Blue Moon ns-1 Page 2

  The blood trail veered right, then left, then right again. Nearing three-quarter size, the moon was blaring bright. The kind of night most animals kept to the forest, spooked into hiding by the shiny disc in the sky. Except for the wolves. They seemed to like it.

  Tonight, I liked it, too. Because the silver sheen bounced off a glistening splotch on the ground here, a leaf there. That the blood was still wet gave me hope my quarry might not be too far ahead. The wolf could even be dead, which would solve a whole lot of problems.

  Still, I kept my gun handy. I knew better than to follow a wounded wild animal without protection.

  The breeze ruffled the short length of my hair and I paused, lifted my face to the night, then cursed. I was upwind. If the wolf wasn’t dead, he knew I was coming.

  A howl split the night, rising on the breeze, sifting through the darkness, and fleeing toward the moon. Not the soulful sound of a lonely animal searching for a mate, but the furious, aggressive wail of a dominant male, which caused the back of my neck to tingle.

  He knew I was coming, and he was ready.

  My adrenaline kicked in. I wanted to move faster. Get there. Fight, not flee. Finish this. But I had to follow the blood, and that hadn’t gotten any easier.

  Then, suddenly, the trail was gone. I backtracked. Located the blood again. Moved forward, found nothing.

  My wolf seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Uneasy, I glanced up at the swaying silhouettes of the trees. A laugh escaped, the sound more nervous than amused. What kind of wolf could climb a tree? Not one that I wanted to meet.

  A movement ahead had me scurrying forward, damn the blood trail. I burst through the brash and into a clearing, nearly stumbled, and fell at the sight of a shiny log cabin that hadn’t been there a few weeks ago. Had it sprouted from the dirt?

  My curiosity about the new house vanished when my gaze lit on a swaying, shivering bush at the far side of the clearing. The windows of the cabin were dark. If I was lucky, the occupants were asleep or, even better, not in residence. I didn’t want to scare anyone with gunshots outside their new home at 4:00 a.m., but I wasn’t going to let my quarry get away, either.

  Gun drawn, I advanced.

  A single, glistening drop of blood on a leaf made me cock my pistol. The bush stilled.

  I was so tense my body ached with it. I couldn’t just shoot without knowing what was there. But what if the wolf leaped out, jaws slashing before I could fire?

  Decisions, decisions. I hated them. Give me a nice, sure, clean shot any day. Black-and-white. Right and wrong. Good versus evil.

  "Hey!" I shouted, hoping the wolf would run the other way and I could blast him.

  No such luck. The bush began to shake again, and a shadow lifted, lengthened, grew broader, and took the shape of a man.

  A very handsome, well-proportioned, naked man.

  "What the—?"

  From far to the north came the cry of a wolf, silencing my question, reminding me I needed to move on.

  Ignoring the naked man—which wasn’t easy, he was quite spectacular and I hadn’t seen one in a long, long time—I searched the ground and the trees for the blood trail. However, it was well and truly gone this time.

  "Damn it!" I holstered my weapon.

  "Problem?"

  His voice was deep, almost soothing, flowing like water over smooth stones. He was taller than me by a good five inches, which made him six-three in bare feet. The moon shone silver across his golden skin, which appeared to be the same hue all over. He obviously had no qualms about going bare-assed beneath the sun as well as the moon.

  He stared at me calmly, as if he didn’t know, or maybe just didn’t care, that he’d forgotten his clothes when he’d stepped outside.

  Well, if he could be nonchalant, so could I. "Did a wolf run through here?"

  He crossed his arms over his chest. His biceps flexed; so did the muscles in his stomach. I couldn’t help myself. I stared. Ridges and dips in all the right places. He’d been working out.

  "Seen enough?" he murmured.

  With no small amount of difficulty, I raised my gaze to his face. I refused to be embarrassed. He was the one standing naked in the night.

  "Why? Is there more?"

  His teeth flashed against the darker shade of his face. His eyes were black, his hair, too, and nearly as short as my own. A golden feather swung from one ear.

  Interesting. Most Native American jewelry was silver.

