Kitty Takes a Holiday

And I had trouble balancing both liking him and being scared of him.

He stared at me so hard, so searching, like it was my fault we'd never been able to work out anything between us. Which one of us hadn't been able to face that there was anything between us? Which one of the three of us? Because Ben had dropped all those hints. He'd known. And now it was Ben and me, with Cormac on the outside, and all three of us locked in a room together.

He'd run, and that wasn't my fault. He scared me, and maybe that was my fault.

Then the spell broke. Cormac dropped his gaze. "It still cracks me up, that you're a goddamned werewolf and you can talk about me being scary."

"It's like rock-paper-scissors," I said. "Silver bullet beats werewolf, and you've got the silver."

"And cop beats silver bullet. I get it," he said, and he was right. Almost, the whole thing made sense. Cormac turned to Ben. "What's the plan?"

"I'm going to go to Shiprock to learn what I can about Miriam Wilson. There's got to be someone willing to tes­tify that she was dangerous, that it was justifiable. We'll decide our strategy when I get back."

"Has Espinoza said anything about a plea bargain yet?"

"Yeah. I told him I didn't want to talk about it until I had all my cards in hand. Hearing's on Wednesday. We'll know then, one way or the other."

He nodded, so it must have sounded like a good plan to him. "Be careful."

"Yeah."

Ben knocked on the door, and the deputy came to take Cormac back to his cell.

"I hate this," Ben said when he was gone. "I really, really hate this. We've never gone as far as a preliminary hearing. I want to tear into something."

I took his arm, squeezing to offer comfort. "Let's get out of here."

We'd only just stepped outside, into the late-morning sunlight, when we were ambushed. Not really—it was only Alice, lurking across the parking lot and then head­ing straight for us on an intercept path. My heart raced anyway, because all I saw was someone half ru

Ben grabbed my arm and bared his teeth.

"Hush," I whispered at him, touching his back to calm him. "It's okay. It's just Alice."

He froze, seemingly realizing what had just happened. His features shifted; he didn't relax much, but he didn't look like he was going to pounce anymore.

Strange how I was still getting used to this new Ben. He was a new Ben—strangely, subtly different, slightly less steady, slightly more paranoid. As if he were recovering from some sort of head injury. Which maybe he was. Maybe all of us who'd been infected with lycanthropy were.

"Kitty! Kitty, hello. I'm so glad I caught you." She smiled, but stiffly, as you do in awkward social situations.

"Hi, Alice."

"I just came to give another statement to the sheriff. I thought it might help your friend. Even Joe gave another statement, said that if he hadn't come along—well, I don't know what would have happened."

I did, or I could guess. It really wasn't worth describ­ing to her. "Thanks, Alice. I'm sure it can't hurt."

I was about to say goodbye, to get out of there before I said something impolite, when Alice spoke.

"I wanted to give you this. I've been thinking about what Tony said, about how much we all might still be in danger. It's not much, but I want to help." She offered her hand, palm up. "Tony may be right, I may not know what I'm doing most of the time. But this came from the heart, and I can't help but think that means something."

She held a pendant to me, a clear, pointed crystal about as long as my thumb. The blunt end of it was wrapped with beads, tiny beads made of sparkling glass and pol­ished wood, strung together in a pattern and bound tightly to the crystal. A loop of knotted cord woven into the beadwork had a string of leather through it, so it could be worn around the neck. It was a little piece of artwork. It glittered like sunlight through springtime woods when I turned it in the sun.

"I usually use silver wire to string the beads," she said. "But, well, I didn't this time. I used silk thread."

It was so thoughtful I could have cried. If only it hadn't been too little, too late.

Did I trust it to actually work? A talisman made by Alice, who'd cast that horrific curse against me—and cast it badly, gutlessly, so that it hadn't worked. Had that one come from her heart as well? Did I trust her?

At the moment, it didn't cost me anything to pretend that I did.

"It's beautiful," I said. "Thank you."

She stood there, beaming, and I hugged her, because I knew it would make her feel better. Then I put the pendant over my head, because that would make her feel better, too.

She went to her car, waving goodbye.

"It's hard to know where to draw the line isn't it?" Ben said. "About what to believe and what not to believe. What works and what doesn't."

I sighed in agreement. "She's right, though. If it comes from the heart, it has to count for something."

Chapter 14

We set off in the morning. We had five days until the hearing, when Cormac had to enter a plea. Ben had to find evidence on Cormac's behalf that would get the case thrown out.

The weather was on our side; it felt like a small advan­tage. I hadn't had to work very hard to talk Ben into let­ting me go with him. I didn't know how much help I'd be in hunting down the information he needed to shore up Cormac's defense, but that wasn't the argument I'd made.

I had to be there to keep Ben sane.

"Wolf Creek Pass," he said when we passed the high­way marker over the mountain. We had a couple more hours until we reached New Mexico. "Am I the only one who thinks that's fu

"Yes," I said, not taking my eyes off the road ahead. Too many signs advertising local motels and gift shops had featured pictures of fuzzy, howling wolves. The Wolf Creek ski area was doing a booming business.

I let him drive the stretch that took us over the pass. Just over the mountain, cruising into the next valley and toward the junction that turned onto the highway that led to New Mexico, a zippy little sports car with skis in a rack on the back roared up behind us, gu

Ben clenched the steering wheel with rigid fingers and bared his teeth in a silent growl. Something animal crawled into his eyes for a moment.

"Ben?" I spoke softly, not wanting to startle him. Not wanting to startle the wolf that adrenaline had brought to the surface for a moment.

"I'm okay," he said. His breaths were rough, and his body was still more tense than the stress of driving moun­tain roads warranted. "How many days?"

"How many days?"

"Full moon," he said.

"Sixteen," I said. Keeping track had become second nature.

"I thought it was sooner. It feels sooner."

I knew the feeling. The wolf wanted to break free, and it let you know. "It's better if you don't think about it."

"How do you not think about it?" His voice cracked.

"Do you want to pull over and let me drive?"

He shook his head quickly. "Driving gives me some­thing else to think about."

"Just don't let the jerks get to you, okay?"

He pushed himself back in the seat, stretching his arms, making an effort to relax. After another ten miles or so he said, "I started smoking in law school. It was a crutch, a way to get through it. You feel like you're going crazy, so you step outside for a cigarette. Everything stops for a couple of minutes, and you can go back to it feel­ing a little bit calmer. Quitting, though—that's the bitch. 'Cause as much as you tell yourself you don't need the crutch anymore, your body isn't convinced. Took me two years to wean myself off them. That's what this feels like," he said. "I want to turn wolf like I wanted a ciga­rette. That doesn't make any sense."