8
It took one ambulance, one pickup truck, two squad cars, Santa's sleigh, and me riding in the van for everyone to get to the hospital. Okay, not Santa's sleigh, but we did look like a parade. Nearly six hours later, we were back in Myerton in the only interrogation room they had. I'd been the only one of the injured that got to leave the hospital.
The guy that Jason had thrown into the truck might have permanent spine damage. They'd know when the swelling went down. Two of the three that Shang-Da had knocked unconscious had regained consciousness. They had concussions but would recover. The third was still out for the count, and the doctors were talking about swelling of the brain and skull fractures. Shang-Da had also done the bad guy with the compound fracture. I only had Mel to my credit, but he was in worse shape than the compound fracture. It takes a hell of a lot of work to heal a joint break. Sometimes you never recover full use of the limb. I felt sort of bad about that, but he had pulled the knife.
Belisarius had been a busy little lawyer. He'd not only arranged bail for Richard, but he'd also been representing us for the last hour or so. Richard was a free man, temporarily. If Belisarius could keep the rest of us out of jail, he was worth the money.
Wilkes didn't want to arrest us, but he wanted to take our fingerprints. I didn't have a problem with that until Shang-Da did. He really didn't want his prints taken, which made both Wilkes and me suspicious. But if Shang-Da wouldn't do it, then none of us would. I told Wilkes if he wanted our prints, he had to charge us with something. He seemed reluctant to do that.
Maybe it was because I'd used my one phone call to contact a cop I knew, who in turn had contacted an FBI agent I knew.
Having a call from the feds made Wilkes jumpy as hell. The bad guys had ambushed us across from the police station. You didn't do a planned attack right next door to the cops unless you were pretty sure they wouldn't spoil the fun. The bad guys had known the police wouldn't help us. They'd said as much during the fight, challenging Millie to call Wilkes, like it wouldn't help. But Wilkes's reaction to the call from the feds sort of clinched it for me. Policemen are very territorial. No federal laws had been broken. The FBI had no business in a simple assault case. Wilkes should have been pissed, and he wasn't. Oh, he made noises like he was angry, and he was, but he should have raised hell, and he didn't. His reaction to everything was just a little bit off -¨C a little bit less convincing than it should have been.
I was betting he was dirty. I just couldn't prove it yet. Of course, it wasn't my job to prove it. I'd come down here to get Richard out of jail, and we'd done that.
Wilkes finally asked to speak with me alone. Belisarius didn't like it, but he left with the others. I sat at the little table and looked at Wilkes.
It was the cleanest interrogation room I'd ever been in. The table was pale pine and looked handmade. The walls were white and clean. Even the linoleum on the floor was hospital bright. I didn't think Myerton got a lot of use for the room. It'd probably started life as a storage closet. It had been almost too small to hold five of us, but there was room for two.
Wilkes pulled a chair out and sat across from me. He clasped his hands in front of him and looked at me. There was a band around his head where the hair had been pressed flat from the hat. There was a plain gold wedding band on his left hand and one of those watches that joggers use, big and black and utilitarian. Since I had the lady's version of the same watch on my left wrist, it was hard to criticize.
"What?" I said. "You going to give me the silent treatment until I scream for mercy?"
He gave a very small smile. "Made some phone calls about you, Blake. There's a lot of talk that you'll bend the law if you need to. That maybe you've murdered people."
I just looked at him. I could feel my face thinning out, blanking. Once upon a time, every emotion I'd felt had played along my face, but that was a while ago. I'd perfected my blank cop stare, and it showed nothing.
"Is there a point to this conversation?" I asked.
The smile this time was bigger. "I just like to know who I'm dealing with, Blake, that's all."
"Good to be thorough," I said.
He nodded. "I got calls from a Saint Louis cop, a fed, and a state cop. The state cop says you're a pain in the ass and will bend the law six ways to Sunday."
"Bet that was Freemount," I said. "She's still pissed about a case we worked together."
He nodded, smiling pleasantly. "The fed sort of hinted that if you were detained, he might find a reason to have the local federal office to come take a look around."
I smiled. "Bet you really enjoyed that."
His brown eyes went hard and dark. "I don't want the feebies down here messing in my pond."
