That she’d imagined herself falling in love with the wolfman was shocking.
“I can picture it now,” she muttered, carefully folding the gear into the hide. “Me saying, ‘I believe I’m falling for you, Trapper Dan.’ Then trying to crawl in a hole—a wolf den—when he doubles up with laughter. Of course, laughter would be preferable to other reactions.”
Placing the packet in the knapsack, she secured the straps.
“An emotion of the moment, that’s all it was. Well, maybe a little more if you count the attraction,” she argued. Sighing, she admitted, “Okay a lot more. So, Laurel, what are you going to do about it?”
“And they call me mad.”
Laurel whipped around so fast she nearly fell over. Above her stood a woman wizened more by the elements than time. Below a broad-brimmed leather hat, her deeply tanned face was tracked with wrinkles. The stranger was as close to a female counterpart of Trapper Dan as she was likely to see. Dressed in baggy wool pants and a buckskin jacket, a rifle slung under her arm, the woman immediately put Laurel on edge.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Mad Magda Huber’s the moniker.” The woman came closer. “I know yours. Laurel something-or-other.” Her s’s hissed through the space left by a missing tooth. “I seen you with the wolfman. He’s dangerous, that one is.”
The weapon Magda carried was what was dangerous. Laurel eyed it warily. “There’s no hunting on this land, you know.”
“Who said I was hunting?”
“You always carry a rifle?”
“Mostly. A woman’s gotta protect herself.” Magda whistled, the sound sharp and short. “Course I got him to guard me.”
The him was the biggest, baddest-looking wolf Laurel ever wanted to lay eyes on. He bounded out of nowhere, tongue lolling from between huge jaws. Alarms going off, she took a big step back, but the animal stopped at Magda’s side and sat at her heels. She patted him on the neck and chuckled at Laurel’s obvious discomfort.
“Good boy, Sam.”
The woman had meant to scare her, Laurel thought, pulse racing. “You keep a wolf as a pet?”
“Wolf hybrid—that’s half wolf, half dog. Not to worry. He don’t attack. Except on my command.”
Attack…?
Mind spinning, she asked, “You know Donovan Wilde?” while hoping he would hurry back.
“The wolfman and me met a coupla times.”
And from Magda’s expression, Laurel knew those meetings hadn’t been congenial.
“He tried running me outta business. Said I was a danger to myself and the community. He’s the dangerous one,” she said again.
“Why do you say he’s dangerous?” she asked.
“A person gets a sense of things, living alone, away from civilization…develops instincts…like an animal.” Magda narrowed her gaze. “You’d do well to develop your own animal instincts, Laurel something-or-other.”
Laurel’s flesh crawled at what sounded like a threat. Where the hell was Donovan?
Keeping her voice casual, she said, “I’m a city girl. What would I do with animal instincts?”
“Tell friend from foe, for one.” Magda seemed to be staring at Laurel’s right ear, all the while rubbing her fingers along the rifle barrel. “You need to know when to stand your ground and when to turn tail and run.”
Suddenly she hefted the rifle to her shoulder and took aim.
Laurel threw herself out of the way and rolled to the ground even as a bullet whined by her…
Chapter Nine
“Gotcha!” Mad Magda cried.
But Laurel was unhurt if terrified. Her heart threatened to climb right up into her throat. Then she realized the crazy woman wasn’t talking to her.
Walking straight past Laurel, the wolf dog loping alongside her, Magda cackled, “We’re havin’ ourselves a nice rabbit stew for supper, Sam,” and proceeded to collect the small animal she’d just shot.
Swinging her prize over her shoulder, the crazy woman kept on in the same direction without so much as a glance back.
Leaving Laurel limp with relief.
What had motivated Magda’s visit? she wondered. To warn her? To frighten her off?
Magda had succeeded at least in scaring Laurel, if not driving her away from Iron Lake. Shooting the rabbit after she’d reminded the woman that hunting was prohibited had been purposeful—a nasty intimidation tactic.
Instinct set her gaze to the woman’s tracks. Magda hadn’t been wearing snowshoes. Though Laurel was able to discern a few diamond shapes here and there—the same tread Donovan had pointed out to her as belonging to his intruder—the warmth of the late morning had made the trail slushy. She couldn’t pick out a single full print.
The slap-slap of running feet spun her around again, this time to face an intense-looking Donovan.
“Oh, thank God it’s you!”
“I heard a shot.” He was looking around wildly. “What the hell is going on?”
“A not-so-friendly warning from Magda Huber.” She restrained herself from doing something wild, like throwing herself against him. “Can we get out of here?”
It wasn’t hard to imagine she was being watched even now. She’d had the feeling before…
Laurel suddenly realized that Donovan was watching her, his expression weird. Their eyes locked and she was surprised by the depth of emotion she imagined glimpsing in his. For a moment, she thought he might try to comfort her or something.
And then he broke the connection and retrieved the knapsack. His gaze sweeping the area once more, he said, “Let’s get going.”
As they headed back for his cabin, she told him about Magda’s visit in vivid detail.
