If she'd slipped it... If she'd slipped it, she'd have left it dangling on the cable. No way for a dog to slip a collar without some force being applied to the collar itself.
The flashlight lowered to point at the ground, seemingly of its own accord, and this time the call came out in a whisper. "Sunny..."
She probably should think about what to do next, about checking on Druid or cleaning her hand or calling animal control to leave a message about her dog, somehow on the loose. But she just stood there. And then those decisions were taken away from her as an unfamiliar vehicle made the sharp turn into her driveway at some speed and charged the hill up to the house, painting her in a bright halogen light and driving her shadow up the side of the barn. The man who got out of it was nothing but a harshly limned shadow in the night.
"Brenna? Brenna, are you all right? What's going on?"
"What's going on?" she repeated slowly, realizing that Gil Masera was here, that the phone was somewhere shattered on the kitchen floor. "I don't even know how you found my house, never mind what's going on—" and she gestured half-heartedly with the collar, bringing it up into the headlights he'd left on.
Blood.
Blood soaked the collar, and dripped from her fingers; it smeared across her hand.
She stared stupidly at it. This isn't happening. But her mouth seemed to know better, for it said, "Oh my God," though the words came out faintly.
"Is that blood yours?" he said, his words as edged as usual. No, not as usual. Edged, but different somehow.
But not to be ignored, as her hand started shaking again. With one hand grasping at the fencepost, she sank to the ground, to her knees in the dry grass. "No, I—"
If not hers, whose? Sunny's?
In a few long strides he reached her, tucked an arm around her waist and drew her back up. "Inside," he said. "You can sit down inside."
Inside, where the blood would be bright and unmistakable. "Oh God," she said again.
But that would leave— "No! I've got to find her. She's here somewhere. She's hurt—"
"Brenna," he said sharply, getting her attention. "You've got another dog inside who needs you. Let me look for Sunny." When she just stared stupidly at him, he said patiently, "I've got my headlights and I'll take your flashlight. Druid needs you."
Druid.
He took her up the porch and in through the dog room, past Druid on his side in the crate, and flipped a kitchen chair around. She sat, only then truly seeing Druid and the flecks of blood around the crate. Blood from his lips, his teeth, his paws—self-inflicted injuries in his frenzy. He lifted his head to look at her, his eyes as glazed as hers felt.
She wanted to dive into the crate with him and cuddle him up. But that's what she wanted, and not what he needed; she'd wait until he had some intelligence gleaming from those eyes again. Wordlessly, Masera returned to the back yard; she heard him bellowing Sunny's name, his voice growing more distant as he expanded his search. Waiting, strangely dazed, she sat beside Druid, her hand pulsing with pain and her mind still too befuddled to hold a coherent thought—still unable to understand what had kept the storm door closed against her considerable efforts, or what could possibly have separated Sunny from both the run cable and her collar.
She glanced down at the collar, the turquoise that had been so pretty against Sunny's burnished red coat— and wished she hadn't.
It wasn't turquoise any more.
Suddenly she couldn't stand it anymore; she couldn't just sit here and wait for Masera to return; she hadn't heard his voice in many moments, though she could swear she'd heard him rummage briefly in the barn. There was another flashlight in the cupboard over the stove, and she got up to reach for it—
Masera returned.
A glance outside showed the headlights turned off; he'd darkened the flashlight as well. But he was alone.
"I'm not giving up that easily," she said, and took the flashlight from his unresisting grip. "She's out there somewhere—"
"I didn't give up," he said.
She took a step back from him, suddenly noticing the starkly pale nature of his normally Mediterranean complexion, the hollow look of his eyes. And then took another step back, and another, until she was back in the kitchen chair. "No," she said. And then, immediately standing once more, determined all over again. "Take me to her."
He didn't try to soften his words. "I already buried her."
Stunned all over again, Brenna said, "You what? What do you mean, you buried her? Without letting me say good-bye? Without asking me where I wanted her buried?" She didn't know whether to scream in grief or smite Masera on the spot.