  If he were white, he’d take a lot of heat for that earring in a place like Miniwa. This might be a new millennium, but in small Midwestern towns earrings were for faggots, just as tattoos were for motorcycle gangs. Unless you were an Indian; then folks just ignored you. However, I doubted a man who looked like he did was ignored by the entire population.

  "You’re after a wolf?"

  He stepped from behind the bush, giving me a much clearer view of a whole lot more. My cheeks heated. For all my bravado and smart-mouthed comments, I’d never had much use for men beyond friendship. Probably because they’d never had much use for me.

  Still, a girl has needs, or so I discovered beneath the shiny, silver moon.

  "You wanna put on some clothes before we chat?" I aimed for a bored, woman-of-the-world tone. I got a breathless, sexy rasp. To cover my embarrassment I snapped, "What are you doing out here?"

  "I’m not out anywhere. This is my place, my land. And I don’t have to explain anything. You’re trespassing."

  "Hot pursuit. Exigent circumstances," I mumbled. "Just seems odd to be out in the dark in the buff."

  "Why have a cabin in the woods if you can’t walk around naked whenever the urge strikes you?"

  "Oh, I don’t know. Maybe poison ivy in all the wrong places?"

  I thought he laughed, but when I glanced at him, he’d turned away. I lost my train of thought again at the sight of his back. The muscles rippled as he moved. Was it hot out here?

  "You’re chasing a wolf, alone, through the woods in the middle of the night, Officer… ?"

  Suddenly he was right in front of me. Had I been so entranced with my fantasies that I hadn’t noticed him slip in close? Obviously.

  A slim, dark finger reached out; the white moon of a nail brushed the nameplate perched on my left breast. " ‘McQuade,’ " he read, then lifted his eyes to mine.

  I had to tilt my head back, not a common occurrence for me. I could usually stare guys straight in the eye, and I was rarely this close to them. They were never naked.

  He smelled like the forest—green trees, brown earth, and… something wild, something free. I felt as if I were falling into his dark, endless eyes. His cheekbones were sharp, his lips full, his skin perfect. The man was prettier than I was.

  I took a giant step back. Just because I was in a woodland clearing with a gorgeous, naked Indian man didn’t mean I had to swoon like the heroine of a historical romance novel. I wasn’t the type.

  "I’m doing my job," I said, as much to answer him as remind myself. "A wolf bit a woman out on the highway. I need to find the thing."

  Something flickered in his eyes and was gone so quickly I wasn’t sure if I’d seen anything beyond the shift of the moon through the trees.

  "I doubt you’ll succeed." He turned away again, and this time my gaze caught on a nasty bruise along his hip.

  "Ouch," I murmured.

  "What?"

  "I—uh—" I waved my hand vaguely at his ass. "What happened?"

  He twisted, glanced down, frowned, then raised his eyes to mine. "I’m not sure. I must have been clumsy."

  As he strolled toward the cabin, I watched him move. Funny, he didn’t appear clumsy at all.

  He plucked a pair of cutoffs from the porch and yanked them on without benefit of underwear. Why I found that incredibly erotic, I have no idea. But there it was.

  Not bothering with a shirt, either, he returned. I found myself entranced by his chest. Smooth, strong, no hair to mar the perfection, would he taste as good as he smelled?<
br />
  I rubbed my eyes to make the image go away. I needed to get laid and fast. When my pulse leaped in response to the thought, my cheeks heated again.

  Down, girl , I admonished my panting libido. You’re in the minors; he’s a major leaguer.

  Still, I could dream, couldn’t I?

  "Uh… Um. Could you help me pick up the trail?"

  Nice, Jessie. Why don’t you stutter and drool while you’re at it?

  Thankfully, he didn’t seem to notice my red face and awkward tongue.

  "Me?" He ran his fingers through his short hair, frowned, and shook his head, almost as if the cut was new, unfamiliar. His earring danced in the moonlight.

  "The blood disappears beyond that bush where you—" I frowned. "You’re sure you didn’t see him?"

  He gave an impatient sigh. "I’m sure."

  "Then maybe you could help me pick up the trail again?"

  "Why would you think that I know how to track a wolf? Just because I‘ in Ojibwe?"

