"Alicia was definitely kidnapped," Ukiah said. "Our rooms were ransacked, Kraynak was shot, and I was hit by a car."

"I suppose this isn't such terrible news, then," she said after a moment of stunned silence. "I just found out that Rennie flew out of Pittsburgh yesterday. He might be in town already."

Ukiah sat up. "In town? You mean Pendleton?"

"He landed in Portland three PM yesterday." She explained that Rennie had gotten as far as Portland before tripping airport security alarms. "Portland security lost him in the parking lot around four.

It's two hundred miles between Portland and Pendleton. He could have gotten there last night."

"I've been in hiding all night, healing up." As Ukiah filled her in, he tried to feel the prickly Pack sense that would mean a Pack member was close. No Pack sense. What he did feel was uneasy.

Usually the Pack didn't travel alone, even in emergencies.

The nearest clan was the Demon Curs, controlled by Germain Degas. While complete strangers to Ukiah, they brought dark apprehensions rising in Rennie's memories. It would be surprising if Rennie wanted Degas and the Curs in Pendleton any more than Ukiah did.

But Ukiah couldn't imagine Rennie arriving unaccompanied. "Have you talked to Bear or Hellena?"

"No."

"So you don't know what Rennie's plans are."

Indigo's Chinese grandfather distracted her with a flow of English so heavily accented it sounded like Mandarin. "No, Gong Gong, they haven't found the girl yet," Indigo answered her grandfather, and then guessed at Rennie's plans. "I'm assuming it's to provide you backup. It sounds like you need it, especially with Kraynak in the hospital."

Indigo promised to keep them appraised of any new information, whether it be from the FBI or the Pack. They said their good-byes and hung up.

The question remained, though: Would Rennie be alone, or would he have Degas and the Demon Curs with him?

The mirror in the bathroom showed an older him.

It amazed him sometimes how long it took him to realize he wasn't human. Everyone around him grew older daily, constantly undergoing minuscule changes to their faces, their bodies, and their genetic code. He didn't. From age thirteen to eighteen, he probably aged only a handful of days in bumps and bruises and occasional dog bites from Mom Jo's half-breed wolves. His face had been seemingly unchanging as a photograph.

Then, the day after Crazy Joe Gary shot him through the chest, he startled himself in the bathroom mirror. No one else seemed to notice, but he barely recognized his own face. It frightened him then, not knowing why the sudden change. He knew now that he had aged months in a single day. In the scramble toheal his body, his cells made slight errors copying themselves. Mistakes that mirrored the human aging process. Mistakes that became part of his cellular genetic pattern. In June, even his moms noticed the sudden leap ahead, a year or more worth of damage dealt out in the course of a painful week.

Sam's mirror showed that he had aged again. Not much. Maybe no one else would notice. Very slowly, but just as surely as any human, he was growing older. He stood staring at his reflection, getting to know himself again.

Sam tapped on the door. "You decent?" She leaned in when he opened the door, and picked up her deodorant. "Forgot to put some of this on."

As she reached the deodorant under her shirt to apply it to her underarms, she studied his bare shoulders and chest.

"So there's some truth to those Kicking Deer legends. Last night I was sure you were going to drop dead on me. Now, I'm not sure why I was so worried. Hell, you look like you could do a Chippendale number without flashing so much as a bruise." Ukiah shrugged, not sure how to respond.

She set the deodorant back onto the edge of the sink. "You're gay, right?"

He gave a bewildered shake of his head. "No."

Several emotions flashed across her face before it settled on annoyance. "Ah, hell, just when you think you've got life all figured out, it hits you up the back of the head with a two by four."

"Huh?"

"Well, do me a favor. Don't tell your partner that we slept in the same bed."

"I already did."

"Shit." She turned and walked away, muttering. "Oh, well! He was from Pittsburgh anyhow."

Ukiah drove them down out of the Blue Mountains and back to Pendleton. They planned to stop at the Red Lion so Sam could check on her Harley. If the motorcycle was drivable, they would drive separately to the Wildhorse Casino. Saturdays and Sundays, Sam explained, the casino's restaurant featured an all-you-can-eat breakfast brunch.

Ukiah scanned the oncoming traffic as he drove, trying to sense Rennie or any other Pack members.

"Jumpy?" Sam asked when she noticed.

"There's someone Max and I know coming out to act as backup. We're not sure when he's showing."

"You're calling in another private investigator?"

"He's not a PI. H-h-he's sort of my father."

Technically, all of the Pack could be considered his father. His true father was the alien Prime, a mutant of the Ontongard race. Wounded and desperate to check the Ontongard invasion of earth, Prime had injected his viral genetic material into a wolf pack. One wolf survived to become the Get known as Coyote. Driven by Prime's memories and desires, the wolf transformed into a man, living at first among the Native Americans. Later Coyote followed Hex toward the East Coast, creating the Pack to war with Hex's Gets.

