Secret of the Wolf (14 page)

The elf’s smile was serene. “I can handle a demon. He won’t throw anything my way that I haven’t seen before.” A crafty look flickered in her eyes. “He may prove useful. In my effort to assimilate, I mean.” Her smile widened, and Tori was sure it was an effort to keep her from probing too closely. “Anyway,” Keira went on, “I’m old and rich enough that no one will make me do anything I don’t want to, believe me.”

Of that, Tori had no doubt. There was something about Keira in this moment, with her hair pulled back in a long braid, wispy tendrils falling around her face, that put Tori in mind of the fierce Briton warrior queen Boadicea. She had no trouble imagining Keira as a similar warlike leader in Ireland back in the day. At any rate, Tori had a feeling she’d be seeing more of Keira. She only hoped it wasn’t because the elf wasn’t living honestly.

Keira murmured a good-bye and walked away.

Tori went over to Tobias. “How’s Nix?” she asked upon reaching him.

His gray eyes lightened. “She’s doing well, thanks. I’ll let her know you asked about her.” He folded his arms over his chest. “How are things going with you?”

“Good.” She made sure to keep her voice low. Preternaturals had incredible senses and could hear the smallest of sounds. “Dante and I are working on a little project,” she said as if Tobias didn’t already know. “There’s some interesting stuff going on. We’re getting together again tomorrow night.” That was as much of an update as she could give him at the moment.

He lifted his chin in acknowledgment. “You’ve been working closely with him on the past few cases, haven’t you?” When she nodded, he asked, “What do you think of the detective?”

How was she supposed to say that she thought Dante was handsome, witty, and charming? That she lusted after him? That the more she learned about him, the more she liked him?

That she was afraid she was falling in love with a man who didn’t want to love her?

In the end, all she said was, “I like him.”

Tobias gave a quirky grin. “What’s not to like, right? He’s a good man.” He put one hand on her shoulder. “I hear you offered to stay with Barry tonight.”

She nodded.

“You’ve got grit. I’ll give you that.”

“That’s what people keep telling me.” She shrugged. “I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“That’s what I mean. The right thing to do is sometimes the hardest thing to do. That you were willing to go through that says a lot about your character.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze and then dropped his hand to his side. “Keep me posted.”

“Will do.” When he started to turn away she called his name. “Have you heard anything about the stats for our area? I mean, do we know how many prets have moved into the greater Phoenix area in the last twelve months?”

He frowned. “We should be getting those figures together within the next week. We wanted to have this meet and greet first. Why?”

She moved closer to him. “According to Dante, three big cities in our region have had double the normal amount of prets moving into the area. I’m just wondering if Phoenix is the same.”

“If it is,” he said, his voice low, “the…situation we’ve been concerned about just got worse.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“And with these rogue attacks happening…” Tobias leaned in. “They might not be as random as we’d believed. You keep your nose to the ground on this one, Tori.”

“I will.”

He gave a nod and left the room.

She watched him walk away, his formal robes swirling. He should have looked silly, but instead there was something regal about him. Being a council member suited Tobias well.

When she turned around she saw Ash waiting for her in the lobby. She walked out of the chamber and went with him to the employee break room. They sat down on the sofa, slightly facing each other. “So,” she said. “What’s up?”

“You know we’ve had a lull in the attacks.” Ash frowned. “I should be grateful, but my gut tells me this is the calm eye of an ugly storm.” His blue eyes took on a hint of amber as his disquiet grew. “There’s something that’s been bugging me.”

“What?” Tori stretched her arm along the back of the sofa.

“Each crime scene has an area of pebbles or debris set up in some sort of pattern. Whoever it is has lined everything up in a neat, tidy row of six.” He shook his head. “I think it’s the rogue’s signature, something he’s compelled to do. I don’t know.” He huffed a frustrated sigh. “I’m going to talk to the department shrink about it. I think maybe the suspect’s OCD or something.”

Tori’s heart stopped. OCD. Series of six, just like Rand’s green peas. Oh God, this couldn’t be happening.

W
hile Tori sat in shock, Ash went on. “It could be some sort of message, I guess. Maybe that he plans on a total of six turnings?”

