“Speak of the police chief,” Owen murmured.
The cruiser continued into town, straight down Carstairs Avenue, where it slid to a stop.
“Shit.” Carstairs headed for his truck. “That’s Becca’s place.”
*
“You expect me to believe there’s a ghost named Henry in my apartment?”
You’re the one talking to a wolf.
“Good point.” I glanced at my phone, then back at Pru. Oddly it felt more right thinking of her as “Pru” than “my wolf.” “You should probably lope off before I call the police.”
Pru tilted her head like a dog that’s heard a familiar word, but she wasn’t looking at me, she was looking at Henry.
Beware the hunters.
“Okay.” I pushed 9. The phone flew out of my hand and landed on the bed. I scowled at Pru. “Stop that.”
I do not have the power to move objects with my mind.
“No one can.”
You still believe that?
I hesitated. My phone had moved on its own twice, not to mention the aerial talents of my attempted murderer.
“You didn’t do any tossing?”
I did not.
“Let me guess … Henry did.”
Yes. Fear for your life, for mine, helped him focus, increased his power.
Something small skittered across the floor and bounced off my toe, making the same clicky sound I’d heard after the cuckoo hit the wall. I leaned over, tensing at the idea of discovering a tooth. Instead I saw a ring—a really big ring with some kind of crest. I started to reach for it and drew back.
The police would probably want to dust that for fingerprints. Could they dust a ring for fingerprints? I didn’t know, but if they could, I certainly didn’t want them to find mine.
I knelt and put my cheek on the floor. My nose nearly brushed the object. From this position I could see the likeness of a snarling wolf that had been carved into its face.
I straightened. “Did this belong to the creepy creep?”
I don’t know why I continued to talk to the wolf. Maybe because she continued to answer me. Make that, I continued to answer myself. But the answers were good ones.
Give it to the authorities. Have them call the FBI.
“The FBI?” I got to my feet with a laugh. “Why would they care that some nut broke into a vet’s house and tried to kill her?” I was suddenly very dizzy.
Someone had tried to kill me.
I have to go.
As I’d been trying to get her to go I didn’t argue. That she actually went after I’d imagined her saying she would, should have freaked me out but didn’t. Stuff like that happened to me all the time.
Pru descended the stairs. I retrieved my phone, called 9-1-1, and requested help. At the open back door, Pru glanced up.
Beware the Venatores Mali.
I’d taken Latin in college, but it hadn’t really stuck the way it should. Besides, I was still loopy. I hadn’t thought I’d had my oxygen cut off by the pillow, but apparently I had.
“Something … bad?” I translated.
Pru rolled her eyes. Not bad. E—
Her head turned sharply forward. Oh, no! Edward!
Then she ran.
By the time I reached the parking lot, she was gone. And if there’d been anyone named Edward there, he was gone too.
Chapter 10
A siren approached from the main highway. In the past day I’d seen more of Chief Deb than I had in the past month.
Tires screeched. I hurried from the back door to the front sidewalk as Deb leaped out of her cruiser. She’d parked kind of funky—facing the wrong way, with her left front tire nearly up on the curb and the ass end hanging into the street. If anyone else had parked like that they’d be begging for a ticket.
“Calm down,” I said. “No one’s here any more except me.”
And maybe Henry, but I’d keep that to myself.
Deb lowered her gaze from my apartment window and her hand from her gun. “Who was it?”
“No idea. He … maybe she, wore a ski mask, hat, gloves.”
She contemplated the street where the owners of the local businesses, as well as their patrons, had begun to spill onto the sidewalk. “Anyone see a person in a ski mask run past?”
Much head shaking ensued.
“You’d think someone like that would have been pretty obvious running down the street,” Deb said.
“If he…?” I tilted my head, and Deb made a “yeah, yeah, go on” gesture to indicate she understood I’d just keep saying he instead of he/she, which had already become annoying. “If he wasn’t a moron, he’d have run into the woods. And lost the ski mask.”
Her gaze flicked to the shadowy tower of trees that marched right up to the edge of my parking lot then spoke into her shoulder mike. “George, I need you to go into the woods on the other side of town. Detain…” Her gaze flicked to mine.
“Six feet, maybe one sixty. Brown shirt.” I spread my hands. “That’s all I got.”
Deb’s eyes lifted to the heavens for help. That was the only place she was going to get it too. “Just grab anyone you find in the vicinity of six feet tall and detain them for questioning.”