Sisters Of The Craft: Heat Of The Moment Part 19

MWDs were taught to chase only what they were told to and nothing else. It wouldn't do to give a dog the command to search, then have him distracted by a rabbit or squirrel or any other furry creature and pursue it, allowing an insurgent to go merrily in another direction and AK-47 someone down the line.

"A cat scratched me here a few days ago." Jeremy tapped his forearm.

Owen frowned. The guy had tapped the wrong arm.

Chapter 13.

Owen looked like he wanted to knock Jeremy over the head with his club, and drag me off by my hair. Jeremy continued to act like he'd already been hit with a club. I wondered just how much oxygen Owen had deprived him of while strangling him-twice. I didn't think it was as much as I'd lost beneath the pillow, but what did I know?

Jeremy was being loopy, and as he never had before, I had to think it was a result of today's events. I was lucky he hadn't jumped in his car and raced back to Madison without investigating the crime scene. Though it wasn't my crime scene, or even my house.

I started to stand up, teetered, reached out, and Owen caught my elbow, hauled me upright. I braced my other hand on his thigh. He caught his breath. I yanked it back. I had touched a little higher than was proper. Not that I hadn't touched even higher before.

Deb's shoulder mike squawked gibberish. She waited until it stopped then spoke into it. "Say again?"

"No one in the woods, Chief."

"No one?" Owen repeated. "On a walking trail, in the middle of the day, right after the Falling Leaves Festival?"

Deb cast him a glare, but she transmitted his question. "No one at all?"

"No one that fit the description. Six feet, one sixty."

Owen let his gaze wander over Jeremy's slim, six-foot-one frame, then lifted his eyebrows. I ignored him. Jeremy would have no reason to strangle me.

But, as Owen had pointed out, who did? People might go gonzo over losing a pet or a valuable farm animal. Though strangling your veterinarian while wearing a ski mask was well past gonzo.

Except I hadn't lost a patient since I got here. d.a.m.n good luck, or superior diagnostics, maybe both, but I wasn't complaining. Nevertheless, it meant that no one had decided to feather-pillow me to death because I'd screwed up surgery on Fido.

"Meet Doc Becca at Owen McAllister's place, will you?" Deb continued. "She's bringing a forensic specialist out. But you make sure nothing gets effed up, okay?"

"Nothing effed up. Roger that, Chief."

"I know what I'm doing," Jeremy muttered.

"Who said I was talking about you?"

"Am I going to be able to sleep in my bed tonight?" I asked. Would I even be able to close my eyes and drift off after what had happened the last time I tried it?

"You should stay with your parents," Deb said. "At least until we figure this out."

Which was going to be a major PITA for work, but lying in my apartment staring at the ceiling, jumping at every shadow, wouldn't help either.

"I need clothes." My feet were also bare. "Probably shoes."

Deb let out a growl of annoyance. "Come on."

She escorted me upstairs, stood in the living room tapping her foot while I changed into jeans and a long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt in the bathroom, then shoved my feet into my oldest, grungiest tennis shoes before preceding her downstairs. No one appeared to have moved since we'd left.

"We can go in my truck," Owen began. Reggie woofed; the gaze he turned on Jeremy was very cat with the canary-or cat that could almost taste the canary.

Splode.

What did that mean?

"I'll follow in my car."

Jeremy's eyes resembled those of a canary that had just caught a glimpse of the cat staring in at him from the other side of the cage. Couldn't blame him, though really, he should probably worry more about Owen. Reggie had a leash. Owen didn't.

"Becca, ride with me." Jeremy started for the trees.

"Where are you going?" my father asked.

"I parked at the head of that walking trail through the woods."

"Explains how he got back here without Billy or me or anyone but Reggie seeing him," Owen said.

"Why would you do that?" I asked. "You couldn't know that the trail wound past my parking lot."

The location of the veterinary clinic would be obvious to anyone who could read a sign, or speak English and ask a question, but knowing where the hiking trail led wasn't.

"I didn't."

"You were supposed to call me when you arrived."

"I tried. You didn't answer."

I'd probably been busy gasping for breath, and I hadn't had time to check my phone since.

"Then I saw you at the head of the trail." His forehead creased. "Or I thought I saw you. You never told me you had a twin."

"She doesn't," Owen said.

"There was a woman who looked exactly like you." Jeremy's gaze flickered over my face. "Except she had dark eyes, black hair and it was shorter."

"We need to discuss your definition of exactly," Owen said.

