The questions swirled in my head as the mortification swirled in my gut. I’d shared an appallingly intimate moment with a stranger. How was I ever going to look Cadotte in the face again?
I wasn’t sure I could, but I’d have to. He hadn’t given me one speck of the information I’d asked for.
The memory of my moans and gyrations haunted me all the way to work, which only meant that I had a mood to match Zee’s.
The phones were ringing like the church bells on Christmas Eve when I walked into the station. Thankfully Zee triaged better than anyone I’d ever met. She put one call on bold, routed another to the fire department, a third to the clinic, and spoke to the fourth.
I’d never make it as a dispatcher. My crisis management skills were heavily weighted to action rather than reaction.
"Two Adam Four, do you copy?"
"Two Adam Four. I copy and am ten-forty-two.‘’"
"My ass you’re off duty," Zee muttered, though not over the radio for a change. She glanced at me. "Henry’s been to three fights already tonight. He’s going to love this."
As everyone in the department knew, Henry—one of our second shift officers—loathed overtime. He had a young wife and no children—yet—though not for lack of trying.
"Ten-seventy-four that," Zee continued. "There’s a ten-ten in progress at the Sportsman."
"Another one? What are people drinking? Okay, I’m ten-seventy-six to the Sportsman."
"This whole town has gone ape shit," Zee muttered. "You’d think rabid wolves and a school shooting would make people stay home and play nice. Instead, they’re out drinking and driving and fighting."
She picked up the call on hold. "Yeah, she’s here now." Zee listened. "I’ll tell her."
After hanging up, she lit a new cigarette off the stub of her old one and took a deep drag, letting the smoke blow out of her nose on a sigh of contentment. Zee loved her cigarettes nearly as much as she loved me. Or maybe it was the other way around.
"Who’s here?" I prompted when she continued to smoke and ignore me.
"Who the hell do you think? You see anyone else hanging around?"
Since I was accustomed to Zee’s usual manner of conversation, I didn’t even blink at her words or her tone. "Someone’s looking for me?"
"Yeah. That spooky old fart the DNR hired. He’s on his way. You’re supposed to wait for him."
I flicked a finger at the phones. "Don’t I have work to do?"
"Hell, yes. But Clyde said you deal with Dr. Death first."
"Peachy."
I glanced around the office. The second shift hadn’t come back in yet. The rest of the third shift must have already gone out. Zee and I were the only lucky ones in the place. I hated waiting around with nothing to do. I stuck my hand in my pocket and my fingertips nicked the totem.
"I’ll be in the evidence room," I said. I could at least put this back where it belonged and get Clyde off my ass.
As I walked by Zee, she put down her cigarette and sniffed the murky air. "Where you been?" she asked.
"Home. Where else?"
"You smell funny."
How she could tell with cigarette smoke still swirling around her snowy white hair I have no idea. But Zee had always had the nose of a bloodhound. I wondered what she’d be able to smell if her senses hadn’t been depleted by nicotine.
I lifted my arm and sniffed underneath. "No, I don’t."
"Aftershave," she announced.
I blushed. I couldn’t help it.
Strange, though. I hadn’t smelled any aftershave on Cadotte. Only that scent that was his alone—earth, air, forest, man.
"What are you up to, girl?"
Since I rarely had reason to blush, my heated cheeks must stand out like the flash of a searchlight on the night of a new moon. Zee glared at me suspiciously.
"Nothing but my job, Zee."
She snorted and I had a hard time not joining her. If my job involved letting William Cadotte put his mouth all over me, the number of applicants for my position would be greater than ravaging mosquitoes on a muggy summer night.
I escaped from the front office before Zee pried more out of me. Not that I was easy—prior evidence to the contrary—but Zee was even more bullheaded than I was. She’d pick at me until I cracked or she got enough information to come to her own conclusion.
