Kitty Takes a Holiday
Page 53

“Uh. Yeah. And you can't dodge, 'cause I'm going to sit here until… until—”
“Until what?”
Until you convince me you aren't crazy. I looked away.
Then, he spoke almost kindly. “I was working on my uncle's—Ben's dad's—ranch. He got caught up in it, and I tagged along. I was just a kid, must have been nineteen or so. I didn't know any better. Those guys—I was still getting over losing my dad, and I thought maybe I could learn something from them. But they were playing games. They weren't living in the real world. They hadn't seen the things I had. I left. Quit the ranch. Spent a couple years in the army. Never looked back.”
Simple as that. I knew as well as anybody how a person could get caught up in things, when that pack mentality took over. He'd been a kid. Just made a mistake. I bought it.
“Why are you worried about it?” he said, after my long hesitation.
I didn't know, really. After seeing what Cormac was capable of, it seemed strange to find him involved, however tangentially, with such garden-variety creepiness. I said, “I keep finding out more things that make you scarier.”
And I had trouble balancing both liking him and being scared of him.
He stared at me so hard, so searching, like it was my fault we'd never been able to work out anything between us. Which one of us hadn't been able to face that there was anything between us? Which one of the three of us? Because Ben had dropped all those hints. He'd known. And now it was Ben and me, with Cormac on the outside, and all three of us locked in a room together.
He'd run, and that wasn't my fault. He scared me, and maybe that was my fault.
Then the spell broke. Cormac dropped his gaze. “It still cracks me up, that you're a goddamned werewolf and you can talk about me being scary.”
“It's like rock-paper-scissors,” I said. “Silver bullet beats werewolf, and you've got the silver.”
“And cop beats silver bullet. I get it,” he said, and he was right. Almost, the whole thing made sense. Cormac turned to Ben. “What's the plan?”
“I'm going to go to Shiprock to learn what I can about Miriam Wilson. There's got to be someone willing to testify that she was dangerous, that it was justifiable. We'll decide our strategy when I get back.”
“Has Espinoza said anything about a plea bargain yet?”
“Yeah. I told him I didn't want to talk about it until I had all my cards in hand. Hearing's on Wednesday. We'll know then, one way or the other.”
He nodded, so it must have sounded like a good plan to him. “Be careful.”
“Yeah.”
Ben knocked on the door, and the deputy came to take Cormac back to his cell.
“I hate this,” Ben said when he was gone. “I really, really hate this. We've never gone as far as a preliminary hearing. I want to tear into something.”
I took his arm, squeezing to offer comfort. “Let's get out of here.”
We'd only just stepped outside, into the late-morning sunlight, when we were ambushed. Not really—it was only Alice, lurking across the parking lot and then heading straight for us on an intercept path. My heart raced anyway, because all I saw was someone half running, half trotting toward me. I stopped, my shoulders tensing, and only an act of will forced me to smile.
Ben grabbed my arm and bared his teeth.
“Hush,” I whispered at him, touching his back to calm him. “It's okay. It's just Alice.”
He froze, seemingly realizing what had just happened. His features shifted; he didn't relax much, but he didn't look like he was going to pounce anymore.
Strange how I was still getting used to this new Ben. He was a new Ben—strangely, subtly different, slightly less steady, slightly more paranoid. As if he were recovering from some sort of head injury. Which maybe he was. Maybe all of us who'd been infected with lycanthropy were.
“Kitty! Kitty, hello. I'm so glad I caught you.” She smiled, but stiffly, as you do in awkward social situations.
“Hi, Alice.”
“I just came to give another statement to the sheriff. I thought it might help your friend. Even Joe gave another statement, said that if he hadn't come along—well, I don't know what would have happened.”
I did, or I could guess. It really wasn't worth describing to her. “Thanks, Alice. I'm sure it can't hurt.”
I was about to say goodbye, to get out of there before I said something impolite, when Alice spoke.
“I wanted to give you this. I've been thinking about what Tony said, about how much we all might still be in danger. It's not much, but I want to help.” She offered her hand, palm up. “Tony may be right, I may not know what I'm doing most of the time. But this came from the heart, and I can't help but think that means something.”
She held a pendant to me, a clear, pointed crystal about as long as my thumb. The blunt end of it was wrapped with beads, tiny beads made of sparkling glass and polished wood, strung together in a pattern and bound tightly to the crystal. A loop of knotted cord woven into the beadwork had a string of leather through it, so it could be worn around the neck. It was a little piece of artwork. It glittered like sunlight through springtime woods when I turned it in the sun.
“I usually use silver wire to string the beads,” she said. “But, well, 1 didn't this time. 1 used silk thread.”
It was so thoughtful I could have cried. If only it hadn't been too little, too late.
Did 1 trust it to actually work? A talisman made by Alice, who'd cast that horrific curse against me—and cast it badly, gutlessly, so that it hadn't worked. Had that one come from her heart as well? Did I trust her?
At the moment, it didn't cost me anything to pretend that I did.
“It's beautiful,” I said. “Thank you.”
She stood there, beaming, and I hugged her, because I knew it would make her feel better. Then I put the pendant over my head, because that would make her feel better, too.
She went to her car, waving goodbye.
“It's hard to know where to draw the line isn't it?” Ben said. “About what to believe and what not to believe. What works and what doesn't.”
I sighed in agreement. “She's right, though. If it comes from the heart, it has to count for something.”