“See that?” Mike said quietly. “Your smart old wolf knows that voice.”
“Maybe he’s just rattled by the drive,” I said, though I didn’t believe it myself.
Mike slowed and pulled over onto the snowy shoulder. Then he turned and looked me straight in the eye.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then listen. We turn around, head to the sheriff’s office, and file a report. We tell them about the poisoned bottle.”
I shook my head. “And say what? That my wolf smelled cyanide in a sealed gift box? That I never saw anyone put poison in it, but I know it was there? They’ll think I’ve lost it.”
“Then we go back to the mountains and sit tight till the storm passes,” Mike said. “After that, we decide what to do with your young snake.”
“No,” I said. “I need the truth now. If Dennis really wants me dead, I want to hear him say it. I want to look him in the eye and know when I lost him.”
Mike let out a colorful curse and shook his head. “Fine. We go. But not to some fancy office. You said he’s waiting at your old place on the edge of town. At least there we know the ground.”
The truck growled back onto the road and turned off the highway onto a narrow side road. It was the shortest route to my old house.
I hadn’t been there in a year. Too many memories in those walls. My wife had died there quietly in her sleep ten years earlier, and after that I couldn’t stand living in the place. I tried renting it out for a while, but eventually it sat empty.
The road was badly drifted, and the engine strained through the snow. Bare black birches lined both sides like fence posts in a graveyard.
“Don’t turn around too fast,” Mike said. “But I think we’ve got company.”
I looked back through the cloudy rear window and saw a pair of dull yellow headlights in the storm. A gray SUV was following us at a distance—far enough not to crowd us, close enough not to lose us.
“How long?” I asked.
“About five minutes. Since the turnoff.”
“Could be another driver taking the shortcut.”
Mike pressed the gas. The SUV matched our speed.
“Nope,” he said. “That’s a tail.”
The air left my lungs. If someone was following us, there was only one person who’d have sent them.
“He wants to know whether you’re coming alone,” Mike said.
I started to turn toward Thunder, expecting him to be watching the vehicle behind us. But he wasn’t. The wolf sat rigid, facing forward, eyes fixed on the windshield.
“Thunder,” I said. “You see that car behind us?”
He didn’t even flick an ear. He ignored the threat behind us completely.
“Notice that?” Mike said. “He doesn’t care about the tail.”
