“I don’t have a carrier or catch pole with me today, so I’ll probably be calling an animal control agent.”
“Be careful,” Kathy said. “There’s a reason why wolf dogs are illegal. Most of them are unpredictable and pretty near untrainable. They are superintelligent. I read somewhere that training a dog is like training a toddler. Training a wolf dog is like trying to train a thirty-five-year-old man.”
“Thanks, I’ll let you know how it goes. When are you going to get a new puppy, by the way?”
“I just haven’t met the right dog yet.”
Kathy had once owned a coonhound named Pluto, whose nose was the stuff of legend, but he had died the night she herself was shot, and she hadn’t yet adopted another young dog to train. I had thought her grief for Pluto would abate over time, but as her period of mourning had stretched on and on, I began to worry about her.
“Let me know how it goes,” she said.
“Ten-four.”
I glanced back at the house, certain that they had been watching me the whole time, worried about what I might be doing. That was good: I wanted them to be spooked. For my plan to work, they needed to panic.
I put the transmission into gear and started forward. I drove a hundred yards, until I was well out of sight of Carrie Michaud’s house. The snowplows had carved out a wide spot in the road where they could reverse direction. It was the perfect place to hide my truck. I wasn’t sure how much time I had, but I didn’t want to miss my chance. I reached into the backseat and rummaged around until I found the white poncho I used as wintertime camouflage. I pulled the hood over my head and got out.
Moving from shadow to shadow, I made my way back along the frozen road, expecting to see one of the pickup trucks come roaring in reverse out of the driveway at any moment. When I reached the tall snowbank at the end of Carrie’s drive, I threw myself against it, then squirmed into position so I could peer over the top.
I didn’t have long to wait. Within a matter of minutes, Spike emerged from the house, pulling a magnificent black animal behind him on a leash. Each dark hair in its coat seemed to shimmer as it padded along. Long legs, slanted eyes, small, sharp ears—I understood Kathy’s caution about jumping to conclusions, but there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that this creature was, in any meaningful sense, a wolf.
And yet when Spike opened the passenger door of his truck, the animal leaped obediently inside, as eager as the family dog going for a ride.
“Good boy, Shadow,” I heard the Goth say.
He had pulled on a black trench coat and fingerless gloves to make his getaway. He moved with surprising speed and purpose for a man with so few functioning brain cells. He hurried around the front of the truck, pushing the remote starter button on the key fob. I heard the engine turn over.
I tumbled down the snowbank and jumped into the driveway. “Hold it, Spike!”
The Goth stopped in his tracks, his arms dropped to his sides, and his mouth fell open. For about ten seconds, he gawked at me. Then he reached for the driver’s door.
“Hold it right there!”
I sprinted forward as he climbed inside the running truck, and managed to catch the door handle before he could yank it shut. We played tug-of-war for a few seconds, and then he threw the truck into reverse. The pickup lurched away, forcing me to release my grip or be pulled along with it.
I would estimate that the backward-moving Raider hit the snowbank at thirty miles per hour—enough speed to fill the bed with snow and bury the rear wheels. Spike tried to drive forward, but he was stuck now. An acrid cloud of exhaust fumes and burning rubber gathered around the truck as he tried in vain to dislodge it.
I put my hand on the grip of my sidearm. I had reached the limits of my patience. The idiot might have dislocated my shoulder. “Step out of the vehicle!”
He stared openmouthed at me through the windshield as I got myself into position parallel to his door. Just as I was about to repeat my command for him to get out, he threw himself across the seat and pushed the passenger door open, shouting, “Go, Shadow! Go!”
The wolf dog gave a yelp when he hit the snow.
But instead of running off, the beautiful animal stopped. He stood there, looking back and forth between us with his luminous yellow eyes. He seemed to have no idea what was happening. I couldn’t blame him. This whole comedy had me shaking my head. Wait until I told Kathy how it had gone down.
“Step out of the vehicle,” I shouted again. “Step out of the vehicle now!”
It was then that a dark shape swooped into my peripheral vision. I was so focused on the ridiculous man behind the wheel that I missed Carrie Michaud running up behind me. I felt the knife between my shoulder blades before I saw it.
7
The sensation was like nothing I had experienced: somewhere between a sharp poke and a hard punch. At first, my mind couldn’t connect the peculiar pain to a recognition of what had just happened.