“I don’t see it like that.”
Lane snarls, “My father always said you were a fool. He told me about her.” He shakes Nancy again. “How you married her even after she was found with another girl. You were a fool then, and you’re a fool now, but you’re still my uncle. You were good to me. Better than my father ever was. You were good to her, too, and we don’t deserve it, but at least I appreciate it. I care about you. I won’t stand by and watch you be humiliated by your wife.”
Tomas goes still, drawing in ragged breaths. “Lane, let her go. Please. If you really do care about me, you will let her go. I love you. I’ll help you, no matter what you might have done.”
“What I might have done?” Lane’s face contorts in a sneer. “You know what I did. I did what you couldn’t.”
“Lane?” I say. “Stop right there. Whatever you are about to say, consider it before you do. Let Nancy go, and we can talk.”
I’m not giving him a free pass. Once he speaks those words, though, he tumbles over a precipice. Admit to one murder, and it’ll seem easy to commit a second.
“I don’t want to stop,” Lane says. “Why should I? I’m not ashamed of what I did. I—”
“Lane?” I say. “That’s enough. Let Nancy go—”
“Yes, I killed that woman. Shot her and left her to die. She deserved it, and so does this filthy excuse of a—”
Dalton grabs Lane’s knife arm. He’d been sneaking up from behind, Lane so intent on his confession that he never realized Dalton was with us. Now Dalton yanks Lane’s arm back, the knife dropping. I run for the weapon. Tomas runs for Nancy and pulls her from the scuffle.
Dalton wrestles with Lane. I can’t do more than stand back, my gun aimed. I could threaten to shoot Lane, but he’s in such a frenzy, I doubt he’d hear. I could hardly follow through either, with Dalton lost in that blur of blows.
Dalton goes down, his knee buckling under a savage kick. Lane wheels and runs, and I lunge after him, but I’m too slow—my bad leg will never let me keep up with a fit young man. I see Storm. Lane is running across the clearing, past where Storm’s huge black form blends into the night. Her gaze swings on me, a question in it.
I instinctively raise my hand for her to hold her stay. Then I remember my thoughts from earlier. Storm is a working dog, and I need to use her.
“Go!” I say, pairing the command with a wave that releases her.
She’s off like a shot. She isn’t built for speed, though, and she has to give chase, the two of us running after Lane, oblivious to whatever is happening behind us. Storm closes her gap, as I fall behind, my bobbing flashlight beam allowing me only glimpses of them ahead.
Storm catches up, and she’s right behind him, and I think she’ll have no idea what to do next. Which proves, I suppose, that I really am a fretful parent, worrying about what I haven’t prepared my “child” for. My “child” is a dog. A predator. No one needed to show her what to do when Cherise posed a threat to me. And no one needs to tell her what to do when she catches up to Lane. One powerful lunge, and she’s on him, knocking him facedown in the snow.
It’s the next part that confuses her, as it did with Cherise. She’s been taught not to hurt people. Even in play, she can never snap or snarl or growl, even grab an arm with the intention of clamping down. She’s too well trained here, those teachings overcoming instinct. She takes Lane down and then just stands on him, and looks back at me, but I’m fifty feet away. Lane flips over, shoving at her even as I shout a warning.
Lane scrambles up, and Storm knocks him down again. He slams a fist into her chest, and a snarl of rage behind us tells me Dalton is coming. Yet he’s too far back, and so am I, and Storm’s trying to figure out what to do, butting at Lane while he hits her.
I have to clamp my jaw shut not to call her back. I’m almost there. Lane’s unarmed and—
A flash of silver.
He has a knife.
“Storm!” I scream, which is not a command, not a goddamn command at all. “Come! Storm, come!”
The knife slashes. Blood sprays onto snow, and I scream again. Then something bursts from the forest. A blur of gray. I’m only ten feet away, close enough to see what it is. The wolf.
He grabs Lane’s arm. His teeth clamp down, but the young man’s wearing a thick parka, and the wolf only hangs there. He bites hard enough to startle Lane into dropping the knife, though. Lane realizes there’s a hundred-pound wolf hanging off his shoulder, and he screams, kicking and punching.
I’m there. Finally there. I ram the flashlight into my pocket, holster my gun, and grab Storm’s collar to drag her back. I ignore Lane. I know he’s my target, but there’s blood in the snow, and it belongs to my dog, and that’s what matters. The wolf can take Lane for all I care.
Lane and the wolf fight, battling with growls and grunts and gasps of pain. Storm whines, her body trembling as I run my hands along it. She flinches when I find the spot where the knife went in, but she doesn’t stop straining to see the fight, nudging me out of the way when I block her view.
The blade sliced her left shoulder. Her fur is wet and sticky with blood, and I tug out the flashlight for a look. It’s a slice, not a stab, and as I palpate the wound, she huffs in annoyance more than pain, Mom fussing over a scraped knee when her child just wants to run back onto the playground. That reassures me even before I get a good look at what is indeed a flesh wound, a shallow slice maybe two inches long. It’ll need stitches, and I’m sure as hell not letting her jump into the fight, but she’s all right.
I see Dalton then. He’s circling Lane and the wolf, looking for an opening. His knee gives a little when he feints too fast, telling me Lane really did give it a solid kick. The wolf and Lane are squaring off, circling each other, Dalton outside looking for a way in.
Looking for a way to get between Lane and the wolf.
Oh, hell, no.