"I'll bet you don't, Wilkes."
His face tightened, letting me see just how angry he was. "What the fuck do you care?"
I leaned across the table on my elbows. "You should be more careful who you do a frame-up job on, Wilkes."
"He's a fucking junior high science teacher. How was I supposed to know he was shacking up with the fucking Executioner?"
"We're not shacking up," I said automatically. I sat back in my seat. "What do you want, Wilkes? Why the private talk?"
He ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, and for the first time, I realized how nervous he was. He was scared. Why? What the hell was happening in this tiny town?
"If the rape charges disappear, Zeeman is free to leave town. You and everybody go with him. No harm, no foul."
A sport's metaphor -¨C ooh, I was all a-tingle. "I didn't come down here to sniff around your mess, Wilkes. I'm not a cop. I came down here to get Richard out of trouble."
"He's out of trouble if he leaves."
"I'm not his keeper, Wilkes. I can't promise what Richard will do."
"Why does a schoolteacher have bodyguards?" Wilkes asked.
I shrugged. "Why do you want the schoolteacher out of the way bad enough to frame him for rape?"
"We've all got our secrets, Blake. You make sure he leaves town and takes his assassins with him, and we can all keep our secrets."
I looked at my hands spread on the smooth tabletop. I looked back up, met his eyes. "I'll talk to Richard, see what I can do. But I can't promise anything until after I've talked to him."
"Make him listen, Blake. Zeeman is so clean he squeaks, but you and I know the score."
I shook my head. "Yeah, I know the score, and I know what people say about me." I stood up.
He stood up. We looked at each other.
"I don't always pay attention to the letter of the law, that's true. One of the reasons Richard and I aren't dating anymore is that he is so fucking squeaking clean it makes my teeth hurt. But we have one thing in common."
"What's that?" Wilkes asked.
"Push us, and we push back. Richard usually for moral grounds, because it's the right thing to do. Me, because I am just that unpleasant."
"Unpleasant," Wilkes said. "Mel Cooper may never walk right again or have the full use of his left arm."
"He shouldn't have pulled a knife on me," I said.
"If there hadn't been witnesses, would you have killed him?"
I smiled, and even to me, it felt like a strange smile, not humorous, unpleasant maybe. "I'll talk to Richard. Hopefully, we'll be out of your hair before tomorrow night."
"I wasn't always a small-town cop, Blake. Don't let the surroundings fool you. I will not let you and your people fuck with me."
"Funny," I said. "I was thinking the very same thing."
"Well," Wilkes said, "we know where we stand."
"I guess we do," I said.
"I hope come dark tomorrow you and your friends are on your way out of town."
I stared into his brown eyes. I'd looked into scarier eyes, blanker, more dead. He didn't have the eyes of a professional killer. He didn't even have good cop eyes. I could see the fear shiny and almost panicked around the edges. No, I'd seen scarier eyes. But that didn't mean he wouldn't kill me if he got the chance. Make even a good man scared enough, and you never know what he'll do. Make a bad man scared, and you are in trouble. Wilkes probably hadn't killed anybody yet or they wouldn't have framed Richard for rape. They'd have framed him for murder or just killed him. So Wilkes hadn't slid completely down into the abyss. But once you embrace the screaming darkness, eventually, you kill. Maybe Wilkes didn't know that yet, but if we pushed hard enough, he'd figure it out.
9
By the time I got back to the cabins, it was after seven. It was August, so it was still daylight, but you could tell it was late. There was a softness to the light, a tiredness to the heat as if the day itself was eager for night. Or maybe it was just me that was tired.
My face hurt. At least I hadn't had to have stitches in my mouth. The EMS guy on the ambulance had said I'd need a couple of stitches. When I got to the hospital, the doctor said I didn't. A very bright spot for me. I'm sort of phobic about needles. But I've taken stitches with no painkiller and that ain't fun, either.
Jamil was standing in front of the cabins. He'd changed into black jeans and a T-shirt with a smiley face on it. The T-shirt was cut across the middle so his abs showed. Though my dance card was full of attractive men, Jamil did have one of the nicest stomachs I'd ever seen. The muscles stood out under the tight smoothness of his skin like shingles on a roof. It didn't even look real. Somehow, I didn't think you needed cobblestone abs to be a good bodyguard. But hey, everyone needs a hobby.