"I'm sorry," he said, and it was the undertone of comprehension in his voice and on his face that stopped her from doing either. He understood what he'd done...and he'd done it anyway. She looked up at him, puzzled, utterly unable to figure it out, and still only a breath away from bolting out to find where he'd left her dog. He said, "I know it probably wasn't right. I don't... I don't know what got her. But there was no way in hell I was going to let you see it. Brenna," he added quietly, "I couldn't have done it so quickly if there was much left to bury."
"I—" she said, and stopped, shaking her head. She would have wanted to see her dog. To say good-bye. "It wouldn't have mattered—"
"It was my weakness, then," he said. "You think of her the way you last saw her, not—" He stopped, closed his eyes—looking away from her as though she might somehow pluck the reflection of what he'd seen out of his eyes, and he couldn't chance even that. And as she struggled to deal with that, he looked back at her and said,"Please."
Please don't ask me.
Coward that she was, she didn't. She sat with tears running down her face and her entire body clenched so tightly that it ached, the collar cutting into the fingers of her throbbing hand. Beside her, Druid stirred in the crate, looking up at her to whine, barely audible.
"We'll look at him in a moment," Masera said, his hand on her shoulder; only then did she realize that unthinking, she'd been about to rise, to go to the crate. "Let's see about you, first." He pried the collar from her grasp, and she gave a hiss of pain as her fingers finally came to life, another noise of protest as he took Sunny's collar away and put it in her sink. He brought back her dishcloth, pulled out another chair for himself, and put her hand over his knee so he could wipe off the blood and inspect it—with some relief, she thought in hazy realization, to have something else besides Sunny on which to concentrate.
She let him tend to her, using the time to come back to herself, to sharpen up her thoughts. She found the phone—on the floor by the crate, and in several pieces, all right—and saw that Druid was indeed recovering, no longer flat on his side but lying upright. What had terrified him beyond sanity? What had taken her Sunny-hound so horribly, so violently?
Masera made a satisfied noise and returned her hand to her. "No doubt you've had a recent tetanus," he said, "So I won't bother to ask. What I want to know—hell, what happened here tonight?"
She probably shouldn't have laughed, but she did. Short and bitter and then a little thick, as she looked down at her hand and thought about the answer—the many answers—to that question. Gingerly, she flexed her hand, and finally met his gaze. Seeing the scruffy version again, definite stubble lining his jaw, his hair forgetting where he'd had it parted earlier in the day. Dark blue eyes reflecting her kitchen light back at her. Concerned and frankly puzzled eyes, still hiding what he'd seen.
She looked down at her hand and frowned. "How'd you find my house?"
He sat back in the chair. "I don't live far from here. I've heard about the groomer who lives in the old farm up on the hill."
She gave him a skeptical look.
He shrugged. "Okay, I'm looking for a place of my own and I was curious about the property. I asked around."
"It's not for sale."
And he just looked at her, because he hadn't asked and neither the words nor the tone she'd used to say them were fair.
She should have been contrite, she supposed, but she was too miserable for that; she just looked away and answered his question from moments before. "I don't really know what happened. I mean, I can tell you what I saw, but—"
"It's a good place to start," he told her, leaning back in the kitchen chair. He quickly perceived that he had chosen the wobbly one and shifted to a position that didn't depend so much on the integrity of the chair seat connection to the back.
She looked at the phone, still on the floor. "I was talking to you, and Druid started up." She hesitated then, uncertain whether to mention the strange feeling she always got when the Cardigan lost it, equally uncertain whether that feeling came from the Cardigan or whether something else existed that they perceived as individuals. No, she decided. If she couldn't even figure it out, she wasn't going to muddle up this already confusing evening trying to explain it, especially when it hardly seemed relevant. "I don't know how much you heard—I mean, I don't know when I—"
"Threw the phone?" he said for her, a dark kind of amusement showing on his face.
