With that, he swung back around, launched himself through the door, and was back in his cruiser before Rankin could utter a word in protest.

  Barely had he laid the broken, shrouded bodies of Fancy and Gordon on the passenger seat when his phone jingled. And barely had he pulled the thing from his pocket when the car's radio crackled.

  “Base to KB-one, over.”

  It was Grace, back at the station. He checked the caller ID on his phone. Shit. Grace Tolliver at both ends. If she was that determined to get through to him, it meant more than a kid caught at the Tasty Mart with a hot Twix in his pocket.

  He chose the lesser of two evils and unhooked the microphone.

  “Go ahead, Grace.”

  “Sheriff, where the fuck have you been?” Grace asked in her usual refined fashion, punctuating the question with a smoker's cough and subsequent phlegmy spit into the waste can. At least, he hoped it had been into a waste can.

  “I'm dealing with Fancy's wedding cake, Grace,” Cooper reminded her as politely as possible. “We had some last minute hitches, so I don't have time to waste. Just tell me what and where.”

  “Well, I wouldn't know about the wedding now, would I?” Grace snarked back. “I mean, it's not like I'll be going, is it? Even though I received a personal invitation in the mail and had my best taffeta dress altered and all, not only will I not be attending the nuptials, but I will not be attending the reception, too! Uhhh... either!”

  “Lucky bitch...” Cooper hushed under his breath, then he thumbed the button and said aloud, “I'm sorry, Grace. It couldn't be helped. Someone has to man the phones. Please just tell me what and where.”

  He counted the seconds in his head.

  Eight.

  Nine.

  Ten.

  Ten seconds before the radio crackled again. Yup. she was pissed, all right. Hell, with Fancy and the Judge on one side and Grace Tolliver on the other, he'd be lucky to make it to midnight with his testicles still intact.

  Grace's voice came through cold enough to frost the cruiser's windows.

  “10-91 Victor. The Carlin place, out on 50.”

  Damn. Another one. Just what he didn't need. 10-91 translated to an animal complaint. Tack on the 'Victor' and it became a viscous animal complaint. Normally, it could mean anything from Mabel Kutner's cat digging in old man Wilson's garden again, to Rick Grimes leading a herd of walkers straight down Main Street. Considering the day he'd had so far, and that this was the eighth 10-91 Victor since he'd come on duty, he assumed it would be closer to the latter than the former.

  Before he could ask for clarification, the radio crackled again.

  “And before you ask... Sheriff, I was not given sufficient details to advise you further. The boys are all on other calls, so how's about you get your skinny ass out there and ask Ada yourself what the problem is? I mean, unless you're too busy, what with the royal nuptials and all.”

  Cooper keyed the mike, but he let the button go before uttering a word. He gathered his thoughts until he was certain of his response, even rehearsing it in his head a few times, then he keyed the mike again. And again, he released it before saying a single word. At last, he keyed the mike one last time, spat out a simple, “Copy,” and let the microphone fall to the floor.

  As he pulled out of the back lot of Keeter's Bluff's one and only Elk's Hall, he could almost hear Grace Tolliver back at the station, laughing her big old head off, and ending it all with a wet, phlegmy cough and a spit into a waste can.

  CHAPTER

  III

  He took in every bit of the Carlin place as he drew near.

  Driveway clear. Garage door closed. Lawn carefully manicured, as always. Shrubbery running alongside the driveway and skirting the house. Junipers. Chrysanthemums. One oversized rhododendron bush in full bloom at the top of the drive. Garbage cans alongside the house, nestled in their own picket fence corral. Both untouched. Lids intact. Massive oak tree dominating the property as it always had, but thank God now minus the tire swing. Eight years since little Sean died from the cancer he'd been born with. About time Jim and Ada took down that damn swing and got on with what was left of their lives.

  He pulled into the driveway and barely had time to crack his door open before Ada Carlin came rushing out of the house. He met the woman halfway, just managing to catch her before she collapsed to her knees.

  “Tom!” the woman panted. “Thank heavens you're here. Is it gone? Is it gone?”

  Cooper bundled her in his arms and helped her regain her feet.

