Peggy sat propped up in bed reading when Barbara came into the bedroom carrying two cups of chamomile-lavender tea. A week had passed, and mid-August nights were growing chilly. It was nice sleeping with the windows open again, drifting off to the lulling of crickets and hooting of owls instead of the mechanical droning of the air conditioner.
“Is Riley driving with us to the powwow?”
Peggy yawned. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. What?”
“Riley. Is she riding with us tomorrow?”
“She’s picking us up at eleven. Have you heard from Tom?”
Barbara handed her a cup. “We just got off the phone. He’s meeting us there at noon.”
Peggy sat up, holding her tea in two hands, and took a sip. “Mm, thanks, sweetheart,” she said, setting the cup on her night table and flopping back onto the pillow just as the high-pitched yipping of coyotes sounded in the distance. They were especially vocal toward the end of summer.
Barbara laughed. “Is that our girl galivanting around at this hour?” Sometimes she and Peg would lie in bed and get the giggles, imagining Riley was leading the canine chorus, even though they knew it was a different pack.
“If it is,” Peggy said, “she’s doing more howling than speaking these days. I’m getting worried. She hasn’t mentioned a word about Fiona all week. All she talks about is how well Luna is adjusting and showing us pictures on her phone.”
Barbara hadn’t seen Riley since they watched Edy last weekend, but she knew Riley had finally broken down and taken the kitten home the other day. “So things are actually working out between the cat and the coyotes?”
“So far so good. It’s been five days, and they haven’t devoured her yet.” Peggy looked over at her getting into bed. I imagine Luna saying to Widget, ‘Oh, Grandma, what big teeth you have!’”
Barbara waggled her eyebrows as she crawled across to Peg’s side of the bed and peered down at her. “All the better to eat you with, my dear.”
Peggy laughed. “I didn’t know I was on the menu tonight.”
“You’re always on the menu.”
“Then I suggest you skip the appetizer and get right down to the entrée before I fall asleep.”
“Trust me, you don’t want to fall asleep and miss out on this,” Barbara said, pulling the covers down and moving between her legs. The soft lamplight caught in Peg’s green eyes. They were half-closed, looking very sexy, and her auburn hair spilled over the pillow. How Peg managed to stay so beautiful she didn’t know. Suddenly wanting her, Barbara took charge, hooking her arms around Peg’s knees and pulling her forward.
“Ow-ow!” Peggy groaned and laughed at the same time.
“Sorry.” Barbara frowned. “Your lower back again?” Before taking showers and making dinner they’d spent two hours doing yard work, Peggy weeding the flower beds and vegetable garden while Barbara mowed the lawn.
“Just a little stiff.”
“I’m almost out of sympathy.” Barbara looked at her sternly. “How many times do I have to tell you not to stand and pull weeds? I bought you a portable stool to sit on so you wouldn’t have to bend over. And where is it?”
“In the garage…” Peggy made a pouty face. “I forgot. I promise to use it next time. It’s my own fault,” she said, letting out a little grunt of pain as she straightened her hips. “I should be spanked.”
“You should be spanked.” Barbara grinned and gave the side of her butt a playful slap before climbing out of bed and going to the medicine cabinet. “But because I’m a nice pharmacist, I’ll get you some ibuprofen instead.” Barbara shook out two pills from a bottle and took them over to her.
Peggy swallowed the pills with her tea, then lay back down and smiled. “Thanks, Doc.”
Barbara reached for one of the extra bed pillows. “Looks like my entrée needs some lumbar support. Lift yourself up so I can seat you on a throne.”
“How kind of you, mistress.” She raised her hips so Barbara could slide a pillow underneath her ass.
“Better?”
“Mm…much better.”
“Better for my neck, too,” Barbara said, rolling her head in a circle like she was warming up to exercise.
Peggy giggled. “Are we getting too old to be this horny?”
“It’s your fault. I wouldn’t be this horny if you weren’t so fucking hot.”
Peggy looked up at her seductively, taking her breasts in both hands and rubbing them until her nipples were hard. Barbara leaned down, kissing her, then slid beneath the covers, careful not to wake the dogs. Keeping them locked out of the room during sex was a lost battle. All they did was whine and cry and scratch at the door. With little dogs and a large bed, it was easier to eliminate the distraction and just let them curl up on the far side of the bed.
