Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles) - By Nancy Holder Page 0,67

she said. She felt as if she had just walked across a chasm on a rope bridge, then cut it loose so that her grandfather and Trick couldn’t follow. It was a horrible, frightening feeling and she swayed.

“Katie?” her grandfather said, his expression unreadable. “What happened?”

“I just pricked myself,” she said. “It’s barely a scratch.”

“Sometimes those hurt worse than the big ones,” he replied, taking her hand and examining the wound closely. “That knife’s probably covered with bacteria.”

“I’ll get the first-aid kit,” Trick said, leaving the room.

“Tell me what happened,” Katelyn said to her grandfather as she sucked on her finger. “To that man.”

“Animal mauling, like those two girls,” he said. “Maybe you should start driving back and forth to school with Trick again.”

“Um,” she began, thinking of how she’d manage going over to the Fenners. And looking for the mine.

Then Trick walked back into the room with the first-aid kit. Katelyn cleaned the cut and applied her own bandage while Trick looked on. Another text came in. Justin. He must have heard. She glanced down at it.

Killer not one of us.

So he said.

But somehow, like Dom and Cordelia, he already knew about the dead man and about why she was calling. She glanced at her grandfather and Trick from under her lashes. The terrible news was traveling so fast. People — correction, werewolves — were hearing about it more quickly than they should. How? She might be keeping secrets from them, but it was clear the werewolves were keeping secrets from her, too.

Word of the death of the Inner Wolf executive spread through school like wildfire. Katelyn’s classmates didn’t hold each other and weep the way they had when Becky Jensen had died. But they did walk around looking shell-shocked, and tributes for Mr. Henderson began to appear at the door to his office — silk flowers and candles, and handwritten notes. We hope you’re okay, Mr. Henderson.

The police imposed a curfew — no one out on the streets past 8:30 at night. No one really complained. Everyone was afraid.

Beau cornered Katelyn at lunch, his face peaked, shifting his weight as he held a lunch tray in his hands. She was sitting in the stairwell. Across the room, Trick watched.

“The cops came over and asked my whole family a ton of questions,” Beau began. “I think because of my grandma. She couldn’t give the police much information, but last night in the hospital she began to make a little more sense. The doctors are really happy about her progress.”

“That’s great,” she said.

“She keeps saying there was something at her window. And I think there was, Kat.” He looked at her with hurt in his eyes, and she felt herself giving in to the inevitable. If she didn’t help him, it would make him curious and he might ask questions she couldn’t answer. And if his grandmother had actually seen the Hellhound, Katelyn wanted to know.

“Maybe we could go see her together this weekend,” she suggested.

Clouds of worry rolled away from his face. “That’d be good. Thanks. Have you found anything? Heard anything?”

She didn’t tell him about the Switliski book. She just shook her head and picked up her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, even though she had no appetite. Beau got the hint and said, “She’s all the way in Bentonville. It’ll be a drive.”

“I’ll square it with my grandfather,” she promised. But a moment later another thought sprang into her mind: Do I have to clear this with the Fenners, too, like when I wanted to go to Little Rock? An instant later, this was followed by, Screw that; I’m not going to have my freedom curtailed completely.

Gratified, Beau walked away, giving Katelyn a clear view of Trick watching her.

When she pulled up outside the Fenner house, she sensed that something new was wrong. Usually Justin stood outside waiting for her, but there was no one there. She walked around the back, her boots crunching on a layer of crusty frost, and took inventory of the parked vehicles. Apparently, Arial and Regan had come over.

Her throat tightened. She was so not in the mood to deal with Cordelia’s bitchy sisters.

Straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin, she knocked on the door. There was no answer. She tried calling Justin’s phone, but he didn’t pick up. She stood there, wondering what she should do. And then she heard raised voices from inside.

Someone was arguing.

I shouldn’t be here, she thought. Not if they’re having family problems. She started to back