Kelley Armstrong - Stolen

"Which explained everything."

"Absolutely." Jeremy smiled and shook his head. "Between the dissected class pet and the toy animal fiasco, I had to question whether I was cut out for surrogate parenthood."

"Toy animals?"

"Clay hasn't told you that one?" Jeremy drained his glass, picked up mine, and stood.

I grabbed his pant leg. "Tell me."

"When I come back."

I groaned and waited. And waited. Took him much too long to pour that milk. Playing the whole thing for full effect.

"Toy animals," I said when he finally returned.

"Right. Clay had problems with the other children at school. I assume you know that."

I nodded. "He didn't fit in and didn't try. Small for his age. Antisocial. The accent only made it worse. I wondered about that when I met him. He said he'd lived in New York State for twenty years, but he sounded like he'd just stepped off the train from Louisiana. He said when he was a kid, other children mocked his accent. So he kept it. Clay's perverse logic."

"Anything to set him apart. So, after the guinea pig disaster, I home-schooled him until the following September, then sent him to a different school and asked the principal to notify me of any behavioral problems. I swear I spent three afternoons a week in parent-teacher conferences. Mostly it was little things, but one day the teacher said Clay was having trouble at recess. The other kids were complaining that he was following them around, watching them, that sort of thing."

"Stalking them," I said. "Scouting for weaknesses."

"Exactly. Now, I wasn't worried he'd do anything. I was very strict on that point. No devouring classmates." Jeremy rolled his eyes. "Other parents warn their kids not to talk to strangers. I had to warn mine not to eat them. Anyway, this teacher says Clay isn't showing an interest in normal recess pursuits, like playing with toys. Toys. I knew I was missing something. Clay was the most un-childlike child I'd ever met, so I tended to forget he should be doing childish things. After the conference, I drove straight to the toy store and bought bags of toys. He ignored them all… all except this set of plastic animals-cows, horses, sheep, deer, camels, and so on. He'd take them into his room and stay there for hours. I congratulated myself on my great insight, assuming he liked the animals because he felt some kinship to them. Then I found the book."

Jeremy paused.

"What book?" I asked, because I knew I was supposed to.

" Gibson's Guide to Animal Anatomy. He'd stolen it from the school library and dog-eared a bunch of pages. So I took a closer look at the plastic toys. They were all marked with strategically placed red Xs."

"Identifying the vital organs," I said. "For hunting."

"Exactly."

"So what'd y ou do?"

"Gave him a long lecture about stealing and made him return the book immediately."

I threw my head back and laughed. Jeremy rested his hand around my waist, a rare gesture of closeness that I enjoyed for as long as possible.

"How about a run?" he asked after a few minutes. "We could both use one to work off some stress after today."

I was getting tired, but I never would have said so. Werewolves preferred to run with others-the pack instinct. As with so many other things, Jeremy was different. He preferred solitude when he Changed. He'd sometimes join us in a Pack hunt but rarely went for a regular run with a partner. So, when he offered, I could have been ready to drop from exhaustion and I wouldn't have refused.

We walked into the woods, taking the path until we were deep enough to find places for our Change. We'd gone about twenty feet when Jeremy turned to stare over my shoulder.

"What?" I asked.

"Headlights slowing at the top of the drive," he murmured.

The driveway sloped steeply from the road to the cottage, putting the car on a hilltop, so all we could see was the glow of twin lights. As we waited, the lights vanished and the rumble of the engine died. A car door opened and shut. Footsteps walked to the edge of the hill. A stone pinged from beneath a shoe, clattering down the incline. A pause. Someone listening for a response to the noise. Then the whisper of long grass against pant legs. A glimmer of darkness above us, movement without form. Then moving south, downwind. Intentionally downwind. A tree creaked to our right. I jumped. Only the wind.

Jeremy was watching, listening, smelling, only a tightness in his jawline betraying his tension. I looked at him, but he didn't look back. Too busy watching. And waiting. The scuffle of dead twigs underfoot. Silence again. A loon cried across the lake. Again I jumped. Then a rock tumbled down the hillside to my right. As I turned, I caught a blur of motion to my left. Misdirection. Shit. Too late. The blur was on me, knocking my legs out from under me. Hands grabbed me as I went down, flipping me onto my back and pinning my arms at my sides. I hit the ground with my attacker atop me.

"Miss me?" Clay asked, grinning down at me.

I kicked up, somersaulting him over my head and into a stack of firewood. The wood toppled over him, knocking his breath out.

"Guess not," he wheezed, somehow still grinning.

"Can I kill him?" I asked Jeremy. "Please."

"Maim, but don't kill. We may still need him." Jeremy offered Clay a hand and yanked him to his feet with a bit more force than necessary. "I'm glad to see you got my message, but I didn't think you'd be here this fast. Did you have any trouble getting out of your course?"

No, Clay wasn't a student at the University of Michigan. He was a professor. Well, not actually a professor. I mean, not permanently. He was a research-based anthropologist who occasionally did short lecture series, not because he liked to-Clay didn't like doing anything that involved contact with humans-but because the odd foray into the world of interpersonal academics was an evil necessary for keeping up his network of contacts and thus maintaining his career. Most people who'd met Clay, on hearing his occupation, said something along the lines of "I thought you needed a PhD to do that." Clearly the vision of Clay and a doctorate degree did not go together. Yes, he had one-I can vouch for that, having seen the diploma at the bottom of his sock drawer. Anyone who met Clay, though, could be forgiven for the mistake. He didn't talk like someone with an advanced degree. And he sure didn't look like a PhD. Clay was one of those detestable people blessed with both genius-level intelligence and drop-dead-gorgeous looks. Blue eyes, dark blond curls, and a rugged face straight out of magazine. Match that with a powerful body and you have a package that wouldn't go unnoticed in the middle of a Chippendales convention. He hated it. Clay would have been overjoyed to wake up one morning and find himself transformed into the kind of guy who got lingering gazes only when his fly was down. I, on the other hand, shallow creature that I am, would not be so pleased.

Clay told Jeremy that his lecture series had been part of an interim course, so he'd had no problem talking to the regular prof and rescheduling his portion for the end of the session. As he explained this, I practiced my grade-three math skills.

"You left Clay a message on my cell phone, which he took with him to Detroit, right?" I asked.

Jeremy nodded.

"And when did you leave that message?"

"Before dinner. After you left to sit with Cassandra I used the pay phone in the lobby."

"Uh-huh. About four hours ago, then. So assuming Clay took the shortest route from Detroit, through Ontario, into Quebec and down, that's well over six hundred miles. A Porsche traveling at, say, ninety miles an hour, with no stops or slowdowns, would take at least seven hours to make the trip. Anyone see a problem with this math?"