"I'm sorry I missed the fun," he said. He touched my bruised lip gently. It still made me wince. "I'm surprised you let anyone mark you."
"She did it on purpose," Shang-Da said.
Jamil looked at him.
"Anita pretended to faint," Jason said. "She looked really pitiful."
Jamil looked back at me.
I shrugged. "I didn't let someone kick me in the face on purpose. But once I was down, I did play up how hurt I was. This way, we could press our own assault charges."
"I didn't think you lied that well," Jamil said.
"Live and learn," I said. "Where's Richard? I need to talk to him."
Jamil glanced behind him at one of the cabins, then back to me. There was a look on his face that I couldn't read. "He's cleaning up. He's been in the same clothes for two days."
I stared at his so-careful face, trying to figure out what he wasn't telling me. "What's going on, Jamil?"
He shook his head. "Nothing."
"Don't give me grief, Jamil. I need to talk to Richard -¨C now."
"He's in the shower."
I shook my head, and it made my head hurt. "Screw this. What cabin is he in?"
Jamil shook his head. "Give him a few minutes."
"Longer," Shang-Da said, his voice very bland.
Jason looked from one to the other of them, eyes just a touch wide.
"What is going on?" I asked.
The cabin door behind Jamil opened. A woman appeared in the doorway. Richard had her arms and seemed to be trying to push her, gently but firmly, out the door.
The woman turned and saw me. She had pale brown hair in one of those hairdos that seem artless and simple yet actually take hours to do. She pulled away from Richard and stalked towards us. No, towards me. Her dark eyes were all for me.
"Lucy, don't," Richard said.
"I just want to smell her," Lucy said.
It was the kind of comment a dog might make if it could speak. Smell me, not see me. We primates tend to forget that a lot of other mammals consider smell more important than vision.
Lucy and I had time to study each other as she walked towards me. She was only a little taller than me, maybe five foot six. Her walk was an exaggerated sway so that the short, plum-colored skirt bloused around her and you got glimpses of the hose and garters she was wearing underneath. She was carrying a pair of black heels but walked towards us in a graceful, almost tiptoe movement. Her blouse was a paler purple, unbuttoned so that you glimpsed enough of the bra to know it was black and matched the rest of the undies that you could see. And either the bra was a wonderbra or she was, well, stacked. She was wearing more makeup than I ever wore, but it was well-applied and made her skin look smooth and perfect. Her dark lipstick was smeared.
I glanced behind her at Richard. He was wearing a pair of blue jeans and nothing else. Water still beaded on his naked chest. His thick hair clung to his face and shoulders in wet strands. He had her dark lipstick smeared across his mouth like a plum-colored bruise.
We looked at each other, and I don't think either of us knew what to say.
The woman knew exactly what to say. "So you're Richard's human bitch."
It was so hostile, it made me smile.
She didn't like the smile. She stepped into me so close, I'd have to step back to keep the edge of her skirt from brushing my legs. If I'd had any doubt what she was, this close, her power danced over my skin like insects swarming over my body. She was powerful.
I shook my head. "Look, before we get into any arcane werewolf shit or worse, personal shit, I need to talk to Richard about jail and why the local cops went to the trouble of framing him for rape."
She blinked at me. "My name is Lucy Winston. Remember it."
I looked into her pale brown eyes from inches away. I was close enough to see the small imperfections in her eyeliner. Richard had mentioned a Lucy in jail. He couldn't be dating two of them, could he? "Lucy -¨C Richard mentioned you," I said.
She blinked again, but this time she was puzzled. She took a step back from me to glance at Richard. "You mentioned me to her?"
Richard nodded.
She backed up and looked on the verge of tears. "Then why ... "
I glanced from one to the other of them. Why what, is what I wanted to ask. But I didn't. I'd been enjoying disliking Lucy. If she cried, it might spoil my fun.
I put my hands up like I was surrendering and stepped around her. I walked towards Richard because we had to talk, but seeing Lucy in her garters and hose had taken a lot of the fun out of it.
