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Turns out she’s pregnant and they’re checking to see if she’s going to lose the baby.”
    Vic grunted. “Bun in the oven, huh? Let me think on that some, maybe it’s something we can use. Call me if you need anything else.”
    “Sure, but what—?”
    Vic hung up on him.
    (3)

    Feeling wretched about Connie and desperately alone, Crow headed down to the ER in hopes of getting a glimpse of Val or Weinstock, but instead he ran into Sarah Wolfe, the mayor’s wife, who sat alone on a hard plastic hallway chair, looking small and lost, her lap scattered with crumpled tissues.
    “Hey, sweetie…how are you? Or is that dumbest question ever asked?” He screwed on a genial smile and it fit so badly that it hurt his cheeks. She opened her mouth to say something, but her first word turned into a sob and her face crumpled. Crow bent to her, drew her into his arms, guided her around a corner and into an empty triage room.
    “Have they told you how he is yet?” he asked when her sobs slowed.
    “I talked to Saul just a few minutes ago. He’s been running in and out of surgeries. He said that Terry’s lucky to be alive. Lucky”—Sarah gave a wretched nod—“that’s a funny word to use.”
    “Yeah. Really cheers you up, doesn’t it?” He shook his head. “Sarah, honey…what set Terry off? I talked to him the day before and sure he was stressed, but he didn’t seem this far gone. What triggered it?”
    Terry’s nightmares and paranoia had gotten much worse over the last few weeks, and lately he’d been claiming that he saw his dead sister Mandy everywhere he went. “He finally confessed to me that Mandy was trying to convince him to commit suicide. I know it sounds ridiculous,” Sarah said, forcing a ghastly smile, “but I believe he really saw Mandy. He believed she was actually there. He would turn to face her, to look at a spot in the room as if she was standing right there. You’ll think I’m crazy, too, but I swear there were times I could feel her myself. Nuts, huh?”
    Crow made a noncommittal sound and tried not to let the horror show on his face.
    “There was one moment, Crow, where I swear to God I thought Terry was going to attack me. He started stalking me across the bedroom floor. It was so…weird; it was like he stopped being Terry and became some kind of, oh—I don’t know—some kind of animal. He moved like an animal, you know? He told me about the conversation you two had about his dreams, where you said that he was probably dreaming of becoming an animal—a wolf—because of our last name. I mean, let’s face it, you’ve been calling him ‘Wolfman’ since you two were little kids. So…maybe that’s what happened. Maybe his psychosis, his damage, whatever it is…maybe it just took that path. Maybe for a few minutes up there in our room he thought he was a wolf. Or something like that. Is this making any sense? Am I just rambling?”
    “Sarah, honey, I think it’s those pills he’s been popping,” Crow lied. “When this is all sorted out I think we’re going to find that he was probably taking too much of the wrong prescription and it just threw him out of whack. That…plus everything that’s been happening in town, the blight, the whole Ruger thing. Terry holds this town together.”
    “Maybe,” she said doubtfully, “but that still doesn’t explain what started him down that road. He’s only been on meds for the last four or five months. The dreams started almost a year ago.”
    “I know…but we’re going to have to let the docs figure that out. Right now we have to just focus our minds on the thought that he’s going to pull through, that he’ll be okay.”
    “God…do you think so? I mean…really?”
    “Sure,” he said, pushing the lie in her path. “Everything’s going to be fine. Terry will pull through and he’ll be kicking my ass on the back nine by spring. Val, too. We’re all going to be fine. It’s all over now…from here on, everything gets