But then there came another distraction. A loud humming. Barbara stopped trailing her lips along Peg’s inner thigh and listened. “Do you hear that sound?”
“I do.”
Barbara raised herself up. It sounded like it was right outside the house, the rough idle of an engine.
“It’s probably Jake next door.”
Jake was their neighbor’s son. He had a Mustang. “If it’s him, he’s seriously modified his exhaust system…and he’s parked in our driveway.” Barbara climbed out of bed. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back,” she said and ran downstairs.
Enough moonlight was coming in that she didn’t have to turn on the lights. She made her way through the shadowed living room, scaring herself when she stepped on a rubber squeak-toy. She gave it a good kick with her toes and crept across to the black-and-white curtains in the bay window, parting them just enough to see out. A car was there. Not in the driveway, but in the road, smack in front of their driveway, waiting to get someone’s attention. As soon as the curtains moved, the engine revved as though inviting a race.
“What the—?” She strained her eyes, trying to make out the car. It might have been black or blue. It was too dark to tell. The only thing that stood out was the driver’s side door. It was much lighter, like it had been taken from another car; either that, or it had been primed for a paint job. Barbara hurried to the hall closet, taking out the baseball bat she kept in there, then flipped the floodlight switch on the wall to trip the sensor. But as she opened the door to have a good look in the light, the engine began revving again—once, twice, three times. Whoever it was had one foot on the brake now, the other pressed on the gas pedal. The tires squealed and the car peeled off then, leaving the faint smell of burning rubber on the breeze. A couple of dogs barked somewhere in the distance.
“Fucking coward!” Barbara grumbled. The stairs squeaked behind her, and she turned around to see Peg coming down, tying the sash of her robe.
“I heard that,” she said. “Probably just some kids horsing around.”
“Maybe,” Barbara said, but she didn’t for one minute think it was a random act. There was something deliberate about it all, like someone was delivering a clear message. She felt it in her gut. And she could tell by the look on Peggy’s face that the same thought had crossed her mind.
Peggy made a face at the bat hanging loosely at her side. “Put that thing away and come back to bed. Whoever it was is gone,” she said and went back upstairs.
Barbara didn’t press the issue. She didn’t want to spoil the amorous mood, but when she got upstairs, she realized it had been spoiled. She’d lost her mojo and was preoccupied now. “I know you’re tired, baby. How about if I rub your back instead?”
“That would be nice,” Peggy murmured, taking the pillow that was meant to be her throne and tucking it underneath her chest as she turned onto her stomach.
Barbara went to the bathroom for a tube of gel, then came back and straddled Peg’s thighs, her thoughts wandering as she began to massage Peggy’s hips and back. She wasn’t sure why, but if she had to name a primary suspect, it was Jim Barrett. That he’d even have the audacity to drive by their house—to what, scare and bully them?—made her temper flare again. Peggy’s soft moans turned into a sudden grunt of displeasure. “Ouch! Easy, cowboy. You’re not on a bull at the rodeo.”
“Sorry, baby,” Barbara said, lightening her touch. She could feel a spasm, a hard knot along the muscle in Peg’s lower back, and focused on gently working it out. But the revving engine and squealing tires kept replaying in her head.
“Stop thinking about it,” Peggy said.
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Barbara laughed under her breath. Peggy knew her too well. Having your mind read was the one drawback of living with someone too long. But she couldn’t help it. The thought of someone threatening her loved ones—of thinking they could be bullied and frightened into submission—did not sit well with her. Whoever was behind the wheel seemed to either be making a statement or sending a warning. It didn’t take long for Peg to fall asleep, and when she did, Barbara shut off the light and lay on her back, perseverating over the intrusion and trying to figure out what the whole thing meant.
* * *
Riley woke up to the sound of purring and Luna’s fur tickling her face. Since having Fiona in here last weekend, if only for a few hours, both the bed and her heart felt painfully empty. And with all her littermates adopted it seemed that Luna, too, was feeling terribly lonesome in her cage. As much as Riley wanted to allow the coyotes in her bed, she kept the room off-limits to avoid a daily change of linens. The last time she’d let them sleep in here, she’d woken up to find dirty paw prints and all manner of forest debris dragged in on their coats and deposited in her sheets. Cats were cleaner.
