Then Simon Wolfgard and Captain Burke were standing next to the table and Simon was handing her the travel letter and pass for the train fare, along with a letter addressed to Tolya Sanguinati, the leader in Bennett. Simon Wolfgard also said that Officer Debany’s sister, Barbara Ellen, would be her housemate.

Despite her best efforts to maintain her feelings, emotions welled up inside her and leaked out a little.

No comments about women being too emotional to be on the job—except from Wolfgard, but that was a concern about whether watery eyes and a runny nose indicated illness.

Within minutes of being offered congratulations and best wishes, she acquired a Crowgard pen pal and was told by the coffee shop’s manager that a ride was waiting for her in the access way.

Jana hurried toward the back door of the coffee shop, then retraced her steps, wanting to thank Burke and Montgomery one last time for their part in her having a chance to be a deputy. And she wanted to ask where she could find Merri Lee. When she’d come to the Courtyard a few days ago to ask about law enforcement work, Merri Lee had told her about the job fair and which day to return to fill out an application. Jana had promised that if she got a job in Bennett, she would write and let Merri Lee know how she was getting on.

“The job fair is over.” The manager of the coffee shop sounded … different. Almost threatening.

Staying in the back hallway, Jana looked into the main room and stared at the woman’s hair as it changed to red-streaked green and began coiling.

Oh, that couldn’t be good. She’d figured the woman was terra indigene, but the hair changing color and coiling like that made her feel … uneasy. No. It made her feel a little sick—and very afraid.

She withdrew enough not to see or be seen, but, darn it, she was a cop—or about to become one officially. Burke and Montgomery were in the coffee shop and might need backup. Not that there was much she could do since she didn’t have a weapon.

“Didn’t come for a job. Came to see family. Was told there was a place we could stay.” A pause. “Hey, CJ.”

Burke said something in response to the other man, but Burke’s voice was so low Jana couldn’t make out the words. Then she heard Montgomery’s answer. “My brother. Cyrus James Montgomery.”

A car horn honked. Remembering there was someone waiting to take her to the hotel, Jana hurried to the back door and out, waving a hand to let the minivan’s driver know she was coming.

A family drama. None of her business. But …

Cyrus James Montgomery. If she had access to a police database and looked him up, she wondered what she would find.

Messis 8

To: Tolya Sanguinati and Virgil Wolfgard

We are sending doctors, lawyers, a toother, and a vet who is trained to work with large animals like horses and cows. And we found a human female deputy to work with Virgil. She knows how to shoot a gun and fight with her hands. She wants to ride a horse, and she has agreed to live with Barbara Ellen Debany.

These humans will be leaving Lakeside on Firesday. John Wolfgard will also be on the train. He worked with us at Howling Good Reads, so he can run the bookstore and has experience with humans, both as customers and employees.

—Simon and Vlad

Messis 9

To: Tolya Sanguinati, Urgent

The Hope pup drew the attached picture. I don’t know what it means, except that it is a warning meant for you and Virgil.

—Jackson Wolfgard

CHAPTER 11

Thaisday, Messis 9

Abigail made her voice and hands shake a little as she set the plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of Kelley. She’d spent two days pleading with him to look at the house she wanted, and when he finally did go with her, all he’d said was, “If that’s what you want.”

He still loved her—or his memory of her—enough to move into the house. But she’d read the tarot cards last night and they indicated that he wouldn’t be staying very long.

“Do you want me to pack you a lunch?” she asked after fetching him a glass of orange juice.

He watched her, the food on his plate untouched. “Why are you doing this, Abby? Why do we need a house this size?”

They didn’t need a house this size. She didn’t need a house this size. But she did need her friendly neighbor who would unwittingly help her solidify her sweet Abigail persona, regardless of what Kelley might tell people.

“Why are you volunteering to sort through other people’s things? You always claimed you were extrasensitive to the residue other people left on objects, and that was the reason everything we owned, even stuff that was brand-new, had to be washed and set out in the sun before you could stand having it in the house. Books you got out of the Prairie Gold library were ‘aired’ before you could read them. And now you’re going to put in forty hours a week pawing through things owned by strangers who were killed by the terra indigene?”

“It has to be done.”

“A few days ago, you were willing to clean any kind of commercial building in order not to clear out private residences, and suddenly you’re okay with it?” Kelley pushed aside the plate of food. “I can’t tell if you’re lying to yourself as well as to me, but I’m pretty sure you’re lying to me, if not now, then before when you made such a fuss about things.”

“I’ve never lied to you.” Well, he hadn’t caught her in a lie until now.

