The microwave dinged, presenting her with overheated Spaghetti-Os—she'd never found the just right setting for that particular comfort food, and had resigned herself to blowing endlessly on steaming spoons of pasta and burning her tongue at least once anyway—and she took them and the soda out into the den, knowing Druid would follow. Faced with full hands, she poked the television power button with her toe and plunked down into the couch, freezing at the unexpected crinkling she heard.
Emily's papers. "You touch, you die," she warned Druid, putting her bowl on the floor so she could lean forward and yank the papers from her pocket. "There. Uplifting television, educational reading, and a repaired barn gate. What more could a woman ask for?"
New headlines, for one. There they were, still leading off with the story about Elizabeth. Wait. No. Someone else.
"This man, recently found dead in the northwest area of the city, has been identified as a known felon." Cue mug shot, replacing the face of the mature, perfectly coifed anchor woman.
Mr. Cocky.
"Alarmingly, the cause of his death has been identified as rabies. Center for Disease Control officers have no official comment on the unheard of number of rabies cases in humans recently, although they're still unwilling to consider it an 'outbreak'." The anchor woman reappeared, with a clever graphic on the screen to the upper left of her head shot, a big red block R with a hypodermic crossing it and a jagged, Batman-like KA-POW outline around it. "Nor have they pinned down the primary source of these infections, originally thought to be a stray dog—a theory recently dismissed when a local woman came down with the disease."
Cut to a reporter standing outside Pets!, apparently oblivious that directly behind him, a large Malamute was lifting his leg on the fake fire hydrant provided especially for that purpose—although as the seconds passed, he moved to block the view, no doubt directed by the cameraman. Brenna, dizzily overcome with the portent of Mr. Cocky's death, imagined the cameraman's thoughts. Note to self: Avoid fire hydrant backdrop.
And then he started talking, and things got worse.
"We're saddened to report that local groomer Elizabeth Reed succumbed today to rabies—only moments ago, in fact—contracted through injuries sustained at this Pets! store—"
Brenna dropped the spoon back into her Spaghetti-Os, dropped the bowl into her lap. Stared at the screen, unheeding of the reporter's words, unable to hear anything but the voice in her head, the memory of a voice that had once sneaked inside her thoughts over Emily's kitchen table—
...local groomer Brenna Lynn Fallon succumbed today...
It was supposed to have been her. It truly was supposed to have been her.
And then Druid was staring at her with searing intensity. Whining his whine, so impossibly earnest—
Crowded shelters, dead pets piling up faster than they could be cremated, live ones impossibly crammed together—
On-site reporter: "Officials are suggesting that animal lovers keep their pets indoors or under supervision at all times out of doors."
Closed schools. Special hospital wards. Children chanting rhymes over double-scotch. Emily crying. Druid whining. A voice from somewhere else, sounding only in her head—"Shedding Rabies is the term being used for the mutated virus, an illness which incubates more quickly in humans than the well-known counterpart, but slowly in the common carrier animals..."
And there, on the television, a cut to animal control building exterior with voice-over. "The dog and cat drop-off rate has already doubled. Humane Society spokesperson Sarah Monscour suggests that this is an over-reaction, and could lead to the needless deaths of beloved pets."
Conditioned pit bulls in training, ravaging a small dog, clamping down long after the victim went limp in death, blood coating its face and chest. Emily crying. Emily crying.
Sarah Monscour: "Please, unless you know your pet has been in contact with a wild or stray animal, don't abandon or give them up. If you're concerned, there's a test available through your veterinarian. It's called the Rapid Fluorescent Focus Inhibition Test and can allay any concerns you might have about your pet and rabies."
Druid whining.
Almost a bark and almost words, warm brown eyes pinned to hers, his front feet on her knees. Not caring about the pungent pasta before him—the smell of which suddenly made Brenna ill. Truly ill, and she realized it just in time to plunge for the bathroom and flip the toilet lid up.
