What he was accustomed to was being cursed at, shot at, blown up. Being fawned over was a new and not altogether pleasant experience. He felt like an imposter because the true hero was Reggie not Owen. But whenever he tried to explain that, folks just laughed and bought him something else.
“Your mom got off just fine.” Candy returned to the chair behind the reception desk.
“She what?”
“She’s on her way to the mental health facility.”
“I was supposed to meet her caseworker here.”
“Your mom was … agitated.”
“Still banging her head?” Owen asked.
Candy lifted a shoulder, which was answer enough. “Peggy wanted to get her back to the environment she’s used to. She said you could come out there, or give her a call in a few hours.” Candy patted his arm again. “You okay with that?”
He wasn’t sure why he was disappointed that he hadn’t gotten to say good-bye. He doubted his mom would remember him any better here than she had at the house.
The phone started ringing again. This time Candy answered right away. “Three Harbors Police Department.”
Owen started for the door.
“What was that?” The cheery in her voice fled, leaving something behind that made Owen turn. “All right. Someone’s on the way.” She disconnected. “It’s your mom.”
“What happened?”
Candy lifted one finger as she used the radio. “George, we’ve got 417A on Route GG.”
“Roger that. I’m on the other side of the lake but I’m on my way.”
“What’s a 417A?” Owen asked.
“That was Peggy who called.” Candy used the radio again. “Need an ambulance to Route GG. Assault with a knife.”
Static nattered through the mike. Since Candy let go of the transmit button, he figured the ambulance was on the way.
“Is my mom—”
“Gone.”
His heart gave such a lurch that he grabbed the edge of the reception desk.
“Sorry! Not dead gone, but actually gone, as in run off again.”
The joy that Owen felt that his mom wasn’t dead and gone fled as he came to the conclusion that she’d been the one doing the assaulting, rather than the assaultee.
Only one thing surprised him about that.
How in hell had she gotten a knife?
Chapter 17
The tweezers slid over the edges of the object, then I pulled, slowly and gently, until it slid free. Joaquin shoved the steel bowl that had previously been on the floor in front of me. The tinny clatter echoed in a silence broken only by Pru’s drugged breathing and the distant wail of a siren.
“Is that a silver bullet?” he asked.
“I’m not sure.” I’d never seen one before.
“Why would someone think she was a werewolf?”
In the process of flushing the wound, I bobbled the tool. “A what?”
“Silver bullet,” he repeated in the same tone my brothers often said. “Duh!”
I refrained from cuffing him in the head only because he wasn’t my brother.
“She isn’t a werewolf.”
“If she were, a silver bullet would have killed her on contact.” Joaquin handed me the antibiotic syringe.
“That’s insane.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who shot her with a silver bullet.”
Who had? Deb had mentioned calling the DNR to report Pru’s odd behavior. I’d asked her not to. I doubted she’d listened, but I also doubted the DNR had had time to send anyone yet, let alone someone who carried silver bullets.
And while we’d heard a gunshot earlier, that bullet had not been the one I’d found inside the wolf. Even if I ignored Pru’s statement that she’d been shot a hundred and fifty miles from here, she would not have an infection from a wound inflicted today.
A lot of questions I had no answers to. Along with the tiny problem that the answers I did have had come from listening to a wolf and believing what she’d “said.”
I finished cleaning, injecting, stitching, bandaging, then picked up a cone of shame.
“You’re going to put that on a wolf?” Joaquin asked. “She’ll bang it against every tree in the forest.”
“I’m not letting her go until the stitches are out.” I doubted she’d come back in seven to ten days for their removal. And leaving them in would only cause another infection.
“You going to keep a wolf in the kennel?”
“Where else?”
“The dogs will go ballistic, and the guinea pig might have a stroke.”
I wished he’d stop making good points. “I’ll have to keep her here.”
“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?”
Less dangerous than keeping her at my parents’.
“You have office hours tomorrow,” he continued. “I doubt she’ll lie in the corner nicely. She’s more likely to eat the customers.”