"Threw the phone," she affirmed. "But Sunny started barking. And then she screamed, and it was the most awful—"
The amusement disappeared, leaving only darkness. "I heard it."
"She just kept screaming, and I couldn't get out there, the door..." She hesitated again, then said firmly, "The door wouldn't open. And then...she just stopped. All I could find was the collar, snapped off the end of the run cable."
"The cable snapped?" he asked, surprised, as if he hadn't had the chance to put that together yet.
"It's new, too," she said ruefully, and then realized that it didn't matter, that she wouldn't need a cable for Sunny anymore—
She bolted from him. Out of the kitchen, straight for the bathroom.
Privacy, she just needed a little privacy, and what was going on and what had happened to her dog and why to such a sweet dog, never hurt anyone and what was he doing here anyway? Brenna leaned against the bathroom door and pulled the cuffs of her long-sleeved T-shirt over her hands and then put her hands over her eyes and face, blotting the tears as quickly as they came, until they finally stopped coming.
She took a deep breath, hiccoughed, and waited in a moment of stillness to see if there'd be more.
Apparently not.
At which point she glanced in the mirror on the back of the door and blinked at the sight. Jeans torn across her thigh, her T-shirt ripped over her stomach, a long, clawed welt across her neck and climbing to her ear—Druid had done a lot more than bite her. And now her eyes were red and swollen, and her skin so flushed she wondered if it would ever fade away.
She splashed some cool water on her face just for the soothing feel of it and then decided that as long as she was here, she'd take advantage of the facilities. Whereupon she discovered more bright blood and had a quick moment of panic until her brain started functioning again and dryly informed her that it was time for that to happen, had she forgotten? So she took care of that, too, and came out of the bathroom no less bedraggled in appearance but beginning to get a grip on her spirit.
Masera was on the floor with Druid—so strange to see the man there in her kitchen—checking the dog's mouth while Druid rolled his eyes unhappily but submitted to the inspection. Masera looked up at her and released the Cardi; he immediately trotted to Brenna, unsteady and limping, and looking up at her with the most abject, the most worried face, his whole posture full of submission and uncertainty.
She knelt to let him climb up on the platform of her thighs and bury his head under her arm.
"He looks fine," Masera said. "Some split nails, some cuts on his lips and gums...but no broken teeth."
She kissed the back of his head—all she could reach—in relief. And then she looked at Masera and said, "Just because I'm upset doesn't mean I can't take care of myself."
He seemed to be given to studying such statements, for he didn't react immediately, didn't strike back as she might have expected, or walk out with wounded pride. "Well, no," he agreed finally. "But wouldn't it be easier with help?"
"You didn't have to come. I'm not sure why you did."
"I was worried," he said flatly. "You wouldn't have called me unless you felt you had no choice."
"No," she said, and that one came out more as a whisper.
"And I heard those screams, Brenna. Whatever you may think of me, my heart's not that cold."
I never said it was. But she kissed Druid's head again and didn't say it out loud, because they'd had more than enough between them, unspoken and spoken, for him to know that she hadn't forgiven him for the way he'd judged her before they'd even met. Not that he deserved to be forgiven for such rude arrogance—
You care too much, he'd said to her.
Maybe he cared, too.
But when she looked up after that insight, he'd gotten to his feet and was looking thoughtfully out the kitchen door, through its glass pane to the dog room and beyond. "It was confusing from my end, but...I never did hear anything other than you, the Cardigan, and your...other dog."
"Sunny," Brenna said quietly. "She was a Redbone Hound. Not a single brain cell in her body, but—" But a good dog.
He nodded as if he'd heard the last. "Did you hear anything?"
"Besides Sunny?" And in between her own screaming?
He nodded again, looking away from the door to return his scrutiny to her. Druid sank into a couchant position beside her, keeping himself within petting distance. "Besides Sunny," he said. "Other dogs?"