  "You are?"

  He rolled his eyes. "Come on, Officer, you aren’t blind and you’ve been looking."

  "You’ve been showing. I’m also not stupid."

  His lips twitched. He nearly smiled before he caught himself. "Even if I knew jack about tracking in the dark, I wouldn’t help you find that wolf. You’ll kill him."

  I shrugged. "He bit a woman. She’s going to need rabies shots if I don’t find him."

  "You won’t find him."

  Annoyance flashed through me. "You psychic or something?"

  "Something."

  Whatever that meant.

  Chapter 3

  As it turned out, he was right. I didn’t find that wolf or any other.

  The woods were strangely empty that night. I chalked it up to the brightness of the moon and my less than graceful manner of crashing through the underbrush. But later I wondered.

  Hell, later I wondered a lot of things.

  Like who was that unmasked man? He’d learned my name but never offered his. And I’d had little opportunity to ask.

  I’d stepped from the clearing, searching once more for a trace of the trail, and when I glanced back he’d disappeared as suddenly as he’d appeared. Logically I knew he had gone inside—rude as that was without a good-bye—still, I never heard the creak of a porch board or the click of the door.

  I moved on, but when the sun came up and I was still empty-handed, I returned to the scene of, the accident. Someone had towed Miss Larson’s oversize vehicle away, leaving the glass, plastic, and blood behind. Peachy.

  I rousted Zee on the radio.

  "Damn, girl. Where have you been? I was gonna send out the cavalry pretty soon."

  "I’m fine. Didn’t Brad tell you where I was?"

  "Off in the woods, alone in the night. You nuts?"

  "I had a big gun."

  "Someday, Jessie, you are gonna meet someone smarter and meaner than you."

  "Someday," I agreed.

  "I take it you didn’t find what you were lookin‘ for."

  The stranger’s face, and everything else, flashed through my mind. I’d found something better, but I wasn’t going to tell Zee that. As she informed anyone who would listen, she was old; she wasn’t dead. She’d want more details about the man than I could comfortably give.

  "The wolf is gone," I answered. "Why wasn’t this scene secured like I asked?"

  "Things got a little busy here. Domestic dispute, bar fight."

  "The usual."

  "Damn straight. I didn’t have anyone free to secure anything but their own ass. What difference does it make anyway? You don’t have a major crime scene being contaminated. It’s an accident plain and simple."

  I’d learned early on that nothing was plain or simple. My gaze swept over the glass and skid marks. Not even this.

  "Have you talked to Brad about the victim?" I asked.

  "Yeah. He stayed with her until she left, but—"

  "Left?"

  "You don’t have to shout."

  "How could she leave? She was bitten by a wild animal. She needs rabies shots."

  "Only if she’ll take them. And she wouldn’t."

  "Why not?"

  "The clinic didn’t have the serum. They could get it from Clearwater, but it would have taken several hours. She refused."

  "That makes no sense."

  "Since when does anything make sense?"

  Zee had a point. I tried to raise Brad on the radio and got no response. I dialed his cell phone, but he didn’t answer. A glance at my watch revealed the shift had changed ten minutes ago. Brad was nothing if not prompt. My opinions on that would have done Zee proud.

  The sun was up; I was tired. Working third shift had made me a vampire of sorts, unable to sleep when everyone else did, unable to stay awake when the world was alive.

  Despite my exhaustion, and the fact that overtime was a no-no, I vowed to hunt down Brad later and find out what he’d learned from Miss Larson. Right now I’d head to the clinic and talk to the doctor. See if I could find Miss Larson and have a word with her—if she wasn’t foaming at the mouth yet.

  But first… I glanced from my squad car to the glass and plastic still on the pavement. First I got to clean up the mess.

  I sketched the scene, measured the skid marks, then swept the remains of the accident into a transparent bag and carried my prize to the side of the road. Holding it up, I jiggled the sack. Something caught my eye.

  I reached inside and withdrew a thin rawhide strip. I’d seen them used as necklaces, usually on men, sometimes teenage girls. If there’d been a jewel or a charm threaded onto this one, it could be anywhere.