“I’ve got to get you and those lazy bums downstairs fed,” she said. It was amazing how fast the hunting instinct diminished when food was readily available. Why bother chasing down mice, frogs, and bugs when you could hold out for kibble, chicken, and peanut-butter sandwiches? As long as the coyotes resisted a kitten sandwich, things were good. Her biggest concern about bringing Luna home was the pack mistaking her for a snack. To avert a tragedy, Riley had run in fur that first night, and when she came home, she’d rubbed the kitten all over her bare chest to mark it with her own scent. Then she invited the pack upstairs.
“Mine! Riley’s puppy,” she said in a clear, confident voice. They knew the word puppy. She saw no point in teaching them a new one. This wasn’t the time for a vocabulary lesson. Settling any confusion was paramount. She held Luna to her face, pretending to lick and clean the kitten in exaggerated displays of maternal affection.
Widget, being a mom herself, seemed to understand right way that Riley had given birth. She kept a respectful distance, craning her neck to get a better whiff. Little Midget wagged her tail at the thought of having another playmate. Fidget, the big sister and nanny in the group, assumed a proud stance, as if to advertise her exceptional caretaking capabilities, should Riley require them. And big-daddy Gadget, fixedly observing the tiny addition to the family, seemed perplexed. Animals were quick to smell hormonal changes in expectant females, and he seemed surprised that he’d missed the olfactory signs of Riley’s pregnancy. He looked away, then glanced bashfully at her as if to say, Gee, Riley, I don’t know how I missed that, but congratulations!
Riley had placed Luna on the floor at that point, showing her teeth and growling her demand for spatial boundaries. They obeyed, politely backing up, and she distracted them from any further speculations by giving them hamburgers, which they heartily consumed in celebration of the new odd-looking pack member.
Riley stretched and looked at the clock on the nightstand. Luna mewed and kneaded her chest through the cotton blanket. “I like that you knead me. I need you, too. But I have to pick up your Aunt Peg and Aunt Barb in an hour. We’re going to the powwow,” she said, rubbing Luna’s velvety nose with a fingertip.
Most years, attending the powwow was just something fun to do. This time she felt more of a connection, as though she were off to a family reunion to meet long-lost relatives. She’d stayed up late last night, researching American Indians on the internet while new-age music played in the background. Making sense of her origins was a daunting affair. There were nations, so many tribes, bands, clans. She settled on the Algonquin Indians of the northeast, the Wampanoag tribe of New England, to be exact. The Wampanoags had greeted the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock in Cape Cod and generously supplied the cornucopia of food for that first Thanksgiving. Of course, relations had apparently soured after dinner. Instead of dessert, the white man brought disease. Between epidemics and greed, it was a wonder the Wampanoags survived to this day on Martha’s Vineyard. But that made them coastal, a long way from the Berkshires. The Mohicans, or the Mahicans, part of the Hudson River Indians, seemed a more likely prospect. They’d settled in nearby Stockbridge, the next town over.
Just because Riley was born in Massachusetts didn’t mean her parents had been, though. The reverend had joked about them being thru-hikers on the Appalachian Trail, but who could say they weren’t? Maybe they’d been drifters—a hippie-type twosome, rejecting the establishment and refusing to conform to societal norms. Or maybe her mother had been a teenager—a college freshman away from home, say—who’d met a loser-type guy in some far-off state. He might have promised her the world, then took off when she became pregnant. Out of shame or fear, she might have hidden her pregnancy until it was time to wander into the woods and deposit her dirty secret. That’s how Riley had always felt—that she’d been deposited instead of born. And sometimes it happened that way. How many accounts existed of young girls, desperate and destitute, giving birth in a gas-station bathroom and leaving a baby behind. The world was full of heartbreaking stories like that. She was one of them.
Thinking about it sent her mood into a downward spiral, and she quickly shifted her focus. More uplifting than her undetermined origins were the mystical aspects of Native American culture and religion—power animals, vision quests, spiritual journeys. She found tales about the trickster coyotes of Native American folklore, legends of skinwalkers, and the shamans reputed to have shape-shifted into their spirit animals.
