29

I wanted to get dressed. I'd brought my suitcase over from my cabin for just that reason, but I needed a shower. I'd had too much fighting, too much sweating, too much blood, too much sex last night not to shower. So I sat huddled in a nest of sheets that smelled of Richard's cologne, my perfume, the sweet scent of his skin, and sex. I had managed not to cry. In fact, if Richard had just admitted undying monogamy to me, I'd have joined him in the shower. But he hadn't, and I was confused.

There was a knock on the door. It startled me, and I almost just ignored it. Almost pretended we were still asleep or otherwise occupied, but the second knock was more insistent. The third was so firm, the door shook.

"Police, open up."

Police? "I'm not dressed. Just a minute." I really hadn't packed a robe. But I also had a sudden bad feeling. If he just wanted us out of town, why come this early? Why wouldn't he give us time to pack and get out? Unless he didn't care if we left anymore, at least not on our own. Maybe he'd known about the hit last night. Maybe he meant to kill us. I'd dealt with rogue cops before, once. It made everything harder. If I met them at the door with a gun, it would give them an excuse to shoot me. If I didn't protect myself and they shot me anyway, I'd be pissed.

"Open the fuck up, Blake."

I didn't pick up my gun, I picked up the telephone. I didn't call a lawyer. Carl Belisarius was good, but not good enough to help me stop a bullet. I called Dolph. What I wanted was another witness that couldn't be shot. A cop in another state seemed a good bet.

The phone was near my pillow. The pillow had the Browning under it, but if I had to go for the gun, I was dead.

Dolph answered with "Storr."

"It's Anita. Wilkes and his deputies are about to break down my door."

"Why?"

"Don't know yet."

"I'm putting a call through on the other line for the state cops there."

"Why? Because the cops broke down my door when I didn't open it?"

"If you don't want help, why are you calling, Anita?"

"I want to be on the phone to another cop when they come through the door."

I could hear Dolph breathe for a second or two, then, "Don't have your gun in your hand. Don't give them an excuse."

And the door burst open. Maiden was first through the door. He cleared the door going low. The tall deputy with the scar took high. They both trained guns on me. Maiden's big forty-five looked right at home in his big hands.

I just stood there, one hand clutching the white sheet to my chest, the phone in my other hand. I was very careful not to move. I stood frozen with my heart beating so hard it filled my throat like air.

Dolph's voice was in my ear: "Anita?"

"I'm here, Sergeant Storr." I didn't yell it, but I made sure my voice carried.

Sheriff Wilkes came in behind his deputies. His gun was holstered. "Put down the phone, Blake."

"Why, Sheriff Wilkes, fancy meeting you in Richard's cabin on such a lovely morning."

He strode across the room to me. He yanked the phone from my hand, and I didn't fight him. I didn't think he was here to kill anyone, but he was here to hurt. I was going to try very hard not to give him an excuse to do it. Whatever he did today, I wouldn't make it easier for him.

He put the phone to his ear just long enough to hear Dolph, then hung it up. "A phone call won't save you this time, Blake."

I looked up at him and gave him big brown eyes. I did everything but flutter my lashes at him. "Do I need saving, Sheriff Wilkes?"

The phone rang. We stood there, letting it ring. Seven rings and Wilkes picked it up and hung it up again without putting it to his ear. He was so angry, he was shaking. A fine tremor ran through his hands, his arms. His face was flushed with the effort not to do something violent or regrettable.

I stood there as neutral as I could manage. Looking as harmless as I could manage. With my long hair tousled from sleep, wearing nothing but a sheet, it wasn't hard to look harmless.

The bathroom door opened, and Richard just stood there in nothing but a towel. Guns turned and pointed at him. He froze in the doorway with steam curling around him, spilling out into the room like clouds.

There was a lot of screaming. Cops yelling, "Hands up! Get on the floor!" Richard laced his fingers on top of his head and took it all pretty calmly. He'd heard them. He'd stepped out of the shower, knowing they were out here. He could have gone out the window, but he hadn't.

Of course, if they really thought we were dangerous, they'd have gone in after him. But they'd let him come out to us. They weren't treating us like criminals. They were acting like the criminals.

Richard was on his stomach with Maiden's gun pressed to his back. Handcuffs went on. The scarred deputy pulled him to his knees, using his long, wet hair. The towel stayed on. Tough towel.

The phone rang. It rang three times. Each one seemed louder than the last.

Wilkes grabbed the entire phone and jerked it out of the wall. He threw it against the far wall, where it lay silenced. He stared down at me, breathing so hard it looked painful.

He spoke very carefully, as if afraid to yell, afraid that if he lost control of even his voice, it would be over. "I told you to get out of my town."