She swallowed, hard, and tried to mask her emotions. It wouldn’t help if Ash sensed her rising panic. “It could be a woman, you know.” She wasn’t trying to derail his investigation, not really. She just needed to buy some time to figure out what was going on.

Oh, hell. Who was she trying to kid? She
was
trying to point him in another direction,
any
direction that didn’t lead back to her brother. She didn’t believe, couldn’t believe, that Rand was involved. It was a huge leap to go from having OCD to being a rogue killer, but she had to be sure.

Until she knew for certain, she wasn’t going to say anything to anyone. If she could prove he was involved, in whatever way, then she’d know what she had to do. She only hoped that no other innocent people were turned or, worse, killed while she protected her brother.

If this went wrong, at the very least she could lose her job. At the worst, she could lose her job
and
be the one sitting in a cell in the basement waiting to suffer through thirty days of torment.

She wondered if anyone would volunteer to go through the torture with her.

Ash’s brows dipped slightly. “I’m using ‘he’ in the generic sense.” He scrubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “My gut is talking up a storm on this one, and it coincides with the statistics I researched. Most prets who go rogue are male. Something like ninety-two percent.” He blew out a breath. “Ah, hell. I don’t know. What do
you
think?”

Tori’s heart had started beating again and now drummed in stunned, dull thuds against her ribs.
I think maybe it’s my brother
. But she couldn’t say that. Not without proof. “It might just be coincidence.”

“At all three scenes?” His voice was tinted with light tones of disbelief. He shook his head. “I could buy it if it was one scene. It could be possible that maybe someone else had been there and did the thing with the rocks, but not at all three scenes.”

She had to concede. “You’re right.” God. What should she do? If she did her job, she’d tell Ash that she knew someone who might fit the bill, except she was talking about her
brother
. Tori couldn’t turn him in. Not yet. All werewolves could be killers. She knew Rand was capable of this. What she didn’t know was why. Until she knew for sure, she had to keep this secret. She stood to lose so much, including the man she was falling in love with. Dante had definite ideas of right and wrong, and she didn’t know if he’d understand why she’d kept this from him. What she did know was that when family was involved, there was no black or white. There were just endless shades of gray.

All she could manage to say now to Ash was, “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

“Thanks.” Ash stood and looked down at her. “Where you headed to?”

Tori got to her feet. “I thought I’d check on Barry before heading out.”

 “I’ll go with you,” he said.

As they walked down the stairs and approached the holding area, Barry stood and walked to the front of his cell. He was dressed in denim shorts and a loud Hawaiian-style shirt. His feet were bare, though Tori saw a pair of sandals beneath the lone bunk that was bolted to the back wall. The smell of sweat and fear was heavy in the air.

A silver manacle was clamped around one of his ankles, and another one around his right wrist. With his fingers wrapped around the bars, he looked at her. “Hey,” he said, his voice subdued. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

 “I just wanted to see how you’re doing.” She covered one of his hands with hers. “You don’t have to go through this alone,” she said. “My offer still stands.”

Barry drew in a deep breath and, for a moment, she thought maybe he’d change his mind. Finally he shook his head. “No. It was my mistake and I have to pay for it.” He glanced over her shoulder at Ash. His expression hardened a little. “Did you want something?”

“Just making sure Tori doesn’t give in to her soft heart, that’s all.” He lifted his chin. Icy blue eyes stayed fixed on Barry. “You better appreciate what she offered to do for you. Not many people would have done so.” He gave the other werewolf a once-over and scowled. “I sure as hell wouldn’t have.”

“I know. And I do appreciate it, believe me.” Barry began to pace. “I’m so sorry, Tori. I never meant to hurt anyone.” He paused with a grimace. “Well, anyone other than the vampire.”

“Whom you managed
not
to hurt,” Ash muttered, his scowl deepening. “Good going there.”

“Yeah, I screwed up, thanks for not rubbing it in.” Barry looked at Tori. “I’m glad you’re my liaison and not this jerk.”

“You wanna see a jerk? I’ll show you a jerk, you little pissant.” Ash took a step forward, the dark amber of disgust darkening his eyes.

“Ash,” Tori warned.

He paused, fists clenched.