At their base, the Pack duplicated Prime's mutated alien genetics. Through Coyote, though, they had a wolf taint-instincts to protect and nurture their only son. From their human shells, each held their own hopes and desires for children. Rennie had abandoned his newborn son to carry on Prime's fight; among the Pack, Ukiah counted him as his stronger protector."Sort of your father?" Sam echoed. "How does one have a sort of father?"

Ukiah wished he were better at lying. "He didn't know I existed until June-and things started out rocky between us."

"He knocked up your mom and left her before she knew?"

Ukiah shook his head. If only it were so simple. His conception had been a delay tactic on Prime's part, to distract Hex while Prime programmed a self-destruct code into the already crashed mother ship.

Prime knew that Hex would have to find and capture members of a suitable host race, create a half-breed child through complex gene manipulation, prepare a fertilized egg, and do the implantation. Not one to leave things to chance, Prime replaced Hex's stored genetic sample with his own mutated rebel material, and planted explosives in the room where Ukiah would have been born.

The Pack had memories of Ukiah being placed in his mother's womb. They assumed that the explosives had killed his mother long before he was born-effectively destroying him.

But something had gone wrong with Prime's plan.

"Oookay." Sam broke the silence. "He didn't knock her up. She got his sperm sample off a sperm bank and was artificially inseminated."

He glanced sharply at Sam, who beamed in response of his look.

"That's it," she said, "isn't it?"

"Something like that," he temporized. He supposed it was the closest analogy available. Like any child naturally conceived, he was genetic mix of his mother and father. The ovipositor that handled his creation, however, had made him-as close as alien technology could-perfect.

To forestall more questions about his relationship with Rennie-which were all too hard to explain-Ukiah said, "The past isn't important. What's important is that he heard that I was shot, and took a plane out of Pittsburgh yesterday. He might be in Pendleton when we get there."

"He's got a name besides 'Dad'?"

"I don't call him Dad. He's Rennie. Rennie Shaw."

"Well, we should check at the hotel before going out to the casino, then; see if he left a message."

Ukiah doubted Rennie would be that direct. The Pack rarely used normal means of communicating.

Hotel employees can be bribed. Phones can be tapped. Then again, Rennie had already put himself on the radar screens by flying out to Portland. He might be waiting at the hotel, having no leads where to find Ukiah otherwise.

Just the thought of an irate Rennie and an unsuspecting Pendleton made Ukiah shudder.

"Sam, Rennie is a dangerous man. We're not calling him in on this; he's just showing up. He's my father, but it doesn't mean we trust him. It doesn't even mean any of us are entirely safe from him. If he thought he had an important enough reason, he'd kill even me."

"He'd fly out here to see if you're okay, and then kill you?"

He pulled into the Red Lion's parking lot beside Sam's battered motorcycle. "He doesn't think like a regular person would."

"So you're saying he's insane?"

Ukiah considered it as he killed the engine. Without knowing about the Ontongard trying to take over the world, the alien/wolf mix of Rennie's genetic makeup, or the fact that the Pack leader was born in 1842, Rennie's thinking would appear insane. "Yeah, that would work."

***They went up to his hotel room together. Since they were already stopping, Ukiah wanted to change out of his gritty clothes. Sam wanted to hear more about Rennie, specifically, "What does your homicidal, lunatic father look like?" Ukiah called Max and told him to meet them at the casino. On the way out, they stopped at the desk and asked for messages. As Ukiah expected, there were none.

Sam checked over her motorcycle with a thoroughness that would have pleased Max. "It seems like it's all cosmetic damage. You can follow me out to the casino, just in case it decides to die after a mile or two."

"Okay," Ukiah said, gazing across the parking lot where Kraynak had been shot. The damaged vehicles were gone, along with the dark, painful confusion. The parking lot was just an empty slab of asphalt again. "Thanks for taking care of me last night, Sam."

She laughed, straightening. "I didn't do much."

"You were there when I needed you." Ukiah folded her into a hug. "It means a lot to me."

She stood stiff in his arms a moment, and then hugged him back. "Sure, whatever, you can crash in my bed anytime." She buried fingers into his long black hair and tugged it gently. "You're a sweet kid-but I wish it had been your partner!"

The casino sat out on a lonely expanse of prairie, isolated except for a hotel attached at one side. It was done in what had to be a Native American design, with bright colors and poles sticking out at odd angles, but looked vaguely Scandinavian to Ukiah. It bothered him that he couldn't recognize it as something belonging to his people.

Max waited beside a blue Ford Taurus, chewing on the end of a lit cheroot. Sam tucked into the space between the Taurus and the Blazer. Tension went out of Max's face, replaced by a lazy, pleased smile.

"Hey," he greeted Sam. "You look great."

Ukiah had to admit that she did. She wore skintight riding leather pants, and under her leather jacket, a snug, white tank top.

