He froze, seemingly realizing what had just happened. His features shifted; he didn’t relax much, but he didn’t look like he was going to pounce anymore.
Strange how I was still getting used to this new Ben. He was a new Ben—strangely, subtly different, slightly less steady, slightly more paranoid. As if he were recovering from some sort of head injury. Which maybe he was. Maybe all of us who’d been infected with lycanthropy were.
“Kitty! Kitty, hello. I’m so glad I caught you.” She smiled, but stiffly, as you do in awkward social situations.
“Hi, Alice.”
“I just came to give another statement to the sheriff. I thought it might help your friend. Even Joe gave another statement, said that if he hadn’t come along—well, I don’t know what would have happened.”
I did, or I could guess. It really wasn’t worth describing to her. “Thanks, Alice. I’m sure it can’t hurt.”
I was about to say goodbye, to get out of there before I said something impolite, when Alice spoke.
“I wanted to give you this. I’ve been thinking about what Tony said, about how much we all might still be in danger. It’s not much, but I want to help.” She offered her hand, palm up. “Tony may be right, I may not know what I’m doing most of the time. But this came from the heart, and I can’t help but think that means something.”
She held a pendant to me, a clear, pointed crystal about as long as my thumb. The blunt end of it was wrapped with beads, tiny beads made of sparkling glass and polished wood, strung together in a pattern and bound tightly to the crystal. A loop of knotted cord woven into the beadwork had a string of leather through it, so it could be worn around the neck. It was a little piece of artwork. It glittered like sunlight through springtime woods when I turned it in the sun.
“I usually use silver wire to string the beads,” she said. “But, well, I didn’t this time. I used silk thread.”
It was so thoughtful I could have cried. If only it hadn’t been too little, too late.
Did I trust it to actually work? A talisman made by Alice, who’d cast that horrific curse against me—and cast it badly, gutlessly, so that it hadn’t worked. Had that one come from her heart as well? Did I trust her?
At the moment, it didn’t cost me anything to pretend that I did.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Thank you.”
She stood there, beaming, and I hugged her, because I knew it would make her feel better. Then I put the pendant over my head, because that would make her feel better, too.
She went to her car, waving goodbye.
“It’s hard to know where to draw the line isn’t it?” Ben said. “About what to believe and what not to believe. What works and what doesn’t.”
I sighed in agreement. “She’s right, though. If it comes from the heart, it has to count for something.”
chapter 14
We set off in the morning. We had five days until the hearing, when Cormac had to enter a plea. Ben had to find evidence on Cormac’s behalf that would get the case thrown out.
The weather was on our side; it felt like a small advantage. I hadn’t had to work very hard to talk Ben into letting me go with him. I didn’t know how much help I’d be in hunting down the information he needed to shore up Cormac’s defense, but that wasn’t the argument I’d made.
I had to be there to keep Ben sane.
“Wolf Creek Pass,” he said when we passed the highway marker over the mountain. We had a couple more hours until we reached New Mexico. “Am I the only one who thinks that’s funny?”
“Yes,” I said, not taking my eyes off the road ahead. Too many signs advertising local motels and gift shops had featured pictures of fuzzy, howling wolves. The Wolf Creek ski area was doing a booming business.
I let him drive the stretch that took us over the pass. Just over the mountain, cruising into the next valley and toward the junction that turned onto the highway that led to New Mexico, a zippy little sports car with skis in a rack on the back roared up behind us, gunned its engine, swerved around us, and nearly cut us off as it pulled back into the right line, obviously expressing great displeasure at our insistence at driving only five miles an hour over the speed limit.
Ben clenched the steering wheel with rigid fingers and bared his teeth in a silent growl. Something anim
al crawled into his eyes for a moment.
“Ben?” I spoke softly, not wanting to startle him. Not wanting to startle the wolf that adrenaline had brought to the surface for a moment.
“I’m okay,” he said. His breaths were rough, and his body was still more tense than the stress of driving mountain roads warranted. “How many days?”
“How many days?”