I kept my voice very soft, very unthreatening. "You gave me until sundown today, Wilkes. It's not even nine o'clock in the morning. What's the rush?"

"Are you going today?"

I opened my mouth to lie. Richard said, "No."

Shit.

Wilkes grabbed me by the arm and pulled me towards Richard. I tripped on the sheet, and he dragged me the last few feet. I put most of my effort into clutching the sheet to my chest. Bruises were okay; being naked in front of them was definitely not okay.

Wilkes half-threw me, half-dropped me on the floor beside Richard. Richard tried to get to his feet, and the scarred deputy hit him in the shoulder with the butt of the shotgun.

I touched Richard's arm. "It's all right, Richard. Everyone just be calm."

The scarred deputy said, "God, you are a cold bitch."

I just looked at Wilkes. He was the one in charge. He was the one who would dictate how bad this was going to be. If he stayed calm, so would the others. If he lost it, we were in deep shit.

Wilkes just stared down at me. His breathing had eased, but his eyes were still wild. "Leave town, Mr. Zeeman. Leave town today."

Richard opened his mouth, and I squeezed his arm. He'd tell the truth unless I made him shut up. The truth was not what we needed right now.

"We'll leave, Wilkes. You've made your point," I said.

Wilkes shook his head. "I think you're lying, Blake. I think Richard here is planning to stay. I think you'd say anything to get us out of this room right now."

It was the truth, and that made it hard to argue. "We'd be fools to stay, Wilkes."

"I think Richard is a fool. A softhearted, tree-hugging liberal. It's not you we have to convince, Anita. It's your boyfriend."

I didn't argue with the boyfriend part. I couldn't anymore. I leaned a little into Richard. "How do you plan to convince him?"

Wilkes said, "Thompson."

The scarred deputy gave up his place in back of Richard to Maiden. Maiden looked uncertain, as if things were moving too fast for him, but he kept his gun out, not pointed at Richard, sort of resting against his face.

"Thompson, we never patted Ms. Blake down for weapons."

Thompson smiled, a big, good-humored smile. "No, we did not, Sheriff." He grabbed two handfuls of sheet and dragged me to my feet. He jerked hard enough that I stumbled into him. He locked one arm behind me, holding me against him. His Sam Brown belt pressed into my stomach but kept the rest of him from touching me.

I felt more than heard Richard behind me. I looked back. Maiden had traded his gun for his baton. He had the baton underneath Richard's chin, pressed against his throat above the Adam's apple so he wouldn't accidentally crush his windpipe. It looked like Maiden had had training.

Thompson said, "Don't struggle yet, lover. You ain't seen nothing to get excited about yet."

I didn't like the sound of that at all. He grabbed the sheet and tried to tear it out of my hands. I fought him. He stepped back from me, holding the sheet, and yanked. It was hard enough I stumbled, but I kept the sheet.

"Thompson," Wilkes said, "stop playing goddamn tug-of-war and do it."

Thompson slid his fingers down the front of the sheet and gave it all he had. It pulled me to my knees in an ungraceful heap, but I won. I kept the sheet. I was pissing him off, not my best idea, but I'm not good naked. I never feel nude. I feel naked.

He grabbed me by the back of the head and used my hair to throw me up against the bed. I could have pulled away if I wanted to leave a handful of hair and blood in his hands, but it would hurt, and unless I was willing to start killing people, this was going to happen. The more I fought it, the worse it was going to be.

As long as it was just a little slap and tickle for Richard's benefit, I could handle it. That's what I told myself while Thompson yanked me half across the bed by my hair.

He held me down by my head, putting enough weight on that one arm that it almost hurt. The sheet had pulled down from my back to my waist. He jerked it down farther, exposing my butt.

I struggled just a bit then. He pressed down so hard on my head that my face was pressed into the bed enough that it was difficult to get a full breath. The mattress wasn't firm enough for this shit. I lay very still. I did not want him to push my face down into the mattress. Passing out would be bad. You never wake up better off than you started.

"Stay," Thompson said, "or I'll put handcuffs on you."

I did what he said. Richard could break a pair of handcuffs. I couldn't. As much as I loved Richard, I didn't want him to be the only person free in a room full of cops gone bad. If it really came down to having to fight our way out it would mean killing. To my knowledge, Richard had never killed a human being. He was squeamish enough about killing other shapeshifters.

Thompson pulled my arms out from under my chest and spread my arms to either side on the bed. He slid his hands over my hands, my arms, as if bare skin could hide any weapons. His hands slid down my bare back, sloping along my waist and lower. His hands slipped over my buttocks and between my thighs, spreading my legs. It was too reminiscent of last night with Richard, too intimate.

