Gallagher unsheathed the gleaming blade and scraped his thumb across the edge. “Solid or plate?”
“Solid.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“A silversmith in Del Norte. Old Tiburcio claimed he forged it using the finest silver from Tasco.”
“Hell of a craftsman. He made this for you?”
“No, it was sitting there in his display case. He said a man paid him to forge it years ago but he never came back to collect it.”
He slid the blade back into its sheath. “Somebody else had wolf problems?”
“That’s what I wondered. Maybe the problem got to him before he could pick it up.”
“What exactly do you do with this?”
“I cut.” She frowned, as if unsure of what to do, then she pushed up the sleeve on her left arm. The skin crisscrossed with thin white scars. “The silver has to draw blood, otherwise it doesn’t work. But once it does, it’s like being doused with cold water. Puts out the fire.”
“Every time?”
“No.” Her shoulders sank. “Only if you to catch it in time.”
“So how many times have you, you know, changed?”
She fussed with her napkin, stalling. “Four times. Not including the night I disappeared. So that’s five.”
“First round doesn’t count,” he said. His fingers drummed the table top. “Four, huh? I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
“Four times in ninety days?” Her voice sharp, defensive. “Basic math says that’s barely an occurrence.”
“When was the last time you changed?”
“Three nights ago. The night Grissom showed up. He changed, attacked me as a wolf. No stopping the adrenalin in that situation. I lost.”
“Same night that local guy in Weepers got torn apart,” he said.
Lara watched him straighten his back, assuming a posture reserved for questioning suspects. Cold and impassive. “Not to be cruel, Lara, but... who did the deed? Was it him or was it you?”
She pulled the robe tighter and crossed her arms. “Don’t question me like a suspect, John.”
“Okay. Sorry. But I gotta know.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“How do you know? Are you aware when you’re the... in that state?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know it wasn’t you?”
“I can’t explain it. Just a gut feeling. But killing someone in that state? It crosses some line in the sand. I’d know.”
“That’s still just a gut feeling. Nothing solid.”
“You’re the one who claims detective work is ninety percent gut.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to put in words what she’d never said aloud. “Think about this way. If you kill someone while in that state, it’s like killing the human inside yourself. Giving in to that part. There’s no coming back from that. If I had done it, you and I would not be sitting at this table right now.”
His coffee had gone cold. “Seems kinda crazy but… okay. Let’s work with that for now.”
Stillness settled across the table, neither said a word. The dog rose from its bedding and clicked nails across the floor. Its eyes fixed Lara for a few moments before it dipped its snout to its bowl.
“I’m going to get dressed.” Lara rose and went up the stairs. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw Gallagher unsheathe the knife again and test the blade against the pad of his thumb. As if pondering its effectiveness.
TWENTY ONE
TINSEL WAS STRUNG along the cubicles of Homicide Detail and a wreath shed needles onto the industrial pile. Kopzych wore a Santa hat, cocked at a jaunty angle and some fool was piping Christmas tunes through his computer. Gallagher nodded hello to Detective Farbre as he returned to precinct. Everyone else ignored him.
Good.
After informing the Lieutenant that he was back, he checked with Wade about their case load. Nothing to report, nothing to move the needle on any of the open files stinking up their desks. “Everybody’s too busy doing their last minute shopping to lift a finger,” Wade said, leaning back in his chair.
“Don’t worry. Christmas Eve will roll in, and just when you think you might cut out for home to be with the family, the phone will start ringing.” Gallagher patted Wade on the shoulder. “Murder loves Christmas.”
“It is a time for family.”
“That’s the spirit.” Gallagher was pleased to see some healthy gallows humor creeping into detective Wade’s unassailable good nature. Maybe the guy would thrive in Homicide after all.
A handful of memos were waiting for him on his desk, policy changes and internal alerts, which he swept into the recycling bin. His inbox was choked with bullshit but there was an email from Taylor, alerting him to a hit on his search parameters. Headlined ‘Bingo’, the message read; Sounds like what you’re looking for. A news report from something called The Beacon Express, a small news affiliate in southeastern Oregon. A police report was attached. Both items reported the death of Roy Webb in Weepers. The incident that had sent the locals patrolling the town with guns. After printing off the police report, he started searching the news feeds for reports about the two men who had stopped them at the road. Nothing pinged.
He called down to Taylor, thanked him for the report and then asked him to look again for any news from that same area. Taylor emailed back two minutes later with a missing persons report. Sheriff Cheevers was searching for two men; Jim McClusky and Robert Jigs. Their truck had fallen through the ice on Snake River, four miles outside of town. Cheevers suspected the two men had also ended up in the river but no bodies had been recovered. A small hunting shack nearby had been destroyed and, according to Cheevers, there was a possibility the two men had been drunk at the time. After destroying the shack, the Sheriff surmised that the men had driven their truck onto the ice when it went through.
He emailed Taylor back, asking him to monitor the item and forward any updates to him. Gallagher read the report again and found it even more disturbing the second time around. He picked up the phone to call home only to realize that Lara wouldn’t pick up. He’d have to wait until he got home to discuss it with her.
