“Backwoods yahoo. Hired muscle. He won’t bother us again.” She seemed totally unselfconscious. Why should she be, she was a werewolf.
“Thanks,” she murmured, taking the blanket and wrapping it around herself. “Sorry about that. I probably shouldn’t have run off, but it was the only way we were going to track him.”
“Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
“But he’s dangerous—what if he comes after us?”
“We had a talk. He’s one of Nolan’s guys. Their whole operation up here is high school shit, not worth messing with.” Maybe he did kill Roy’s brother in some scuffle, or maybe that was all just a story. One way or the other, Cormac wasn’t about to get wrapped up in this mess.
“If you say so. Thanks for the blanket.” She climbed to her feet and rearran
ged the blanket for the trip through the woods, revealing glimpses of skin. Not that Cormac was looking.
She peered at him. “You know you have the start of a really pretty black eye?” She started to reach out to touch it, but winced and pulled away.
“It’s just a bruise. Zigged when I should have zagged.”
“Should we be grateful you weren’t shot?”
“Probably.” He walked on, and she followed.
“This may all be high school shit to you, but they’ve got guns and bad intentions and you’re getting involved.” She waited; he didn’t say anything, because what was there to say? “Just promise me you’re not getting sucked into anything that’s going to get you in trouble. I never want to have to make that drive to Cañon City again.”
He glanced at her and had to smile because she looked ridiculous, her hair hanging in tangles around her face, the gray blanket slipping off her shoulders as she clung to it. He had that wrenching feeling again, a flashback to when he’d intended to kill her, when she was just another job. And then—that endearing look that she was turning to him right now. The optimism. She trusted him, and that seemed the weirdest part of all. Any other ache he felt was superfluous. Old news.
“I promise,” he said.
“Good.”
* * *
WHEN THEY got back to the shed, Nolan and Eddie were both gone, which was good. It saved Cormac from having to do any more posturing. Who knew how much kerosene he’d already poured on the whole mess just by coming down here and mentioning Layne to Nolan. The war between them might have all been in Layne’s head—was it still?
He ought to just walk away.
Back at the Jeep, Kitty dressed as best she could, scowled at her torn shirt but managed to fit it on anyway, but held on to the blanket. Cormac kept busy retrieving the burnt-out flares and checking over the Jeep. The tires were intact, and it hadn’t acquired any new dents or scratches.
Nolan probably had a single-wide or some cabin out here or at the edge of town. Scraping by at the edges. Eddie might have been crashing at his place, might have had a dump of his own. Cormac didn’t much care. They’d be back here soon—he wouldn’t have scared them off entirely and probably didn’t have more than ten or fifteen minutes to check out the shed. But he wanted to check it out. He retrieved his gloves and flashlight out of the front of the Jeep.
“Wait here a second,” he said to Kitty.
“What? What are you doing?” she asked as he walked off.
“Just wait.”
She growled, slumping against the Jeep’s hood and crossing her arms to keep her shirt on.
What are you planning? Amelia, also checking up on him. He was getting it from both sides now. Typical.
“Those two’ll be back after us if I don’t take care of them,” Cormac said.
That doesn’t answer my question.
“You’ll see.”
Of course I will. Bloody hell.
Flashlight in hand, he went through the shed and into the mouth of the tunnel, a symmetrical opening of granite, roughhewn with nineteenth-century tools and smelling of chalk. The place hadn’t changed much. The same chain-link gate was bolted across the tunnel a few feet in. The metal NO TRESPASSING sign had been replaced with a plastic one at some point. So had the padlock, a straightforward commercial one with a key, which Cormac set about picking and had open in under a minute.