The sun had become a pale yellow spot fading into clouds that weren’t there when I entered Grambo’s trailer. The wind had turned and was coming from the northwest, not steadily but in half-hearted gusts. For the first time all day, I tasted snow on the air. Emma Cronk’s spell seemed to be working.

The little cur slunk off a few paces as I approached the Jeep, then rushed to the bumper after I’d climbed inside.

Shadow let out a yawn that ended in a growl.

I couldn’t see the wolf inside the crate, but the Jeep smelled of his urine-soaked blanket.

“Did the barking wake you?”

He jabbed the cage door with his nose, then proceeded to gnaw at the metal. If he kept it up, he might break one of his shiny clean teeth.

“I know you’ve had a shitty day, brother. But we’re finally going home. I just have to make one last stop.”

He huffed.

“Yeah, I know I said that before.”

I was so intent on the wolf that I was startled upright by a rapping at my window.

Tina Dillon—I assumed that was her surname since she wore no wedding ring—had come out of her grandmother’s trailer and was looming beside the door in a black parka. I couldn’t see her hands.

When I was a new graduate of the criminal justice academy, and for some years afterward, I had been prone to paranoia in these situations. Someone would approach my window, and I was positive they were going to shoot me through the glass. Our instructors had shown us dash-cam videos of law enforcement officers being ambushed, overpowered, and assassinated during “routine” traffic stops. Out of a well-placed concern for our safety, they had cultivated a fear in us of the very people we would be policing.

Like everyone in the years since, I had seen the news stories of the cops who leapt out of cruisers with guns drawn: the stupid, life-ending mistakes. And I had endeavored to change my mind-set, to cultivate the bravery inside myself instead of the fear. Most people are good, after all.

Even so, I kept my hand on my sidearm as I powered down the window.

She had the parka hood up over her russet hair. The sunlight was dimming but still brighter than it had been inside the trailer, and I noticed she had a yellow half-moon beneath her left eye. Someone had punched her, some time ago. At six feet tall and two hundred pounds, she was a physically imposing person. Whoever had attacked her hadn’t been afraid of being beaten to a pulp.

“Would you mind calling off your attack dog?” I said.

“He ain’t mine,” she said in that same smoke-strained voice.

“Whose is he?”

“Someone who died last year.” She stepped clear of the Jeep and shouted at the dog. “Shut it, Waffles!”

The cur fell silent.