Half Truths (A Helheim Wolf Pack Tale) (15 page)

‘So when can I
re-open?’ Suleman asked in a drawl, lighting a cigarette and breaking the
tension simultaneously. Mike took off once Vaile’s attention was somewhere
else.

Vaile turned
back to Suleman. ‘Once the ME gets here to take the body away.’ Vaile didn’t
even try to hide the sneer. Both he and Grey went back into the staff locker
room.

Grey handed him
a fresh pair of gloves wordlessly, snagging a new pair for herself too while he
watched the CSI crew around the room look for clues. The photographer caught
his eye.

‘We’re just
about done.’

Vaile nodded.
Turning to Grey he said, ‘Get a sketch of this before we leave.’ She nodded;
her pencil running over a fresh sheet of paper in her notebook. While she
worked, Vaile looked around, letting his wolf out for a few seconds.

The locker room
smelled of sweat mostly, but the raw scent of sex was in the air too. He looked
down at the body. The idea struck him instantly.

‘He came in here
for sex with that girl.’

Grey’s eyes
widened, her pencil pausing over her notebook. ‘How do you know?’

He couldn’t tell
her the truth, so he just shrugged. ‘Just a hunch.’

‘You have a lot
of them,’ Grey commented absently, looking down at the body.

‘I’ve got good
instincts,’ he replied, stealing a few seconds to watch how her neck arched
beautifully as she bent over the paper.

‘Does that apply
to everything in life, or just work?’ she asked, still not meeting his gaze.

‘Everything,’ he
rumbled. His heart fluttered in his chest. Was he flirting? Grey looked up and
smiled at him. Ah, fuck. ‘I’m going to go wait for Doc Lee out in the car park.
Will you be alright here on your own?’

Her face fell,
but she nodded and went back to examining and sketching the room.

Vaile burst free
from the room, stalking down the hallway until he reached the two-way junction.
Punching down the metal bar on the back door, he pushed out into the car park.
Doubling over, he dragged in the winter air. The cold air stung his lungs, but
that was good. It meant that it gave him something else to think about.

Doc Lee’s van
pulled up, his assistant riding shotgun. Lee grinned at Vaile as he parked,
hauling out his medical kit as he jumped from the van.

‘I think this is
the most we’ve seen each other in a day, Detective.’

‘That’s not a
good thing Doc.’

‘What have we
got?’

‘Same as before.
Throat slashed, chest carved up.’

‘Have they
finished in there?’

‘They’re
wrapping up now. He’s all yours.’

‘I’ll let you
know the result ASAP, but it might be on Monday. I’m going away this weekend.’

Vaile nodded,
watching the doctor and his assistant enter through the heavy steel door. Grey
came out a few moments later. She shoved her hands into her pockets as she
approached. Her cheeks were flushed with the temperature change and Vaile spoke
before he knew what he was going to say.

‘Let’s grab a
cup of coffee and talk about the case.’ Grey nodded mutely, turning to get back
into her car. He followed her all the way to the diner. He parked the car and
jumped out, reaching for Grey’s door before she could open it. She looked
surprised, but her expression softened after a minute.

‘Thank you,
Vaile.’

He grunted and
shrugged, marching ahead of her through the snowdrifts towards the diner’s
glass front door. He pulled it open for her, enjoying how she paused to look at
him appreciatively as she walked through. Making her way towards the booth that
he now thought of as theirs, she slid into the bench seat gracefully. Vaile
dropped into the vinyl booth, stretching his long legs out under the table.

‘Coffee?’ she
asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘The usual?’

He smiled, but
hid it before she could see it. ‘Yeah,’ he replied gruffly.

Even though she
didn’t have to, she stood up and placed their order at the counter before their
waitress even had a chance to get to them.

‘You did it
again, you know?’ Grey said once she was settled into her seat again.

‘Did what
again?’

‘You scared that
Mike kid. I thought he was going to soil himself,’ she smiled a little—just the
quirking up of her top lip on one side.

‘But I didn’t
scare you, did I?’ he asked before he could stop himself.

Her face was
suddenly serious. ‘I’m not scared of you, Vaile.’

‘You should be,’
he muttered under his breath. Shaking his head, he said a little more loudly,
‘I’m sure there’s something about me that scares you.’