“Fine. You’re not lying; you’re just being less than truthful. Does that sound better?” His voice had an edge it had never had before. “The point is, I’m not sure I want to live with less than truthful anymore.”

“We were happy in Prairie Gold!” she cried.

“You were.” He pushed away from the table. “I have to get to work.”

“But you haven’t eaten anything!”

He didn’t reply—and he didn’t kiss her before he left the house.

Abigail stared at the eggs and toast a full minute before she sat down, pulled the plate over to her place at the table, and began to eat with a gusto she couldn’t have shown if Kelley were still there.

Fetching the jar of strawberry jam that she’d opened the other day, she slathered jam generously over one piece of toast.

She had used her real name when she and Kelley had married, just in case she needed the marriage to be legitimate, and when she’d realized the name had meant nothing to him, she’d felt staggering relief. He’d seen himself as the hero rescuing the maiden from her abusive father. He would have started questioning things a lot sooner if he’d known her father was the leader of a clan of Intuits who gambled and swindled and conned everyone they met. They would roll into a town, pluck all the prey they could, and then move on before the law got a little too interested in them and their deals. And they always had a feeling about when it was time to move on, just like one or another of them knew who to play for the biggest score.

No one knew they were Intuits, because they had avoided Intuit towns. But anyone who did learn that little secret …

She never found out how her father had arranged the evidence to finger a man addled by drink as the person who killed a deputy in a small West Coast town. The man was a drunk who could barely hold a knife to cut his own dinner and certainly didn’t have the skill to do … what the newspapers said had been done to the deputy. The lawman had died because he was sweet on her—and she’d told him the family’s secret in exchange for his help in escaping from her father’s control.

She had escaped, but two men had died—the deputy and the man accused of killing him. That was typical of how the Blackstones dealt with problems before they moved on. Her father called it taking out the trash.

It was just a matter of time before someone from her family would arrive in Bennett—and then someone else would die. She just had to make sure the someone wasn’t her.

* * *

* * *

Tolya reviewed the e-mails from Lakeside, as he had since the first one arrived on Sunsday. Because there was no longer direct communication between the regions that made up the continent of Thaisia, e-mails and telegrams had to go through Intuit communications cabins that had been set up near the borders. Letters and business correspondence sent by anyone who wasn’t Intuit or terra indigene traveled by train and eventually reached the destination cities and the recipients who lived there. So even “fast” communication between regions could take up to twenty-four hours before being received.

The single exception was the connection between Sweetwater, which was in the Northwest, and Bennett and Prairie Gold, which were in the Midwest. Tolya and Jackson Wolfgard had pleaded with the Elders to allow them to have direct communication with each other because there was a connection between Jesse Walker in Prairie Gold and the blood prophet pup living with Jackson in the terra indigene settlement at Sweetwater.

Jackson and his mate, Grace, had discovered that Hope Wolfsong had the ability to draw the visions that came to her and didn’t need to cut her skin. Drawing didn’t release the visions for most of the girls, but Hope’s ability encouraged other girls’ caretakers to explore different ways that these girls could reveal prophecy without the cutting that would eventually kill them.

Like Meg Corbyn, the blood prophet who lived in the Lakeside Courtyard, Hope Wolfsong was highly gifted, and while those who received the drawings of her visions weren’t always able to interpret the pictures correctly, she and Meg had been instrumental in saving many of the Wolfgard from the slaughter organized by the Humans First and Last movement. The warning hadn’t come in time to save the adults in the Prairie Gold pack, but it had come in time to save the pups as well as the Intuit town.

What all of that meant to him was a picture from Hope Wolfsong couldn’t be ignored.

Tolya still hesitated to download the file. Jackson had called the picture a warning. Vlad had told him unauthorized humans most likely would be arriving in Bennett along with the humans selected during the Lakeside job fair. That meant he and Virgil should be at the station to assess the humans as they arrived—starting today, since they couldn’t be certain that the strangers wouldn’t arrive before the Lakeside migration.

He hesitated a moment longer before downloading the file and printing two copies. Then he studied the picture.

<Virgil?> he called. <Where are you?>

<Kane and I are sniffing around one of the designated territories for human dens,> Virgil replied. <We want to know who is supposed to live there. Then we can drive out intruders.>

<We need to meet the train when it comes in this afternoon.>

<The humans are arriving that fast?> Virgil didn’t sound happy about that.

<Not the ones we’re expecting.>

Silence. <I’ll meet you.>

Tolya almost pitied the humans who might be viewed as intruders. Almost. He understood Virgil’s rage against humans. He just wasn’t sure what he would—or should—do if the Wolf couldn’t contain that rage and started killing the useful humans who wanted to live in Bennett.