. Blood sprayed. Owen should urge her to rest, but he didn't.

“Called her what?”

“Bitch-whore.”

That
was his mother's MO.

“What did she look like?”

“Tall. Solid.”

A tall, solid woman would be about …

“Six feet?”

Nod.

“One sixty?”

Nod—shrug.

“What else?”

“Brown hair past her…” She closed her eyes.

“Ears? Chin? Neck? Shoulders?”

“But,” Peggy blurted.

“But what?”

“Hair past her butt,” she clarified. “Stabbed me w-w-with an athame.”

“I don't—”

“Knife.” She made a
Z
in the air with her finger. He had no idea what that meant. “Carved handle. Matched the ring.”

“What ring?”

She turned the trembling finger toward the livid brand on her neck. “She used the ring to make this.”

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“Venatores Mali,”
she whispered.

And then she died.

*   *   *

“You should meet your mom at the caf
é
,” I said.

“It's not even close to the end of her shift.” Joaquin's gaze remained on the wolf curled atop a dog bed in the corner of the exam room.

“I'm sure you have homework.”

“I'm sure you're trying to get rid of me.”

The kid always had been too smart.

“Then why won't you be gotten rid of?”

“Where are you going to sleep?”

“I'll figure it out.”

I'd planned on sleeping with Owen.

Bing!
The light went on. I'd take Pru to the cottages, sneak her in after dark. Krazy Kyle might be amenable to hunting dogs, but wolves were another matter.

I glanced at the clock. Speaking of Owen … where was he?

“Go.” I urged Joaquin to, then out, the door. Before he could say anything more, I shut the door, flipped the lock. After a few seconds a muttering shadow passed the window. The mutters faded. So did Joaquin.

“Thought he'd never leave.”

Pru didn't comment. She was still pouting about the cone of shame. I was still refusing to take it off.

I drew a chair next to the dog bed and collapsed into it. It had been a helluva day. Had it only been this morning that someone tried to kill me?

I pulled out my phone—I'd had a few calls from an “unknown” number, but no messages—I dialed Owen. It went directly to voice mail. Had he driven out to the house, where cell service was terrible? Or was he ignoring me?

I waited for the beep to leave a message. I didn't have much choice. I couldn't exactly go searching for him and leave a wolf alone in the office. Wild animals trapped inside … It never went well.

“Where'd you go?” I asked. “Little worried. Call me.”

I pressed
end,
then contemplated the wolf. “You wanna tell me the story now?”

Take it off
.
I look ridiculous.

“You'll look more ridiculous dead.
”

If I haven't died in over four hundred years, I doubt I'm going to die now.

Four hundred years? I guess she was the same wolf I'd been seeing since childhood. Or maybe “wolf” wasn't quite the right word.

“You sure you're not a werewolf?”

She stiffened, appearing very regal despite the cone of shame.
I am not.

“Why are you so offended?”

Besides this ridiculous ruff?

She shook and the plastic-paper rattled like distant thunder.

“Don't whine to me if you give in to an irresistible urge to chew open your stitches.” I yanked the string and drew the cone over her head. She dipped her snout toward her paws in thanks.

Werewolves are evil. Insane, murdering beasts.

I'd expected her to say werewolves didn't exist. Silly me. “So there
are
werewolves?”

Have been since the beginning of time. A lot more since World War Two.

“You're making that up.”

Why are you so amazed? You're speaking to a wolf.

“Am I? Or am I just imagining that I am?”

What do you think?

I had no idea any more. Once I'd believed I was special. I'd had to give that up or risk everything—my family, my future, my sanity. However, deciding that the thoughts of animals were only the projections of my own hadn't stopped them from coming. Hadn't stopped them from being spot-on accurate either.

“I think I have bigger things to worry about at the moment. Someone tried to kill me.” I frowned. “And someone tried to kill you. Which has to be related somehow.”

Not really. Edward thought I was a werewolf. They tried to tell him I wasn't, but he didn't get the memo in time.

I managed not to ask how a four-hundred-year-old wolf knew about memos. At the moment, I needed to keep my questions confined to the really important ones, like—

“Who is Edward?”

Mandenauer. He's the leader of a group of monster hunters known as the J
ä
ger-Suchers. That's German for “hunter-searchers.”

“And what does World War Two have to do with anything?”

With this? Nothing. With werewolves, more than I have time to explain right now. Suffice it to say, Hitler was a lot busier than anyone thought. The J
ä
ger-Suchers are still cleaning up his mess.

“If Edward is such a werewolf expert, why didn't he know you weren't one even without the memo?” Or the silver bullet to the ass.

Werewolves have human eyes.
Pru lifted her bright green, not-at-all-wolf eyes to mine.

“Ah,” I said. “Then what's your excuse?”

I'm a witch.

 

Chapter 18

Little worried. Call me.

Owen's thumb hovered above the
delete
button, then he put the phone back in his pocket without touching it. He might want to listen to that message again on a dark night in Afghanistan. There'd been many times in the past when he'd wished he could hear Becca's voice anywhere other than in his imagination.

She did sound worried. He should call her. But what he really wanted was to see her, touch her, kiss her, hold her.

His gaze wandered over the circus on Route GG. From the looks of this, that wasn't going to happen for a while.

George had pulled up less than a minute after Peggy died. The two of them commenced CPR, only stopping when the EMTs arrived and commenced it for themselves. They didn't have any better luck. They were loading the body into the now silent ambulance when George took out his notebook and pen. “What happened?”

Owen took a deep breath, opened his mouth, and let both breath and words out.

“A break,” the officer murmured when Owen finished.

“Stabbed,” Owen said. “Not broken.”

George cast him a disgusted glance. “A break in the case.”