After she'd been sick, when she slid back on the tile floor and up against the tub, her arms wrapped around her knees, Druid crept in—he'd always been wary of the toilet—and whined a different whine. An ordinary sound, a dog confused and worried. He squeezed in under her arm and licked her face.
"They say not to let dogs do that," she told him solemnly. "But it can't be any worse than sticking your head in the toilet."
So they sat together, and she tried to put her thoughts together. Well, her thoughts...and thoughts she was certain weren't hers at all.
Parker and Mr. Cocky. Rabies.
Parker's girlfriend and her cat. Rabies.
Parker's barn and Parker's dogs. Dog fighting. Small animals ravaged in training. Small animals found by the roadside.
The Sheltie mix, found mauled by the roadside and taken through quarantine, through Janean's hands and into the home of a man now also dead.
Parker and his fighting dogs and the animals he'd touched and they'd touched and rabies.
Shedding rabies.
Parker's barn and Parker's dogs and shedding rabies and the darkness-feeding force that had come from the very spring she loved so much.
And it would only get worse. She knew that from the things she'd seen...things somehow connected with Druid, that upset him as much as they upset her, though she couldn't fathom why or how. Maybe she never would.
Fine. She'd created that place of power; she'd started this.
She knew how to finish it.
Only then did she notice that Druid's white muzzle had an inconspicuous rim of tomato red, and that his breath smelled familiar, if a smell that no longer sent her for the toilet. She gave a shaky laugh, and squeezed him in a hug until he protested. "Maybe you're a normal dog at that," she said, and wiped the corner of his mouth, coming up with a single forlorn pasta O.
But she had a feeling that was only wishful thinking.
~~~
Call animal control.
That's what she needed to do.
Masera had said they knew about it. He hadn't wanted her to call, though he hadn't come right out and said it; he hadn't needed to.
More pieces of the puzzle whirled in on her. Parker's girlfriend and Mickey the stock boy, missing dog food, Masera and Mickey, arguing, exchanging cash for dogs...Mickey's message to Masera about something that was happening...tonight.
He'd said he wasn't going to fight those dogs. He'd meant it, she knew that, and when he'd said it she'd interpreted his comment to mean he wasn't involved. But she should have known better, should have remembered how good he was at sliding past things he didn't want to reveal or discuss. Somehow, in some way, Masera was mixed up with the fighting. Even Eztebe knew of it—he just didn't know what it was.
But Brenna did.
Wherever tonight's action was, Masera was there. Now.
Mixed up with Parker and his dogs and his rabies.
Right now.
Brenna lunged up from the bathroom, leaving one very surprised Corgi in her wake, and went tearing through her beat-up purse, hunting her wallet and the card with Masera's cell phone number. She didn't think about what she'd say, or marshal her arguments. She fumbled with phone and card until she'd gotten the number dialed and then listened to his line ring. And ring.
Answer it, you idiot, she thought fiercely at him. "I don't care where you are, answer the damn—"
"Masera," he snapped, not sounding at all glad about it. Shouts and catcalls and curses filled in the background noise, swelling suddenly to a frenzied cacophony, making her sure she'd been right
.
"It's Brenna," she said, and didn't wait for a response. "Get out of there."
"Brenna, I don't have time for this—"
"You do," she said. "You take the time, and you listen to me. Get out of there! It's not safe."
That, for some reason, amused him. He knew it wasn't safe, she realized, even as he said, "I know what I'm doing." But the noise in the background diminished; he must have been moving away from it. She at least had that much of his attention.
"You think so?" she snapped. "Did you know Mr. Cocky died from rabies?"
"Mr. Who?" And then, barely muffled, he shouted to someone, "Yeah, yeah, I'll be right there."
"That guy who chased us off Parker's driveway—you know, the guy with the I'm hip walk and the sleazy attempt at a beard."
"He's dead?" Masera asked, checking to make sure he'd gotten it right; the background noise faded a little more.
