“Nothing. I wouldn’t have brought you along if I’d known you’d be hitting on Fred’s daughter.”
“I’m not hitting on her.”
“You’re going to take advantage of her, and I’m not going to let you.”
By this time, their voices were raised so the other residents could hear them, and the hum of conversation halted.
“Ron, calm down.”
But Ron, drunk on the combination of the CLS virus coursing through his veins, alcohol, and the innocent beauty of a young woman, didn’t heed him. He balled his hands into fists.
Somehow they ended up in the kitchen with the psychologist, who had been trying to get Leo’s attention.
Ron’s pupils dilated and contracted, and his breaths came in ragged gasps. “I think he needs to go to the hospital,” murmured the psychologist. “And I think you need to go, too.”
“Why?” Leo’s head spun and spots swam in front of his eyes. He certainly felt like crap. “I’ve only got the flu.”
“I think he’s got something more.” The young man’s intense gaze anchored Leo’s. “I think he has CLS.”
“What?” Leo vaguely remembered something in his pediatrics class, but he couldn’t pull it into conscious thought. He leaned on the kitchen table for support, and the painful spot where the edge bit into his palm became his center of focus.
“Chronic Lycanthropy Syndrome. He’s displaying the classic symptoms. The adult version.”
“CLS?”
“Too fast, too fast,” Ron moaned. At that moment, Lisa walked in. Leo realized he was hyper-aware of her, and he shot a nervous glance at Ron.
“My father wants to know if everything’s okay.”
“I think you’d better go, Lisa.” There was steel in the psychologist’s voice, and she took a step back, her eyes wide.
“Is he okay?” She pointed to Ron, then looked at Leo. “You’re a doctor, too. Can’t you do something for him?”
“Not right now,” Leo said with a sigh. “The best I can do is get him home. Please thank your father for a lovely evening.”
Lisa smiled, and her left cheek dimpled. “I will. Would you like my number?”
“No!” Ron lunged at Leo, who jumped out of the way. Ron missed and tumbled into Lisa, and they ended up on the floor. Ron pressed his lips on hers and mumbled through the kiss, “No, won’t let him take you, won’t let him have you! Mine.”
Lisa screamed.
Before the psychologist and Leo could pull Ron off the girl, her father and the other residents ran into the kitchen. The male residents managed to get Ron into Leo’s car, but it took all four of them plus Leo and two male significant others. By that time, Ron was delirious, ranting about women and the moon and the sweet, hot blood in her kiss. Leo took him to the hospital, where he stayed under observation in the psych ward. The ER doctor took one look at Leo and confined him too, just in case it was something catching. Both cousins were put under respiratory contagion restriction, and all Leo could remember about that week was people in “space suits” coming to check on him.
All Ron could remember was a sense of burning shame as he recalled making a fool of himself in front of his residency director and his beautiful daughter.
I sat there, the wineglass forgotten in my hand, after the cousins told their story and tried to make sense of what it could mean. One of the frustrating things about research is finding data contradictory to your hypotheses.
People weren’t supposed to be diagnosed with CLS as adults.
CLS sufferers weren’t supposed to actually turn into werewolves and go hunting on one’s lawn at night, and they certainly weren’t supposed to sit in one’s den and tell you about horribly embarrassing dinner parties while sipping their beers.
“So you lost your residency position?” I asked.
“Resigned. For medical reasons.”
“And you, Leo?”
“I stuck around for another month, but it was too hard.” His black eyes flashed under heavy brows. “The impulses got to the point where I had a hard time controlling them around patients, especially female patients.”
“So we came up here,” Ron added. “Peter took us in. I got a job in town as a waiter. Leo helps around the house.”
“It’s big enough, and Marguerite’s no housekeeper.”
“No, she’s a French princess.”
“With a cad for a husband,” I added.
Instead of jumping to the defense of their benefactor or agreeing with me, Ron and Leo sat in awkward silence.
“They may agree, but they won’t bite the hand that feeds them,” Gabriel pointed out.
“Better that than living as a servant for pay,” Leo snarled. “Lab rat.”
“Charles wished it.”
Again, my grandfather’s name.
“Do you guys know what happened to him?” I asked.
Ron shook his head, but it was Leo who spoke. “We know as much as the sheriff. I can show you where they found his canoe.”
“Really?” The thought of being out in the woods with no telling what was watching me sent a shiver down my spine, but I didn’t want to show them I was frightened.
“Maybe you’ll see something we missed.”
“You looked?” I pictured the animals circling the canoe, sniffing the blood, and this time, I shuddered.
“He was good to us,” Ron said. “He let us hunt here, and he would have us over for dinner when we were bored with Peter’s domestic drama.”
“But if you’d rather not go, we understand,” Leo broke in. “I can see you’re a city girl.”
“I was running through these woods before Crystal Pines was even dreamt of.” I met his eyes in a challenge. “Take me to the crime scene.”
“Aye, there was a crime,” Gabriel murmured. “There’s just no clue as to what, exactly, it was.”
Leo and Ron led the way down the steep path to the river. Wolfsbane Manor stood at the crest of the hill. On one side, the estate sloped gently toward the subdivision. On the other, the much steeper grade prevented development without major blasting. My grandfather had built a boathouse on the river when I was little, and in it he kept his kayaks and canoe. It kept him from having to haul them down the path, although he was in good-enough shape to do so.
We could have driven the long way around back through town, but Ron and Leo assured me this way would be quicker. As we walked along, I remembered skipping down this path with my grandfather, who never admonished me to hurry up, slow down, or do all those other things the adults in my life lived to fuss at me for doing or not doing. He let me go at my own pace, slower with my little legs, and we would explore the woods together. He had infinite patience with my questions about bugs or leaves or clouds. From what Galbraith had told me, he later enjoyed reading my own answers to the puzzles of what CLS is and where it comes from. At that moment, I felt past and present merge, and it was almost as though I could turn around and see him, his craggy face bent in a smile he only showed to me.
“Never be afraid to ask questions, Joanna,” he told me. “Just realize some of them take more work to answer than others.”
We walked in silence through the dappled sunlight, and I searched for anything that might be familiar. Kids notice all kinds of things: rocks, trees, logs. Everything had changed. And nothing had. Instead of being dumped off
