Wolf's Deal: A Nick Lupo Novella (The Nick Lupo Series) Read Free Page B

he was starting to feel distracted. He hated to
see the vic treated like meat. But he felt the usual terrible itch beginning in
his palms. He found himself suppressing a growl that wanted to work its way up
his throat. Lupo told them to let her body back down.
    “Gently,” he
said, almost in a growl.
    He turned
away quickly, before the Creature could make its presence known.
    DiSanto turned
with him, touched his arm. “Gets you every time, eh? I know, man. I still hate
seeing this stuff.”
    Lupo grunted
and half-nodded, looking away. Rich DiSanto was his most recent partner, after
Ben Sabatini had been murdered by the psychopath Martin Stewart. DiSanto was a
good guy, but a little on the naïve side, and Lupo’s secret was just too far
out there. It was best to let the young cop think Lupo was growing weary of
seeing the result of senseless violence. It was a perfectly reasonable
assumption to make.
    But in
reality the Creature had been awakened by the scent of bloody meat. It was hard
to work with the wolf lurking so close to the surface, and the blood was
calling. Plus Lupo always had a tough time suppressing the monster’s instincts
anyway.
    His own instincts.
    For he was the monster, and the monster was him.
    He gave
DiSanto a half-grin, mostly so he wouldn't growl at him.
    Charlie Bear
watched the two of them interact, and Lupo thought he showed a bit too much
interest. In Lupo.
    Hmmm , he
thought. He squinted at the big Indian.

 
 
    JESSIE

 
    It was her
day off from the clinic this week, and since it was a Friday and she was not on
call for the weekend, she saw the three days stretch out before her, a welcome
respite from the daily routine of cuts and bruises and colds and broken arms
and diabetes and hypertension and…
    She shook
her head to clear it of the racing thoughts. Too much of that and she’d just
end up going back to her office and helping out until the free days were but a hazy
memory.
    No, this
time she was going to take the three
days. Three days off .
    She’d hired
several nurses and a new doctor to the staff recently, and if there was ever a
time she could afford to leave the place, it was now. The rez was doing better since the casino had
opened. Business was starting to bloom, if not boom , and a small trickle of funds had begun to flow into her
coffers as de facto senior hospital
administrator. So she’d gone on a spree, purchasing some greatly needed medical
equipment they’d been doing without. No more sending people down the road for
easy x-rays or medium level surgery. The MRI machine was almost a reachable
dream. Things were on an upswing.
    And she was
taking the weekend off.
    Dammit, yes .
    Jessie
Hawkins made sure everyone in the administrative offices knew she was gone,
changed her phone and email messages, posted notes on her desk and her door,
and then double-checked to make sure everyone understood that she would be gone . As in not available .
    Then she sat in her banged-up Pathfinder and let her breath out
slowly.
    If she
thought about what had happened to her and Nick, and so many people they knew…
    And what had
happened to Sam Waters…
    Then she'd
start to hyperventilate and the nausea would rise in her throat and she'd
suddenly feel the headache wrap itself like a torturer’s helmet over her head
to drive sharp screws into her temples. And maybe she’d have to lean out the
car door and vomit her guts out.
    This
sometimes happened, if she let herself relive the events of – well, those
recent events. Happened more often than she’d let on to Nick, who had his own
troubles.
    Man’s a werewolf, for Christ’s sake , she’d think. He has a lot more
to worry about than I do . That's a real burden.
    But trauma
is trauma, not recognizing relative levels among different people, so knowing
his problems didn’t alleviate hers. Intellectually she was aware of that.
    Post-traumatic
stress, she thought, while trying to let the sudden anxiety attack evaporate.
She closed