It was well past midnight when she shut down the computer and turned off the music, but when the room grew quiet, she heard the chugging of a car engine outside. Not the whooshing of a passing car, but one that was idling. From the sound of things, it needed a new muffler. Riley moved to the doors, looking out past the deck, and through the dense line of trees, she saw the headlights of a car creeping along her property. Then she spotted the red glow of brake lights as the car stopped, slowly backed up, and moved forward again, like someone looking for an address. A moment later it drove on, backfiring as it continued down the road. Probably some idiot trying to find his way home and too drunk to remember where he lived.
Riley dragged herself out of bed and gobbled down a banana with her morning coffee while she fed everyone, then quickly showered and dressed and managed to pick up the girls on time. Ten minutes later they were on their way to the powwow on Mount Greylock—a fitting destination considering the day was just as gray. It was overcast, expected to rain by evening.
Tom was standing at the entrance with a long face when they arrived and had already paid for them. “My treat,” he said, handing them each a schedule and rubber admissions bracelet.
“Thanks, Tom,” they said at once.
“Don’t mention it. And whatever you do, don’t mention him.”
“Him who?” Peggy asked.
“The Reverend Cortez. I got here early and walked around a little. He’s in there, getting his stupid face painted with a bunch of kids from Sunday school.”
“The Reverend Cortez?” Barbara rolled her eyes. “That’s a little formal, isn’t it, considering it was oh, David last week. What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I thought I’d made a breakthrough last Friday, after taking the kittens there and then all of us having dinner together. I expected him to say something when I dropped him off.”
“Like what?”
“Like, it was great spending time outside of church. Or, let’s get together again soon. Or, come in and have sex with me.” All he wanted to do on the way back was talk about Riley.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. He wanted to know when your birthday was. He said it must be a bittersweet time for you, given your ‘rough start in life,’ and said he’d like to prepare a special sermon—if Barb, Peg, and I could manage to drag you to church.”
“Aww…that’s nice of him.” Peggy smiled at Riley. “I could tell your story deeply affected him. He’s such a thoughtful, sensitive man.”
Tom sucked his teeth. “His dick is sensitive. I don’t know about the rest of him.”
Barbara’s eyes bulged at her brother. “Thomas Monti!”
“Well, it’s true. He knows I’m interested, but he’d rather hook up with strangers.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know,” Peggy said as they made their way through the thin crowd. “Maybe he’s afraid you’d reject him. That would make for awkward Sunday services.”
“Trust me, he knows. We aren’t like lesbians. You women miss signals, second-guess each other. Someone could be blatantly hitting on you, and you’re like, ‘I can’t tell if she likes me,’ he said in the high voice of an exasperated female, waving his hands in imitation. All men have to do is look at each other to know their intentions.”
“And?” Riley said. “Does he have intentions?”
“I thought so, but by Sunday he was back in minister mode, greeting me like he does everyone else. So that would be a big NO, Wiley Riley.”
The general mood was as gloomy as the day. Tom was pouting, Peggy seemed unusually pensive, Barbara was grumpy like she hadn’t slept well, and Riley was lovesick—worried sick about Fiona and Edy. She hadn’t heard from her all week and wouldn’t chance calling for fear Jim might check his wife’s phone. She had planned to sneak out of the office, meet her in the parking lot after her session with Peggy. But Fiona had canceled her appointment—something to do with an upset stomach.
The mystical music of a Native Indian flute floated in the air as they walked and talked, perusing vendors along the way. Some offered Native American food. Others were selling moccasins, clothing, and blankets; pottery and pipes; handmade dreamcatchers and totem animals carved from stone. And then someone shouted her name.
In between passing people, the reverend flagged her with a waving arm. “Riley! Over here.” He was wearing a man-bun, and with his dark skin and painted face he could have passed for an American Indian.
“You go,” Tom said. “I am not in the mood to engage him. I’ll meet you guys by the arena. The Grand Entry is in fifteen minutes.”
Riley looked at the flyer in her hand. The Grand Entry. According to the schedule, the eagle staff would be carried into the arena, followed by the raising of flags, and then the dancing would commence—always in a counter-clockwise circle to follow the movement of the sun from east to west, it said. She folded and tucked it in her back pocket.
“Okay. We’ll meet you over there,” Barbara said. “I’ll call if we can’t find you.”
