Broken

Homeward

BY THE TIME WE WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, JEREMY had already scoured the papers for any mention of last night’s events. He’d found nothing. On the radio, a local station reported that hydro crews were still working to recover power lost last night in a Cabbagetown neighborhood, but before the newscast even ended, they announced that the problem had been fixed. That was it-one blown transformer, already repaired. Not a single mention of a whiskered man in a bowler hat.

“So we’re leaving?” I said as Jeremy folded a shirt and put it into his bag. “We may have unleashed Jack the Ripper, and we’re just going home?”

He didn’t answer, so I moved to the foot of the bed where I could see his face. “You do think that’s what we did, don’t you? Unleashed Jack the Ripper?”

“Because we dropped a dead mosquito onto a letter possibly written by the man over a hundred years ago?”

I thumped onto the bed. “My hormones are acting up again, aren’t they?”

I could imagine what Clay would have said about my wild logical leap, but luckily he was still in our room, showering and shaving.

Jeremy only gave me his crooked smile as he took his pants from the chair, then said, “Considering some of the things we’ve seen, it’s not as crazy as it sounds. Something did happen last night, something…unusual.”

I remembered his reaction, the odd look on his face when he’d seen the smoke, how he’d glanced up at the transformer and pushed Clay and me out of the way before it blew. I longed to ask him about it, but as with everything else in Jeremy’s life, if he didn’t volunteer, I rarely dared to ask.

“That guy didn’t come from a community theater production,” I said.

“I know.”

“So what do you think happened?”

“I don’t know.”

He moved to the bathroom to clear his toiletries.

“You want me to shut up and go away?” I said.

“Of course not.”

“Then you just want me to stop talking about it.”

“No.”

I gave a low growl of frustration.

“Can I see the letter?”

“It’s packed.”

He said this without hesitation, inflection, facial expression or anything else to suggest he didn’t want me seeing that letter. But when you live with someone for as long as I’ve lived with Jeremy, you just know.

I moved to the bathroom door. “What’s wrong with the letter?”

“Nothing. I just need to repair the damage before we hand it over. And I’m not eager to hand it over until I’ve done what I should have done before-researched it.”

“We did research it. I pulled up everything I could find on the history of-” I looked at him. “You mean supernatural history, don’t you? Whether the letter has any kind of supernatural background. It was owned by a sorcerer. Maybe there’s an invisible spell written on it. Or the paper could be magical. Maybe it’s-”

“Made from the skin of a thousand killers?” drawled a voice behind me. “Pasted together with the tears of their victims? Dried in the fires of hell? It does say it’s ‘from hell.’ Could be a clue.”

I glared, and Clay grinned, grabbed me, pulled me against him and kissed the side of my neck.

“I was just-” I began.

“Theorizing. And I was helping.”

“All ‘theorizing’ aside,” Jeremy said. “While I’m not convinced that whatever happened last night has anything to do with that letter-”

“Sacrifice!” Clay plunked me onto the bathroom counter. “We sacrificed a mosquito. I bet that’s what did it. It was probably a virgin too.”

“I’ve contacted Robert Vasic to investigate,” Jeremy continued.

“The mosquito?” Clay said. “It’s kind of squashed, but sure.”

Jeremy crossed his arms and waited.

Clay sighed, then picked up the toiletry bag. “I’ll toss this in the car.”

As Jeremy watched Clay go, his expression softened. I knew what he was thinking-the same thing I was-that it was good to see Clay happy. There had been months, even years after Clay had bitten me when neither of us had seen that side of him. But now he had everything that was important to him-his home, his Pack, his Alpha and his mate. And, soon, a child. Every reason to be happy. For now…

I put my hands against my belly and willed myself to feel a kick, a jab, some sign of life…

Nothing.

“You can listen with the stethoscope when we get home,” Jeremy said softly. “The heartbeat is somewhat erratic, but the books say that’s not unusual-”

“You called Robert already? What did he say?”

A soft sigh at the change of subject. Jeremy took his used towels from the rack and tossed them into the tub before answering. “He wasn’t home, but Talia said she’d have him call later this afternoon.”

We had a late breakfast before leaving. There was a restaurant in our hotel, but it didn’t open until noon, so we popped over to a place a few doors down and ate there.

We were walking back-driving the short distance had been more trouble than it was worth-when I caught a whiff of something that stopped me midstride. Jeremy and Clay took another few steps before realizing I was no longer between them. Jeremy stayed where he was, as Clay circled back.

“What’s up?”

I tilted my head and inhaled, then rubbed my nose and made a face. “I hate that. You catch the faintest smell, your brain says ‘hey, that’s someone I know,’ then it’s gone.”

Clay looked around. We were in the middle of a strip of grass between the road and the hotel parking lot. Cars zoomed past, but there was no one around. A busy road and no sidewalks didn’t invite pedestrian traffic.

“Maybe someone you knew drove by with the window down.” He glanced at the strip mall to our right. “Or stopped here.”

I nodded. “Probably, whatever-whoever-it was, it’s gone now.”

We caught up with Jeremy and headed for the SUV.

I flipped between Toronto radio stations all the way to Buffalo, listening to the private stations for news at the top and bottom of the hour, then tuning to CBC as the other stations switched to music. By the time we moved out of Buffalo and the Canadian stations faded to static, I was convinced that Jeremy was right. Whatever had happened last night, it was safe enough to leave.

We pulled off at the Darien Lake exit to fuel up with gas and food. We would stop for lunch in a favorite restaurant outside Rochester, but it had been two hours since breakfast, and our stomachs were complaining. Well, Clay’s and mine were complaining; one could never tell with Jeremy.