I wouldn’t really mind if Zee knew. In fact, I’d like to talk to her about what in hell was wrong with me. But Clyde was another story. Since his relationship with Zee was as close as or even closer than mine was, telling her would be the same as telling him. I’d lose my job, or at the least my involvement with this case. When Clyde had told me to stay away from Cadotte, he hadn’t just been whistling Dixie.
Sighing, I slipped into the evidence room. I made my way to the shelf where I’d left the bag of junk that comprised the evidence from Karen Larson’s accident. It wasn’t there.
I didn’t panic right away. Just figured I was on the wrong shelf. My mind wasn’t exactly focused. I put the totem into my pocket and searched the room. There wasn’t a lot there. My evidence certainly wasn’t.
I began to feel uneasy. I remembered putting the bag on the second shelf, along with the signed note from Cadotte. I got down on my knees and crawled around. Nothing.
I needed to report this to Zee and then to Clyde. The evidence room wasn’t Fort Knox, but it was secure enough for Miniwa. I’d had to use my key to get in here, and only officers had keys. If we took evidence out of the room for any reason, we made a notation in the evidence log.
The evidence log!
I smacked myself in the forehead and grabbed the book off the desk next to the door. Quickly I spun through the pages, expecting to see a familiar name scrawled in the margin next to my scribbled listing of Karen Larson’s evidence.
Not only was there no name; there was no scribble. Hell, there wasn’t even a page.
I opened the book as far as the spine would allow. I couldn’t see a shred of paper. Either someone was very good at ripping pages out of books, or I was nuts and I’d never recorded anything at all.
I had to go with the first option, even though that made no sense. Who would want a bag of glass and plastic?
Unless…
I patted my pocket, felt the hard ridge of the totem against my thigh. Had the culprit been looking for something else entirely?
Cadotte had said that whoever the totem belonged to would be wanting it back. Then why not just ask? Unless the owner had good reason not to be recognized as such. And if it wasn’t the owner, then what possible good could the totem do them?
I was more confused than ever. I couldn’t prove I’d brought in the evidence. Couldn’t prove the evidence had disappeared. Clyde was going to have my head when he found out.
He was already pissed at me for letting Cadotte keep the icon. But it was lucky I had or we’d have lost that, too.
One thing I knew, I wasn’t leaving the totem here to disappear along with everything else. For now the stone was safe right where it was.
Chapter 12
I opened the evidence room door and let out a yelp. Mandenauer stood on the threshold, emaciated arm raised to knock.
"Ah, Officer, good evening."
His good sounded like goot, and he drew out the word evening like a bad Dracula imitation. I would have laughed, if I hadn’t been close to crying.
I stepped into the hall and slammed the door behind me. There’d already been one too many people in the evidence room in the past twenty-four hours.
"What are you doing here? This area is off-limits to civilians."
"I am not a civilian. The sheriff has given me temporary clearance."
"You have a key?"
"Certainly."
"Have you been in this room?"
He glanced at the door, his gaze flicked over the word evidence, and he shook his head. "No need."
I didn’t believe him. That was going around.
"What did you want to see
me about?"
"Do you have your rifle?"
"Rifle? What the hell for?"
"Tonight we hunt."
I had been heading for the front office to receive my assignment from Zee. I stopped and turned very slowly. "I’m assigned to you?"
"Yes."
"Why? Don’t guys like you work alone?"
His lips twitched. "I am not a cowboy."
I looked him over from the tip of his head—white blond hair now covered with a black skullcap—past his camouflage jumpsuit, to the toes of his black commando boots. "No shit."
He ignored me. The man was catching on.
"Get a rifle. Follow me."
"Shouldn’t you be following me? I know these woods."
"But I know wolves. Especially wolves like these. I will teach you things you never thought to learn."
There was something cryptic in that statement, but my mind was still fuddled with sex and the mystery of the missing plastic.
"Clyde’s okay with this?" I asked.
"It was Clyde’s idea."
I frowned. Why hadn’t Clyde told me?