"Hanging with you guys is a little too rough for anything but leather," Sam said.

"You didn't get too banged up last night?"

"My jeans are shot, but no, I'm fine. How's Kraynak?"

"Bitching about being stuck in bed," Max said, and patted Ukiah on the shoulder. "I got the planner."

He held up a daily planner identical to Alicia's. "And the inserts. Put them in order once we get to the restaurant, and I'll put them into the planner."

"I can put them in," Ukiah offered as they walked up to the casino's doors.

Max ground the cheroot out in a large sand ashtray by the door. "I want to get some food into you first."

Max took hold of Ukiah's arm, and when they opened the doors, Ukiah realized why. The casino was dark, crowded, smoky, and loud. Rows of video slot machines blinked bright, complex screens. After the clean emptiness of the parking lot, the confusion hit Ukiah's senses like a fist.

Max caught his elbow as he checked, and murmured, "It's okay. Just follow me."

They pushed through the crowds to the restaurant beyond the slot machines. Luckily the eating area was nearly empty and quiet. A hostess greeted them at the door and seated them at a table with four place settings.

Max handed Ukiah the packs of inserts. "Here, put them in order, then get some food."Ukiah shuffled the inserts into order, starting with the "To Be Done Sheets" and working to "Address/Phone Pages with Alpha Tabs." Handing the sorted packs to Max, he went up to the buffet.

When he returned, Max was using a fork to start a tear in the shrink-wrap of the last insert. Once open, Max discarded wrap, cardboard stiffener, and title sheet off to one side.

"I don't see the point," Sam said, as Max threaded the pages onto the six metal rings. "It's a lot of money for blank pages."

"Ukiah has a photographic memory," Max said. "He saw Alicia's planner. He can recreate any page he looked at."

"The Kodak kid."

Max pulled out a box of yellow pencils, and a small, blue, barrel-shaped pencil sharper. He handed them over to Sam to make herself useful. "Alicia used number-two pencils. Apparently geologists expect everything to get wet, and ink smears."

Sam opened the box so it could be reclosed, spilled out the pencils in a neat pile, and began sharpening them. "And it matters if we use the same type of writing implement or not?"

"Who knows?" Max turned the calendar section and leafed through until he hit the first week of August. "Let's start with her leaving Pittsburgh." He tapped the day. "Then work on through to after she disappeared. Here."

Max gave Ukiah a small yellow pad of Post-it notes. Sam held out the first sharpened pencil, looking doubtful about the whole experiment. Ukiah shifted his plate over to eat with his left hand, so he could write with his right.

"There didn't seem to be anything of interest during these days." Ukiah started filling in the day labeled AUGUST 1, SUNDAY, with the normal work hours of a day ticking down the side. Alicia had mostly ignored the hours, the day flowing unscheduled down the page, falling wherever it would fit.

Check tent for leaks. Field notebooks-Pitt bookstore? Laundry soap. Dryer sheets.

Imodium. Turns. Neosporin. Check supply of bandages in first-aid kit. (A check mark beside this.) Sun block. Bug repellent. (A doodle of what might have been a dead bug on its back, little x's for eyes, legs curled.) Ziploc bags-all sizes. See if Rose can drive stick!!! (This was underlined many times.) Get duffel bag from Uncle Ray. Check Ukiah weather.

The last was a weird jolt, his name leaping out at him. Ukiah, the town.

Bookstore, coin laundry, supermarket. Nothing of menace. On the otherwise blank opposite page was a Post-it note, stating, Erotic Laundry. Handsome man's dryer, in hot ghost embrace tumbles, my silk lace panties. Ukiah flipped to the next day. The page was split in half with a drawn line. Next to the hours, she had written, Wake up, pack, swap cars, get gas, pick up Rose. On the other side of the line, was Tent, duffel bag, shoe bag, books, MAPS, MONEY!!!, phone, CAR RECHARGER-don't forget to transfer to van!! Alicia's memory had been a joke with her family. Eventually she hoped to be a college professor, which would make her the stereotypical absentminded professor.

"I know it's a long shot, kid." Max said. "There is a chance that her kidnappers picked her by random. But they did take the planner, so there might be something in it."

"She had it so stuffed with paper, I could barely get it snapped shut again." Ukiah flipped to the next page, his fingers moving on automatic. "I tried to glance at every page, figuring that I might want to review it in my head. Still there were lots of things I know I won't be able to recreate."

"Do the best you can." Max went to fill his plate from the buffet. Sam finished sharpening the last pencil, and slid it into the box with the others. She followed Max to the buffet. They stood, plates in hand, heads together, talking quietly.

"The hash is good." Sam scooped some onto her plate. "You know, nothing happened.""When?" Max leaned close to get some too, their shoulders brushing.

"Last night. Just because we were in the same bed, doesn't mean anything happened. I don't go for his type."