“I started wondering about this comment she made. She indicated Sam would attack on her command. This may sound pretty crazy, but…what if your father ran into her, and she set Sam on him. His jaws are definitely big enough to maul a man’s neck. And she wears the right brand of boots—”
Donovan cut her off. “I should call the sheriff. Have her arrested again.”
Again? “It’s only a theory,” she protested. “Maybe we ought to do a little investigating. See what we can learn about her first.”
“Why take chances?”
Donovan hadn’t even agreed with her theory, and yet he seemed set on making trouble for the woman.
“What in the world is going on between you two?” she asked. “I had the distinct impression that she’s not your biggest fan. Does she have something against you?”
“I tried to stop her from breeding and selling wolf hybrids.”
“I didn’t know that was against the law.”
“It is if she purposely took a wolf from the wild.”
“And she did that?” Which would mean she would know how to set a trap, as well.
“I couldn’t prove it. She got rid of any evidence.”
“Meaning the wolf itself?” Laurel asked. “You don’t think she destroyed it?”
“To save herself? She’s capable. Even if she didn’t—even if nothing illegal was involved in breeding those hybrids—what she’s doing is plain wrong and she needs to be stopped. Wolf dogs are a dangerous mix of domesticated and wild animal. They can be unpredictable.”
Laurel had heard that before. And yet there were two sides to the story. Even she could see that.
“Magda seemed to have Sam in hand. And at the workshop, I met other people who swore hybrids make great pets.”
“It’s thinking like that that keeps people like Magda Huber in business!”
Obviously, Donovan’s change of mood had only been temporary. “I’m merely suggesting—”
He cut her off. “A few years back, a logger staked his wolf dog outside his trailer. The woman in the next trailer made the mistake of leaving her toddler alone for a few minutes. The kid loved dogs. When he fell, as little kids do, the wolf part of the hybrid saw him as prey.”
“Omigod.” No wonder Donovan had such a dim view o
f the practice. “Still, that’s an isolated incident And Mad Magda wasn’t responsible for that horrible tragedy, right?”
“What does it matter?” he snapped. “Wrong is wrong!”
Another example of Donovan’s black-and-white view of life, Laurel realized. He didn’t take the person or the specific circumstances into account before he made a judgment. He’d done that with his father. And then with Magda. To Donovan, something was either right or wrong. He recognized nothing in between.
Making Laurel fear he would settle for nothing less than perfection, no matter the circumstances. Or the relationship. No one could live up to his expectations when he was blind to shades of gray.
DONOVAN HAD EVERY intention of radioing the sheriff’s office to have someone pick up Magda Huber. She had no right being on this property armed. She had no right hunting. She had no right scaring him half to death over Laurel’s safety.
When he’d heard the gunshot, he’d gone cold inside. But rather than admitting what really had been bothering him, he’d chosen to beat the wolf hybrid controversy to death. Rather than telling Laurel how he’d felt, he’d let off steam in the way he knew best.
Now she didn’t seem to be speaking to him again.
He slammed into the cabin to hear a voice issuing an official identification coming through the low static of the radio, which he’d left on.
“Wilde, you there?” the voice went on. “This is Deputy Sheriff Ralf Baedecker.”
The sheriffs office had beat him to it.
He grabbed the mike, rattled off his own ID and said, “Wilde here.”
“Get over to Nicolet General. Your father’s okay,” the deputy said. “But your mother asked me to alert you. Looks like someone had plans to kill the congressman early this morning.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Your father’s nurse was turning him and straightening out his bedding when she found a full syringe under him. No one could explain its being there—and none of the other intensive care patients was missing a shot—so they had the solution analyzed. Turns out the damn thing contained concentrated potassium chloride.”
He didn’t need to hear more. “Tell my mother I’m on my way!”
Turning off the radio, he noticed Laurel was staring, face ashen. He gave her no time to recover from the shock.
Instead, he spun her around, saying, “Let’s go.”
No way did he plan to leave her alone with an armed and dangerous Magda Huber on the loose.
Laurel didn’t argue, rather raced him to the truck. Within moments, they were cutting through the forest at high speed.
“Someone trying to kill your father in his hospital bed…couldn’t they be mistaken?”
“Baedecker wouldn’t have said it if they weren’t sure.” Though he cursed himself for not getting more details. “A potassium push through an IV port could cause a heart attack, especially if his potassium levels were already high.” He knew something about medical procedures himself, though his experience had been restricted to working with vets and sick or injured animals. “Probably no one would question it. A lethal dose of potassium chloride would be easy enough to trace, but only if the evaluation were done right away.”
“I can only think of one reason someone would want to try to kill your father. Obviously, he was arguing with whomever had control of the animal that attacked him. And if he comes to, he can point a finger at that person.”
If…
That he might not—that someone wanted to make certain his father didn’t come to—was something Donovan wasn’t ready to contemplate.
“I assume you mean Mad Magda,” he said. “I don’t know. This sounds like a covert plan—pretending to be hospital personnel to blend in. Someone as eccentric as Magda Huber certainly would be easy enough to spot.”
“Maybe. If the staff wasn’t too busy to pay attention…Wait a minute,” she muttered. “The drain!”
“What about it?”