"He's really dead. And they say it was rabies. Listen, every animal and person who's gotten rabies has a connection to Parker. And you're there at a dog fight, aren't you?"
"Don't be—"
"No, you 'don't be.' Parker's running dog fights and he's got his own dogs and at least one of them is spreading a new variation of rabies. I don't care what you're doing there, just get out! With all the blood and dog spit being slung around at a fight, you think you're not in danger?"
"I've been inoculated," he said, and she could tell she was losing his interest, could hear someone calling his name in the background, rising above the general hubbub of the place.
"Well whoop-di-do, and so have I. So was Parker's girlfriend's cat, and Elizabeth's dead. And the Sheltie mix made it through quarantine and still wasn't showing signs of rabies after passing it to two people who are also now dead. Aren't you listening? It's a new strain."
There was a pause; in the background she heard a purely human scuffle break out and quickly subside, and she hated to think of the men who could quell such a thing so quickly in that charged atmosphere. What they'd do to Masera if they even guessed what he was talking about. Then Masera said, "She's dead? Elizabeth died?"
"Yes," Brenna said in misery. "I'd really rather you didn't die, too."
His voice got quiet and intent; she could tell he was holding the phone close to his mouth, and probably had his hand cupped around the receiver. She could also tell immediately that he was going to do his own thing no matter what she said. "Okay, Brenna. I hear you. I'm not in that sort of danger here. I'm strictly back row right now. But I can't leave. And I damn sure can't spend time on the phone and then leave. Parker's tight, and he's careful. I'll never get back in."
She didn't ask why the hell he wanted to get back in, and she didn't care. "You want to talk trouble?" she said, her voice dropping low and shaking a little from the very nature of the exchange, from what she knew she was about to say—knowing that deep down, no matter what she called him, no matter how he alternately hid himself from her and shoved himself into her life and annoyed the hell out of her, she didn't want to push him away for good. "Here's trouble for you—you have this nice long talk on the phone and fifteen minutes later the cops arrive and break up the party."
"The hell you will," he said, and every bit of the anger she expected was there. "You stay out of this, Brenna. You have no idea what you're meddling with."
"And I don't care. It's your choice. I see you here within ten minutes, or I call the cops. I don't even care if you're not at Parker's. It'll mess up your secret little plans just as much if they storm his training barn."
He reacted with such utter silence that she knew he didn't even trust himself to respond to her. Then he muttered—no doubt through clenched teeth—"It'll take me more than ten minutes. Fifteen."
"Fifteen," she agreed.
He hung up on her.
She wasn't surprised. She couldn't even blame him. She put the phone down on the cradle and looked at Druid, ever attentive Druid. "He's mad."
Druid, well-ensconced in normal-dog mode, cocked his head, and his intent was plain enough; he might as well have spoken English. I really liked that bowl of round things. I'd like more.
Brenna laughed, a shaky laugh, and crouched to put her cheek against his gently domed head. Then she looked him in the eye and said, "Not a chance."
~~~
Sixteen minutes had passed when she heard a vehicle turn up her driveway. At seventeen minutes she would have called him again, another warning. And then she would have called the cops.
Her relief upon hearing the car, upon knowing she wouldn't have to make either call, was immense. It lasted only long enough for her to realize she was now going to have to face Masera in his anger. She went to the back door and waited, the screen propped open with one foot, the porch light beckoning.
The SUV came to a hard stop before the barn; she could hear him yank on the parking brake through the open window. He closed the door with a solid swing, though not with a slam—she supposed that was good—and walked toward the house with big angry strides, coming right up to the door, right up to her.
They stared at one another a moment. He didn't look as furious as she'd expected, but definitely brimming with frustration; beside himself, as if besieged by so many strong emotions he didn't know where to turn first.
Boy, could she relate.