The reverend, who seemed especially animated today, stood to hug them as they approached. Three heavy stripes of color adorned each cheek: lines of black, green, and purple. He wore a khaki shirt, unbuttoned halfway to show off a beaded necklace, from which dangled some sort of formidable-looking fang—a bear or wolf tooth maybe—and strung through the loops of his faded jeans was a leather concho belt, the buckle and silver ovals embellished with turquoise and other gemstones.
Peggy flashed her famous bright smile. “Well! I don’t know whether to call you reverend or tribal chief.”
“Warrior!” He pounded a fist against his chest and laughed. “Come on and get painted. It’s not just for kids.”
Barbara and Peggy politely declined, but Riley was game. After all, a powwow was a gathering of kin, the annual renewal and preservation of their rich heritage. Her heritage in part, even if that part hadn’t manifested in her physical features.
There on an easel stood a poster board with swatches of color and their meaning, but as soon as Riley tried to study the list, David blocked it with his body. “Pick your colors intuitively,” he said. “Which ones do you feel?”
She looked at the stripes on his face. “Black and green, like you, but maybe yellow instead of purple.”
David rubbed his hands together. “That’s a potent color cocktail.” The indigenous women doing the painting nodded in agreement. He stepped aside and pointed to the descriptions. “Purple, which you didn’t pick, symbolizes the power of mystery and magic. Red is faith and happiness, or blood and violence when used as war paint. Black symbolizes fearless aggression and victory, and yellow stands for intelligence, determination…a willingness to fight to the death.”
“That’s me in a nutshell.” She hoped those colors would stand true, if and when the time came for battle. Peg and Barb watched in amusement as one of the native women painted her face. The rhythmic pounding of log drums rose, signifying the earth’s heartbeat, the spirit of life. Then came the softer sound of water drums—what the white man named tom-toms, after a popular British child’s toy, from what she’d read last night.
“It’s starting.” David glanced around. “Where’d Tom go?” he asked, but before they could answer, someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he motioned for them to leave. “Go on. Don’t miss it. I’ll catch up.”
Riley followed Peggy and Barbara, heading toward the arena, until she passed a jewelry case on a vendor table, and a sterling-silver turtle pin caught her eye. It was about an inch around, inlaid with triangular pieces of turquoise and black onyx. Two rows down in the case she spotted a howling coyote in the same design.
Riley caught the vendor’s eye and smiled. “I’ll take the turtle and the coyote—as fast as you can,” she said, and a minute later she was exchanging a credit card for two tiny black pouches, which she flattened and slipped into the top pocket of her denim shirt.
She hurried through the growing crowd then, toward the sound of drums, wondering why so many strangers were acknowledging her with friendly smiles. It wasn’t until some jerk chomping on corn on the cob said HOW! that she realized it was her war paint drawing attention. It’s not just for kids, David had said, but from the look of things, she and the reverend were the only non-indigenous adults with decorated faces. The reverend might have passed for a Native American man, but with her summer-blond hair and golden eyes, she probably looked like a ridiculous white person.
“I feel like an asshole,” she said to Barbara when she caught up to them at the edge of the sacred circle. “Am I the only grown-up with face paint?”
She grinned, put an arm around Riley, and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I believe so…which makes you the absolute cutest grown-up here.”
Peggy was looking down, typing on her phone. “I just got a text from Miriam. She’s on her way to the office to meet Scott Quigley. The sink’s clogged. First the leak, and then this.”
“I didn’t think he worked on Saturdays.”
“He doesn’t, but he got stuck on a job yesterday and felt bad. He called Miriam after you left yesterday and offered to come today if someone could be there to let him in.”
“Ah, one of the perks of having a plumber who has an eye for our office manager,” Riley said.
“Poor Scott.” Peggy put her phone away. “He has such a huge crush on Miriam, and she makes it so hard for him, pretending not to notice.”
The dancers were in the sacred circle of the arena now, and over the sound of drums, rattles, and leather jingle dresses, a hawk screeched. Riley heard the hoarse kee-arr of its voice and lifted her head to the sky, watching it soar as it rode the warm thermals in the atmosphere, its broad wings turning predatory circles above the open field.
Another screech came from behind, the high-pitched voice of a surprised and happy child calling out to Peggy. The three of them turned to see Edy a few yards away, walking beside a man. Jim Barrett. Riley recognized him right away.