Barry sighed and plopped onto the lone metal bunk bolted to the wall. His glower was directed solely at Ash. “It’s not like I woke up one morning in 1939 and said, ‘Hey! I think I’ll turn into a werewolf today.’”

None of them had asked for this life. All of them did the best they could, some better than others. Barry wasn’t one of them.

“Just what did you do to get sent through the rift?” Ash rested his hands on his hips and stared at Barry, curiosity shining through the lingering distaste in his eyes.

“You remember how the government passed what amounted to a three-strikes-and-you’re-out law?”

Tori vaguely remembered that law being enacted a few years before her own trip through the rift. “They still had that one on the books?”

“Yeah.” Barry shrugged. “I was in the wrong place with the wrong people at the wrong time. And now I’m here.” He gestured to the cell.

“And still making bad choices,” Ash said.

Barry popped off the bunk and headed toward the bars.

Testosterone-laden anger filled Tori’s nostrils with a heavy odor of cloves. She threw out an arm and shoved him back. “Stop it, both of you.” She frowned at Ash. “We’ve all done things we’re not proud of, things we’d take back if we could. But there is no easy button in life, and pointing out Barry’s shortcomings isn’t helping at all.” She sighed. “Just…keep me posted on your current case, okay?”

“Sure.” Ash sent a lingering stare Barry’s way, then looked at Tori again. “You coming?”

Dante leaned over the schematics and fought the urge to open up the device. That was something that should be done with Tori around. But these schematics were fascinating. Just as he started to trace a couple of lines with his finger to see where they ended, his cell phone rang. Manny Ramirez was on the line.

“Manny,” Dante said in greeting. “You still at the conference in Vegas?”

“Yeah.” Manny’s heavy sigh came across the speaker. “I was going to stay another day, get a break from the job and the family… You know, have a ‘me’ day. Then my wife called. Her mother’s health is failing and Rosa needs to go take care of her. I need to get home to be with the kids. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, but with five of them, there’s never any time to be alone.”

“Then why’d you have five kids?”

“ ’Cause we didn’t want more than that,” Manny said completely deadpan.

Dante chuckled at his friend’s droll humor. “I’m sorry to hear about your mother-in-law. Where does she live?”

“El Paso.” He paused for a second and then muttered, “God, I hate to fly.”

“The conference was worth it though, right?” Slouching down, Dante stretched his legs out under the table.

“Yeah.” The other man cleared his throat. “Listen, I wanna run something by you, get your opinion.”

Dante straightened. “Shoot.”

 “Ash and I think that the suspect is leaving either a clue or a signature.” He lowered his voice. “Six stones, pieces of trash, or other debris are left at the scene in a perfect line.”

“At each scene?”

 “Yep. I didn’t notice it at the first one, but after I saw it at the second and again at the third, I went over the crime scene photos and, sure enough, there it was. Always in a grouping of six.”

“And you think the suspect has done this?” Dante figured it was a logical conclusion and one he would come to if it were his case.

“Sure. I mean, having it at all three scenes can’t be a coincidence, right?” Manny heaved a sigh. “Ash called to tell me there haven’t been any attacks since I’ve been out of town.”

Dante raised his brows. “Is there something you wanna tell me, buddy?”

“What?” Manny muttered something in Spanish under his breath. “I am not a werewolf.”

Dante’s Spanish wasn’t the best, but it sounded like Manny had questioned his parentage. He grinned, then sobered as he thought about the case. “Even if the suspect is lining all these things up in a row, he’s not leaving any usable evidence, so it’s really not going to help us much.”

“Other than establishing a profile.”

Dante thought about what Manny had said. He cast his mind back to a profiling class he’d gone through a few years back. “A signature would be something he’s compelled to do, something that may or may not have anything to do with the actual crime. Maybe he’s OCD.” He sat up and leaned his elbows on the table. “What does Ash think?”

“He pretty much came up with the same thing. Said he talked to the werewolf liaison in your quadrant and she agrees. So does my captain.” Manny cleared his throat again. “I just wanted your opinion.”

Dante gave a little shrug. “It works for me.” He heaved a sigh. “Guess that means you just need to be on the lookout for a rogue werewolf with OCD. Shouldn’t be too hard,” he said with a bit of sarcasm.

“Yeah, right. At least it’s something.”

Something was better than nothing, though not by much.