Blood Trail

wasn't the sex he'd missed. He'd missed conversations and arguments - even considering that most of their conversations became arguments - and just having someone around who'd get the joke. He'd lost his best friend and had barely learned to live with the loss when fate had thrown them together again.

    No one should have to go through that twice.

    But Fitzroy wasn't taking her anywhere.

    Was he?

    "Look, if you think that after last night I'm going meekly back to Toronto, think again. I'm driving you back to the farm. Get in the car."

    Vicki sighed and surrendered. She recognized Celluci's "There's more going on here than meets the eye and I'm going to get to the bottom of it regardless of how you feel" tone, and it was just too hot to keep arguing. Besides, if he didn't drive her, someone would have to come out from the farm to get her and that didn't seem entirely fair.

    And he already knew about the wer, so what harm would it do with Henry safely locked away?
    "So," he started the engine and flipped the air-conditioning on full, "what are the odds your furry friend is going to go for my throat again?"

    "Depends. What are the odds you're going to act like a jackass?"

    He frowned. "Did I?"

    Vicki shook her head. Just when you think he has no redeeming characteristics. ... "Well,"
    she said aloud, "you did challenge Stuart's authority in his own house."

    "I was a little upset, werewolves are a new concept for me. I wasn't myself."

    "You were definitively yourself," Vicki corrected with a smile. "But I think that under normal circumstances Stuart will be able to deal with that."

    They stopped for breakfast at a hotel down the road and Vicki allowed Celluci to pump her about the case while they ate, giving the waitress only one bad moment when Vicki exclaimed, "... and to blow the top of his head off from that distance was one hell of a shot!"
    just as she put the plates down. If Celluci noticed she talked around Henry's involvement, he didn't mention it. She couldn't decide if he was being tactful or deep.

    "You do realize," Celluci said, mashing the last of his hash browns into the leftover yoke on his plate, "that there're two of them out there? One with a shotgun and one with a rifle?"

    She shook her head, setting down her empty coffee mug with just a little too much force. "I don't think so; this has all the earmarks of being a one-person setup. I know, I know," she raised her hand and cut off his protest, "Henry got shot at twice." Henry's injuries had been considerably downplayed over the course of the conversation. "But one man can operate two guns and up until now there's been no evidence of a second player."

    Celluci snorted. "There's been bugger all evidence, period."

    "But the tracks, the tree, the type of shot, all point to a single obsessed personality. I think he," she spread her hands as Celluci's brows went up, "or she, just kept the shotgun handy in case anyone got too close."

    "Like your writer friend." His tone made it perfectly clear what he thought about both Henry and Henry wandering around in the woods playing the great detective.

    "Henry Fitzroy can take care of himself."

    "Oh, obviously." He stood and tossed a twenty down on the table. "That's why he got shot.
    Twice. Still, I'm amazed you let an amateur wander around out there at night, considering the danger."

    "I didn't know about the shotgun," she protested as they left the coffee shop, then wished she could recall the words the moment they left her mouth. "Henry's a grown man," she muttered getting into the car. "I didn't let him do anything."

    "That's a surprise."

    "I'm not going to discuss him with you."

    "Did I say I wanted to?" He pulled out of the parking lot and headed north. "You've gotten yourself involved with a pack of werewolves, Vicki. For the moment, that makes organized crime seem just a little tame."

    "Henry is not involved in organized crime."

    "All right. Fine. It makes whatever he is involved with seem just a little tame."

    Vicki pushed her glasses up her nose and slouched down in the seat. That's all you know, she thought. She recognized the set of Celluci's jaw and knew that although he might be temporarily distracted by the wer, he wasn't going to let his suspicions about Henry drop. Fine.

    Henry can deal with it. In four hundred odd years, this can't be the first time. While she had no intention of getting caught in the cross fire, she would be perfectly willing to bash their heads together