I wouldn’t have been alarmed—people can be optimistic about finding mechanics for cars that just have to be ready for a trip at 5:00 A.M. tomorrow—except that there was a big dog in the backseat.
It wouldn’t hurt to err on the side of safety. I reached for my phone.
“Hello,” said Christy cheerily. “Adam’s phone.”
“Get Adam,” I said, watching the lights on the Chevy turn off as he parked the car. There was a bumper sticker advertising a rental car chain on the back of it.
“I’m afraid—”
“You should be,” I told her in a low voice. Hungry and tired from the long hours I’d put in, I was abruptly sick of her stupid games and ready to quit playing. “Get Adam. Now.”
“Don’t snap at me,” Christy said, all cheer gone. “You don’t get to order me around, Mercy. You haven’t earned the right.”
The man who opened the driver’s door didn’t look like someone to be afraid of; he was wearing expensive clothes and slick-soled shoes. But the dog he let out of the backseat more than made up for his owner’s civilized appearance.
The dog looked like the photos I’d seen of the presa Canario, but in my parking lot it seemed bigger and nastier, a male with a broad face and broader chest. Lucia had said that people trimmed their ears to make them look fiercer, but no one needed to make this dog scarier.
The dog was just a dog, though. No matter how big and fierce a dog was, after running around with werewolves, no dog scared me. So there was no reason, really, for me to be afraid of them, a man and his dog. But I was.
The image of the dead bodies on the edge of the hayfield in Finley insisted on making itself present, and I tried to shove it off to the side. The worst of the fear, I thought, was because I’d been raped here in my garage, and I no longer ever really felt safe here, security system or not.
Christy’s ex-boyfriend was no one to be underestimated, but he was human and I had a gun readily available. The chill of fear that slid down my spine was unimpressed by logic.
In my ear, Christy was nattering away about manners and me being jealous for no reason.
“Christy,” I interrupted her, and let menace color my voice because I refused to let her hear the fear, “if you don’t give Adam the phone right the hell now, so help me, I will put you out with the rest of the trash in the morning.”
From the speaker on my cell phone I could hear some shocked exclamations. Apparently, there were some other werewolves in the room when Christy answered, and they’d overheard me threaten her. I’d probably care about that later.
“I won’t stay where I’m not wanted,” she said tearfully. “Not even in the home that was mine before—” She squeaked, and her voice cut out, replaced by Adam’s.
“Mercy?” His voice was very calm, that “people are going to die” calm only he could do. As soon as he started to speak, silence fell behind him because I wasn’t the only one who knew that voice. “I see him on the camera. You stay right there, don’t make any noise, and hopefully he won’t be sure you are in there. I’m on my way. Sit tight, and don’t let him in. I’m going to hang up right now and call the police and Tad.”
Adam was fifteen minutes out—but Tad was only five. What could happen in five minutes?
7
I didn’t carry at work—with Tad there, there was no reason, and a gun just got in the way while I was squirming around in engine compartments and under cars. My carry gun, the 9mm, was locked in the safe with my purse. I wasn’t going into the office to open the safe because the office had big picture windows, and someone who had burned down a building that housed dozens of innocent people wouldn’t hesitate to break a few windows.
Paranoia meant I had a second gun tucked in a special lockbox attached to the underside of the counter nearest the office. My fingers pressed the code, and a half second later I had the cool and heavy Model 629 Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum in my hand. I wasn’t Dirty Harry, but I’d shot my foster father’s Model 29 since I was big enough to handle it. My foster father’s .44 was in the gun safe at home, but