It was none of my business what he did. I was sleeping with Jean-Claude. I was all out of stones to throw. So why was I having such a hard time not being pissed? Maybe that was a question better left unanswered.
Richard stepped back out of the doorway so I could walk past him. He closed the door behind me, leaning against it. We were suddenly alone, really alone, and I didn't know what to say.
He leaned against the door with his hands behind his back. Water beaded on his naked upper body. He'd always had a nice chest, but he had been lifting weights since last I'd seen him without his shirt. His upper body was almost aggressively masculine, though still short of that overdone look that bodybuilders strive so hard for. He was slumped against the door. It made his stomach muscles bunch. Once upon a time, I could have helped him dry off. His hair was starting to dry in a wavy mass. If he didn't do something soon, he'd have to wet it and start over.
"Lucy drag you out of the shower without a towel?" The moment I said it, I wished I hadn't. I put my hand up and said, "I'm sorry. It's none of my business. I don't have the right to be catty with you."
He smiled, almost sadly. "I think that's the second time I've ever heard you admit you were wrong."
"Oh, I'm wrong a lot. I just don't admit it out loud."
That made him smile again, and it was almost his normal smile. That bright flash of perfect teeth in the permanent tan of his face. Most people thought Richard was tanned. I knew it was skin color because I'd seen the whole package. He was white bread, all Middle American, with a family that made the Waltons look unfriendly, but a generation or so back was something not so white bread.
Richard pushed away from the door. He walked towards me on his bare feet. I was more aware than was polite of the line of hair running down the center of his lower abdomen.
I turned away and said, "Why did they want you in jail?" Business, concentrate on business.
"I'm not sure," he said. "May I get a towel and finish drying off while we talk?"
"It's your cabin. Help yourself," I said.
He disappeared into the bathroom. I was left to look around. The cabin was almost identical to mine except that it was yellow and it was more lived in. The cheerful comforter was pushed onto the floor in a sunny heap. The white sheets were wrinkled. Richard was almost fanatical about making the bed. Somehow Lucy didn't strike me as the neat type. I was betting she had mussed the bed. Of course, there was a wet spot on one side, so maybe she'd had help.
I passed my hand over the damp sheets. Even the pillow was wet as if that thick wet hair had laid across it. My throat felt tight, and if I hadn't known better, I'd have said there were tears in my eyes. Naw, surely not. I mean I'd been the one that dumped Richard. Why should I cry?
The print above the bed was another Van Gogh, Sunflowersthis time. I wondered if every cabin had a Van Gogh print in a color that matched the decor. Yeah, maybe if I concentrated on the room's furnishings, I wouldn't keep wondering if Lucy had looked up at the melting sunflowers while Richard ...
I cut that particular visual off. I didn't need to go there -¨C ever. Did I really think that Richard was going to stay chaste while I boffed Jean-Claude? Did I really expect him to just wait around? Maybe I had. Stupid, but maybe true.
The bathroom door was still closed. I could hear water running. Was he taking another shower? Maybe he was just wetting down his hair. Maybe. Or maybe he was cleaning off. Sex was never as neat as the movies made it. Real sex was messy. Good sex was messier.
Three months with Jean-Claude, and I was a sex expert. It was almost funny. I'd been chaste until he came along. Not virginal. My fiance in college had taken care of that. I'd fallen into my fiance's arms with the trust that only first love can give you. It was one of the last naive things I ever did.
Richard and I had been engaged, briefly. But we'd never had sex. We'd both been chaste since our first experience in college with other people. Just a personal choice that we both shared. Maybe if we'd given in to that lust, there wouldn't be so much heat left between us. Of course, lately, we'd been mostly fighting.
Richard had been too kindhearted, too tender, too squeamish to rule the wolf pack. He'd had a chance to kill the old Ulfric, Marcus, twice; and twice Richard refused the kill. No kill, no new Ulfric. I urged him to kill Marcus. And after he did it, I dumped him. Unfair, wasn't it? Of course, I hadn't told him to eat Marcus, just to kill him. What's a little cannibalism between friends?
The water was still running in the bathroom. If I hadn't been afraid he'd answer dripping wet in nothing but a towel, I'd have knocked and asked him to hurry. But I'd seen enough of Mr. Zeeman for one day. Less was definitely more.