Jeremy cast Owen an evil glare, which caused Reggie to growl.

"Hush," Owen murmured. Reggie hushed, at least out loud. In my mind he continued to grumble.

Stink. Bad. And the inevitable: Splode.

"You talked to her?" I asked.

Jeremy shook his head. "I pulled over, called your name. She kept walking onto the trail, so I followed. She was pretty far ahead, then she stopped and stared north. Trail wound around. I lost sight of her, but when I got to the place she'd been, I stopped." He waved at my Bronco. "I saw your car and the VET sign. The door was open, so I figured you'd gone in. I started to follow then-" He jerked his thumb at Reggie. "That grabbed me."

Reggie lifted his lip and showed teeth. a.s.shole.

I turned my inappropriate desire to laugh into a cough-type throat clearing. I was very good at it. "You really thought she was me?"

"You could have dyed your hair. You also said you had a sister."

"She doesn't look anything like me."

He shrugged. "They say everyone has a twin somewhere."

They did say that. But how weird was it that my doppelgnger had shown up in my teeny-tiny hometown and walked down a forest path, then stared at the place where I lived right after a masked person had tried to kill me?

Superweird, but today what wasn't? It also made me wonder if the woman who'd sat on the car and stared at me had been doing so because she'd seen my twin too.

"Did you see a woman who looked like me?" I glanced at Owen.

"There was a pretty big crowd out front but I'd have noticed that. She probably continued down the trail."

"And straight out of Three Harbors," I said. "d.a.m.n. I would have liked to see how much she looks like me."

"Probably not that much," Owen said.

"I'm not blind," Jeremy snapped.

Owen ignored him.

"I need to get home to your mother." My dad started for the street.

"What's the rush?" I asked.

He continued to walk, throwing his answer over his shoulder. "Someone will have called her about this. She'll be worried."

"Call and unworry her."

"Forgot my phone."

"I can call h-"

"Things to do, Becca."

He disappeared around the building. An instant later I caught sight of him pulling a U-turn before he gunned it out of town.

"I'll drive you around on the street to Reitman's car." Owen pulled out his keys. "It's on the way to my house."

"I'm not getting in an enclosed s.p.a.ce with that dog," Jeremy said.

Woof!

Reggie stared at the trees. Was Pru watching? Or was Edward still chasing her?

Who was Edward? Another wolf? Pru hadn't sounded glad to see him.

"Becca's not walking through the woods with you," Owen said.

"I thought we'd determined I wasn't the one who tried to kill her."

Owen crossed his arms. "I'm unconvinced."

His biceps bulged against the sleeves of his khaki T-s.h.i.+rt. Jeremy seemed almost as entranced by them as I was. I suppose he was the one being threatened by them.

"We'll take Owen's truck." At Jeremy's flash of annoyance, I lifted a hand. "The sooner we arrive at the crime scene, the sooner we can all go back to our lives. I'm sure you need to get on the road, Jeremy."

"I made a reservation at a hotel for the night. I hated to drive all this way and not spend some time with you."

"Fabulous," Owen muttered.

I cast him a glance. What did he care?

"Let's get this over with," Owen continued. "I'll drive. Don't worry about Reggie. He won't hurt you."

"He won't, because I'm not going with you." Jeremy started for the trees.

While I didn't think Jeremy had tried to smother me, I also wasn't keen on walking into the forest where whoever had done so had run. Just because George hadn't found the culprit, didn't mean he wasn't still in there. And Jeremy wouldn't be much protection at all.

He glanced over his shoulder. "You coming, Becca?"

Owen took my arm. "No."

"Honestly." I took my arm back. "Put Reggie in the truck bed. I'll sit between you two so I don't have to listen to a litany of 'he's touching me'!"

Owen's lips twitched. "You sound like a kindergarten teacher."

"I had little brothers and a little sister." Who'd burned me out on little kids long before p.u.b.erty. Too bad. If I'd gone into teaching I could have saved myself a s.h.i.+t ton of time and money on college.

While it would have taken ten minutes to walk through the woods, it took less than three to drive to Jeremy's car. Owen didn't even argue when I got out too, though he did roll his eyes at the bright yellow Jaguar.

"You know a car like that just shouts small p.e.n.i.s?"

I slammed the door and walked away.

Owen knew he was behaving like the child she'd accused him of being. He couldn't help it. The guy was annoying.

He became even more so once they got to the house. Owen hadn't expected anything less. Stupid might be as stupid does, but annoying was the same d.a.m.n way.