“I wish you could tell me why you’re doing the fugitive bit.”
“You don’t really want to know. Trust me.”
“Just remember, if you need anything, anything at all, you call me.”
“Thanks, Ozzie. Give Matt a raise.”
He grumbled, and I laughed.
Who said a pack had to be all werewolves?
I bought a car, a little hatchback with enormous gas mileage. I doubled my salary when I stopped paying off Carl. Maybe I’d even buy myself some new clothes. With a car I could go anywhere. I’d be traveling at my own speed from now on. And traveling, and traveling.
I checked in with my parents before I left Albuquerque; I checked in with them every week. They bought me a cell phone so I could be sure to call, no matter where I was—and so they could always find me. They weren’t happy about my situation. They kept inviting me to stay with them however long I needed to. I appreciated the thought. But I couldn’t do that to them.
I kept a lookout for Elijah Smith and the Church of the Pure Faith. There was still a story there. My ultimate goal was to get Smith himself as a guest on the show. Not likely, but a girl could dream. Every now and then I found a flyer, or someone sent one to me, advertising his caravan. I always seemed to be a week behind him.
Detective Hardin got hold of me through Ben O’Farrell. God help me, I hired the lawyer on retainer. I had my mail forwarded to him, and he had my contact information. He’d been calm and straightforward the night Zan died. In daylight hours, outside the stress of the police station, he proved just as straightforward. He was never above giving advice on something as mundane as car insurance.
Best of all, Hardin had to talk to him before she could get to me. But even O’Farrell couldn’t put her off forever. We talked on the phone the week I stayed in Albuquerque.
“We found your DNA on the first werewolf’s body, in his mouth and under his fingernails. That makes you an assault victim. Then we found your DNA in the saliva on the wounds of the second body, which could get you in trouble. But we’re willing to make a case for self-defense since he also had your blood under his fingernails.” She made it sound so technical. This was my blood we were talking about.
If it hadn’t been my blood involved, I would have laughed at how the whole thing sounded like some werewolf version of a Mexican standoff. I admired Hardin for trying to sort out who had attacked whom first.
“We found a fourth set of werewolf DNA in the saliva on the wounds of the body outside your apartment. It’s the only link unaccounted for. All I need is a name.”
The implication was that I could be charged with a crime in the middle of this mess. O’Farrell wanted me to fess up.
I didn’t have anyone to protect anymore.
“T.J. Theodore Joseph Gurney. He lives in the cabin behind the garage at Ninety-fifth and South. I don’t think he’s there anymore.” Present tense. If I told Hardin he was dead, she would just open another murder investigation. I could have pointed her to Carl in that case. But I didn’t. This had to end somewhere.
“Then where did he go?”
“I don’t know.” That at least was true. I didn’t know where he was now. “He didn’t tell me.”
“Can I believe you?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you leave town?”
“I had to. It wasn’t safe for me to stay, after what I did.”
“You were afraid of ending up like that body outside your apartment.”
“Yes.”
She sighed. “You might be interested to know, the powers that be are actually listening to me.”
“You mean you say ‘werewolf’ and they believe you?”
“Yeah. The alternative is the theory that some ritual slaying specialist came up with about a cult of cannibals to explain why they found shredded bodies with pieces missing. The idea is the cult imploded when it turned on itself and the members started eating each other. Werewolves sound downright rational compared to that.”
Except there was a hint of truth to the cannibal theory as well.
She said, “If I think of anything else, I’ll call you.”