with Chief Ellenbogen.” She looked so soulfully up into Drew’s face that Melanie wanted to throw up. No, strangle her. She felt mortified that her employee would come on so obviously to a patient’s owner.
“Of course you could have helped it,” Melanie spat back. “The door was closed. And what you heard through it goes no further.”
“Good luck on that one,” Drew said, casting an almost amused look toward Carla. “I’ll call you later, Doctor, about when I can pick up Grunge.”
“Say hi to Patrick for me,” Carla said with a sweet and beseeching smile. Lt. Patrick Worley? The youthful receptionist apparently had a thing for military men.
“Right,” Drew said, then met Melanie’s gaze. “See you this afternoon.” And then he, too, left.
Melanie stared after him for a long moment, glad somehow for the connection that would bring him back to retrieve his injured dog. But what had he meant?
She turned to her clinic’s receptionist, whom she had inherited, like some of the furniture she might not have chosen, with the practice. “Carla, I know you’ve been here longer than I have. And I want to keep you on. But if you’re—”
“I know. Discretion and patient confidentiality and all that.” The youthful receptionist looked abashed at last. “But, Melanie, the news is already out. It’s on Nolan Smith’s Mary Glen Werewolf Web site.”
“There’s a Mary Glen werewolf Web site?” Shaking her head, Melanie crossed the room and lowered herself into a chair. Obviously Drew was aware of it, and he also knew that Carla knew of it. That had to be what his ironic wish to Melanie—good luck keeping Carla quiet—must have meant.
“Sure.” Carla joined her. Her hazel eyes were glowing with obvious excitement. “Nolan’s an expert. He was two years ahead of me in high school and was a tech whiz even then. He loved researching urban legends and started a Web site about them. And his new Web site specializing in werewolves is turning Mary Glen into a mecca for everyone who’s even a teeny bit interested in shapeshifters. Only a few people hung around in winter when you first moved here—who can blame them?—but now that it’s spring again, the tourists are back. Our motels are getting booked up, and whatever happened last night will keep ‘em that way. Nolan just hinted about it this morning, but by tomorrow he’ll have a lot more details.”
Oh, great. No wonder the rumors of werewolves around here were so rampant—much more than she’d understood when she first considered buying this practice and researched the area.
“That’s why I was a little late this morning,” Carla continued. “I had to check out Nolan’s site. There was a full moon last night, so I knew he’d put something up—and he did. Awesome! And he’s holding a meeting for everyone in Mary Glen who’s interested in the werewolves tomorrow night, at City Hall. I’m heading there right after work. You should come.”
“I don’t know,” Melanie said uneasily. She didn’t want anyone to think she believed in such nonsense.
“But you’re the town vet now,” Carla said. “You should learn all you can. Dr. Worley always used to go to the meetings and talk to everyone, calm them down and warn them not to start shooting at anything they think could be a shapeshifter, silver bullets or not. He treated quite a few animals hurt by the tourists.”
“Until one of them shot him. Unless it was someone local.”
“Do you really think someone from Mary Glen shot Dr. Worley?” Carla’s arched eyebrows, darker than her hair, soared even higher in obvious incredulity. “No way! Everyone loved him.”
Someone obviously didn’t—although the shooting could have been accidental. In any event, the shooter hadn’t been identified yet. Or at least not publicly, even if authorities had a lead.
“So you’ll come?” Carla asked as the door opened and Keeley Janes came in with her basketful of Yorkie puppies.
“We’ll see,” Melanie said. It was only when she became immersed in examining the pups that she realized she hadn’t asked Chief Ellenbogen to double-check the security of her doors. She still felt sure she hadn’t left the front door unlocked. But that was how Drew Connell said he’d gotten in. Why would he lie about it?
And why didn’t she feel more nervous about it than she did?
“It’s started again, damn it, sir,” Major Drew Connell said to General Greg Yarrow, the commanding officer of Ft. Lukman. He stood at attention in the general’s office, holding his salute.
“You waiting for an At ease, Drew?” Greg said with a grin. “You got it.” Because of the nature of their very special ops work here, they tended toward informality among themselves, returning to military protocol mostly when others were around. The general was dressed, like Drew, in his usual on-duty army combat uniform, consisting of pale green and beige camouflage fatigues. “Sit down and tell me about it.”
Drew did as he was told. The general’s office was sumptuous for a military command, especially a base as small and informal as this one, mostly because Greg subsidized it himself. The wooden desk was mahogany, and the U.S. flag behind it hung from a gleaming brass pole. Bookshelves lined the walls, some filled with standard volumes of military regulations and history, and others containing first editions of, arguably, some of the world’s most imaginative fiction: Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and, of course, an original script from the movie The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney, Jr.
He had another office at the Pentagon, which wasn’t far from Maryland’s Eastern Shore but seemed a world away. That office was standard issue and looked like everyone else’s. Drew had been there often, especially before he was selected to head up the Alpha Force here at Ft. Lukman.
“I want to hear first about Grunge and what happened last night,” the general said. He was in his early sixties but his short hair was still coal-black, receding considerably at his temples. His features were solemn, his face long and wrinkled from scowling as much as from advancing age.
“Despite all standard precautions, considering the timing, someone apparently left the gate open, and he got out. Made it quite a distance. I saw him get shot, sir, and couldn’t do a damned thing about it. Not last night. Not with the full moon.”
“I understand.” The general leaned forward, clasping his work-hardened hands on the desk. “What about Captain Truro? Was he observing you, as ordered, while you were vulnerable?”
“Yes, sir. After the shot was fired, Jonas drew his own weapon and went after the source. Unfortunately, the shooter got away. In the meantime, I couldn’t let Grunge stay there. He was wounded. Bleeding. I was able to drag him to where he would receive assistance.”
“While in wolf form yourself?”
Drew nodded. “It was a full moon,” he said again, almost angrily—not at the general, but at himself. For being helpless. “None of the medications that allow shapeshifting at will work during a full moon, on me or on any of the others. Not yet. I’m still working on that, but I’ve had no success, and I’m damned frustrated about—”
“I’m aware of all of that, Drew. I was just about to comment on how difficult that must have been, dragging a being of approximately your own size and shape—how far was