“Hi, Dr. Spencer!” Edy rushed ahead of her father. Her face was painted red and white, but somehow the red stripe across her cheek made her crystal blue eyes appear bloodshot. Unless she’d been crying earlier. “My mom’s in the bathroom,” she said in a hushed voice, staring at Peggy but apparently intending the message for Riley.
And here came Jim with his slim and still-boyish figure, strutting over with a phony smile that was more cocky than charming. He swiped his fingers across his forehead, pushing away the overgrown sandy hair from his eyes. They were either hazel or light brown, devoid of any emotion except maybe a glint of arrogance and calculating suspicion. “So this is Dr. Spencer. I’ve been hoping we’d meet. My wife says wonderful things about you.”
He was full of shit. Riley glanced at Peggy, who didn’t miss a beat. She gave his hand a quick shake, but as she pulled away, he squeezed a little harder, keeping her in his grip and exerting just enough pressure to let her know who was in charge. Then he let go. “Are you enjoying the powwow with your…what, friends? colleagues?” He glanced at Barbara and then at Riley’s painted face with a sneer that made her feel self-conscious. He was waiting for introductions, fishing for information, but Riley wasn’t about to give him any. Neither was Barbara. And Edy, sensing this, broke the silence. “I like your face paint, miss,” she said to Riley.
Miss. Smart kid. Riley laughed and touched her fingers to her cheeks. “Gee, thanks. I forgot I was wearing it. I like yours, too.” She felt Jim staring at her and couldn’t look him in the eye without wanting to tear his throat out. The hawk screeched again, and Riley looked up, closing her eyes for a second and seeing only red behind her eyelids. “It’s on,” she heard herself whisper, although she hadn’t meant to say the words aloud.
Jim tilted his head and leaned toward Riley in what felt like a threatening gesture. “What was that?” he said, as though wanting to make sure he’d heard her correctly.
“I said come on. The guys are waiting for us,” she told Peg and Barb, thinking it might be good to let him know they were here with men, possibly their husbands, for all Jim knew. “I’ll tell them you’re coming.”
Riley turned abruptly, disappearing into the crowd, and as soon as she was out of sight, she raced to find the restrooms. It was the only place Jim couldn’t catch them together. She got there just in time to see Fiona walking out. She wasn’t sporting her usual ponytail. Her hair was down, and she had on big sunglasses and a long-sleeve shirt. Whether it was the face paint or that she wasn’t paying attention, Fiona blew by her.
“Hey!” With an outstretched arm, Riley caught Fiona’s waist as she passed and spun her around in the other direction.
Fiona froze like a stunned rabbit. “Riley!”
“Go back in,” she said, stepping behind Fiona and ushering her into the bathroom. “We have a few minutes. Your husband’s talking with Peggy.”
One woman was washing her hands, two coming out of the stalls. Riley quickly steered her down the aisle to the last stall, but when she grasped Fiona’s upper arm to pull her in, Fiona flinched, and Riley realized she had hurt her.
“What’s wrong with your arm? And why are you wearing sunglasses?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “No one has glasses on today. It’s getting ready to rain.” Riley locked the stall door, gently pushing Fiona up against the wall. One look at the side of Fiona’s face and her questions were answered. The cheek bone just below her eye was tinted a yellowish green—the color of a healing bruise.
“Let me see your eye,” Riley said, attempting to remove her sunglasses.
Fiona turned her head away. “Don’t.”
“Fiona?” She took her chin firmly between her fingers, making Fiona look at her. “When did he do this to you?”
“Monday. When he got home. He put a tracking device on my phone. I don’t know how or when, but he knew I’d been somewhere on Tyringham Road.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I’d met someone by the lake who lives on that road and was invited to help myself to peaches. I thought he’d believe me because I’d baked an extra pie for the house. He seemed okay with that, but later, when I was getting ready for bed, he…” Fiona’s bottom lip began to tremble. “He came up behind me…slapped a piece of duct tape on my mouth so Edy wouldn’t hear me and wake up and…beat the crap out of…” Fiona covered her mouth and heaved a sob.