So he did nothing, just latched his gaze onto hers and stood there on the verge of something, while Brenna herself didn't know whether to say I'm sorry or I'm not sorry—and ended up, to her great surprise, reaching out to touch the side of his face.
It changed something between them. For the first time, Brenna felt like she had given him something that no one else could, and that for the first time she'd chosen to give. And he relaxed, as though she had released something within him, although his manner was no less grave. "We have things to talk about," he said. "We have a lot of things to talk about. But not now."
Rabies, Parker buying her land, visions from a dog and the death of a friend. Lots of things to talk about, all right. But not now. Brenna said, "Okay," and stepped back from the door in invitation. "Want a bagel? I've got that great black cherry butter, and Druid ate my dinner so I'm having one anyway."
He grinned, giving a helpless shake of his head. "Yeah," he said. "I'd love a bagel."
So they had bagels, and they didn't talk, and when he was leaving he said, "Tomorrow. I'll come over tomorrow after my early evening class."
"I'll be here," she said simply, and they left it at that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHAPTER 15
OTHILA
Connection to Heritage & Kin
Brenna couldn't remember the last time she'd gone to her mother's unannounced, but the next day she found herself hunting a parking spot in the upscale retirement community, cruising around banks of immaculately tended landscaping as she navigated the maze to the correct clump of apartments. Her day off, with the world going weird around her and last night's conflict still unresolved, and she walked through the reception and sitting areas where the world was nothing but normal, with elderly women comparing knitting projects made painstaking by their arthritis and an elderly man snoozing through his friends' conversation while the single visiting family tried to control the small child ping-ponging from chair to chair and raising affectionate smiles from strangers.
Not only couldn't she remember the last time she'd come here without calling ahead—though she knew her mother's habits well enough to be comfortably sure Rhona would be at home, and probably Aunt Ada, too—she couldn't at all place the last time her mother had been to the farmhouse. All she knew of it lately was what Brenna told her; Rhona had no feel for the recent changes Brenna had made, for the ways she'd made it her own. For the obvious ways she'd loved and cared for the place.
Maybe it was time for that to change. Maybe if it did change, her mother would be less susceptible to any old idea Russell decided to plant.
Or maybe not. In any event, this was one old idea she wasn't g
oing to let reach fruition.
"Brenna!" her aunt said, opening the door at Brenna's knock, as surprised as Brenna would have expected but welcoming. They exchanged a quick hug—Brenna was always careful with her aunt, a light-boned and thin-skinned woman in her seventies—and Ada called back over her shoulder, "Rhona! Your girl is here, so tear yourself away from that soap opera and come out here!" She gave Brenna a wink, wrinkling her crepe-papery skin. "I never let her watch those things in the sitting room. Those commercials drive me up a wall!"
"More power to you," Brenna said, grinning.
"Go sit in the on the couch, dear. Your mother'll be out directly, I'm sure. Would you like some tea?"
"Water would be nice." Brenna took a spot on the couch, the same spot she took every time she visited here. Her mother would take the recliner, and Aunt Ada would drift in with refreshments and sit on the other end of the couch if she pleased. Ada, Brenna's mother had always said, was an individual—as if being an individual were not entirely a good thing. Brenna had been surprised when the sisters had decided to live together after her father's death and had been even more surprised when the arrangement endured—but glad that it had. This community gave her mother a secure place next to a medical facility, and was engineered with hand grips, wide hallways, high toilets, and showers with built-in seats. And with all of that the apartments still looked more like luxury living than anything else. Which was all a great relief, because Brenna couldn't imagine life if her mother had stayed at the farmhouse.
Although unless she did something, it didn't look like she'd have a life at the farmhouse to imagine.
Brenna's mother came out from the hallway, using her cane today; must have been a bad bone day, as Ada called them. It made Brenna reflexively check her old injuries to see if she felt any aches, and then sigh with relief when she didn't. Not yet. She got up from the couch to greet her mother with a kiss, and waited for her to settle in the recliner before sinking to the couch again.
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