Her grin was
back. ‘Nope. I am unscareable.’

‘That’s not a
word.’

‘It is now.’

‘Two coffees,’
the waitress said, placing their mugs onto the table between them, and breaking
the banter that seemed to flow so easily when Vaile wasn’t concentrating on
being an emotionally unavailable asshole.

‘Thank you,’
Grey called as the woman retreated.

Vaile took a sip
from his mug watching her turn back to her drink. ‘Okay, so this case just got
serious.’

‘Yeah. I know.
This is the second murder in less than a day. The injuries to the body seem to
be the same, which means what?’

‘We’re dealing
with the same perp.’

‘Exactly.’ Grey
pulled her notepad out from her bag, turning to a new page. ‘So, what’s the
same between the murder of Luke Baker and Aaron Mills?’

‘Both murdered
at night. Both murders occurred at “The Imp and Impaler.”’ It was looking more
and more like a vamp kill by the second.

‘The injuries appear
to be the same although we won’t be able to confirm that until we get Doctor
Lee’s report,’ Grey said, adding the information to the dot-point-list she’d
made. Grey looked up at him from under her pale lashes—her green eyes serious.
‘What about the symbol carved into both of their chests?’

Vaile kept his
poker face on, not looking away. ‘What about it?’

She frowned.
‘You know what it means. Why won’t you tell me?’

He frowned right
back at her, taking a sip from his mug. ‘I don’t know what the symbol means.
You just think that I do.’

She leaned
closer to him. ‘I saw your reaction to it in the morgue. You recognised it. I
thought we were partners,’ she hissed. ‘Why won’t you tell me what it means?’

Vaile pinned her
with his most arctic glare, not because he wanted to scare her off, but to stop
her from chasing the answer to that question. Grey stared right back at him,
her chin lifting infinitesimally—challenging him.

‘Tell me,’ she
gritted out. Vaile stared at her hard expression. He’d never see her like that
before. He took another sip from his mug, placing it down onto the table before
sitting back in his seat.

‘If I tell you,
will you not ask me how I know?’

Her jaw
clenched. She was considering him carefully, and eventually she nodded.

‘It’s a rune
meaning “serpent”.’

‘A
rune
?’

‘A symbol from
an ancient Germanic alphabet,’ Vaile replied, crossing his arms over his broad
chest. The fact that it was also the same alphabet that the vampires used was
not something she needed to know.

‘It means
“serpent”?’ He nodded. ‘But that doesn’t make any sense.’

‘It does if the
perp is ritually killing his victims.’

‘How do you know
it’s a man?’

Vaile cocked an
eyebrow at her. ‘You think a woman is capable of killing a man so ruthlessly?’

She shrugged.
‘Maybe.’

He leaned
forward in his seat again. ‘Tell me, how many female serial killers have there
been throughout history?’

Grey mirrored
Vaile’s previously closed off stance. She lifted one shoulder than dropped it.
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘But if it’s a ritual killing like you think, how
many more people are going to die before we can crack the case?’

‘I say we don’t
rest until we find him.’

‘Or her,’ Grey
corrected. So she was still staying firm on her female killer idea. She sighed,
taking another sip of coffee before saying, ‘I guess we’ll be living on coffee
until we can figure this one out then.’

‘Is that a
problem?’

‘No. I don’t
even have a social life it can impact on,’ she replied, her fingers twisting
around the handle of her mug.

‘Where’s the
ring you always wear?’ Vaile asked, looking pointedly at her left hand.

She looked down
at her hand, fingering the space where her ring used to be. ‘I-I must have
forgotten to put it back on when I got out of the bath,’ she murmured, lost in
thought.

Vaile cleared
his throat, unable to believe what he was about to do. ‘Who does it belong to?’

Grey looked up,
her eyes already wet with tears. Quickly, she swiped the back of her hand
across her eyes. ‘It’s mine.’

‘It’s a man’s
ring, Grey. So who does it belong to?’

She wiped her
face once more, taking another sip from her mug. ‘My fiancé.’

Ice settled into
Vaile’s chest. ‘I thought you said you didn’t have a boyfriend.’ He said the
words slowly, carefully.