“What if it didn’t just get knocked out by someone working on your father?” she asked. “What if that was the first attempt on his life?”
Donovan swore. If the nurse hadn’t caught it, and the pressure buildup had killed his father, his death would have been deemed accidental. And now, had the would-be killer succeeded injecting the potassium into an IV port, his probable death would have looked like any other heart attack—a natural outcome of his circumstances. Two incidents so closely connected couldn’t be coincidence.
His thoughts strung out on that grim line all the way to the hospital.
The parking lot was stacked with press, who descended upon them like locusts the moment they alighted from the truck. Grabbing hold of Laurel, Donovan rushed her past the reporters and newscams without so much as hesitating. He felt like a running back, the hospital entrance his goal, as he elbowed directly through the few foolish enough to get in his way.
Inside, government types in dark suits filled one corner of the reception area. His father’s staff? They looked to him expectantly as he and Laurel swept by.
“Excuse me. Wait a minute!” the receptionist called after them. “I’ll call security!”
“You do that.” As if the guards could do anything effective when they couldn’t even spot a would-be murderer. “And tell them we’ll be in intensive care.”
He didn’t stop until they reached the waiting area. There, his mother rushed to him.
“Oh, Donny, how could something like this happen?”
Enfolding her in his arms for a reassuring hug, he said, “That’s what I want to know.”
Across the room, Aileen sat, looking drained and scared. She was clinging to Skelly’s hand. Expressionless, their brother met his gaze.
Guiding his mother to a seat, he asked, “Do the authorities have any kind of lead?”
“Not a clue,” Skelly answered for her. “Not that you would give a damn if Dad died.”
Donovan’s jaw worked, clenching so tight it hurt. Skelly always had a way of cutting to the chase and getting under his skin. He moved in on the man who was the pride of Raymond McKenna.
“I’m the one who brought him to emergency, or you’d be planning his funeral right now. And Aileen managed to find her way north mere hours after I called. You’re the one who took his sweet time getting off his butt.”
Skelly stood and met him eye to eye. “But I’m here, now, not chasing through the woods with a pack of wolves.”
“Not that your being here did him any good when someone nearly did him in this morning!”
“Stop it, both of you!” Laurel pushed between them and shoved them apart. “What are you thinking? This isn’t about you. Someone just tried to murder your father, for God’s sake, and you’re more concerned with one-upping each other. You should be ashamed of yourselves!”
“Laurel’s right,” Aileen said. “You’re grown men, but you’re acting like little boys. If you can’t behave in each other’s company, then I suggest you leave.” She gazed first at Donovan, then at Skelly. “Both of you.”
Properly shamed, Donovan couldn’t look either woman in the eye. Neither, it seemed, could Skelly, who sank into his chair muttering an expletive under his breath. Backing off, Donovan sat next to his mother, while Laurel took a seat near Aileen.
“All right,” Donovan finally said. “What do we know for sure?”
His sister spoke calmly now. “Early this morning, someone slipped into Dad’s room armed with a syringe of concentrated potassium chloride…but must have been scared off by a member of the hospital staff before he could use it”
Skelly added, “Baedecker thinks he shoved the syringe under Dad either to hide it, or with the intent of coming back and finishing the job.”
“Did he check to see who had reason to be in the room?”
“Yeah. And I double-checked,” Skelly stated. “Everyone’s been questioned. It seems there was a lot of confusion this morning, especially with some members of Dad’s staff wandering around, demanding to s
ee him. Too many people in and out. No one seems to remember anything out of the ordinary in Dad’s room, though. Just other hospital personnel making rounds.”
“No strangers?”
“Every person working here can’t know every other person,” Aileen said. “Especially with the recent shift changes.”
“So Baedecker just gave up?”
Skelly said, “He’s working on it He had an evidence tech lift fingerprints, but the good deputy doubts that’ll give them any leads, not when latex gloves are available right in the room.”
“Maybe we should ask him to bring the Tobins in for questioning,” his mother suggested, explaining, “I already told them about your theory.”
“Problem is,” Laurel said, “we now have more than one theory.”
She gave them an edited version of her thoughts on Magda and Sam’s possible involvement.
“You mean this might be personal?” Skelly asked, voice rising once more. “Not about land or the damn wolves?”
Aileen put a hand on his arm. One look at his sister’s face and he immediately simmered down.
“It’s something to consider,” Donovan agreed stiffly.
Although he hadn’t before seriously considered that he might be responsible for what had happened to their father.
“I made sure Dad’ll get round-the-clock protection,” Skelly informed them. “There’s a guard stationed outside his door, and I’m not planning on going anywhere myself, at least not until he’s fully awake.”
“Has there been any improvement?” Laurel asked.
“He opened his eyes again when I was talking to him a while ago.” Veronica sounded hopeful. “He seemed to be trying to focus on me.”
And Donovan could only hope that wasn’t her imagination at work.
“I want to see him,” he suddenly said, hurtling out of his chair.
“Wait.” Aileen also rose. “The guard doesn’t know you. I’ll walk you to his room.”
And without waiting for his consent, she joined him. He figured she had something on her mind and probably meant to give him a piece of it. Might as well be now as later.
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