Jeremy shooed us off to the store, getting me away from the fuel fumes. Inside, I scooped up a doughnut and chocolate milk. Convenience food-they didn’t offer much else.

The store was busy, there were only two cashiers, and one was fiddling with her register, so the lineup stretched back to the refrigerators. People kept brushing past me to get to the pop fridge. I’ve never been one to enjoy personal space invasions but, lately, close contact with strangers set my fight-or-flight instincts on high alert.

Stuck there in line, in an enclosed place, with too many people, my gaze kept drifting to the exit, to freedom and fresh air. Especially fresh air. The mix of BO and cheap cologne and fried food from the restaurant made my stomach churn…and made me wonder whether I’d be able to eat my snacks at all.

A passing trucker jostled my shoulder so hard I wobbled back into the shelf. He reached to catch me, blasting coffee breath and halitosis in my face. Another hand caught me from behind. Clay glared at the trucker, who mumbled something vaguely apologetic and shambled past.

Clay took my milk carton and doughnut, and piled them onto his and Jeremy’s snacks.

“Hey,” grumbled a man behind us. “There’s a line here, you know. You can’t just-”

Clay turned and looked at him, and the man’s mouth snapped shut. I leaned out to see why the line wasn’t moving.

“You okay?” Clay whispered.

I swept a glance around. “Just…claustrophobic.”

He nodded, but didn’t comment. He didn’t need to. Clay hated crowds, always had, and I’d always faulted him for it, chalking it up to his dislike of humans. But now, looking into his eyes and seeing my own response reflected back-discomfort not distaste-I knew I’d never again snipe at him about avoiding a crowded mall or packed movie theater.

He shifted over, his hip brushing mine. “Go on outside. Get some air.”

“I’m-”

He bumped me with his hip, causing his stack of junk food to sway. “Go. Stretch your legs. There’s a field out back, isn’t there? Behind the building?”

“I think so.”

“Find a picnic spot then. Grab Jeremy and I’ll meet you there.”

“Thanks.”

Jeremy was just outside the doors, eying one of those new SUV hybrids.

“Looking for a trade-up on the Explorer?” I asked.

“I was thinking of you.”

“I have a car.”

“Which is half dead, has no air bags, no child restraints, and is definitely not baby-friendly.” He waved at the SUV wannabe. “This is cute.”

“Cute? It looks like a minihearse. Yes, I know I’ll need something new. But not that. And if you mention minivan-”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

I told him Clay’s picnic plan.

“That’s fine,” Jeremy said. “I need to use the restroom. You can wait for me or, if Clay comes out first, I’ll meet you both out back.”

He started to walk past me, then stopped to watch a vehicle pull in a few spots down. A Mercedes SUV.

“Perhaps something like that,” he said. “It’s a luxury vehicle, sure to have all the top safety features, plus be quite reliable in bad weather, but not as big and unwieldy as the Explorer. I’m sure you’d find it quite peppy.”

“Peppy? That’s almost as bad as ‘cute.’ ”

“It would be the perfect vehicle for a-”

“Suburban soccer mom.”

A slight furrow of the brows.

“Never mind. Just…” I waved at the car. “Not me. Not now. Not ever. I’ll find something. But not-” I looked at the Mercedes and shivered. “That.”

He shook his head and walked toward the building.

I followed the walkway along the north side of the service center. Behind the building, the path cut on a diagonal to the southwest truckers’ lot.

The whir of the huge air-conditioning unit and the distant rumble of idling trucks blocked out the roar of the highway to the north. To my right was a white storage silo. Beyond that was a swamp.

I thought the swamp was what I’d smelled when I first picked up the scent of something heavy and overripe. But the smell came on the south wind, blowing toward the swamp, not from it. The scent carried other notes too, all human-the smell of an unwashed body and unwashed clothes, male, seemingly healthy, but underlain with that faint scent of overripeness. Of…rot.

It was the same scent I’d smelled on the man in the bowler yesterday. Not sickness but rot, so faint I had to get a noseful before I was sure. I realized it was the same thing I’d smelled walking back from the restaurant after breakfast.

I dismissed it. No one-and nothing-could track us like that. We were 185 miles from Cabbagetown. Even I would’ve lost the trail the moment we’d driven away last night. If this guy came from where I thought he did-nineteenth-century London -well, let’s just say he couldn’t hop into a car and give chase.

So it was impossible. Even when I glimpsed a figure darting between the rigs in the southwest lot, and caught another whiff of that distinctive scent, I knew it couldn’t-shouldn’t-be him. But follow logic too far and it can lead right into the jaws of folly.

Jeremy had asked me to wait for him or Clay, and I hadn’t meant to ignore him. But after fifteen years of being able to walk through deserted parking lots without a spark of fear, I was ill-accustomed to needing an escort.

Someone was following me, possibly hoping to cut me off when I was far enough from the service center, and from my male companions. At the very least, I should stop and wait for Jeremy and Clay.

Yet, the moment they showed up, my pursuer would run. So I kept going slowly and concentrated on picking up some sense of Clay. No luck. I stopped to tie my shoes and scope out the playing field.

Swamp to the right. A good place to throw my pursuer off-kilter, but the stink and the water would make tracking difficult. The field in front of me was too open. Behind it was a forest, which screamed “pick me, pick me.” My ideal environment. But it was too far away, and I risked losing him on the trek across the open field. The parking lot had lots of places to hide, and that’s where he was now. But the noise, the stink of diesel fuel and the possibility of bystanders would complicate matters. The best choice was also the closest-that thirty-foot-wide storage silo to my right.