Like somebody always looking for something he can't find, Thierry thought.
He turned away from the window in determination.
"Everything been going all right while I've been gone?" he asked, picking up his cellular phone. Work.
Work always helped. Kept you busy, kept your mind off things, kept you away from yourself, basically.
"Fine, I think, sir. Mr. James and Miss Poppy are back."
"That's good. They'll make thenext Circle Daybreak meeting." Thierry's finger hovered over a button on the phone, considering whom to call. Whose need might be the most urgent.
But before he could touch it, the phone buzzed.
Thierry pressed send and held it to his ear. "Thierry."
"Sir? It's me, Lupe. Can you hear me?" The voice was faint and broken by static, but distant as it was, Thierry could hear that the caller sounded weak.
"Lupe? Are you all right?"
"I got in a fight, sir. I'm a little torn up." She gave a gasping chuckle. "But you should see the other wolf."
Thierry reached for a leather-bound address book and a goldMont Blanc pen. "That's not funny, Lupe.
You shouldn't be fighting."
"I know, sir, but-"
"You've really got to restrain yourself."
"Yes, sir, but-"
"Tell me where you are, and I'll have somebody pick you up. Get you to a doctor." Thierry made a practice mark with the pen. No ink came out. He stared at the nib of it in mild disbelief. "You buy an eight-hundred-dollar pen and then it doesn't write," he murmured.
"Sir, you're not listening to me. You don't understand. I've found her."
Thierry stopped trying to make the pen write. He stared at it, at his own long fingers holding the chunky, textured gold barrel, knowing that this sight would be impressed on his memory as if burned in with a torch.
"Did you hear me, sir? I've found her."
When his voice came out at last, it was strangely distant. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. Yes, sir, I'm sure. She's got the mark and everything. Her name is Hannah Snow."
Thierry reached over the front seat and grabbed the astonished Nilsson with a hand like iron. He said very quietly in the driver's ear, "Do you have a pencil?"
"A pencil?"
"Something that writes, Nilsson. An instrument to make marks on paper. Do you have one? Quick, because if I lose this connection, you're fired."
"I've got a pen, sir." One-handed, Nilsson fished in his pocket and produced a Bic.
"Your salary just doubled." Thierry took the pen and sat back. "Where are you, Lupe?"
"The Badlands of Montana, sir. Near a town called Medicine Rock. But there's something else, sir."
Lupe's voice seemed less steady all of a sudden. "The other wolf that fought me-he saw her, too. And he got away."
Thierry's breath caught. "I see."
"I'm sorry." Lupe was suddenly talking quickly, in a burst of emotion. "Oh, Thierry, I'm sorry. I tried to stop him. But he got away-and now I'm afraid he's off telling... her."
"You couldn't help it, Lupe. And I'll be there myself, soon. I'll be there to take care of-everything."
Thierry looked at the driver. "We've got to make some stops, Nilsson. First, the Harman store."
"The witch place?"
"Exactly. You can triple your salary if you get there fast."
When Hannah got to Paul Winfield's house the next afternoon, the sheriff was there. Chris Grady was an honest-to-goodness Western sheriff, complete with boots, broad-brimmed hat, and vest. The only thing missing, Hannah thought as she walked around to the back of the house where Paul was hammering boards across the broken windows, was a horse.
"Hi, Chris," she said.
The sheriff nodded, sun-weathered skin crinkling at the corners of her eyes. She took off her hat and ran a hand through shoulder-length auburn hair. "I see you found yourself a couple of giant timber wolves, Hannah. You're not hurt, are you?"
Hannah shook her head no. She tried to summon up a smile but failed. "I think they were maybe wolf-dogs or something. Pure-bred wolves aren't so aggressive."
"That print wasn't made by any wolf-dog," Chris said. On the concrete flagstones outside the window there was a paw print made in blood. It was similar to a dog's footprint, with four pads plus claw marks showing. But it was more than six inches long by just over five inches wide.
"Judging from that, it's the biggest wolf ever heard of around here, bigger than the White Wolf of the Judith." The sheriff's eyes drifted to the empty rectangles of the broken windows. "Big and mean. You
people be careful. Something's going on here that I don't like. I'll let you know if we catch your wolves."
She nodded to Paul, who was sucking his finger after banging it with the hammer. Then she set her hat back on her head and strode off to her car.
Hannah stared at the paw print silently. Everyone else thought there was something going on. Everyone but her.
Because there can't be, she thought. Because it has to all be in my head. It has to be something I can figure out and fix quick... something I can control.
"Thanks for seeing me again so soon," she said to Paul.
"Oh..." He gestured, tucking the hammer under his arm. "It's no trouble. I want to get to the bottom of what's upsetting you as much as you do. And," he admitted under his breath as he let them in the house, "I don't actually have any other patients."
Hannah followed him down a hallway and into his office. It was dim inside, the boards across the windows reducing the late afternoon sunlight to separate oddly-angled shafts.