There were pictures pinned above the desk. I walked towards them. I'd had one semester of Primate Studies: North American. We'd all called it troll class. The Lesser Smokey Mountain Troll is one of the smallest of the North American trolls. They average between three and a half feet to five feet. They are mostly vegetarians but will supplement their diet with carrion and insects. I let all the stats run through my head as I walked towards the pictures. They were covered in blackish fur from head to foot. Crouched in the trees, huddled together, they looked like tall chimpanzees or slender gorillas, but there were pictures of them walking. They were completely bipedal. The only primate except man that walked upright.
The close-up shots of faces were startling. Their faces were more furry than the great apes and more manlike. Some early theories had said trolls were the missing link between man and ape. There had been at least two famous cases of circuses in the early 1900s that toured with trolls but listed them as wild men. American settlers had been killing trolls for centuries. By the early 1900s, they'd been rare enough to be oddities.
Two things happened in 1910 that saved the trolls from utter destruction. One: a scientific article was published that said that the trolls used tools and buried their dead with flowers and personal articles. The scientist very carefully did not project anything beyond the basic findings, but the newspapers did. They declared that trolls believed in an afterlife, that they believed in God.
An evangelical minister named Simon Barkley felt that God spoke to him. He went out and captured a troll and tried to convert him to Christianity. He wrote a book about his experiences with Peter (the troll), and it became a best-seller. Suddenly, trolls were a cause celebre.
One of my biology profs had kept a black-and-white photo of Peter the Troll up in his office. Peter had his head bowed and his hands clasped. He was even wearing clothes, though Minister Barkley was always distressed that without constant supervision, Peter disrobed.
I wasn't sure how good a time Peter had with Barkley, but he saved his species from almost certain extinction. Peter had been a North American Cave Troll, the only species on this continent smaller than the Lesser Smokey. Barkley had been moved by the spirit of God, but he hadn't been stupid. There had still been Greater Smokey Mountain Trolls in those days, eight to twelve feet tall and carnivorous. Barkley hadn't tried to save one of them. Probably just as well. It would have been a real downer if the troll had eaten Barkley instead of praying for him.
Trolls were the first protected species in America. The Greater Smokey Mountain Troll was not protected. It was hunted to extinction; but then, it pulled up large trees and beat the tourists to death and sucked the marrow from their bones. Hard to get good press that way.
There was still a troll society called Peter's Friends. Even though it was illegal to kill trolls, any trolls, for any reason, it still happened. Hunters poached them. Though staring into those too-human faces, I don't know how they did it. Not just for a trophy.
Richard stepped out of the bathroom in a rush of warm air. He was still wearing the jeans, but now there was a towel on his head and a blow-dryer in one hand. He had rewet his hair, though he seemed to have gotten all of him in the shower to do it. Mercifully, he'd dried his chest and arms off. His arms looked amazingly strong. I knew he could have tossed around small elephants, regardless of how muscular he looked, but the muscles helped remind me. Physically, he was a pleasure to gaze upon. But it made me wonder why he'd been spending the extra time on his body. Richard didn't usually sweat that kind of thing.
I pointed at the pictures. "These are great." I smiled and meant it. Once upon a time, I'd envisioned spending my life in the field doing this kind of work. A sort of preternatural Jane Goodall. Though truthfully, primates hadn't been my main area of interest. Dragons, maybe, or lake monsters. Nothing that wouldn't eat me if it got the chance. But that had been long ago before Bert, my boss, recruited me to raise the dead and slay vampires. Sometimes, even though Richard was older than I was by three years, he made me feel old. He was still trying to have a life amid all the strange shit. I'd given up on anything but the strange shit. You couldn't do both equally well -¨C or I couldn't.
"I'll take you up to see them, if you'd like," he said.
"I'd love to, if it wouldn't upset the trolls."
"They're pretty accustomed to visitors. Carrie -¨C Dr. Onslow -¨C has started allowing small groups of tourists to come and take pictures."
He'd mentioned a Carrie in the same breath with Lucy. Was this the same woman? "Are you guys that hard up for money?" I asked.
He sat down on the side of the bed and plugged in the blow-dryer. "You're always short of money on a project like this, but it's not money we need. It's good press."