She considered it for a moment, but still remembered her own astonishment at the soundless wind. And if she'd noticed that the wind wasn't making any noise, surely she'd have noticed if other dogs were. So she shook her head, climbing stiffly to her feet to stand awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen, her arms looking for something to do and finally crossing themselves over her partially exposed midriff.
He frowned, and she was about to repeat the negation out loud, cross at being doubted, when she realized he wasn't doubting at all...just confused by her response.
Of course confused. Given her words, how not confused? But there was more to that frown—more than just a man confronted with a puzzle. More like a man confronted with other than what he thought he'd hear.
"You were expecting something," she said suddenly. "Something in particular—something else. That's why you came over here so quickly. What do you know that I don't?"
"Nothing," he said, but there was a subtle note to his voice that she hadn't heard before. And a distraction to his expression as he looked at the sink and the bloody token that was left of Sunny, then glanced at his watch, told himself, "Ucher," as if that were a word, and shook his head. He leaned over the kitchen sink to catch a glimpse of the moon out the big window, heavily waning and still high in the sky. "Medusa moon," he muttered, and frowned.
"What moon?"
He'd been lost in thought; the look he gave her was surprised. "Nothing," he said. "What it means depends on who you are. But this—" and he reached into the sink; she heard the clink of Sunny's ID tag moving against the old porcelain.
Brenna cleared her throat sharply. "Still think there's no dog pack?"
He dropped the collar and abruptly ran cold water over it, watching the blood swirl away. "I never said that."
"You did," she told him. "You said it to Sammi. Maybe not in so many words, but that's what you meant."
He grimaced. "No," he said. "I don't think it was a feral dog pack."
She tilted her head at him; one hand found her braid and drew it up to play with its end. "You say a lot," she told him, "in what you don't say."
"Then I suppose I'll have to stop saying anything at all." He turned the collar under the uneven stream of water—stronger when the well pump ran, weaker in between as the water pressure ran down enough to kick off the pump again. "In any event, daylight might shed some light on what happened here tonight."
"I doubt it," Brenna muttered.
He gave her a quick grin, that dark expression he'd so perfected. "You know what? So do I. But we've got to look."
"We?" she said, lowering her head to give him an even stare from beneath her brows.
Blue met blue. "Or not. Your call."
She fiddled with the end of her braid, considering. She knew this property. She knew what was out of place from day to day, and she'd grown up playing trailing games. She didn't know what he thought he could add to that.
Just being there, maybe. In case she didn't want to mourn her dog alone.
But no, he had an interest here. He wanted to know as badly as she, for all he was willing to walk out and leave her to it.
"You said you wanted to work with Druid," he offered. "This would be a chance to do that."
"I thought you said you were busy tomorrow."
"I am. Sometimes I change my priorities. But you need to make up your mind now, because I've got calls to make if you want to do it."
Work with Druid. Have someone else there as she scoured the yard for signs of Sunny or of Sunny's flight. And did she really want to be alone if she found anything? She stuffed her braid into her back pocket and gave him a nod. "Okay then. It's supposed to rain, though."
"Drizzle. And I won't melt. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not made of sugar."
"Actually," she said, feeling some of her strength come back now that the morrow didn't loom so empty before her, "I had noticed."
"Just as well," he said. "It won't come as any great shock later on." And his grin this time was genuine if self-knowing. He turned off the water, shook off his hands, and made a visible decision not to use the towel hanging off the stove. "Call me when you're up and ready to go. I'll be there."
That was it? He had arrived suddenly, swooping in to survey the wreckage, and just as suddenly he was going? And then she'd be alone, with Sunny's collar in the sink and her hand throbbing and her grief lurking.
Well, she'd said it. She could take care of herself. "I'm an early riser," she said.
"Fine by me." But he hesitated by the door, his hand on the knob, his gaze first on the sink, then on Druid, then on her. And this time, she knew what she looked like. "Listen," he said. "Do you have someone you can call, so you're not alone tonight? Family?"
A Feral Darkness Page 10