‘I don’t. He’s
dead.’ The words came out with a forcefulness that matched her hard expression.
Hurt and grief still swam in her eyes for the loss she still suffered. It
reminded him of what he’d lost too.

Sucking in a
huge breath, he held it until he could hear his heart beating loudly through
his body before releasing it. ‘Sorry,’ he grunted. He reached into his back
pocket and pulled out some cash for the coffees. ‘We should get some sleep
while we can.’

Indi’s scream ripped through
Rhett’s heart, pulling it, twisting it until he screamed out with her. He could
feel her pain burn through his body, but there was nothing he could do to stop
it. They were both standing in the middle of barren tundra—only the vague
outline of purplish-blue mountains cut through the horizon. Rhett’s breath
smoked out in front of him; Indi standing a dozen feet away from him.

‘It’s killing
me!’ she screamed, her face contorting painfully. Rhett tried to move his feet,
to go to her, but they were fixed in place like they’d been frozen there. He
stretched out his arms, his hands, his fingers for her, knowing hopelessly that
it would do him no good. ‘Indi!’ he called with a voice filled with anguish.

‘It’s killing
me!’ she howled again, wrapping her hands around her neck, clawing at her skin.

‘What’s killing
you?’ he asked frantically.

‘Rhett!’ she
called. Blood suddenly started bubbling out of her mouth, coating her lips.
‘Help me,’ she begged. Indi fell to her knees, her body slumping forward and
landing heavily with a thud onto the snow-covered ground. Blood began pouring
out of her mouth. It was a torrent of red; a river flowing too quickly, melting
into the snow beneath her. She needed him, but he couldn’t lift his feet off
the ground. All he could do was watch it happen.

‘Indi!’ he
yelled, fighting to break free from whatever was holding him in place. ‘Indi!’
He tried to reach for her again, but it was no use. Her body was still. She was
staring at him with eyes already turning opaque.

‘Rhett, wake
up!’ Indi’s voice punched through the nightmare. Rhett’s eyes flew open.
Blinking a few times, he looked around at the room he was in. Something hard
was at his back. He realised it was the bathroom door.

His skin was wet
with sweat; his hair sticking to his forehead and neck. Dragging a hand through
his hair, he drew in deep breaths to calm his wolf, which was now pacing
anxiously. His pulse rolled around his throat.

‘Rhett?’ Indi
asked. He focused on her again. She was crouched down in front of him, a thin
quilt from her bed wrapped around her body. He could smell her fear. Licking
his lips, he forced himself to take in a couple more deep breaths, bringing his
knees up to rest his elbows on them.

‘Are you
alright?’ Indi asked, her breath fogging up in front of her. She drew the quilt
a little closer over her shoulders to hide the shiver that travelled through
her body.

‘Get back into
bed,’ he said. She frowned at him. ‘Now. It’s freezing in here. Get back into
bed.’

Reluctantly, she
stood up and climbed back onto the creaking bed. He took the few seconds of
reprieve to collect himself before throwing another blanket over her and
perching on the edge of the mattress beside her.

‘Rhett, are you
alright?’ Indi asked again, laying a frigid hand on his arm. He flinched. He
hadn’t meant to, but she was just so cold. Quickly, she withdrew her hand.
Cradling his head in his hands, he tried to shake the feeling of dread that had
settled so heavily in his chest.

‘Yeah, just a
bad dream.’

‘What happened
in it?’

He shook his
head. ‘It was nothing.’

‘Rhett, you were
screaming in your sleep. Tell me what the dream was about.’

He looked up
into her indigo eyes, nodded and scooted back until his back was against the
headboard. ‘You were screaming for my help. You said “It’s killing me.”’

‘What was
killing me?’

He ran a hand
through his hair roughly. ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything that would
harm you. Then blood began to foam out of your mouth and you died.’

She looked
startled. ‘What do you think it means?’

He shook his
head, lifting his eyes to hers. ‘I don’t know; probably nothing. It could have
been my mind twisting around what happened to you last night.’

Indi pulled away
from him, wrapping her arms around her knees. ‘I don’t want you to worry about
that Rhett.’

He frowned.
‘It’s happened before, hasn’t it?’

She started to
shake her head, stopping mid-motion and turning to him. ‘Promise you won’t
freak?’