Reach for the Sky (Wolffe Peak Book 1) (7 page)

“Her mother was a member of the Pacific Coast Pack,” Shane informed them.

She nodded, her gaze burning a hole through the floor. “The official cause of her death is still unknown. And right now, unimportant.”

“
Chère
…”

She shook her head. “I don’t say that for your sympathy. My mother and I were not on speaking terms. I hadn’t seen her in over ten years.”

Wyatt shifted against the wall. He hadn’t had a chance to go through her personal file, and he had warned her he would ask questions. “Weren’t you part of the same pack?” It was impossible for two pack members to go so long without speaking.

She flicked a glance his way. “When I left my pack at seventeen to attend university, my mother refused to speak with me. She felt I had turned my back on them all. I’ll spare you the tiresome details, but eventually, my pack exiled me.”

Wyatt shook his head. “Can’t gloss over that, darling.”

She tensed, eyes blazing. “I’m
not
your darling, and it isn’t important,” she said. “My alpha thought my place was with the pack. I was expected to mate, and when I refused to pick someone, he claimed I didn’t have the pack’s best interest at heart. I was told under no uncertain terms that I was no longer a member. It doesn’t matter. I’ve been managing fine on my own.”

“Really.” Wyatt’s sardonic tone drew the attention of the group back to him. “Doesn’t seem that way to me. You know, stalker and all that.”

“Listen, you pompous—”

Bale cleared his throat. “All right. So you mentioned your mother’s funeral.”

She threw Wyatt another glare. “After the funeral, I returned home and buried myself in my work. I’d been making such progress with Congress, and—” She shook her head. “That’s not important either. A few days after the funeral, the phone calls started.” Her voice wavered, and she pressed her hands to her cheeks as though to will away unseen tears. “I didn’t think anything of them at first. I thought it was someone from my old pack having a laugh at my expense. It started off as nothing more than silence, but then…”

“Then?”

Pain flickered across her face, and Sky turned away. “At first there was only heavy breathing, but then…” A shiver rippled down her spine.

Wyatt tensed. This didn’t sound right, at all. “Sky?”

“There’s one particular call I’ll never forget.” She cleared her throat and lifted her head, her gaze lost beyond the window. “It started with panting. I panicked and demanded to know who it was. I—I thought it was someone from my pack. The harassing phone calls hadn’t started until I returned from the funeral, so it had to have been one of them, right?”

Logically, it made sense. Wyatt made a note to check out the alpha and arrange a conversation.

“And then I heard a soft grunt and a long exhale. I—I heard shuffling in the background. And then…” Her breath hitched. “His moans still haunt my nightmares. I should have hung up the phone, but I was stunned. I sat there, frozen, and listened.”

“Are you saying he…?”

She broke, her head dropping forward. “I didn’t want to believe it at first. But then he called again. And again. And every time it was the same.”

Wyatt’s hands fisted at his sides. What kind of a sick bastard masturbated over the phone?
Oh, right, the kind who carves out little girls’ eyes
. And didn’t that thought make him all warm and tingly inside? And murderous. Very, very murderous.

“I did everything I could think of. I reported the phone calls to the police. Shane suggested I record the calls for evidence, and I did, but nothing useable ever came from them. He attempted to track the calls, but again, nothing.”

“Burner phone,” Harley piped up.

Sky turned around. “A what?”

“Prepaid cell phones,” Wyatt grumbled. “Untraceable unless a credit card is attached to them. Of course, if you’re using a burner phone, you wouldn’t attach your credit card to it.”

Her gaze connected with his, free of contempt this time. “How do you know that?”

He shrugged. “Go on.”

“After that, I did the only thing I could think of. I changed my phone number.”

“Did the calls stop?”

“For a while,” she admitted. “I thought I was safe.”

“But?”

“But then the letters started.”

Harley pushed off the wall and strode across the room as though he needed to pace in order to think. “What letters?” Wyatt watched as the former FBI agent within rose to the surface. The man all but vibrated with excitement, as though he missed the game.

“Small notes,” she whispered. She held Wyatt’s gaze, and though he wasn’t the best at offering comfort, he nodded and forced another small smile. “He would slip them under my door. It got to the point where I couldn’t sleep at night, terrified he would break in. The police started doing hourly patrols. They suggested I install a security system, and I did. It even included a camera, but somehow he knew about it. All the tapes they collected, they never caught a glimpse of his face. The only thing I knew was that he was a werewolf. I could smell it on the letters.”

