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We landed back at Sarge’s place for lunch and to gas up, eating sandwiches on the dock, watching him work. The sun was high in the sky, and temps were cool, so there were few mosquitoes and gnats and there was enough wind to keep the no-see-ums away. If the full moon hadn’t been near, it would have been pleasant lying back on the dock, sleeping in the sun. Or it would have been if PP hadn’t lumbered over and stuck her slobbery face into mine. I had felt her heavy paws landing on the board of the dock, and I didn’t react. Just lay still while she snuffled my neck. She didn’t bite or growl and I figured it was a form of acceptance, so I slowly reached up and scratched her belly. She flopped down beside me, exposing her underside to me. “You’ll never be finished with her now,” Sarge said. I figured out what he meant when she head-butted me to keep scratching. Lunch was a nice break from the noise and vibration of the small plane.
In the early afternoon, we saw two other sites before heading back to Sarge’s place. One of them had been visited by the fourth werewolf, after Crime Scene Investigations had finished with it, and he had landed on the same side of the small bit of land where the crime scene people had come ashore. He had stayed a long time at that one. He had tracked the other wolves back to their landing site on the other side of the spit of land, where the pack’s boat had come ashore. He had marked this site only once too, which just felt wrong for wolves of any kind. I bent over the site and sniffed, pulling in air over my tongue and the roof of my mouth. Eli looked away as I did it, and I couldn’t tell if he was fighting laughter at the expression I made or some other emotion.
When I stopped and stood upright he said, “Babe, just a suggestion. Don’t do that in front of a date. It’s . . . not pretty.” When I grinned at him, Eli flipped a hand to show he was just sayin’, and I chuckled.
Either way, the lone wolf smelled . . . worried.
Oddly this one had smelled as if he’d been a wolf for some time. He smelled in control, and even when he lingered over a place where the bitch had relieved herself, he hadn’t gone into the male werewolf version of mating frenzy. He had kept it in control. And what was even odder, this guy—like the rogue weres—hadn’t been traveling with a grindylow. He had nothing to keep him in line, to keep him from killing and eating humans, or turning humans into pack. Our lone wolf was in control of himself and really, really alone.
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Over a dinner of fresh seafood at a place called Joe’s Got Crabs (this time mine was broiled, with fried soft-shell crabs on the side, with a house-made, Cajun-style rémoulade sauce that was to die for) I explained to the guys what I’d deduced. “This last guy, the lone wolf, has lived here long enough to have bayou skills. He knows the area.”
Eli nodded and gestured with his fork as he chewed. “He knows how to approach, how to move along the edges of the kill sites. Even in broad daylight, he’d move almost unseen.”
“And he’s worried about the other werewolves.”
“Worried how?” the Kid asked. I shrugged, and he went on. “Like he’s afraid they’ll track him? Attack him? Hurt him?”
“Interfere with his standard of living?” Eli asked.
I thought about that one. “Weres used to live in Lousiana. Then they had a run-in with Leo Pellissier and he kicked them out of the state. What if one—I don’t know—stayed? Took up residence? Lived among humans without turning anyone?”
“And now his lifestyle is in danger,” Eli said, having allowed us to provide potential confirmation toward his own point. He ordered beer for us both and bowls of ice cream all around. When Alex looked dumbfounded, Eli said, “You were a good sport today, staying in the cabin with the dog and the old guy. Figured you deserved a treat.”
“I’d rather have a Ferrari, but ice cream isn’t bad.”
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