  I jiggled the bag again but saw nothing else unusual. So I walked the center line and found what I was searching for several feet ahead of where the SUV had skidded to a stop.

  Leaning down, I picked up a carved onyx figure of a wolf, what the Ojibwe referred to as a totem. As I stared at it the image wavered and shifted. Cool air shot down my sweaty back, making me shiver. I shook my head. For a moment, the wolf’s face had appeared almost human. I definitely needed some sleep.

  Had the totem been here last night? Or for weeks, perhaps months? What did it mean? To whom did the icon belong? Did it even matter?

  I shrugged and dropped the evidence into the bag. I had enough questions to keep me busy most of the morning. Any more could wait for tonight.

  My visit to the Miniwa Clinic was not very enlightening. The on-call doctor was young, earnest, and as exhausted as I was. He’d been on duty for forty-eight hours. I was glad I hadn’t been brought in bleeding at hour number forty-seven.

  "I cleaned the wound, though the officer who brought the victim in had done a decent job of it."

  I made a mental note that Brad had been listening in first-aid class. Good boy.

  The doctor rested his forehead on one palm and closed his eyes. When he swayed, I grabbed his arm, afraid he was going to tumble face-first onto the floor. "Doc? Hey! You okay?"

  "Sorry. It’s been a long night—or three."

  I made sympathetic noises. Why the medical community insisted on pushing physicians to their physical, emotional, and mental limits was beyond me. Did they believe the doctors who survived the training could then survive anything? Probably.

  "Miss Larson," I reminded him.

  "Oh, yeah. I treated her like a dog bite victim. Four stitches, antibiotic. Minor really."

  "Why did she leave?"

  "She had to work."

  "Is she a brain surgeon?"

  Confusion flickered over his pale face. "I’m sorry?"

  "Her work couldn’t wait? What if the wolf was rabid?"

  "The chances of that are slim, Officer. Rabid animals tend more toward bats or the rodent family—mice, squirrels." He paused, considered a moment, continued. "Or stray cats. Nasty things. You definitely need rabies shots if you get bit by a stray cat."

  I didn’t plan on getting bit by any stray cats, since it would be an ice-co
ld day in Miami before I touched one. However, information is always welcome.

  The doctor shook his head. "It’s highly unlikely that a wolf is carrying rabies."

  "Doesn’t mean she’s in the clear."

  "No. But she has the right to refuse treatment."

  "And if she starts gnawing on a co-worker, does she have the right to sue you?"

  He winced at the word sue, an occupational hazard, I’m sure. "You’re like a dog with a bone on this."

  Dog? Bone?

  I waited for him to snicker, but he was either too tired to get his own joke or he was amusement-challenged. Maybe a little bit of both.

  "I like all my ends neat and tidy," I continued. "Call me anal. Everyone else does."

  His lips never twitched. Definitely amusement-challenged.

  "You can follow up." He scribbled on a notepad. "Here’s her address and place of business."

  Karen Larson’s home was located just off Highway 199.

  Huh . That huge car had screamed tourist. Getting out of her vehicle to check on an injured wolf shouted moron. If she wasn’t a temporary resident, she was at least very new. Until folks had lived here for a winter they always thought they needed huge tires to roll over the huge snowdrifts.

  Her address explained her presence on the highway. It did not, however, explain why she was driving home alone at 3.00 a.m. on a weeknight. Maybe I was nosy, but little details like that bugged me. Perhaps that was why I’d become a cop. It gave me license to snoop.

  I glanced at the doctor’s chicken scratch again. Miss Larson was a teacher at Treetop Elementary.

  Though some schools finished before Memorial Day weekend, others, like ours, continued classes nearly all the way through June. This was a direct result of the state lawmakers and their brilliant idea that schools should begin after Labor Day in order to make the most out of the tourist season. None of them ever seemed to understand that this only cut several weeks off the other end of summer.

  Since Miss Larson had been so all-fired concerned about work—I glanced at my watch—and she should be there by now, I headed in that direction, too.

  My decision was a sound one. By the time I reached Treetop Elementary, there was a whole lot of screaming going on.