I moved down the back hall to the weapons room and Mandenauer followed me. The rifle I’d been assigned for use in tactical situations had never been out of the case. There weren’t a helluva lot of tactical situations in Miniwa. Until lately anyway.
For long-range shooting I preferred my own rifle, but since no one had seen fit to tell me of my change in status from Three Adam One to Mandenauer’s backup, my rifle was home in the gun safe. I’d have to make do with city-issue.
"What’s so special about these wolves, besides what you already told me?" I pulled out my gun and checked it over. "They’re overly aggressive, extremely violent, fearless."
"And smart." I glanced at him and he shrugged. "The virus appears to increase their brainpower."
"You’ve got to be kidding me."
"I do not kid."
I wasn’t surprised. After pulling out a box of ammo, I relocked the gun cabinet. "So we’ve got super-pissed-off wolves that are also very smart." My gaze met his. "How smart?"
Something flickered in the depths of his eerily light eyes. Not fear but close.
"How smart, Mandenauer? What are we dealing with here?"
He sighed and glanced away. "Human-level intelligence."
I couldn’t seem to find my voice, a novelty for me. When I did, all I could manage was, "That’s… That’s…"
What I meant to say was "impossible." Mandenauer filled in another word entirely. "Hazardous. I know. I’ve seen them formulate a plan, work together, and destroy those who try to destroy them. It’s—"
"Creepy."
He raised a brow. "I was going to say ‘fascinating.’ "
"You would," I muttered.
"Shall we go?"
"Shouldn’t we have a plan of our own?"
"Oh, I do, Officer. I do."
"What is it?"
"Come with me and you’ll see."
I really didn’t like the sound of that.
An hour later, I didn’t like the looks of the plan, either. We were deep in the forest, high up in a tree. Not that I hadn’t been in trees before; I’d just never liked it much. I preferred to hunt on the ground. Mandenauer had vetoed that idea immediately.
"One thing these wolves cannot do, yet, is fly. The only place we are safe is in the sky."
There was one word in that statement that bugged me quite a bit. I wasn’t going to let it pass. "Yet?" I repeated.
Mandenauer had spent the day scouting the woods and found a tree stand big enough for two, which he’d confiscated for our use. Since it was June, no one would care. Hunting season was still three months away.
"The virus evolves," he murmured. "It is very upsetting."
"Upsetting? Do the Centers for Disease Control know about this mutating virus? How about the president?"
"Everyone who needs to know does."
Yeah, right. Perhaps I’d make a little call to the CDC in the morning.
"Don’t we need bait?" I asked. "A sheep or something?"
"No. They will come. It is only a matter of time."
The light dawned. "We’re the bait."
Mandenauer didn’t answer, which was answer enough.
"I don’t like this."
"Do you have a better idea, Jessie?"
"We could go searching for them in the daylight, when they’re sleeping."
"These animals disappear in the daylight."
"Poof! Shazam! They’re invisible?"
"Hardly, Officer. But believe me, it is easier to pick them off one by one in the night than waste days trying to find an animal that isn’t there."
Isn’t there ? The guy didn’t make any sense. But he was right about one thing—he knew more than me about these wolves—so I’d let him be the leader. For now.
The moon was headed toward full and shiny bright. The night had a nip. Warm evenings would not come to the north woods for at least a few weeks.
I wanted to ask Mandenauer a hundred things. Where had he seen wolves like these before? Had he been able to wipe them out before they did serious harm? Where was he from? Were there others like him?
But he put his finger to his lips, then pointed to the silver-tinged forest. We had to be quiet. Wolves could hear for miles, and these could probably hear for hundreds of miles.
I settled in to wait, something I was very good at. Though patience might seem against my nature, patience was needed to hunt, and I’d been hunting over half of my life.
