Adam was fifteen minutes out–but Tad was only five. What could happen in five minutes?

7

I didn’t carry at work–with Tad there, there was no reason, and a gun just got in the way while I was squirming around in engine compartments and under cars. My carry gun, the 9mm, was locked in the safe with my purse. I wasn’t going into the office to open the safe because the office had big picture windows, and someone who had burned down a building that housed dozens of innocent people wouldn’t hesitate to break a few windows.

Paranoia meant I had a second gun tucked in a special lockbox attached to the underside of the counter nearest the office. My fingers pressed the code, and a half second later I had the cool and heavy Model 629 Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum in my hand. I wasn’t Dirty Harry, but I’d shot my foster father’s Model 29 since I was big enough to handle it. My foster father’s .44 was in the gun safe at home, but the only difference between it and the 629 was that the 629 was stainless steel. Both of them were too heavy for me to shoot for more than a few rounds, but I could hit a pretty tight pattern on a target at fifty feet with the gun as long as it was in the first twelve shots.

The gun was Adam’s, and he’d suggested I get another Sig Sauer 9mm like my preferred gun instead because it was lighter and, being an automatic, the 9mm was faster to reload. I’d told him it was a waste of money when he already had this one.

I had made the assumption that this guy was Christy’s stalker and not some poor lost traveler who stopped to use the phone or something. We hadn’t managed to get any kind of photo of him, but how many guys travel in rental cars with a wicked‑looking dog?

I looked at the monitor again and tried to evaluate him in the black‑and‑white screen. He appeared to be tallish, and his hair was light‑colored. Without anything that eliminated him from the description Christy had given, I decided I was okay with making the assumption that he was the bad guy. If not, I could apologize to him later.

Why had he come here instead of going after Christy?

Maybe he had, and all the people we had guarding her had made him rethink his plan.

Maybe he thought he could take me to use as leverage to get to Christy. Or, if he was really crazy–and burning down a building was acting crazy in my book–he might be planning on killing me to get back at Adam for keeping Christy from him.

Maybe he just wanted to ask me if I’d seen Christy. My understanding of psycho stalkers was not infallible. It was also very possible that I was overreacting.

My chest hurt, and I felt the stupid light‑headedness that told me I was flirting with a full‑blown panic attack. Panic attacks were stupid and counterproductive, rendering me helpless to protect myself until they were over. Happily, I didn’t have them as often as I used to, but now was not the time.

I reminded myself firmly that I had prepared for another attempted assault. I had a bolt‑hole for the coyote to hide in. At the back of the garage, on the top of the floor‑to‑ceiling shelves, there was an old wooden box–a fake box. The front and most of one side were all that was left. Those I had wood‑glued and screwed to the shelf so it wouldn’t fall off if I bumped it. A narrow opening at the back of the side not against the wall meant I could squeeze into the box, but I wasn’t trapped because the box had no lid. All the way up near the roof of my fourteen‑foot‑high garage meant it didn’t need a top to keep me hidden, and I had about a foot between the top of the box and the ceiling.

So why wasn’t I doing the smart thing and hiding up there as a coyote? He might know who I was and where I worked, but it was extremely unlikely that he knew whatI was.

I watched the monitors as he tried the door, then looked around the parking lot. The camera angle wasn’t wide enough for me to see what he was looking at, but I was pretty sure it was my van. He couldn’t know I was still there unless he’d been watching the shop, but the van might make him suspicious.

That was assuming he knew what I drove, which might be giving him too much credit. Though he had apparently followed Christy from Eugene–and I knew that Adam wouldn’t have advertised the trip over here if he could help it. He’d figured out she was staying with us and found my garage. It wasn’t too much to assume he knew what I drove.

He walked away from the door and back to his car, the big dog pacing at his side without a leash–just as Lucia’s dog had done. I had time to hide.

The security camera had its eye focused on me, recording my every move. If I hid from this human, the whole pack would know what I had done. Christy was human, fragile, and no longer the Alpha’s wife. That she had gotten into trouble she couldn’t get out of by herself was to be expected.

In a wolf pack, the dominant members protect–they don’t need protection. I was not just the Alpha’s wife, I was his mate and a pack member. That all meant that what I did mattered, and I was expected to make a better showing than Adam’s fragile ex‑wife, who’d driven this man off with nothing more than a frying pan. So I stood watching the monitors, waiting for him to break in, instead of hiding in safety. But the knowledge I chose to face him, that I had other options, seemed to have pushed the panic attack away.

I watched as Christy’s stalker walked back over and began working on the front door of my garage. Darkness hadn’t yet fallen, though the sun was low in the sky.

Five minutes until help arrived.

Five minutes if Tad was at home when Adam called him. If not, Adam would be here in fifteen.

What did it say about Christy’s stalker that he risked breaking into my garage with a crowbar when it was still light out? Was he stupid? Or did he think he had enough money, enough power, to escape the consequences of his actions?

I closed my eyes and stretched my neck and rolled my shoulders to loosen them.

The front door gave with a tremendous crack–but my ears are more sensitive than most. I leaned on the front of the Passat and left the gun resting on the hood, though I kept my hold on it. Lifting the gun up too soon would cause my arms to tire, and I’d lose accuracy. I didn’t worry that he would be too fast because I was as quick as any of the werewolves–and they were a lot faster than any human.

It was probably only seconds between the time he broke down the door and when he came into the garage bay, but it seemed like hours. I spent the time reminding myself that I wasn’t drugged up on some fae‑magic concoction that prevented me from disobeying orders. That Tad was coming, that Adam was on his way.

That if I shot him, then Christy would have to leave.

I’ve killed people before. If I’d felt like I had a choice, I wouldn’t have killed them. No choice meant I had no regrets for those kills. Maybe I should have felt worse about that; maybe it was being a walker or maybe being a predator. I didn’t think it would bother me to kill this man who had killed four innocent people–five if you counted the man who’d dated Christy a couple of times. Even so, I wasn’t going shoot him unless he made me do it, I told myself sternly.

Not even if it meant getting Christy out of my home.

I concentrated on keeping my expression cool, and when he stepped into the light, I said, “Mr. Flores, I presume?”

He stopped, and the big dog stopped, too, his shoulder precisely at his master’s leg. The dog’s gaze was alert, intelligent, and primal. Ancient.

I blinked, and the dog was just a dog. My first impression was probably a product of the stress of the moment, an accident of shadows.

Flores smiled and raised both hands to his shoulder height, palms out, dropping the crowbar as he did so. I flinched a little at the noise of the crowbar hitting the floor.