“These letters…” Wyatt turned the conversation back to them. “What did they say?”

A furious blush painted her cheeks. “I—I’d rather not repeat them. If you need to read them, Shane has them. I turned them over to him, and his people came and did a sweep of my house. They fingerprinted the door, the stoop, the letters…nothing. They never found a single piece of DNA.” She choked on her next sentence and dropped her head, severing the connection between them. “Until they found his semen on my windowsill.”

Unadulterated rage swept through Wyatt.
Murder, yup, with a side of castration
.

“They ran his DNA, but it didn’t generate a hit, so there wasn’t much more the police could do. At first, Shane assigned a patrol to drive by hourly. But that only lasted so long. He learned their schedule and would come between their shifts. So Shane started staying with me.”

Wyatt snarled. “
With
you, as in—”

“As in on my couch, you ass!” she hissed.

The sheriff’s tight gaze flicked to Wyatt, his brow lifted as though confused by the purpose of such an inane question. Not that Wyatt had a logical reason beyond the personal satisfaction of learning they weren’t sleeping together.

“Eventually, we decided it would be best if I moved, so I did. I bought an unlisted two-bedroom house, and Shane moved in permanently.”

He shivered with rage. Well, wasn’t that a jolly piece of news. The friggin’ sheriff
lived
with Skylar. He’d noticed the man’s scent there tonight, but he’d thought it nothing more than visits. “Good to know the local law enforcement takes such a personal interest in their cases.”

Shane blinked. “Excuse me?”

Sky lurched from the chair and bore down on him. “Listen, buddy. You said you would ask questions, and I agreed, but leave Shane out of it, all right?”

Wyatt’s gaze flicked down to the finger she’d jabbed into his chest, above his crossed arms. For a moment, he was tempted to drag her into his chest and show her how badly he wanted to leave Shane out of it. His good sense returned, and, instead, he curled a lip and warned her in a dark voice, “Step back, Sky.”

“No! You’ve been nothing but a condescending asshole. And I’m sick of it. You can insult me all you want, but Shane has been nothing but supportive. It was his idea for me to move, and once I did, I’ll have you know the letters and calls all but stopped.”

Now wasn’t that an important bit of information. Wyatt’s gaze slid to the sheriff, whose cheeks still burned from Wyatt’s implication.

Bale’s hands curved over Sky’s shoulders and guided her back. “Calm yourself,
querida
.”

“I’m calm,” she bit out with a final growl before returning to her seat. “I lived in peace for a few months.” She shot each of them a glance. “And that’s all.”

“Until tonight,” Wyatt stated. “Except that isn’t all. Is it, Sheriff?”

Shane fiddled with the folders in his hands and finally shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sky. I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t want to frighten you more than you already were.”

She frowned.

“Get on with it,” Wyatt growled impatiently.

The sooner this was out in the open, the sooner they could find this bastard and ram his head onto a pike.

“I shouldn’t be discussing an ongoing case such as this,” Shane stated as he pushed up from his seat with a deep sigh. “But Sky’s safety is more important.”

“And if you’re caught?” Wyatt rumbled from across the room.

“Well, the position of sheriff is electoral, so I assume come next election, I wouldn’t win.” His comforting brown gaze slid to hers. “But I think this case requires special care.”

“I bet,” Wyatt muttered.

Lips set in a grim line, Shane strode across the room and pointed to a whiteboard. “May I?”

No one spoke, which Shane took as an affirmation, and he wiped clean the board. “At this point, we have three victims.”

Sky shuddered.
Victims
, such a visceral word.

The dry erase marker squeaked against the board as Shane wrote out three names:
Barbara Jackson, Erica Marsters
, and
Jody Anne Davidson
. Next came their pictures. Sky sucked in a sharp breath, her heart palpitating at the sight of the three young ladies. Wyatt had mentioned that they resembled her, but never in her wildest dreams…

“Sky?”

It wasn’t until Bale whispered her name that she realized she had risen from her chair and approached the board. Her fingers hovered above the last picture.

“Blonde hair, blue eyes,” she repeated Wyatt’s comment from earlier in the night.

But it went beyond that. All three—four, if she included herself—bore the same facial structure and skin tone. It was downright eerie to see so much of herself reflected on a foreign eight-and-half-inch glossy photo.

