Blood Trail

should precede him.

    It wasn't hard to connect the car with the man. The late model, black jeep with the gold trim, the plush interior, the sunroof, and the rust along the bottom of the doors was practically a simulacrum of Mark. The ten-year-old, beige sedan with the recent wax job just as obviously

    - although not as loudly - said Carl.

    Vicki had her hand on the door handle when Mark called, "Hey! I don't even know your first name."

    She turned and the air temperature plummeted around her smile. "I know," she told him, and got into the car.

    The very expensive stereo system surprised her a little.

    "I like to listen to gospel music while I drive," Carl explained, when he saw her looking at enough lights and buttons and switches to fill an airplane cockpit. He stopped the car at the end of the driveway. "Where to?"

    Where to, indeed; she had no idea of the address or even the name of the road. "The, uh, Heerkens sheep farm. Are you familiar with it?"

    "Yes."

    The suppressed emotion in that single word pulled Vicki's brows down. "Is there a problem?"

    His knuckles were white around the steering wheel. "Are you family?"

    "No. Just the friend of a friend. He thought I needed some time out of the city and brought me here for the weekend." Mike Celluci wouldn't have believed the lie for a moment - he'd often said Vicki was the worst liar he'd ever met - but some of the tension went out of Carl's shoulders and he turned the car out onto the dirt road and headed north.

    "I just met them this weekend," she continued matter-of-factly. Experience had taught her that the direct approach worked best with no nonsense people like her host. "Do you know them well?"

    Carl's mouth thinned to a tight white line but after a moment he said, "When I first moved here, ten, eleven years ago now, I tried to get to know them. Tried to be a good neighbor.
    They were not interested."

    "Well, they are pretty insular."

    "Insular!" His bark of laughter held no humor. "I tried to do my duty as a Christian. Did you know, Ms. Nelson that not one of those children have been baptized?"

    Vicki shook her head but before she could say anything, he continued. "I tried to bring that family to God, and do you know what I got for my caring? I was told to get off their property and to stay off if I couldn't leave my God at home."

    You're lucky you didn't get bit, Vicki thought. "I bet that made you pretty mad."

    "God is not something I carry around like a pocketbook, Ms. Nelson," he told her dryly. "He is a part of everything I do. Yes, it made me angry ..."

    Angry enough to kill? she wondered.

    "... but my anger was a righteous anger, and I gave it to the glory of the Lord."

    "And what did the Lord do with it?"

    He half turned toward her and smiled. "He put it to work in His service."

    Now that could mean any number of things. Vicki stared out the window. How do you bring up the subject of werewolves? "Your nephew mentioned that you're a birder. ..."

    "When I can spare time away from the garden."

    "Ever go into the conservation area?"

    "On occasion."

    "I have a cousin who's a birder." She had nothing of the sort; it was a textbook interrogation lie. "He tells me you can see all sorts of fascinating things out in the woods. He says the unusual and bizarre lurk around every corner."

    "Does he? His list must be interesting then."

    "What's the most interesting species you've ever identified?"

    Gray brows drew down. "I had an Arctic tern once. No idea how it got so far south. I prayed for its safe flight home and as I only saw it the once, I like to think my prayers were answered."

    "An Arctic tern?"

    "That," he told her without taking his eyes off the road, "was exactly the reaction of the others I told. I never lie, Ms. Nelson. And I never give anyone a chance to call me a liar twice."

    She felt as though he'd just slapped her on the wrist. "Sorry." Well, that got me exactly nowhere.

    "Looks like good hunting out here," she said casually, peering out the car window, watching trees and fields, and more trees and more fields go by. "Do you hunt?"

    "No." The single syllable held such abhorrence, such strength of emotion, Vicki had to believe it. "Taking the lives of God's creatures is an abomination."

    She squirmed around to face him, wondering how he'd rationalize his diet. "You don't eat meat?"

    "Not since 1954."

    "Oh." His point. "What about your nephew?"

    "In my house he follows my rules. I don't try to run the rest of