I’ll give it some time for word to spread before I bring Lilith and Nero into town. While I wait, I want to talk to a couple of people. I find them just as they’re coming in from patrol.
During a lockdown, I can’t set a bad example by hailing anyone loudly in the streets, so I jog over as Anders and Kendra head to the gun locker, where Kenny and Yolanda wait to take the next patrol shift.
I wait for the shift exchange. Then I ask Kenny and Yolanda to hold on before heading out.
“We had a run-in with Gretchen,” I say. “The wife of our dead man.”
They’re all staff, so they know the details.
“She’s still out there?” Anders says.
“Actually, I was trying to sneak up on you and Kendra when I heard her behind me. I think she might have been following you.”
“Us?” Kendra says. “Where was this?”
I tell her.
“Shit,” Anders says. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“Me neither,” Kendra says. “Lousy guards we are.”
“She was a hundred feet behind and being quiet. Also, I can’t say for sure she was following you and not me. Anyway, she bolted and we had a run-in and a… Well, I’d hesitate to call it a conversation. Apparently, Eric’s a crazy mountain man and I’m his mail-order bride, and we killed her husband.”
“That’s…” Anders trails off. “You aren’t kidding.”
Yolanda snorts. “She saw a bearded white guy and his Asian wife and baby. What else could it be?”
“In her defense, that’s what her husband thought, though he only saw me. She says we made him nervous, and he wanted to get out of here. That’s why they left so early. He went to soak his foot, where he was murdered. Since then, someone has been hunting her.”
“Hunting her?” Kenny says. “So we actually do have a killer out there?”
“Or she’s setting up a story,” Yolanda says. “Help, my husband was murdered by a crazed mountain man, living in the wilderness with his poor mail-order bride.”
“Either way, she bolted,” I say. “We’ve decided to let her run and track her down tomorrow. That means be extra cautiousout there. She doesn’t seem to be armed, but she does wield a wicked tree branch. If you see her, you can try to talk her down, but don’t pursue.”
“And if we do talk her down?” Kenny asks. “You don’t want her back here.”
“If that happens, radio it in. Lilith is letting us use her cabin.”
Kenny nods. “Good idea. Since she’s in town for a while.”
“Lilith’s in town?” Anders says.
“I’ll explain on the way,” I say.
I pick up both Rory and Lilith after that, letting Dalton get in a bit of work. I take Lilith on a tour of town. People gawk, but it’s mostly friendly interest, with a few hellos. Sebastian is walking Raoul, so I take the opportunity to introduce Nero to our own resident wolf—half wolf, at least. Raoul isn’t having any of it. Not only is there another male canine in his town, but he’s hanging out with Storm, which is absolutely unacceptable.
There’s a bit of a row. It’s settled easily enough, because this isn’t Nero’s territory, and he seems to feel no need to get defensive about it. While Raoul barks and growls and snarls, Nero stands calmly beside Lilith as if this dog is clearly upset about something unrelated to him.
The meeting between Lilith and Sebastian goes better. In her wandering, she’s seen the First Settlement—and steers clear of it. I explain that Sebastian spends part of his year there, with his girlfriend, and that gives them something to chat about as we walk… and Raoul sulks.
We round a corner to see someone bearing down on us, cleaver in hand.
“What are you doing to my dog?” Mathias says. “I thought we were on lockdown, and you have him barking…” He trails off as he sees Nero. Then he sees Lilith.
His gaze goes to me and he says, in French, “This is not your stranger with the dead husband.”
“I hope not,” Lilith replies in perfect French. “Since I don’t have a husband. Though, if I did, Imightkill him, so…” She shrugs.
