“So you want me to go work with you on this other case, now, today?”
She reached out and caught my hands in hers. “I know it’s a lot to ask after all you’ve already done, but I could use the help. Besides, you’re good at this, a lot better than I expected. You’re going to make a great hunter, Jesse.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, three nights and I have more wounds than I received in two tours in Afghanistan.”
“Beginners luck,” Gail said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re alive. Beginners don’t have a good track record with werewolves. Look at me, I’ve been doing this with Dad since I was fifteen and alone for the last two years. Yet, this bastard managed to disarm me and bite me; that’s about as bad as it gets.”
“It doesn’t seem like this should be a single person shooter sort of sport. You need a partner,” I said.
Gail smiled and put her hand on mine.
I enjoyed the feel of her skin on mine, but it was distracting. “Wait a minute. I didn’t necessarily mean me. There must be plenty of other hunters who would team with you.”
“Not as many as you might think. Hunting is not the popular calling you’d think it’d be.”
“Well, hell, I wonder why. You’re risking your life for little or no reward. Wait, is there a reward?” I asked.
“A reward?” Gail coughed the last word. “You’re kidding right?”
“Nothing? Then you do this just for the pleasure of doing right?”
“Mainly,” Gail looked thoughtful. “Although there were a couple of times when Dad took on cases at the behest of others. Then there’s usually a fee involved. Mainly those involved poltergeists or hauntings of one fashion or another. I helped him with a hotel at Glacier National Park the year you left for the Army. They’d had a ghost, a pretty pissed off one, wreaking havoc with their summer season. They offered Dad the job for five grand if he could get the ghost out within forty hours. We finished in twenty.”
“Five grand for a day’s work sounds pretty good, but what do you do for money the rest of the time?”
“I get by.”
I gave her a tilt of my head and waited.
“Okay, Dad used to be good at credit card scams, but I’m not as good. Leonard has helped me out in that department. He’ll set me up a bank account under whatever alias he generates for me and I survive off that when I have to. It’s not as if my lifestyle is expensive. You’ve seen my van, everything I own in this world is in that van, well, mostly anyway.”
I reached the conclusion I knew I would when she first asked. “Okay, I’m not making any promises for the long term, but I’ll work this new problem with you and of course I’ll still track down the werewolf that bit you.”
Gail smiled, and I forgot about all about wounds, black eyes, and tender nose. She leaned closer and kissed me, a kiss filled with promises unspoken. “Okay, since you don’t want to sleep, you pack everything up and put it in the van while I clean up the mess outside.”
I caught her hand as she rose. “The mess outside? You mean the bodies? What were you going to do?”
“Grunt work. I haven’t finished using your ax.”
I made a face. “Have I said ‘Ick’ yet today?”
“No, I think that’s the first time today. You can’t dispose of bodies without getting a little dirt on you.”
“You mean blood, don’t you?” I asked.
Gail shook her head. “Nope, I’ve got that covered.”
Chapter 13 – Old Flame
I awoke from a dream that involved a certain young lady and a large bottle of oil. I started awake, unsure of my circumstances. Then I recognized the interior of Gail’s van and realized the loud roar was the van’s headers. I sat up and felt a sharp pain in the back of my left hand.
A plastic bag dripped blood through the IV into my veins. The bag was empty, more or less, so I pulled the needle from my arm and held a finger over the wound while I looked around. A curtain hung just behind the front seats, the only two seats. In the dim light, I made out the Band-Aid Gail had left for me. I put the Band-Aid across the back of my hand, covering the single drop of blood that welled up.
The van braked, throwing me forward. It hit a bump, and then the ride smoothed out.
I parted the curtains and slid into the passenger seat.
Gail met with me a smile. “Well, did you sleep okay? Feeling better now that your oil level is back up to normal?”
I fastened the seat belt and looked out the windshield. We were on a section of four-lane blacktop. Nice homes were set back from the road on large lots. “I’m feeling pretty good. In fact, other than the chest, the arms, the eyes, and the nose, I’m right as rain.”
Gail chuckled lightly. “Yeah, it’ll probably take a few days for those things to feel any better.”
I raised a hand and pointed toward a gas station at the top of the hill we were starting up. “I could use a pit stop.”
“Sure thing. I could use one myself. Strap it on.”
I cast a puzzled look her way. “Strap what on?”
“Your gun, Hoss. We don’t go anywhere without our accouterments.”
“It’s a gas station, Gail, in broad daylight, what could happen?”
“Would you like to hear about the time Dad pulled into a truck stop outside Grand Junction, just after noon?”
I held up my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, you’re the boss, save the story for later though.” I unfastened my seatbelt and slid back into the rear. My Colt lay beneath the fold-down couch in the in-the-belt holster I’d bought for it. After I slipped on a clean shirt
