Free Guilty by Association (Judah Black Novels) by E.A. Copen Page B

fine. It's my nerves that are rattled. So far today, I've been passive aggressively bullied by a bunch of cops, had a shotgun shoved in my face and relived the death of a murdered werewolf. That's not even the worst of it. The worst is knowing that whatever killed Elias is still out there.”
    Quincy casually strolled up and looked as if he wanted to say something but it was Tindall who spoke. “Whatever? You mean whoever, right?”
    “Murderers don't get to be people. Not when they're that twisted.”
    Tindall and Quincy exchanged glances. “You sure you don't want to go to the hospital?” Quincy asked. “You know, just in case.”
    “I'm fine, thanks,” I said and then eased into my car, staring straight ahead. “Tindall, if you could call Doc and tell him I need those preliminary screens back ASAP—”
    “It's done,” said Tindall closing the door and leaning in the open window.
    I hesitated. If I were back in Cleveland or Chicago or Philly, I wouldn't have gone straight home. I would have tried to bury the misery under half a fifth of whiskey first. “Hey, Tindall,” I said, turning toward him. “You wouldn't want to go have a couple of drinks with me, would you?”
    He smiled at me and dug out his wallet, slipping a large gold coin from behind his license to show me. “Sorry, Black. Five years sober and never looking back.”
    “Oh.” I turned back to stare out the windshield. “Well, take care then.”
    “You too, Black. Don't overdo.”
    I coaxed my car back to life and waved at both of them as I pulled out.
    The drive home was short and uneventful. I was already starting to get tired of the sad little buildings and the flat, dry yards that surrounded them. Before moving out to Paint Rock, I'd done an internet search to see what the place looked like. The pictures I'd seen of the old town, before the government bought it up and turned it into a reservation, didn't look so bad. There were a lot of old, dusty houses, sure, but at least it looked like a community. Now, there were blocks on blocks of nice, well-kept houses followed by whole empty blocks of nothing but dead grass and the broken down foundations of houses torn away to create something else. On the outskirts of town, where my house was, the reservation completely lost that sense of a grid pattern. People had come in and dropped trailers every which way without any particular direction. It even looked as if they'd put the roads in as an afterthought.
    I got through the door. Hunter hadn't made too much of a mess. I guess that's hard to do when you're sitting in front of the TV all day watching who knows what. At least he'd thought enough ahead to get dressed. While he cleaned up his pile of cereal bowls, I jumped into the shower. The icy water felt like heaven on the back of my head, though it made me acutely aware of my pulse. While I ran my hands through my hair, picking out bits of dried blood, I thought of what Chanter had said about my son.
    Like most young people without a clue of what to do with their life, I went to college straight out of high school. It was at WVU that I met Alex during one of those random parties I somehow got myself invited to. Alex had been the kind of man that could fill up a room with his presence, even if he was alone. The whole time, he stood off in a corner, mostly alone, working the room over with those amazing ice blue eyes of his. I'd actually gone over to speak to him on a dare from my roommate. The rest, as they say, is history. Alex dropped out of college and took a trucking job that meant he was out of the state most of the month. Over the next summer, we got married, mostly because my family told me not to marry him. Somehow, I never put it together that his out of town trips always took place around the full moon.
    When the vampires came out and started facing all kinds of persecution, they forced the werewolves out of hiding to take some of the heat off of them. The werewolves had only been public