I frowned at him. "Why do you need good press?"
"Have you been reading the newspaper lately?" he asked. He removed the towel from his head. His hair was dark and brown with moisture, heavy, as if there was still water to be squeezed from it.
"You know I don't read the newspaper."
"You didn't own a television, either, but you do now."
I leaned my butt against the edge of his desk, as far away from him as I could get and not leave the room. I'd bought the television so that he and I could watch old movies and videos.
"I don't watch much television anymore."
"Jean-Claude not a fan of musicals?" Richard asked, and there was that edge to his voice that I'd heard in the last few weeks: angry, jealous, hurt, cruel.
It was almost a relief to hear it. His anger made everything easier. "Jean-Claude's not much of a watcher. He's more a doer."
Richard's face thinned out, anger making his high, sculpted cheekbones stand out underneath his skin. "Lucy isn't much of a watcher, either," he said, voice low and careful.
I laughed, and it wasn't a happy sound. "Thanks for making this easier, Richard."
He stared down at the floor, his wet hair tucked to one side so his face was in full profile. "I don't want to fight, Anita. I really don't."
"Could have fooled me," I said.
He looked up, and his chocolate brown eyes were dark with more than just color. "If I'd wanted a fight, I could have just given in to Lucy. Let you find us in the bed together."
"You're not mine, anymore, Richard. Why should it bother me what the hell you do?"
"That is the question, isn't it?" He stood and started walking towards me.
"Why did they frame you?" I asked. "Why did they want you in jail?"
"That's you, Anita. All business."
"And you let yourself get distracted, Richard. You don't keep your eye on the ball." Geez, a sports metaphor. Maybe it was contagious.
"Fine," he said, and that one word was so angry that it almost hurt. "The troll band that we're studying has broken into two bands. Their birth rate is so low that they don't do that very often. It's the first recorded offshoot for a North American troll troop in this century."
"This is all fascinating, but what does it have to do with anything?"
"Just shut up and listen," he said.
I did. That was a first.
"The second smaller troop moved out of the park. They've been on private land for a little over a year. The farmer who owned the land was okay with that. In fact, he was sort of pleased. Carrie brought him up to see the first troll baby born on his land, and he carried the picture in his wallet."
I looked at him. "Sounds great."
"The farmer, Ivan Greene, died about six months ago. His son was not a nature lover."
"Ah," I said.
"But trolls are a severely endangered species. And they're not like the snail darter, or the velvet-back toad. They're a big, showy animal. The son tried to sell the land, and we got it stopped legally."
"But the son wasn't happy with that," I said.
Richard smiled. "Not hardly."
"So he took you to court," I said.
"Not exactly," Richard said. "We expected him to do that. In fact, we should have known something was wrong when he didn't keep us tied up in court."
"What did he do?" I asked.
The anger was leaking away as Richard talked. He always had to work really hard to stay angry. Me, it was one of my best things. He retrieved the towel from the bed and started drying his hair while he talked.
"Goats started disappearing from a local farmer."
"Goats?" I said.
Richard peered at me through a curtain of wet hair. "Goats."
"Somebody's been reading too much 'Billy Goat Gruff,' " I said.
Richard wrapped the towel more firmly around his head and sat down on the bed. "Exactly," he said. "No one who really knew anything about trolls would have taken goats. Even the European Lesser Trolls that do hunt will take your dog before they'll take your goat."
"So it was a setup," I said.
"Yeah, but the newspapers got hold of it. We were still okay until the dogs and cats started disappearing."
"They got smarter," I said.
"They listened to Carrie's interviews where she discussed food preferences," he said.
I'd come to stand at the foot of the bed. "Why are the local cops interested in some land squabble?"
"Wait, it gets worse," he said.
I picked up the spilled comforter and sat on the edge of the bed with it bundled in my lap. "How worse?"
"A man's body was found two weeks ago. It was just one of those horrible hiking accidents at first. He fell off the mountain. It happens," Richard said.
"Having seen some of the mountains, I'm not surprised," I said.
"But somehow the body was listed as a troll kill."
I frowned at him. "It's not like a shark kill, Richard. How did they tell a troll did it?"
