Low Midnight (Kitty Norville 13)

The tunnel on the other side of the door didn’t go too far back; the rest of the place had collapsed and filled in with debris years ago. It wasn’t below the water table, which meant the extant cave stayed cool and dry—not a bad place to store a weapons cache. And there it was, crates stacked up, metal gun lockers shoved against stone walls, cheap metal shelving holding boxes of ammunition. Further back he found some other survivalist gear—boxes of canned and dried food, army surplus MREs, blankets, bottled water, batteries, radios. A nice little setup. All on federal land, which was a problem if Nolan didn’t have someone in the Forest Service covering for him, the way Uncle David had back in the day. He wondered.

Part of him had an urge to strike up his lighter in here. Find a fuse, light it all up, watch it go boom. That’d piss more than a few people off.

But he didn’t see much sense in setting the whole valley on fire. He ignored the itching in his hand and walked back out. After replacing the lock on the gate, he emerged into warm sunshine.

“Well?” Kitty asked when he got back to the Jeep.

“Well what?”

“I figured you went off to blow something up,” she said.

Was he really that predictable? “I have a better idea,” he said. “You’ll like this one.”

She seemed skeptical, studying him with a raised brow. He wrote down the GPS coordinates of the spot, then they drove down the mountain for better cell reception.

Guys like Nolan and Layne would call what he was about to do ratting out. They’d call him a snitch and a bastard with as much contempt as they knew how to muster. What Cormac figured: wasn’t much point holding to some kind of honor system where folk like Nolan and Layne were concerned. Cormac had a goal, and that was to get Nolan and his crew out of the way so he didn’t have to worry about them. If he had an easy way to do it without implicating himself in anything that might get him thrown back in prison? All the better.

Pulling over, he called information and got the number for the San Isabel National Forest district office. As he was hoping, he got a menu that let him leave a message rather than talking to someone. They’d see his phone number, but he wouldn’t have to talk to them if he didn’t want to.

He could sound like an upstanding citizen when he needed to, pitching his voice just a little higher and sounding a little bit confused. “Hi, yeah, I was hiking up south of Cotopaxi on one of the service roads and I found something weird. Didn’t look right, and I don’t know who to tell, but I figured you all would want to know. Looks like someone’s got a storage locker or something in one of the old caves up there. It’s locked up. A lot of bullet casings on the ground, stuff like that. I thought maybe it might be drugs or something; I didn’t really want to stick around, just in case. But I thought you guys would want to know. I had my GPS with me.” He listed off the coordinates and ended the call without giving his name.

Now he just had to wait and see what happened.

Kitty was staring at him. Ignoring her, he pulled back onto the road, heading for the highway and the long drive home.

“The indirect approach? You?” she said finally.

“I might as well let someone else do the work for me.”

Shaking her head, she giggled. “I am constantly in awe of how sneaky you can be.”

Wasn’t trying to be sneaky. He just had a job and wanted to get it done with as little fuss as possible.

She slept on the drive back to Denver, which told him he hadn’t let her sleep long enough back in the woods and she was still recovering from shifting. Weird, to feel so protective. Of a werewolf. He’d never get over the disconnect.

Could have been so much different if he’d been able to, when he first met her. Years ago now, but he still thought of it. Maybe it should have been different.

Amelia sounded put out when she muttered at him. I know what happened. You showed me what happened, letting it seep out of your memories whether you liked it or not. You had your chance with her. She gave you a chance, and you walked away. Can you imagine what that does to a woman? She’s told all her life that what men want is carnal knowledge of her, she offers herself, her body to you—and you refuse her? All she can think is, My God, what is wrong with me?

“She’s a werewolf.” That was his excuse. He’d gotten close—sometimes he imagined he could still taste her lips, feel her eager hands gripping him. Then some kind of flight instinct kicked in. Self-preservation, and suddenly he could only see that he was feeding himself to the wolf. He’d gotten scared. Him, scared.

He still saw the wolf in her. He just didn’t mind i

t so much, now.

At least you have the sense to accept her friendship.

Glad you approve, he muttered back.

I’m only trying to be helpful.

* * *

KITTY’S PHONE—sitting on the edge of the seat, tucked against her leg where she’d set it before she fell asleep—rang a couple of times before Cormac took the liberty of shutting it off. Ben, both times. Cormac didn’t want to talk to Ben. He probably should have woken her up so she could deal with it, but he didn’t. Dodging. He shut the thing off so she wouldn’t hear the ringing.

Dusk had fallen when they finally pulled into the driveway of her house. Ben kept odd hours and was often out, meeting with clients, springing them from jail, or jumping through hoops at court. Cormac was hoping that Ben would be out when he dropped Kitty off.

She was awake by then, wrapped up in the blanket. The slashes on her arms from the skinwalker had healed, but he was pretty sure traces of blood still lingered in her clothing and that Ben would smell it. Not to mention the lopsided shiner he’d developed, a purplish half moon sloping under his left eye. He kept poking at the puffy skin, and yeah, it hurt. He ought to get some ice on it. He didn’t want to have to explain any of it to his cousin. His plan was to let her out without him ever getting out of the car. She could do all the talking. She was good at it.