My gaze went to the tiger carved on his thigh. Hell. Maybe he had been.
“Skinwalkers can move faster than the eye can track,” Jimmy answered when Sawyer did not. “In their animal forms they appear and disappear like magic when it’s merely speed.”
I remembered seeing the wolf on the road, then in a blink it had been gone.
“Wouldn’t you consider that kind of speed a certain type of magic?” Sawyer murmured.
Chapter 18
Into the silence that followed Sawyer’s question, the trill of my cell phone sounded horrifically loud. I jumped, my heart jerking so hard my chest ached, then fumbled the thing from my pocket, nearly dropping it before I managed to check the caller ID.
Murphy’s. I had to answer.
“Did you get the autopsy report?” I asked.
“Well, hello to you too.”
“Sorry. Hello. Did you?”
“Where in hell are you, Liz?” Megan lowered her voice to a near whisper. “The cops are flipping out.”
“I’m not a suspect. They didn’t tell me I couldn’t leave town.”
“Why would you? Now of all times.”
“I can’t tell you that, Meg.”
“Fine,” she said, then paused a few beats as if she didn’t want to tell me what she’d heard. Or maybe she just didn’t know how.
I turned away from Sawyer and Jimmy. I couldn’t concentrate with them in sight. If they wanted to kill each other while I dealt with my phone call, they could go right ahead.
“Let me make this easier for you,” I said. “They found traces of animal fur.”
“How did you—” She stopped. Megan understood better than most that I knew things I should not, and there was no explaining just how.
“The homicide twins told me the cause of death was a knife wound,” I continued.
“Not.”
My shoulders relaxed. I hadn’t really believed that Jimmy might have been responsible, but a different cause of death certainly helped his case with the cops.
“Wounds, yes,” Meg continued. “Torn, jagged, vicious, but not from a knife.”
I knew what they’d been from—tooth and claw—but I waited for her to say so.
“The wounds were consistent with an animal attack, but the actual cause of death was blood loss.”
I winced. “Too many wounds.”
Her hesitation had my neck prickling. “Meg?”
“The ME said the blood loss wasn’t consistent with the number and depth of the wounds. She thought they—”
The unpleasant sensation had left my neck, traveling all over my body. “She thought they what?”
“Drank her blood.”
I dropped the cell phone.
Someone handed it to me. I stared at the thing and wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“Lizzy?” My eyes met Jimmy’s. “Finish this.”
Slowly I reached out, took the phone, and turned away again. “What does that mean?”
“You tell me. The ME believes Ruthie was attacked by animals, yet the police report says there was nothing but ashes and you at the site.”
“I didn’t do it.”
Her voice gentled. “I never thought you did, even before the revelation of the bizarre forensic evidence. But you know something.”
“I can’t—”
She sighed. “Tell me. Right. Why did I even ask?”
“Sorry.”
“When will you be back?”
“I’m not sure.” I still wasn’t sure I’d be back, and I was saddened. Ruthie was gone, but Meg was there. She was the only one I had left now. I faced the two men.
Except for them.
“Take as long as you need, Liz. Your job will be waiting for you.”
“Thanks. For everything.”
Megan hesitated, as if she might say good-bye, but then she didn’t. “You need to stop blaming yourself.”
She’d told me this before. I still wasn’t able to follow her advice.
“Max trusted you.”
“One time too many.”
“He told me everything, Liz. About your hunches. About how you could touch stuff and know where people were. You saved lives over and over. You saved him.”
“Not enough.”
“When is it ever enough? I don’t blame you. He wouldn’t blame you. You need to stop blaming yourself. You have a gift and you should be using it.”
“I am,” I whispered.
“Good. You’ve been drifting since Max died. You lost your purpose and that’s no way to live.”
Silence fell between us. I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d known that Megan didn’t blame me for Max’s death. I’d thought she was delusional. I’d hung around waiting for her to lash out, to give me the beating—mental, physical, didn’t matter—that I deserved, but she never had.
“I’ll be in touch,” I said, and disconnected.
I did feel, for the first time in a long time, that I was moving forward instead of standing still. Though I’d been repeatedly tested and terrified, I’d also been exhilarated. I felt alive again, thanks to the constant threat of violent and bloody death.
“How much of that did you get?” I asked.
“All of it,” Jimmy said. At my lifted brows, he glanced at Sawyer, then shrugged. “We can both hear pretty well.”
“Swell.”