Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Takes a Holiday

He turned and went down the hall, presumably to his office.

"Go on back," Kelly the receptionist said. I did.

Marks disappeared through a doorway halfway down the hall, and I followed him into a perfectly average, per­fectly normal cluttered office: a desk with a computer sat against the wall. There was an in-box overflowing with papers and files, bookshelves, also overflowing, certificates and plaques on the wall, along with a huge map labeled Huerfano County. Colored pins marked various spots; a red pin was stuck about where I guessed my cabin was.

Marks sat at the desk and gestured me toward a couple of straight-backed plastic chairs by the opposite wall.

"Thanks" I said, sitting. "I didn't think you'd even talk to me."

He gave an amiable shrug, donning the persona of a friendly small-town cop. "I figure the least I can do is hear you out."

"The least you can do is let Cormac go."

"Have you seen that guy's file? You know what he's done? He should have been locked up years ago."

"And if he had, I'd be dead, and so would you and four other people." I matched him, glare for glare. "He saved my life, Sheriff. That's all I'm paying attention to right now."

His glare set like stone, unrelenting. "That man's a killer."

Yes, but… "You can't deny he saved my life."

"That girl couldn't have really hurt anyone," he said, giving a huff that was almost laughter.

"Didn't you see what she did to me?"

"You had a few cuts," he said.

Then I realized, maybe he hadn't seen. It had been dark; I hadn't even known how bad it was until I got inside and saw all the blood. Marks simply might not have seen it. Once again, I kicked myself for not taking pictures.

I said, "Then you don't believe she really turned into a wolf. You're buying the 'insane woman in a wolf skin' version." He answered with a cold stare that said it all. "How can you believe in werewolves but not in skinwalk­ers? How can you believe in magic enough to curse my house, but not enough to believe what she was? You just want to put Cormac away because you can, without giv­ing him the benefit of the doubt or anything!"

"Ms. Norville, I think we're done here."

"You're a hypocrite—you've broken the law yourself, in the name of protecting people, when you did those things to me. Well, Cormac was doing the same thing."

Marks leaned forward, hand on his desk, his glare still hard as stone. Nothing could touch this guy, not when he was like this. "He shot and killed an injured, dying woman in cold blood. That's what he's being charged with. Good­bye, Ms. Norville." He pointed at the door.

I glared at him, my throat on the edge of a growl, and he couldn't read the stance. All he saw was an angry, ineffectual woman standing before him. And maybe that was all I was.

I left, gratefully slipping out of his territory.

I went back to the hotel, where Ben greeted me with, "Where are the donuts?"

I'd forgotten. Crap. I shrugged and said, "Didn't get them. Got lost."

"In Walsenburg?" Clearly, he didn't believe me. I just smiled sweetly.

Later, we returned to the county jail to see Cormac. I hadn't had a chance to talk to him, not after the attack, not before or after the hearing. It had been frustrating, sitting five feet away in the courtroom and not being able to say anything to him.

I had hoped Marks would be there to meet us. That he'd have seen the error of his ways and come to make amends by releasing Cormac. That all this would just go away. Wishful thinking. He wasn't there, and Cormac was still locked up.

"Has Marks talked to you?" I asked Ben. "Maybe changed his mind about all this?"

"Are you kidding? He's not even returning my calls."

So much for my grand speech at him having any influ­ence and giving us that Disney happy ending.

Still, Ben had a plan. "I have to go to New Mexico. Talk to people who knew Miriam Wilson. Find out if they knew what she was, and if she killed anyone there. Espinoza's not going to have to dig too much to prove that Cormac's a dan­gerous man. So I have to prove that he didn't have a choice but to kill her."

"He didn't," I said. "Did he?"

"That's what I have to prove."

A deputy ensconced us in a windowless conference room, like a thousand others in police stations and jails all across the country. I bet they all had the same smell, too: dust and old coffee. Strained nerves. Ben got me in by claiming I was his legal assistant. Then the deputy brought Cormac.

Ben and Cormac sat across from each other. I hid away in the corner. I both did and didn't want to be there. I hated seeing Cormac like this. I didn't know exactly what this meant. Objectively, he looked the same as he always did, half slouching, appearing unconcerned with what went on around him—moving through the world without being a part of it. That orange jumpsuit made him look wrong, though.

Ben had a pen and paper out, ready to take notes. "I need to know everything that happened while you were gone. Between the time you left the cabin in Clay and when you got back in time to shoot her."

"I told you before."

"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."