"A troll didn't do it," Richard said.
I nodded. "Of course not, but what was their proof, false or otherwise?"
"Carrie tried to get the coroner's report. But it was leaked to the newspapers first. The man had been beaten to death and had bites out of his body from animals. Troll bites."
I shook my head. "Anybody who dies in these mountains is going to have animal bites on the body. Trolls are known scavengers."
"Not according to Sheriff Wilkes," Richard said.
"What does the sheriff get out of this?"
"Money," Richard said.
"Do you know that for sure?" I asked.
"You mean, can I prove it?"
I nodded.
"No. Carrie's been trying to see if there's a paper trail, but so far, nothing. She's been chasing around, trying to get me out of jail for the last few days."
"Is she the same Carrie you mentioned as a girlfriend in jail?" I asked.
Richard nodded.
"Aha," I said.
"Did you just say, aha?" he asked.
"Yes, and I apologize for it, but what better way to keep Carrie from working on the mystery than to put her boyfriend in jail."
"I'm not her boyfriend anymore," he said.
I hurried past that little bit of knowledge. "Is it common knowledge that you're not an item anymore?"
"Not really."
"Then that may explain why they wanted you in jail. They framed you for rape because so far, Wilkes isn't willing to kill."
"You think that will change?" Richard asked.
I touched my swollen lip. "He's already started upping the violence level."
Richard leaned across the bed until his fingertips touched the bruises on my face. It was a tentative touch like a butterfly's wing. "Did Wilkes do this?"
My heart was suddenly beating faster. "No," I said, "Wilkes was very careful to only show up after all the bad guys needed an ambulance."
Richard smiled, fingers tracing the edge of my face, just beyond the bruises. "How many of them did you hurt?"
My pulse was beating so hard, I was afraid he could see it jumping in my throat. "Just one."
Richard scooted just a little closer to me, hand still trailing up and down my cheek. "What did you do to him?"
I didn't know whether to move away or cuddle my aching face against the cool warmth of his hand. "I broke his arm and leg at the joint."
"Why did you do that?" Richard asked.
"He was threatening Shang-Da, and he pulled a knife on me." My voice sounded breathy.
Richard leaned in close, then closer. He pulled the ridiculous towel from his head, and his thick hair fell in chilled, wet strands around his face, against my skin. His lips were so close to my mouth, I could feel his breath.
I stood, stepping back from him, the comforter still bundled in my arms. I let it fall to the floor, and we stared at each other.
"Why not, Anita? You want me. I can feel it, smell it, taste your pulse on my tongue."
"Thanks for that visual, Richard."
"You still want me after months in his bed. You still want me."
"That doesn't make it right." I said.
"Loyal to Jean-Claude now?" he asked.
"Just trying not to fuck up any worse than I already have, Richard. That's all."
"Regretting your choice?" he asked.
I shook my head. "No comment."
He stood and started towards me. I put a hand out, and he stopped. The weight of his gaze was almost touchable, as if I could feel what he was thinking, and it was personal and intimate, and things we'd never done before.
"Sheriff Wilkes says get out of Dodge by dark tomorrow, take our bodyguards with us, and he'll just forget everything. The rape charges will vanish, and you can go back to your normal life."
"I can't do that, Anita. They're talking about hunting the trolls down with guns and dogs. I'm not leaving until I know the trolls are safe."
I sighed. "School starts in less than two weeks. Are you going to stay here and lose your job?"
"Do you really think Wilkes will let it go that long?" Richard asked.
"No," I said. "I think he or some of his men will start killing people first. We need to find out why this land is so valuable."
"If it's minerals, Greene hasn't filed the report, which means he doesn't need government permission and doesn't need partners."
"What do you mean permission and partners?"
"If he'd found, say, emeralds on land that bordered the national park, then he'd have to file the claim and try to get permission to place a mine next to the park. If he'd found something that needed blasting and hard mining like maybe lead or something, then he might need partners to help him finance it. Then he'd need to file a claim to show the prospective partners."
"When did you start studying geology?" I asked.
He smiled. "We've been trying to figure out what is on the land that is worth this much trouble. Minerals seemed the logical choice."