I raised up. "What is this, a rape theme down here?"

Thompson slapped me on the back of the head. "Be still, or I'll make you be still." But his hands weren't playing with my thighs. He could hit me more and harder if his hands didn't wander lower.

"This can all stop, Richard," Wilkes said. "This can all be over. Just leave."

"You'll kill the trolls," Richard said.

I turned to look at Richard. I wanted to scream at him, "Just lie!" We'd figure it out later, but I wanted him to just lie now. I couldn't say that out loud. I stared at him and did something I had rarely attempted. I tried to open the bond between us. I reached out to him not with my hands or with my arms, but it felt like reaching. I moved out towards him with things I couldn't see but could feel. I opened something inside him. I felt it give. I saw the widening of his eyes. I felt the beat of his heart.

Thompson grabbed my shoulder and shoved me back to the bed. It broke my concentration.

There was a knock on the door. The other deputy, who had been with Thompson that first day, stepped into the doorway. He gave the room a once-over, eyes lingering on me on the bed, but his face stayed neutral. "There's a crowd gathering, Sheriff."

"A crowd?" Wilkes said. "The tree-huggers are out studying their precious trolls. If it's just the bodyguards, fuck them."

The deputy shook his head. "It's a shit load of people, Sheriff."

Wilkes sighed. He looked at Richard. "This is your last warning, Zeeman." He walked over to me, and Thompson backed off. He squatted so we'd be eye to eye. I gathered the sheet and turned to meet his gaze.

"Where are Chuck and Terry?" he asked.

I blinked and kept my face neutral. Once, not long ago, I wouldn't have been able to do it. Now my face gave nothing away. I was as blank and empty as the white sheet around my body.

"Who?"

"Thompson." Wilkes stood.

I felt Thompson move in from behind me.

"Does he do all your dirty work, Wilkes? You aren't man enough to abuse an unarmed woman?"

Wilkes hit me a backhanded slap that rocked me against the bed. I tasted blood. I probably could have blocked the slap, but that would have made the second blow harder. Besides, I'd asked for it. I don't mean I deserved it. I mean I preferred Wilkes to Thompson for abuse. I never wanted to be at Thompson's mercy without Wilkes there to rein him in. Thompson wasn't a cop. He was a goon with a badge.

The second blow was a slap, the third was another backhand. The blows were quick and hard and left my ears ringing. I saw spots of light against my vision. The proverbial stars, and he hadn't even closed his fist.

Wilkes stood over me, breathing too hard, hands in fists at his side. That fine trembling was back again, as if he was fighting not to close his fists. We both knew if he did, he wouldn't stop. If he hit me even once with his fist, it would be over. He'd hit me until someone pulled him off. I wasn't a hundred percent sure that there was anyone in the room who would pull him off.

I stared up at him with a trickle of blood at the corner of my mouth. I licked at the blood with my tongue and stared into Wilkes's brown eyes. I saw the abyss down at the end of his gaze. The monster was there, barely caged. I'd underestimated how close to the edge Wilkes was. I knew in that moment that this last warning was just that: a last warning. A last chance, not just for us, but for Wilkes. A last chance for him to walk away without any actual blood on his own lily-white hands.

The deputy by the door said, "Sheriff, we've got over twenty people outside here."

"We can't do this with an audience," Maiden said.

Wilkes kept staring down at me, and I held his gaze. It was almost like we were both afraid to look away, as if even that small movement would uncage the monster. Maybe it wasn't Thompson I should be afraid of.

"Sheriff," Maiden said softly.

"In twenty-four hours," Wilkes said, voice squeezed down until it was almost painful to hear, "we'll file a missing person's report on Chuck and Terry. Then we'll be back, Ms. Blake. We'll be back, and we'll take you in for questioning regarding their disappearance."

"What are you going to write down in the report as to why you thought I might know where they are?"

He went back to staring at me, but at least the fine trembling had stopped.

I kept my voice neutral but said, "I'm sure some of the tree-huggers called the cops last night. But no one came. You're the law in this town, Wilkes. You're all these people have between them and the bad guys. Last night, you didn't come because you thought you knew what was happening. You thought Chuck and Terry had gotten carried away. So you come by this morning to pick up the bodies, but there aren't any bodies."

"You killed them," he said, his voice soft and tight.

I shook my head. "No, I didn't." Which was technically true. I hadn't killed them. I'd killed Chuck but not Terry.

"You're saying you never saw them last night."

"I didn't say that. I just said I didn't kill them."

Wilkes glanced behind at Richard. "The Boy Scout didn't do them."

"Never said he did."

"That little guy you were with, Jason? Schuyler? He couldn't have taken both of them."

"Nope," I said.

