The muscles in Ammon’s jaw tightened.“I’m doing the best I can.”
“Fuck off with that noise.”
“Jem, I’m trying really hard here because I need your help.”
“I could have killed you, just so you know.Tonight.Earlier.But I didn’t.”
“God, you fucking psycho,” Ammon muttered, and he huddled deeper into his coat.“Never mind.”
“Quit being such a drama queen.What happened at the house?”
Ammon blew out a streamer of white breath.Finally, he said, “One of the volunteers called me.A little more than a week ago.Daniel was freaking out—he’d locked himself in the bathroom; he was sobbing.They were afraid he was trying to hurt himself.When I finally got him calmed down, he told me he’d seen one of the wolves.That’s how he said it, one of the wolves.”
The hum of the highway filled the silence.
“I wasn’t sure what he really saw, but he wouldn’t go back unless I promised to wait in the car while he was inside.We had an appointment with his therapist for the next week.I was going to ask if this was normal.”He stopped.The muscles in his jaw tightened again.“Like a flashback.”
“But it wasn’t a flashback.”
“The next time Daniel went to Rainbow House, I sat on the street.This piece-of-shit Ford drove around the block twice.You don’t know how it is, but if you do the job long enough, sometimes you—sometimes you just know something’s wrong.It’s hard to explain—”
“I know,” Jem said.
Ammon considered him.“Maybe you do.After the second time, it didn’t come back, but I couldn’t shake the feeling.I got out of the car and decided to walk around the house, just to see.It’s on a main street, so it wasn’t necessarily weird that somebody might drive by it twice, but…”
“But you knew it felt fucked up.”
Ammon hesitated.Then he nodded.“I was coming around the house when I saw him—the guy with the scar.He was trying one of the windows to see if he could get it open.”Ammon’s face twisted.“I said, ‘Stop!Police!’And he ran.”
“Fuck.”
The detective ran the backs of his knuckles along his cheek, and the stubble there made a soft rasping sound.When he spoke, it was almost like he was talking to himself.“I shouldn’t have said anything.I should have walked over there and kicked the back of his head in.”He stirred.His gaze refocused.“I called it in, but the truck didn’t have plates, so all the officers could do was come over and look around and tell me it was probably a crime of opportunity, nothing to worry about, they’d have patrol swing by for the next few days.”He shook his head.Then he spat.
“Big help.”
Ammon didn’t take the bait.“I didn’t say anything to Daniel because I didn’t want to freak him out, but as soon as he got in the car, he asked me if I’d seen the woman.I asked him what woman, and he said the one who’d been watching from across the street.”
“You did a bang-up job on that surveillance, didn’t you?”
“Fuck you.I had my hands full.”Ammon took a breath.“White.Blond.To somebody Daniel’s age, everybody is old, but he thought maybe she was his mom’s age.In her forties.”
“I don’t know,” Jem said.“There was a woman in that group, and she might have been the right age, but she wasn’t blond.”
“It’s not hard to change your hair color,” Ammon said.
Jem shrugged, but he said, “He saw her car?”
“He said she was in a green SUV.Like I said, it was dark.”
One moment turned into another.Security lights buzzed overhead.
“So, what do you want?”Jem asked.
“I wanted to know if you recognized those descriptions.”
“All right.”
The buzz of the security lights seemed louder.