“Barbara Jackson was found two months ago, at the bottom of Humming Creek.” Shane brushed against Sky’s shoulder and drew the woman’s picture down. She stood in a crowd, embraced by two other women, all with bright smiles. “Her case was treated as an isolated event. Her wounds were consistent with a long fall. The condition of her, ah…” Shane cleared his throat, “eyes was assumed to be a result of wildlife. It wouldn’t have been the first time a carrion bird got to a body before us.”

“Eyes.” Sky glanced over her shoulder, her gaze skipping from Shane to Wyatt. She shivered at the sight of him, inclined against the wall with his burly arms crossed over his chest, and turned back to Shane. Shane was safer. Shane was docile and comforting. Wyatt scared the hell out of her.  “What happened to her eyes?”

Shane grimaced.

“Man up,” Harley called from across the room. “This is part of the job.”

“What would you know about it?” Shane shot back.

Wyatt pushed away from the wall and strode toward the whiteboard, his gaze roaming over the women’s faces. “Harley has experience with this sort of work.”

“What sort?” Sky whispered.

“Stalkers, serial killers, drug cartels, you name it, babe,” Harley piped in.

Shane tilted his head. “CIA?”

“FBI.”

“Great, a Fed.”

“Former Fed, thank you. Can we return to the issue at hand? I believe Sky asked a question. And this time, don’t punk out, Sheriff.”

With a pinched expression, Shane turned back to her. “When we arrived on scene, the victim’s eyes had been removed.”

She froze.

“Were there any marks on the body to suggest trauma around the eyes?” Harley pressed.

“There were marks. The medical examiner couldn’t conclusively determine the source.”

Sky’s stomach churned. A wave of nausea slammed into her, but if everyone else could hold themselves together, so would she. “But these photos…”

“Once a body is identified, families of the victims often provide us with personal information, such as photographs, that can be released to the public.” Which was how they knew the victims were all blue-eyed. Sky nodded and digested that information.

“And as I previously stated,” he continued, “it was assumed to have been the work of the wildlife. Until Erica Marsters arrived on the scene.”

Shane tapped the middle photo, attracting Sky’s attention. She felt as though she was looking at her future visage. Slight laugh lines crinkled the corners of her eyes and mouth, her blue eyes sparking with a hint of wisdom. The woman had to be in her late thirties and was drop-dead gorgeous.

“Erica Marsters was found within a mile of Humming Creek two weeks later, buried beneath the foliage. Unlike Barbara, Erica’s body showed signs of a struggle. Had it not been for her eyes, the two cases might never have been connected.” Shane’s face crumpled. “DNA was found beneath her fingernails. It was a match.”

Sky forced herself to swallow the bile rising in her throat. “To the samples from my windowsill?”

Shane nodded. “Unfortunately, this person isn’t in the database, so even though we know it’s the same person, we don’t know who he is.”

“You should have warned me,” she whispered. They’d spoken on the phone this afternoon in the airport. He’d insisted she wait for an escort, but had he said why…

“Sky, the last thing I wanted was to upset you any further.”

“She had a right to know, Mr. County Mounty.” Harley crossed the room. “The moment the DNA came back as a match, you should have been on the wire alerting anyone and everyone. Now, you have a serial killer on your hands.”

The world pitched to the side, and Sky reached out, her hand colliding with the desk for balance.

“Hindsight is great, and all that,” Shane grumbled.

“Lack of experience, is more like.”

“Enough,” Wyatt grumbled. “No point crying over it, now.”

“Why the eyes?” Sky whispered, interrupting what she was sure would lead to another pissing contest. Her attention skipped to each of them, but none seemed willing to speak up. “Why?”

“We don’t know,” Shane finally answered. “It’s hard to say. Some murderers like to collect… souvenirs.”

She shuddered, her mind taking a giant leap to a dark room teeming with gouged eyeballs stored in preservation jars. “You know what, forget I asked.” She pressed a hand to her churning stomach.

“Tell us about the third body.” Wyatt led the conversation down a separate path.

“Jody Anne Davidson, our most recent, and by far the most violent case.”

Sky stared at the third picture. Another beautiful woman, forever memorialized in a photo, stared back. Her lush lips curved in a gentle smile, her dark blue eyes shimmering with laughter. Absolutely breathtaking, and Sky felt her gut twist when she realized that the woman’s family would never lay eyes on her lovely face again.

“We called Wyatt in when we found Jody Anne. The marks on her torso suggest he’s losing control. Having an alpha on the team is—”

“Convenient,” Wyatt returned with a snarl.

“What marks?” Sky brought the conversation back on target. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer, but she had to know what they were dealing with. She couldn’t hide in the dark anymore.