  “Now now, everything's alright, Ada,” he assured her. “You're okay. Just tell me what got you so worked up.”

  The woman said nothing, but Cooper could feel her entire body suddenly stiffen. And just as suddenly, he had to redouble his hold on her just to keep her from retreating back toward the house.

  “Ada, what...” he started to say, but then he looked into her eyes and the pure, unadulterated fear he saw there silenced his tongue. He followed her goggle-eyed stare back over his shoulder, and now he could see it too. There. Nearly lost among the riot of blossoms pouring from Ada's prized rhododendron bush. A light pink triangle, fringed with black.

  He had only seen such a thing once before, but once had been enough. As the rest of the thing came slowly into focus between, around and amongst the blossoms, his blood turned ice cold.

  Dull pink triangle. White flash below. Tawny brown above. And there, just where he knew they'd be, a pair of golden orbs, pierced through with the blackest black on Earth.

  His first instinct was to run, but to run was to die. He looked to the house and saw the front door still hanging open, but it was thirty feet away. Too damn far. If he was alone, maybe. But not with Ada. No way. Ada Carlin tipped the scales at close to two hundred pounds. If she tried, she'd fail, and he would then have the onerous distinction of watching one of Keeter's Bluff's citizens ripped to shreds on her own front lawn.

  There was only one option. The cruiser was closer than the house. Ten feet. Twelve at most. The doors were unlocked and the windows were up. If he did this right, they might just make it. Two seconds to get to the car. Another two to fumble for the handle and squeeze Ada inside. One more to pile in after her. Yes. If they moved fast enough, it might just work.

  Either way, it was their only chance.

  Ada was still straining to break free from his grip, so he reeled her in close and wrapped his big arms around her, pinning her to his chest. Then, despite her desperate struggles, he began slowly and cautiously inching her farther away from the safety of her home and toward the cruiser.

  The bush shivered, and a single rhododendron blossom dropped to the ground. Cooper clapped a hand over Ada's mouth just in time to stifle a scream and forced her to take one more half-step to the side. Now, the front of the cruiser was almost in a direct line with the rhododendrons. If he could just ease the two of them far enough onto the lawn, he could put two thousand pounds of metal between them and that dull pink triangle. It might not be enough, but at least it was something.

  He kept a hand clapped tightly over Ada's mouth and used every ounce of strength he possessed to move the woman another foot. Then another, and another. Then their time ran out.

  The branches parted just enough to let the pink triangle glisten wet in the sunlight, and the bush gave one last almighty shiver right down to its very roots as a dark, tawny blur exploded directly toward them.

  Cooper threw the woman at the car, shouting, “Ada, get inside!” even as he drew his pistol, but barely had the weapon cleared its holster when a flash of gold streaked up to the far side of the car and bounded over its roof in a single powerful leap.

  Cooper had only ever seen a mountain lion up close that one time. He'd been camping in the mountains when the smell of bacon cooking over a campfire drew it in. The half-starved cat had come to within a dozen yards of his campsite, and he'd thrown it a few strips of raw bacon. It had grabbed the bacon and ran off, leaving Cooper with his heart pounding out a rhumba beat and filled with a singular sense of privilege at having experienced such a rare encounter. But in the single heartbeat it took for this other animal to hurdle his big fat Oldsmobile, he knew only dread. This cat was twice the size of that scrawny, half-starved little female, and far from being cautious and aloof, it made straight for him with blood in its eyes.

  With no time or space to draw a proper bead on the thing, he fired blindly, hoping that the sounds alone would be enough to scare the cat away. But aside from tearing up twin divots in Ada Carlin's lawn, the explosions had no effect whatsoever. The cougar cleared the cruiser's roof with room to spare and barely touched down before it was airborne again, this time on a trajectory that would bring it down on top of Cooper before he'd have time to say a single Hail Mary.

