Kitty Takes a Holiday (Kitty Norville 3)

“I also found the story about your father,” I said, almost chagrined at the confession, because when he put it that way, it did seem like going behind their backs. But what else was I supposed to do when no one would tell me anything? “I’m really sorry, Cormac. About what happened to him.”

He waved me away. “That was a long time ago.”

“And now she knows everything about our dark, secret past,” Ben said.

“Shit, I was having fun being all mysterious.”

“Now you’re just making fun of me,” I said. “The Brigade. Start talking.”

“So. You want to know why I spent a couple of years running around with a bunch of gun-toting wannabe skinhead maniacs?”

“Uh. Yeah. And you can’t dodge, ’cause I’m going to sit here until… until—”

“Until what?”

Until you convince me you aren’t crazy. I looked away.

Then, he spoke almost kindly. “I was working on my uncle’s—Ben’s dad’s—ranch. He got caught up in it, and I tagged along. I was just a kid, must have been nineteen or so. I didn’t know any better. Those guys—I was still getting over losing my dad, and I thought maybe I could learn something from them. But they were playing games. They weren’t living in the real world. They hadn’t seen the things I had. I left. Quit the ranch. Spent a couple years in the army. Never looked back.”

Simple as that. I knew as well as anybody how a person could get caught up in things, when that pack mentality took over. He’d been a kid. Just made a mistake. I bought it.

“Why are you worried about it?” he said, after my long hesitation.

I didn’t know, really. After seeing what Cormac was capable of, it seemed strange to find him involved, however tangentially, with such garden-variety creepiness. I said, “I keep finding out more things that make you scarier.”

And I had trouble balancing both liking him and being scared of him.

He stared at me so hard, so searching, like it was my fault we’d never been able to work out anything between us. Which one of us hadn’t been able to face that there was anything between us? Which one of the three of us? Because Ben had dropped all those hints. He’d known. And now it was Ben and me, with Cormac on the outside, and all three of us locked in a room together.

He’d run, and that wasn’t my fault. He scared me, and maybe that was my fault.

Then the spell broke. Cormac dropped his gaze. “It still cracks me up, that you’re a goddamned werewolf and you can talk about me being scary.”

“It’s like rock-paper-scissors,” I said. “Silver bullet beats werewolf, and you’ve got the silver.”

“And cop beats silver bullet. I get it,” he said, and he was right. Almost, the whole thing made sense. Cormac turned to Ben. “What’s the plan?”

“I’m going to go to Shiprock to learn what I can about Miriam Wilson. There’s got to be someone willing to testify that she was dangerous, that it was justifiable. We’ll decide our strategy when I get back.”

“Has Espinoza said anything about a plea bargain yet?”

“Yeah. I told him I didn’t want to talk about it until I had all my cards in hand. Hearing’s on Wednesday. We’ll know then, one way or the other.”

He nodded, so it must have sounded like a good plan to him. “Be careful.”

“Yeah.”

Ben knocked on the door, and the deputy came to take Cormac back to his cell.

“I hate this,” Ben said when he was gone. “I really, really hate this. We’ve never gone as far as a preliminary hearing. I want to tear into something.”

I took his arm, squeezing to offer comfort. “Let’s get out of here.”

We’d only just stepped outside, into the late-morning sunlight, when we were ambushed. Not really—it was only Alice, lurking across the parking lot and then heading straight for us on an intercept path. My heart raced anyway, because all I saw was someone half running, half trotting toward me. I stopped, my shoulders tensing, and only an act of will forced me to smile.

Ben grabbed my arm and bared his teeth.

“Hush,” I whispered at him, touching his back to calm him. “It’s okay. It’s just Alice.”