“Hey partner, slow day?” Wade sauntered up, cradling a thick file under his arm. “We need to give these tips another call, see if anyone’s remembered anything.”
Gallagher sneered. “What file is that?”
“The Lelander case. ‘Member that one?”
Gillian Lelander was a 16-year old girl found dead on the bank of the Willamette which Wade had been primary on. The file went nowhere and remained open. It happened to all of them, a case that a detective couldn’t leave alone, couldn’t stop obsessing over. Lelander had been Wade’s personal haunt for six months now, the detective opening the murder book on it and reading through the file for the umpteenth time. Sometimes he’d enlist Gallagher in his latest tilt at the windmill.
“Do yourself a favor and send it down to cold cases,” Gallagher said. “Don’t be an Ahab.”
Wade scowled. “Says the guy who’s spent three months looking for his missing partner.”
Gotcha. Gallagher grunted and watched Wade split the paperwork in half. It took a Herculean effort to not blurt out that he had in fact successfully closed his open file and found his missing partner, thank you very much.
“Get through that pile,” Wade said, bopping Gallagher on the shoulder, “and I’ll spring for donuts. The kind with sprinkles too.”
Bastard.
Lara sat on the living room floor looking out the window. A sprinkle of snow fell over 22nd Avenue, melting as it hit the ground. The husky came up and joined her at the window.
“Bored?” She dug her fingers into its fur. “Me too.”
She had kept herself busy for most of the day. She stripped the sheets from Amy’s bed and bundled them into the washing machine along with her grimy clothes. Borrowing a T-shirt and jeans from Amy’s drawer, she was distressed to find the waistband fell loose. Her now bony hips jutted
out sharp but not sharp enough to hold up the pants. The junkie look, not attractive.
She made more coffee (with lots of sugar) and helped herself to a container of leftover tandoori chicken. Watched the news. She felt bloated and sick afterwards, her stomach not used to the onslaught of spice and calories. The chatter of the news anchor on the TV was noxious, the news of the day holding no interest for her. Her eyes kept straying to the window until she clicked off the boob tube and took to staring out at the street. She considered taking the dog out for a walk but decided against it, fearing she’d be seen or recognized.
Back to the window and the falling snow, she realized she was trapped here. She couldn’t leave the house, despite the fact that every stitch of her muscles ached to go outside. This house, that had seemed such a safe refuge just last night, now felt small.
She laid down on the floor and curled into a ball, her guts rumbling and roiling. Her eyes closed and oblivion came fast.
When her eyes opened, everything was blurry and her teeth were chattering. A hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake.
“Lara?”
Gallagher was leaning over her. Behind him, the street and the snow drifting down. It was dark.
“Are you okay?” He waved a hand before her eyes like she was blind.
“What?”
“Why are you on the stoop? It’s freezing out here.”
She was sitting on the cold porch stoop, shivering in the thin clothes pilfered from his daughter’s drawer.
Her knees ached and her legs were stiff as she rose and they went inside. Gallagher cast his eyes up and down the street, wondering if any of his neighbors had seen her. “How long have you been out here?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You get spooky when you’re like that.”
“Like what?”
“That trance you’re in. It’s like you’re not there.” He followed her into the kitchen. “Is that part of it? Like a symptom?”
“I don’t know.”
She retrieved a blanket from the living room and wrapped it around her shoulders. Gallagher made tea to warm her up but the shivering in her hands didn’t subside for the better part of an hour.
He had splurged and bought rib eye steaks, grilling them over the barbecue despite the weather. They talked about their day over dinner like any couple. She asked about the precinct, who was working the bullpen in the homicide detail. He told her about Wade’s obsession with the Lelander case. How he felt sorry for the guy, knowing the unanswered questions in that file would haunt him for a long time. He ladled seconds onto her plate, urging her to eat some more. Lara pushed her plate away, feeling a bit woozy from a full belly.
He asked her to fix them a drink while he went to fetch something from his office. Said he had something he wanted to show her. She looked through the liquor cupboard, partially decimated by Amy’s friends and found a bottle of red. It had been forever since she’d had wine. She uncorked it, found glasses and brought it to the living room. The sofa felt odd under her so she slid to the floor and crossed her legs.
Gallagher came back, a few sheets of print-out in his hand, and stopped. “Something wrong with the couch?”
“Too soft.” She pushed a glass of wine towards him. “Guess I’ve just gotten used to not having furniture.”
“Okay.” He joined her on the floor, grimacing as he folded his legs the way she did. “What do you know about this guy who attacked you?”
“Not a whole lot. No idea where he came from or even if he told me his real name.” She reached for the printout on the coffee table. “What’s this?”
“Police report about the incident on the road. When we escaped. You shot that thing with the fifty-cal, didn’t you?”
“It wasn’t a clean shot.” Her eyes scanned the document. “But there’s no mention of a wolf attack here. Or bodies. How did the truck end up in the river?”
“Grissom must have survived.”
She looked up, piecing it together. “He pushed the truck into the river. Made it look like an accident.”
“Dropped the bodies in the ice after it. They won’t be found till spring.”
“Covering his tracks,” she said.