  Certain that his life was about to end, and with the only lingering question being how gruesome and painful that end was likely to be, Cooper's only thoughts were of Ada. But somewhere through the flurry of sensations and flood of endorphins, he became dimly aware of the sound of a car door slamming shut, so he had to assume that he'd done his job right. He had saved a life. He had served and protected, just like he'd sworn to do all those years ago. Well, bully for him. Maybe he'd even get a plaque on the wall back at the station, because he sure as hell wasn't going to be around to accept it in person. With his squad car as the backstop in this particular shooting range and a member of the public hunkered down within said backstop, he simply couldn't risk taking another shot. All he could do now was die.

  He caught the briefest glimpse of a mouth filled with long, white fangs, and knew it would be the last thing he would ever see. But then there came a sudden roar from off to the side, and he was thrown violently backwards as a flash of blue filled his vision. He hit the ground hard, slamming the back of his head on the hard-packed soil violently enough to nearly shake his teeth loose, and there he waited for the big cat to drop on him like a stone.

  He took a deep breath, thinking it would be his last. Then he took another. And much to his surprise, another. And before he knew it, he was raising himself awkwardly to his elbows, completely flummoxed as to why he was not yet dead.

  It took several seconds for his brain to catch up to his eyes and make out exactly what he was seeing. Oddly enough, it looked like words. Odder still, those words were accompanied by what looked for all the world to be a giant rodent. Then a man stepped into his field of view and gave the whole thing away. He was tall and lanky, with long blond hair, two weeks worth of scruff around a cheesy handlebar moustache, and clad in an ancient Frank Zappa t-shirt and Adidas shorts he might have been hanging onto since high school.

  Austin Granger. It had to be. No one else in town had such a keen eye for the very worst in fashion and manscaping. Cooper raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of a sun grown suddenly intense and had another look. Sure enough, behind Granger sat his old Toyota Landcruiser. Rust pooling around the wheel wells. Ugly blue canopy. A snarling cartoon rat painted on the door inside a red circle with a slash through its snout. And beneath it, four words in bold type. Keeter's Bluff Animal Control.

  A hand reached down, he took it gladly, and as he was pulled awkwardly to his feet, a look of abject horror came over Granger's face.

  “Coop? Jesus Christ, Coop! What the fuck?”

  With his mind beginning to clear and his vision coming into real focus, Cooper was finally able to make sense of what had seemed to make no sense at all.

  Granger's Landcruiser butted up against Ada Carlin's front porch. Huge tire marks gouged into her perfectly manicured lawn. His own person, undead and undisembowled. And more importantly, a sickening pool of blood widening around the front wheels of the Ratmobile.

  “Austin?” he said, shaking the last of the cobwebs away. “Where did you come from?”

  “I got a call from Haddy Winfield about a pack of dogs running loose in Hamilton Park,” Granger explained, his long moustache quivered with every syllable. “She said there were a bunch of kids around, and she was afraid one of them might get hurt. I was just heading there when I saw you. And I saw the cat. And I didn't even think. I just acted on impulse. Jesus Christ, Coop, what the fuck did I do?”

  Cooper dropped to a knee and peered under the Toyota. Sure enough, there it was, wedged between bumper and porch. His heart literally ached at seeing the big cat dead, but not nearly enough for him to wish that their roles had been reversed.

  “I'll tell you what you did, Austin,” he said, climbing back to his feet. “You just saved my damn life, that's what you did.”

  He clapped the man on the shoulder, and said nothing as he casually wiped a palmful of sweat onto the leg of his pants.

  “Is it dead? Oh dear Jesus, did I kill that magnificent animal?”

  “Trust me, Austin, that magnificent animal becomes decidedly less magnificent when you know it's going to be the last thing you ever see.”

  “But you know me, Coop. I don't kill God's creatures. I've never killed a living being in my entire life. I trap them, then I drive them out to the country and turn them loose. I would never kill an animal. Never! Oh dear Jesus, what the fuck did I do?”

  He could understand what the man must be feeling. Other than arachnids, Cooper would never hurt an animal either, but on this day, he was perfectly willing to make an exception.

  “You saved my life, Austin,” he said again, and though he was about to clap the man once more on the shoulder, he reconsidered on the fly and instead faked working out a kink in his elbow.

