Keep Her Safe From Me

and frosted windows with a radio mast bolted to the roof. My truck was the only vehicle in the lot. Nina's Jee

iesel, wet wool and the coffee Nina burned every afternoon. Under all of it, faint as a fingerprint on glass, I could smell Clara. Her scen

opped pacing s

he said. She is alo

floor of nurses.

way that matters.

I told him

n my chest, and I stared at the slats of the bunk above me and tried to think about anything else. The roof

his forearm that would not close. He had told the sheriff a dog had bitten him. I had been on the call, and I had seen the wound, and I had known within a breath

later. The hospital c

had drawn it before the end and kept it, and if a lab in Denver ran it aga

nk and put my feet

. Where are

ether Nin

ed up with a pencil and her feet on the desk exactly as I had guessed, and she had a paperback open against her knee. Nina Carver had b

in the hospital," she s

n the ho

osed to stay i

like th

page. "How'

t sti

book and set it on the

He'll keep

and her sharp amber eyes went over me the way they w

ied him

teout after the radio died." She said it flatly. "Tha

nk y

l who's been asking about the animal attacks. She's been asking for months. She filed two reports with the sheriff a

kno

narrowed.

her t

s slowly, as if she were tasting

the marks on the hiker. She asked

did you

know the

r a while, and I could hear the wi

came in that door and I smelled it before I saw your face. It's

the ho

e by a head, and she stopped a foot away and tilted her face up and breathed in, and h

ng hap

n doesn't make mistakes, but she doesn't do this either. Not to a human. Not to a

n't know

my face change, and I saw her see it. "So it's true. Marcus heard a rumor from the hospital and sent

old Ma

in Telluride. He arrived last week. He's been asking the station for its call records and the sher

ive

t me being cruel. If the Council finds out a Ridgeback enforcer has a human mate, they won't a

She's not a thr

Nina's voice was qu

the roof groaned and Ash paced and paced. Somewhere around four in the morning I heard a vehic

had known them since I

e foot of my bunk with his silver hair damp from the snow and h

ctor in this town who needs watching, a

and looked at hi

mountain. I want to know every question and every answer. I want to know who she

n the bunk fram

rather tell me why her sce