I nodded. "Agreed, but either it's not minerals or it's something private, and he doesn't have to share that info, right?"
"Exactly."
"I need to speak with Carrie and the other biologists," I said.
"Tomorrow," he said.
"Why not tonight?"
"You said it outside: arcane werewolf shit."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.
"It means that we're four nights from the full moon, and you're my lupa."
"I heard you've been taking applicants for the job," I said.
He smiled, and it wasn't nearly embarrassed enough. "You may find it strange, but a lot of women find me attractive."
"You know I don't find that strange," I said.
"But you're still with Jean-Claude," he said.
I shook my head. "I'm out of here, Richard. I'll stay around and try to keep you from being killed or getting any of our pack killed, but let's drop the personal stuff."
He closed the distance between us, and I put my hands up to keep him from touching me. My hands ended up pressed to his bare chest. His heart thudded against my hands like a trapped animal.
"Don't do this, Richard."
"I tried hating you, and I can't." He put his hands over mine, holding them against the hard smoothness of his chest.
"Try harder." But it was a whisper.
He leaned over me, and I drew back. "If you don't dry your hair, you're going to have to wet it down again."
"I'll risk it." He kept moving towards me, lips half parted.
I stepped back, pulling my hands out of his, and he let me. He was strong enough that he didn't have to let me, and that still bothered me.
I backed towards the door. "Stop trying to love me, Richard."
"I have tried."
"Then stop trying and just do it." The door was pressed against my back. I grabbed the doorknob without turning around.
"You ran from me that night. You ran from me to Jean-Claude. You pulled his body around you like a shield to keep me away."
I opened the door, but he was just suddenly there, holding it half-closed. I started tugging on the door, and it was like pulling against a wall, immobile. His one hand pressed flat on the door, against the pull of my entire body, and I couldn't budge him. I hated that a lot.
"Damn it, Richard, let me go."
"I think you're more afraid of how much you love me than you are of Jean-Claude. At least with him you know you're not in love."
That was it. I wedged my body in the door enough so he couldn't close it on me, but I stopped tugging on it. I looked up at him, at every gorgeous inch of him. "I may not love Jean-Claude in the same way I love you."
He smiled.
"Don't get cocky," I said. "I do love Jean-Claude. But love isn't enough, Richard. If love were enough, I wouldn't be with Jean-Claude now. I'd be with you." I looked into his big, brown eyes and said, "But I'm not with you, and love isn't enough. Now, get away from this damned door."
He stepped back, hands at his side. "Love can be enough, Anita."
I shook my head and stepped out on the steps. The darkness was thick and touchable but not yet solid. "The last time you listened to me, you killed for the first time, and you haven't recovered from it. I should have just shot Marcus for you."
"I'd have never forgiven you for that," he said.
I gave a harsh sound that was almost a laugh. "But at least you wouldn't be hating yourself. I'd be the monster, not you."
His handsome face was suddenly very solemn; all the light fled from it. "Whatever I do, wherever I go, Anita, I am the monster. You left me because of what I am."
I stepped down onto the ground, staring up at him. There was no light inside the cabin, and Richard stood in a darker shadow than the coming night. "I thought you said I left you because I was afraid of how much I loved you."
He looked confused for a second, not knowing how to deal with his own logic thrown back into his face. He finally looked at me. "Do you know why you left me?"
I wanted to say, "Because you ate Marcus," but I didn't. I couldn't say it staring into his face, so ready to believe the worst of himself. He wasn't my problem anymore, so why did I care how hurt his ego was? Good question. I was out of good answers. Besides, maybe there was some truth to what Richard was saying. I didn't know anymore.
"I'm going to go to my cabin, now, Richard. I don't want to talk about this anymore."
"Afraid?" he asked.
I shook my head and answered without turning around. "Tired." I kept walking, knowing he was watching me. The parking area was empty. I didn't know where Jamil and the others had gone, and I didn't care. I needed some alone time.
I walked through the soft, summer darkness. There was a spill of stars overhead, glittering and edged by the dark shapes of leaves. It was going to be a beautiful evening. Somewhere off in the distance, a high, clear howl rode the coming dark. Richard had said something about arcane werewolf shit. We were going to have a moonlight jamboree. God, I hated parties.