Riley couldn’t bear hearing any more. Her pressure shot up, her pulse thrumming in her ears like the beating of the drums coming from outside. She rested her hands on the wall, on either side of Fiona, angrily chewing the corner of her mouth and wishing it was Jim’s flesh between her teeth. She wanted to strip naked, let the change come, right there in the ladies’ room. She imagined chasing him down, dragging him by the throat straight into the sacred circle of dancers, where she’d tear him to pieces to the beat of the tom-toms while the indigenous people bowed in worship of the coyote shape-shifter—the skinwalker of ancient legend. The white men might not hold her in reverence, though. They’d call animal control to come fetch her with a catchpole. “Do you need to see a doctor?”
Fiona shook her head, barely able to speak. She was sniffling now, wiping at the tears rolling down past her sunglasses.
Riley unrolled a wad of toilet paper and handed it to her. “He needs to be arrested.”
“Please, Riley, don’t do this to me. You’ll make things worse. You still don’t get it. No one does. He’ll kill me. He wanted to kill me. I gotta go,” she said, trying to duck under Riley’s arm and slide open the lock on the stall door.
“Just wait a second. Listen to me.”
“I can’t,” Fiona said, starting to panic. “He’ll come in here looking for me. If he catches us together he’ll—”
“Okay, okay.” Riley took her by the shoulders and shook her. “Just listen to me. This is important. September’s coming,” she said. “You said he’s getting ready for trapping season. I need for you to watch what he’s doing…where in the woods he goes…where he’s putting cameras.”
“He put one outside the house. After the day you broke the window.”
“I’m talking about trail cameras. He’ll be mounting at least one to monitor animal activity. I need to know exactly where he’s going.”
“I can’t follow him, Riley. And I don’t know the land around here that well yet.”
“Just tell me what direction he goes from your house.”
“Riley, don’t do anything stupid. My life is already ruined. Don’t ruin yours.”
“If anyone does something stupid, it’s going to be him.”
The outside door opened just then, and Riley heard the sound of familiar voices whispering her name. “Riley?” Peggy called. “Are you in here?”
“Yeah,” she answered, and then to Fiona she said, “Go. Just sit tight. Do whatever you have to do to keep the peace. And keep me posted.”
“I can’t call you. I’m too afraid.”
“Don’t. I’ll catch up with you at the office. In the parking lot. Before or after your sessions. If anything, leave a note on my windshield,” she said, moving back so Fiona could get the stall door open.
Peggy and Barbara were there, pointing to the outside door and motioning for Fiona to hurry up. “Go on out,” Peggy said to her. “He’s headed this way to find you.”
Fiona nodded, nervously wetting a paper towel in the sink to blot her face and wipe her nose, and quickly left. Barbara put a hand on Riley’s chest. “You stay right here with us until the coast is clear.”
Two women with kids came in then, and Riley went to the sink while Peggy and Barbara used the bathroom. She tried washing the paint off her face but only managed to smudge it.
Peggy looked at Riley in the mirror when she came out of the stall and just shook her head. “Tom’s holding us a picnic table over by the food. Let’s get something to eat,” she said and gave her a pointed stare. “And we need to talk. I just got another call from Miriam.”
Riley nodded. She didn’t care if the pipes in the office had burst.
Barbara went out first to make sure the Barretts were gone, but as they started to walk Peggy came to a halt. “Jesus, Riley. Look at your legs.”
She glanced down to see a layer of golden fur glistening on her shins. Now it was Riley’s turn to panic. “Oh, no…I gotta get out of here. Fast.”
“No, you don’t,” Barbara said. “Calm down and get a grip. Learn to control it like you have for the past twenty years. Think pretty thoughts.”
Easy for them to say. They didn’t know that Jim had beaten the shit out of Fiona. And she wasn’t about to let Peggy know for fear she’d sneak off and call the caseworker, get the police involved. If Fiona ended up dead, she’d never forgive herself. Riley looked down at her legs again. “I can’t let people see me like this.”
“It’s not that bad yet. With your face full of paint, no one’s looking at your legs. If they do, they’ll just think you’re a hairy lesbian.” Barbara hooked her arm around Riley’s and pointed to a gravel path that led into the woods. “Come on. Let’s walk it off.” She gestured at Peggy. “Go meet Tom. Get us all some lunch. We’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”
Peggy raised a cautious eyebrow, reluctantly nodding. “All right, but call my cell if things get worse and we need to get her into the car.”
Riley seethed as they walked along the wooded path. “I want to kill that fucker so badly.”
