I looked at the white ground stained with poison and at the torn cardboard scattered everywhere. The wind had already started carrying off the legal papers across the slushy roadside.
Thunder sat in the snow, panting hard, tongue out. But his eyes were clear and steady as he looked at me. There was something almost reproachful in that stare, as if he were asking whether I understood now.
My hands were shaking, and not from the cold. I was shaking because someone close to me had calmly arranged to kill me.
It was neat, quiet, almost elegant. A poisoned bottle dressed up as a thoughtful gift. I would have taken that bottle home, poured a drink to celebrate the deal, and died alone in bed. At my age, people would have called it heart failure and moved on.
I pulled out my phone with clumsy fingers and called Dennis.
After several long rings, he answered in a bright, eager voice. “Mr. Anderson, how are things? Did the courier get the gift and the documents to you?”
“Yes,” I said, my voice rough. “He did.”
“Dennis, tell me plainly—what exactly was in that box?”
He sounded surprised. Or maybe he was just a better actor than I’d ever realized. “What do you mean? Draft contracts and a very expensive hundred-year-old cognac I ordered especially for you.”
Thunder, sitting beside me, let out a thin, unhappy whine the moment he heard Dennis’s voice through the phone.
“Then why did your gift smell like bitter almonds?” I asked.
There was a pause. A long one.
“Mr. Anderson,” Dennis said carefully, and his voice had changed, “what are you talking about? Bitter almonds? In cognac? Did you open the bottle already?”
“No,” I said. “My wolf opened it by smashing it and saving my life.”
Another silence. Then a strained laugh. “Come on, sir. You’re telling me your wild animal wrecked an expensive gift and now you’re turning it into a story?”
“He’s not a dog and he’s not a story,” I said. “He smelled poison in that box.”
Silence again. Then Dennis ended the call.
I lowered the phone and looked at Mike, who was still gripping the tire iron. “We need to get out of here,” he said quietly. “Right now. I don’t know how dirty this thing is, but I don’t like any of it.”
I nodded and called Thunder back to me. He followed me to the truck and jumped into the back seat.
The old vehicle turned around and headed back toward the mountains, away from the diner and away from whatever kind of civilized business this had become.
Back in the hills, life had always been simpler. Harder, maybe—but simpler.
Then my phone buzzed with a text from Dennis.
Mr. Anderson, I don’t know what you think happened, but our deal is still on. Meet me today at 2:00 p.m. at your old house on the edge of town. I’ll be waiting. Please don’t let me down.
My old house. I hadn’t been there in nearly a year.
Why would he choose that empty, out-of-the-way place?
I showed the message to Mike. He read it and gave a low whistle. “That’s a trap,” he said flatly.
“I know,” I said. “But I need to hear why. I need to hear it from him.”
In the rearview mirror, Thunder’s yellow eyes burned with a kind of hard knowledge. He already knew the answer. He just couldn’t tell me in words…
