“Tell me again.”
“I got in my Jeep, I drove all night to Shiprock. Stopped to get some sleep at a rest stop. Went back to the place where we’d gone to bait them.” As in, the place where Ben was attacked. “I spent a lot of time just looking around. I honestly didn’t think she’d leave the area. That was her territory.”
“Except she wasn’t a lycanthrope. She didn’t have a territory.”
“Sure, we know that now.”
“Go on.”
“I talked to the werewolf’s family. The people who hired me. The Wilsons. Trying to find out more about the second one. They wouldn’t tell me anything. They wouldn’t believe me when I said there was a second one running around. They thanked me for freeing their son from his curse, and that was it. End of story. I didn’t know anything about Miriam. I didn’t know they were related.”
I hadn’t intended on interrupting, but I did. “You shot this guy and nobody said anything. Nobody hauled you in on murder charges there.”
“No one reported it. No one witnessed it. Bodies just vanish out there.”
That was just weird. But I’d never understood Cormac’s “profession.”
“They didn’t mention their daughter?” Ben asked. “Not once?”
“Not once. I spent a couple more days looking. Then I got your message.”
“Not checking your phone?”
“I was in the backcountry most of the time. I didn’t have reception. I came back as soon as I did get it. I don’t think she followed us. How could she?”
“You heard what Tony said. She was a witch. It may have taken her a few days, but
she found us.”
Then Cormac asked, “What are the odds they can pin this on me, Ben?”
Ben shook his head. “I don’t know. The primary witness has it in for you, Espinoza’s a hot young prosecutor who’d love to land a Class One felony conviction. We don’t have a whole lot in our favor.”
“We have a bunch of witnesses,” I said.
“And Espinoza will do everything he can to discredit them.”
“You’ll figure something out,” Cormac said. “You always do.”
Ben’s shoulders bent under the weight of Cormac’s trust. “Yeah, we’ll see about that,” he said softly.
After an awkward moment, Cormac said, “What happened back there, at the hearing—should I be worried? Are you up for this?”
They stared at each other, studying each other. “If you want to get someone else—”
“I trust you,” he said. “Who else is going to understand this shit?”
Ben wouldn’t look at him. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. Somehow. Not getting bail was a setback, but you’ll be okay.”
He didn’t sound confident, but Cormac nodded, like he was sure. Then he made a sour-faced grimace and muttered, “I can’t believe they dug up that Brigade shit.”
I jumped on him. “Yeah, what the heck is up with that? Those guys are insane. It just doesn’t seem like your style.”
“And what would you know about it?” Cormac said.
Before I could fire back, Ben said, “She spent yesterday in the library digging up every article the Denver Post ever printed on the Brigade. Got the whole story.”
“Talk too much, and you’re nosy as hell,” he muttered.