The room fell silent until finally Harley said, “Show her. She deserves to see.”

“No,” Wyatt ordered, the clipped word echoing through the room.

“Alpha, she deserves to know what’s happening,” Harley urged in a softer voice. “If we don’t prepare her, any number of things could go wrong. She has to understand the magnitude of the situation.”

Wyatt faced him, his eyes hard.

Sky’s wide eyes bounced between the two of them. Harley stood two inches taller than the alpha, yet lacked the intimidation Wyatt conjured with his pinky finger. There was no doubt in her mind who would win in a fight, and it seemed Harley knew it. Former fed or not, he would obey his alpha.

Sick of the grandstanding, Sky planted her hands onto her hips and faced Shane—the only human in the room. “I decide what I can and cannot handle. Answer my question, now.” The men weren’t the only dominant wolves in the house. Perhaps it was time for her to show them she was made of more than sugar and spice.

“Skylar—”

“Shane. Now.” Yup, she was beyond angry. Regardless of her emotional state, he had no reason to keep such a thing hidden from her. Not when she was top-of-the list for this psycho.

Shane’s eyes flicked to Wyatt’s, and Sky bristled. “No one asked the alpha,” she snapped.

“If she’s so desperate to see, let her.”

There was a challenge in his voice, one that stiffened Sky’s back. They didn’t think she could handle it. And here she thought she’d been doing well. Resigned, she gave a terse nod and waited as Shane dug the photographs out of the folder. No matter what condition the body was in, she wouldn’t retch, or so she told herself.

Shane withdrew the photo and laid it flat on Wyatt’s desk. A shredded woman took shape before her eyes, the flesh on her chest sliced to ribbons. The first sharp breath didn’t come from her; in fact, it came from Axel, who until that moment had held his statuesque position near the desk.

Sky’s chin trembled, but she snapped her eyes closed and drew in a steady breath. No, the room was not swimming, and no the temperature had not spiked. It was all in her head. And she could control that. “Was he…” Her voice wavered and she cleared her throat, determined not to fail herself. “Was he in wolf form when he did that?”

“I don’t know, but if I understand correctly, some werewolves can control individual body parts.”

Wyatt grunted his assent.

“It’s possible he only shifted his hands,
querida
,” Bale murmured from across the room. “But he’d need to be an alpha to possess that level of control.”

“Did he—” Sky choked on her words and pointed toward the picture. “Uh, did he...violate her?”

The silence in the room was answer enough. Her knees buckled and she dropped into Wyatt’s computer chair.

“The other two, as well?”

“I’m sorry, Sky.” Shane’s palms curled over her shoulders, his reaction her answer. “But I swear, this guy won’t lay a finger on you.”

She flicked another glance to the image, her clammy palms curling into tight fists at the sight of Jody Anne’s ruined torso. He’d raked his claws down her length, shredded her from neck to groin. She noticed something odd, and pressed a fist against her mouth to keep from losing what little food she’d eaten all day.

“Sky?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and forced her gaze away. “That’s my nightgown she’s wearing.”

“What?” Shane’s hands vanished from her shoulders as he scrambled to snatch up the photo.

The front of the slip was ruined, but she knew her own blue satin negligee. She’d bought it at the insistence of a friend, all the while knowing no one would ever see it. She was far too invested in her career to let a man slip into her life.

“How do you know?” Wyatt’s deep voice rumbled behind her.

Her wolf ached for comfort, even if it meant leaning into him and taking whatever he could provide. Instead, she straightened in the chair and pointed to the image. “Down toward the thigh. I spilled a little bleach on it when I was doing a load of laundry.” Her eyes narrowed in on the colorless spot. It’d broken her heart when it had happened. “Must have made her put it on while he was in my house.”

The others fell into a stunned silence, and Sky took that moment to glance at Wyatt. Violence brewed in the golden depth of his eyes, his mouth a ferocious line that promised retribution. Such a fierce stare might have terrified her, except for once, Sky found herself on common ground with him. Emboldened by the realization, she didn’t argue when he pulled her out of the chair and drew her flush against him, the tips of his fingers settling against her waist.

“I vote we waste this guy,” Harley suggested.

So preoccupied by the photo, not a single one of them had noticed the slight change between Sky and Wyatt, and she was content with that. She succumbed to her need and leaned into him, holding this newfound camaraderie close and using his strength to bolster her own.

“There is no vote,” Wyatt snarled against her, his grip tight. “The fucker’s dead.”