  They both crept up to the front of the Toyota to have a closer look. Granger's charge across thirty feet of Ada's lawn might have been the desperate act of a man with no other options, but somehow in that mad jumble of mathematics, the big cat's trajectory and the Toyota's front bumper had come together with absolute precision. The cat was dead, sure enough, but it had happened in the blink of an eye. The animal hadn't suffered for a fraction of a second. Its delicate skull had come apart upon meeting hardened Detroit steel, and the rest of it was all just gruesome Biology 101.

  “It was hiding behind the rhododendron bush,” Cooper explained, trying hard not to let his voice hitch. “I barely had time to throw Ada at the car when it attacked. The damn thing came straight at me.”

  The only response from Granger was a cocked eyebrow and a single harumphed, “Huh.”

  “What, you don't believe me?”

  Granger ran a trembling hand through his pockets, but having sworn off cigarettes nearly a year ago, he came up frustratingly empty.

  “I don't have to believe you, Coop. I saw it for myself. But you weigh what, one-eighty?” He threw a cautionary glance over his shoulder at Ada still huddled in the squad car and lowered his voice to a hush. “And Ada's no Tinkerbell herself.”

  “I guess it must have been one hungry cat,” Cooper concluded, relieved to put a period at the end of it all, but Granger wouldn't have it.

  “No, no, no, you don't get it. You see, there's a reason no one ever sees these animals in the wild. Mountain lions are lone hunters. Ambush predators. You'd only know one of them was stalking you when you felt its claws grab hold and its fangs sink into the back of your neck. But in town? In broad daylight? With dogs barking on every street? No way. Not a chance. Even if it was injured and unable to hunt its usual prey, a felis concolor would stay as far away from humans as it could get. Even if it somehow got confused and found itself lost in town with an empty belly, it would go after a stray cat or a chicken coop long before it would ever attack a grown man, much less both you and Ada. This is impossible, Coop. Ain't no way on God's green Earth a cat would attack two humans together, and it sure as shit wouldn't attack them from the front.”

  “Rabid, maybe?” Cooper suggested.

  Granger stroked his moustache as he considered the notion.

  “Well, I don't see any obvious signs, but that's the only thing that would make any kind of sense. I'll have to get him back to the shop to know for sure.”

  “Any recent reports in the area?”

  “Reports? Hell, there's no end of reports. Me and Jermaine have been run ragged all day. All of a sudden, it's like every critter in the county's got a hate on. First thing this morning, Enid Farrier down on Hampton called in to report that a gang of squirrels had chased Stefan all the way across the yard and into the house. Can you believe it? Those were her exact words, too. A gang of squirrels. Jermaine and I almost came to blows over which one of us was going to go. Ultimately, we both went just so we could see for ourselves what manner of street thug, skinhead, leather-jacketed squirrel gang could chase big Stefan Farrier across his yard like a frightened schoolgirl.”

  Cooper allowed a half-grin. “And?”

  Granger stuck out his bottom lip. “Sadly, the gang was gone by the time we got there. Jermaine said they must've gone off to rumble with the Jets, whatever that means.”

  Despite the growing sense of unease roiling through his belly, Cooper couldn't help but picture a gang of adolescent hoodlum squirrels dancing through a carpark, singing Breeze it, Buzz it, Easy does it, and he had to stifle a chuckle.

  “Actually, I meant reports of rabies, Austin. Anything in the county? The state? Any reports of rabies at all?”

  “None that I've heard, Coop. I'll call Keith up in Jolene to make sure, but rabies doesn't exactly slip under the radar. There would've been a bulletin. Sheriff's Office would've gotten it, too.”

  “Well, it wouldn't be the first time someone screwed the pooch,” Cooper reasoned. “How long before you know?”

  Granger did the math out loud.

  “Let's see... Ten minutes back to the shop, maybe thirty more to retrieve tissue samples from the brain stem and cerebellum. Normally I'd Fed-Ex the samples up to Jolene, but there's a veterinary diagnostic clinic in Piedmont that'll be able to do the DFA. Figure an hour's drive to Piedmont, another two for the test...” Granger checked his watch and Cooper followed suit. “Chances are, I can give you an answer by five o'clock.”