“So do I.”
Riley glanced at her sideways as they walked. “How would you do it?”
“Me?” Barbara laughed. “I’m a pharmacist. I’d poison him.”
“With what?”
“Hmm…hypothetically speaking? Strictly hypothetically?”
“Of course, hypothetically,” Riley said, although she was open to suggestions.
“Gee, let’s see…” Barbara pondered the question as they walked. “I think I’d go with thallium.”
“Valium?”
“Thallium. It used to be a popular rat poison. Tasteless, odorless, nearly impossible to detect unless you’re really looking for it. Victims fail to thrive and painfully waste away. They lose their hair, though. That would be a giveaway, but only if a doctor knew what to look for.”
“Is there an antidote?”
“There is, actually. Prussian blue. It’s used as a pigment in paint, in miniscule amounts. That’s how Van Gogh got the blue he was known for. But Prussian blue is extremely hard to come by. It happens also to be the antidote for radiation poisoning, so the government keeps it under lock and key.” Barbara shot her a sideways glance. “Don’t get any murderous ideas, dude!”
Riley faked a laugh, trying to steady her breathing and calm herself.
Barbara smiled over at her. “How you doing?”
The hair on her legs had thinned. “Better. Thanks,” she said, focusing on the soothing percussion of drums and the cool rain breeze blowing through the trees.
The path soon wound them back out into the field, and they found their way over to Tom and Peggy on a picnic bench, an assortment of Native American food waiting. Suddenly she realized how hungry she was.
Tom gave Riley’s legs an assessing glance. “Everything back in place?”
“Back in place. I’m good,” she said, sitting down and reaching for corn wrapped in brown, butter-stained paper. “What happened at the office, Peg? You said Miriam called back. Did Scott run into problems?”
“Nope. Nothing with the plumbing, but…” Peggy stared at her, as though inspecting her face for any signs of sprouting fur before deciding to upset her again. “We might have had a break-in last night.”
“What?”
Peggy held up a hand. “Nothing taken, nothing damaged. Do you remember leaving your office window open yesterday?”
Riley tried to think. Granted, she’d been absentminded lately. “No. I might have forgotten to lock it, but I’m positive it was shut.”
“Well, Miriam said it was cold when she walked in. She walked around and found your window wide open. Nothing was disturbed, but when she went into my office, she found the lock on my file cabinet broken and the top drawer not closed all the way. Those are my A to D files…which would contain my B clients,” she said with emphasis. “She called her dad. Paul’s headed over there now to take a report.”
B for Barrett… “You think it could have been Jim?”
“That was my first thought. There was something disturbing about the way he looked at me today…like he was letting me know something. It gave me the creeps.”
“I saw the way he hung on to your hand,” Riley said.
“You picked up on that, too, huh? It’s like he was trying to intimidate, dominate me.”
Barbara nudged Peg with an elbow as they passed around food and ate. “Tell her what else.”
Peggy put her food down. “Well, we had a little disturbance at the house last night,” she said, grabbing a napkin and wiping her fingers. “Someone in a loud car revving the engine in front of our driveway.”
“Sometime around midnight?”
“Yes…why?”
“I might have heard it, too. Did you get a look at the car?”
“It was way too dark,” said Barbara. “Except for one door. It was lighter than the rest of the car.”
Riley’s stomach sank, and she laid down her corn. That old Dodge Charger parked on Jim’s property, the one she’d peed on—one door had been replaced and primed for painting. It hadn’t occurred to her last night that Jim might be out there nosing around.
She barely heard what Peggy said after that. Her pressure was rising again, her pulse thrumming so loudly in her ears she felt like her head was under water. Jim beating Fiona was bad enough. That in itself had the coywolf inside her clawing to get out. But that he’d have the audacity to break into their office—hoping to what? Examine Peggy’s case files, read the confidential progress notes she kept on his wife and daughter?—left her rapt with rage.
She wouldn’t have it. Peg and Barb were her family, her world, and the thought of any harm coming to them elevated her fury to a level she’d never felt before. She picked up her corn and began gnawing on the cob like it was a rawhide bone; a temporary stress relief.
Jim had to go. Simple as that. She needed to get rid of the man. Even if it meant killing him. It would be her small contribution to making the world a better and safer place for those she loved.