Neither spoke. They could hear the dog in the kitchen, crunching kibble from its bowl. Gallagher puffed out his cheeks. “If he survived, could he track you back here?”
“I don’t know. Portland’s a long way.”
“But he found you the first time. From wherever he was, he tracked you down then.”
Lara’s eyes drifted to the floor. “Or I tracked him down.”
“That doesn’t make sense. How do you find someone you’ve never met before?”
“When I fled, I just needed to get away from here. Away from the city, away from people. I didn’t have a destination in mind, I just pushed on. But...”
Her voice trailed off. He waited a hearbeat, then two. “Go on.”
“There were choices. This road, not that one. I needed some safe place to hunker down for the winter. I stopped in a dozen places that would have suited me, a few better than where I ended up. But I kept going, something nagging me to keep pushing further.” She shrugged. “Without realizing it, I may have tracked him down. Drawn to his territory.”
None of that made sense to him. “Why would you do that?”
“Wolves are pack animals. Maybe lycanthropes are no different. Ivan Prall certainly thought that way.”
Gallagher bristled at the name, the memory of it. “I don’t want to go through that again. If this guy shows up, would you know? I mean, pick up his scent or smell him coming?”
“If he got close.” She nodded at the kitchen. “The dog too. But I don’t think he’d risk coming here.”
“Why’s that?”
“Too populated. He said the only way to survive as a wolf is to stay hidden. Avoid busy places where things could get messy.”
“Easier to clean up said mess.” Gallagher looked at the police report again. “Like staging an accident.”
The dog padded in from the kitchen, looked at them both and whined. Gallagher rose, creakily, and crossed to the door to let the dog out. When he came back, he saw her face darkened with worry. “What’s on your mind?”
“I don’t know if I should be here.” She looked the room over. “Cooped up like this. Afraid to go out, afraid of being seen. I’ll go stir crazy.”
He tapped a finger against his lips, pondering that. “What if you came back? Publicly, I mean.”
“And say what? I went on vacation and forgot to leave a note?”
“What if it was memory loss? You suffered a head injury that night, wiped your brain clean and you’ve spent the last three months living in a homeless shelter? Speaking nothing but Spanish.”
“Who’s going to believe that? Think about the grilling I would get. From people we know, other detectives.” Lara shook her head. “It’ll never work.”
“I’m grasping at straws here. You got any better ideas?”
“Nope.”
“What about a small town? Somewhere outside the city where you wouldn’t have to worry about running into someone you knew.”
She shook her head. “Just another type of exile. What would I do?”
“Start a new life. Make new friends. I’ll come visit you.”
“Wow. The highlight of my month would be a visit from grumpy Gallagher.”
“Easy.” He made a face at her. “Grumpy Gallagher saved your butt, Mendes.”
“Right. Thank you Prince Charming.” She batted her eyes mockingly and trilled her best Valley-Girlese. “I was, like, sooo in need of saving.”
“Ingrate.” He elbowed her ribs. She shoved back. Sly smiles on both ends. “Seriously,” he went on, “haven’t you ever daydreamed about starting over. Chucking everything and reinventing yourself?”
“Not like this.”
“Then stay here, with me. You can reinvent yourself here.” Gallagher leaned in to her, formulating his co
ck-eyed plan. “You look different now. We’ll tell people we met when I was, I dunno, up north on vacation. Up in B.C., fishing or something. You can say you’re Canadian, which means you’re from anywhere. We met and yadda-yadda-yadda and you came to live with me. Me and Amy,” he corrected.
“And tell Amy what?”
That stymied him. “The truth. She’s smart. She can handle it.”
“No one would believe that. It’s too crazy.”
“Then some other story.” He shrugged, looked at the floor. “You can’t just leave. I won’t lose you again.”
She looked up. His eyes locked onto hers and wouldn’t let go. Her first instinct was to pull away but she didn’t. Staring back bold as brass. A giddiness, like vertigo looking down off a rooftop.
“For a long time, I told myself it was my duty to find you. My responsibility,” he said. “But it’s more than that. Always has been.”
Something singed her hand like a hot coal. She broke the spell and looked down, saw his hand close over hers. Alarm bells clanged in her head, warning her to break off but some other part refused and her fingers clamped around his.
“John...” she said. There was more to it but the words evaporated like smoke. It was important but at this very moment, she couldn’t remember why.
She felt a squeeze. Her hand folded in his. How small her hand looked. How thin her arm next to his. How could he look at her like this, so scrawny. She tried to shake the notions from her head but they wouldn’t leave and when she looked up again, he kissed her.
Everything fell away. The world, the worries, the wolf. Lost in the dark, the only thought was her lips touching his. Her hand found his arm and held on tight, the way a drowning woman clutches a buoy. Something stirring up deep inside, something she hadn’t felt in a long time. And by the way he clutched her, he hadn’t felt it in a while too. Those old reactions. Gasping for air between kisses, her heart banging away. An ache so acute it stung. Wanting more, wanting it all. To envelop him and devour him, clutch and swallow him whole if she could...
A roar inside her ears. Far away at first, and then blasting as if someone jacked the volume all the way up. She tore her mouth from his. “Stop. John...”
Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3 Page 40