"You are pissing me off, Blake. You don't want me angry."

"No, I don't, Sheriff Wilkes. I really don't want you angry. But I am not lying. I did not kill them. I don't know where they are." That at least was totally true. I was beginning to wonder if Terry had ever made it to the hospital, and I was beginning to think he probably hadn't. Did Verne's pack kill him after I promised him we wouldn't? I hoped not.

"I've been a cop for longer than you've been alive, Blake. You make my bullshit meter go off. You're lying to me, and you're good at it."

"I didn't kill your two friends, Sheriff. I don't know where they are now. That's the truth."

He hunkered back down beside me. "This is your last warning, Blake. Get the fuck out of my town, or I am going to drop-kick you into the nearest hole. I've lived here a long time. If I hide a body, it stays hid."

"A lot of people go missing around here?" I asked.

"Missing people are bad for tourism," Wilkes said. He stood. "But it happens. Don't let it happen to you. Get out now, today. If you're not gone by dark, it's over."

I stared up at him and knew he meant it.

I nodded. "We're history."

Wilkes turned to Richard. "What about you, Boy Scout? You agree? Is this enough? Or does it have to get worse?"

I looked across the room at Richard and urged him to lie. Maiden still had a baton stretched across his throat. The towel had slipped down, and he was naked, with his wrists still in cuffs behind his back.

Richard swallowed, then said, "It's enough."

"You're out by dark?" Wilkes made it a question.

"Yes," Richard said.

Wilkes nodded. "I can't tell you how happy I am to hear that, Mr. Zeeman. Come on, boys."

Maiden very slowly took his baton away from Richard's throat and stepped back. "I'll take the cuffs off if you promise to behave yourself."

"It's over, right, Richard?" Wilkes said. "Take the cuffs off. They won't give us any more trouble."

Maiden didn't look as convinced as Wilkes seemed to be, but he did what he was told. He took the cuffs off.

Richard rubbed his wrists but didn't bother grabbing at the fallen towel. Without clothes, Richard was nude, not naked. He was comfortable. Most lycanthropes were.

Maiden followed Wilkes to the door, but he kept an eye on both of us, as if still expecting trouble. A good cop never turns his back completely.

Thompson was the last to move towards the door. He said, "Lover's thing is almost as big as you are."

Nothing else he'd done had made me blush, but that did. I hated it but couldn't stop it.

He laughed. "I hope you don't leave town. I hope you stay, because I really do want another chance to be alone together."

"My new goal in life, Thompson, is to never be alone with you."

He laughed again. He laughed while he walked out the door. The deputy that kept complaining about the crowd left. Only Maiden waited in the door for Wilkes.

The sheriff said, "I hope we never meet again, Blake."

"Ditto, Sheriff," I said.

"Mr. Zeeman." He gave a nod as if he'd just pulled us over for a traffic stop and let us go with a warning. His entire body language changed as he moved through the door. Just a good ol' boy talking to some strangers about that disturbance last night.

When the door closed behind them, Richard crawled to me. He started to touch my face, then stopped, fingers hovering helplessly around my face. "Are you hurt?"

"A little."

He hugged me, pulling me gently in against his body. "Go home, Anita. Go back to Saint Louis."

I pulled away enough to meet his eyes. "Oh, no. If you stay, I stay."

He cradled my face in his hands. "They'll hurt you."

"Not if they think we really left. Can Verne's people hide us?"

"Who do you think is outside in the crowd?"

I looked up into his open face. "Did they kill the other man? Did Verne's people kill Terry after they left?"

"I don't know, Anita." He hugged me again. "I don't know."

"I promised him he'd live if he told us what he knew."

He pulled back, holding my face in his hands. "You could have killed him during the fight last night and not blinked, but because you promised him safety, you're upset."

I pulled away from Richard, standing, tugging the sheet out from under his knees. "If I give my word, it means something. I gave my word that he'd live. If he's dead now, I want to know why."

"The cops are on the other side. Don't piss Verne and his pack off, Anita. They're all we have."

I knelt by the suitcase on the other side of the bed and started getting out clothes. "No, Richard, we have each other and we have Shang-Da and Jason and Asher and everyone we brought with us. If Verne's people went behind my back last night and killed Terry, we don't have them. They have us. Because we need them, and they know it."

I stood with an armful of clothes and shuffled towards the bathroom with the sheet still around me. For some reason, I just didn't want to be naked in front of anyone right now, not even Richard. I made one stop on the way. I got the Browning out from under my pillow and piled it on top of the clothes. No more going unarmed for the rest of the trip. If someone didn't like it, they could lump it. That included my nearest and dearest. Though, to Richard's credit, he didn't say a word about the gun or anything else as I closed the door.