I’d gone along at first to be one of the guys. I’d continued to hunt, year after year, because I was good at it—and I’d been good at precious little as a teen. I certainly had no talent for being a girl and therefore none for pleasing my mother. But I could sit in a tree and wait, then wait some more.
An hour passed, then another. Mandenauer was good at waiting, too. He didn’t move; he barely breathed. A couple of times I had to fight the urge to reach over and make sure he hadn’t died in that tree. Only the intermittent blinking of his eyes signaled he was alive and awake.
Around 1:00 a.m. a solitary howl split the night. It was answered by several more. Our gazes met. We sat up straighter and slid our rifles into position.
I heard them first—a rustle to the right slinking closer, one to the left, another behind, then in front. They were approaching from every direction. Even though I was high in the sky, I was uneasy.
My ringer twitched on the trigger. Mandenauer cut a quick glance my way and frowned. He held up his free hand in a staying gesture. I scowled back. I knew what I was doing. I wouldn’t fire until I had a clear shot.
When I returned my gaze to the clearing, a black wolf had appeared. He paused, half in and half out of cover, scanning the area in a wary manner.
The thing was huge—much bigger than any wolf I’d ever seen. The average Wisconsin timber wolf runs about 80 pounds. I’d read they could weigh close to 120 in Alaska. This one had to be even larger than that.
None of the other wolves showed themselves, but I could feel them all around us, waiting for the leader’s signal.
The wolf took one step forward, and the bushes flipped closed behind him. His entire body shone blue-black beneath the light of the moon. God, he was beautiful.
My finger hesitated on the trigger. How was I supposed to know which wolves had super-rabies and which ones did not? That would have been a good question for Mandenauer.
We weren’t supposed to shoot every wolf we saw. Or were we? DNR policy on Chronic Wasting Disease was to kill as many deer as possible. Maybe the DNR had the same rules for super-rabies.
Suddenly the ruff at his neck rose, and a low growl vibrated from his throat. His head snapped upward and his eyes met mine.
"Shit!"
The word burst from my mouth as my finger clenched on the trigger. The resulting explosion was so loud my ears rang.
The wolf leaped into the air, twisted, fell. I experienced a momentary pang
to have shot something so gorgeous. But at least I knew now how to tell if the animal was infected.
The wolf’s eyes had been human.
Chapter 13
"What the hell was that?" I asked.
"I was going to ask the very same question."
I glanced at Mandenauer. He was staring at me and not the wolf. I looked back. The thing was gone.
I rubbed my eyes. Tried again. Still gone.
"Where is it?"
"The wolf ran off, along with all the others."
"But… but… I hit it."
"Are you certain?"
The wolf had jerked, jumped, fallen. "Yes, 1 hit it."
"Apparently, not well enough."
Which wasn’t like me. What I hit, I hit very well indeed.
"Why did you shoot, Officer?"
"Didn’t you see that thing?" I shuddered, remembering those eyes.
Wolves had light eyes—yellow, greenish, hazel. This one’s had been brown—nothing to write home about except for the unusual flash of white and their expression. A calculated hatred and too human intelligence. I never would have thought intelligence could be evident in the eyes, but I was wrong.
"Of course I saw it," Mandenauer answered. "I was waiting for the others to show themselves before I shot. They were all infected, Officer."
I winced. I’d screwed up and now we had nothing to show for our hours of patience.
"How do you know they were all infected?"
"They were coming in like a Special Forces operation."
"And how would you know that?"
Mandenauer peered down his long, bony nose. "I know."
Special Forces? Him?
"You’re losing it, Mandenauer. How could a group of wolves, supervirus or not, use Special Forces tactics? How could they get to us up here?"
"We will never know now that you scared them off before I could adequately gauge what they were planning."
I stifled the urge to apologize. This guy was nuts. Wolves with human intelligence? Even after I’d seen those eyes, I found that hard to swallow.
The amount of planning he was talking about was beyond an animal, enhanced or not. How did they devise their strategy, by drawing pictures in the dirt with their paws?
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