Generation 18: The Spook Squad 2 (4 page)

“Harry. And no—there are no kids, no wife, and, as far as Frank knew, no girlfriend.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “What about a boyfriend?”

“It’s a possibility. Frank was rather brusque when I asked if there was any particular woman his son might have been seeing.”

The body lay on one of the white sofas. As long as you didn’t look below the waist, it would be easy to think Harry had merely died in his sleep. His arms were crossed, his face peaceful. There was no terror, no hint that he’d known he was about to die so brutally.

“Cause of death?” Gabriel asked, despite the fact that it was obvious. No man could lose both his penis and testes and survive the resulting shock and blood loss unless he had medical help
really
fast.

“Same as the others—blood loss. There’s an ashtray full of cigarette butts on the dining table, too.”

“Same brand as before?” Gabriel squatted to inspect the gaping wound. The blood staining the leather no longer smelled fresh, and the wound itself was beginning to blacken.

“Yes. We’ve scanned for prints, but our killer was wearing gloves again. All we got was a latex smudge.”

“Hmm. There’s one difference, at least. Our killer has shown no real precision with his knife work here. He’s basically just hacked it all away.”

Stephan snorted softly. “I suppose it’s a hell of a lot easier to part a man from his penis than it is a woman from her womb and ovaries.”

“True. But all three victims were obviously unconscious before the murderer operated, so why take care with the women and not with young Harry here? There are several deep nicks on his right inner thigh.”

“Maybe our murderer gets a perverted pleasure from gutting women and wants it to last longer.”

Gabriel frowned. Something in that statement didn’t sit right. The murderer had been meticulous in every detail so far, so why would he change anything just because this victim was male? The sheer number of cigarette butts at every scene very much suggested that the murderer had sat back and watched the blood pour from his victims. And that, in turn, perhaps suggested that he enjoyed the death more than he did the cutting.

Gabriel rose and then hesitated. On the back of the sofa, near Harry’s right hip, a hair glinted softly in the light. It wasn’t one of Harry’s. His hair was red, the same as the other two victims. This was blond and long, with a dark root.

He dug a glove out of his pocket and carefully picked up the hair. “Got a bag?”

Stephan dug one from the crime kit on the table. “Maybe he did have a girlfriend.”

“This could still be male. Long hair is fashionable in the rave scene at the moment. I’ll run a check on Harry’s acquaintances and see what I can find.”

Gabriel secured the bag in the crime kit and turned back to the sofa, certain there was something still to be found. In the previous two murders, the killer had been careful not to leave anything behind. No hair, no prints, nothing that might give him away.

But this time he’d been less than precise with his cutting. So maybe, just maybe, he’d been less than precise with his cleanup. Gabriel studied the position of the body for a long moment, then walked around to the back of the sofa. Blood had soaked through, contrasting starkly against the white, embroidered material. Oddly enough, the thick carpet showed signs of a recent vacuuming.

He frowned and studied the crisscrossed suction patterns on the carpet. Only the small section between the sofa and what looked to be the bathroom had been touched. Near the bathroom door, a faint footprint marred the lush white expanse.

“How many people have been in the apartment since the body was discovered?” he asked, squatting near the print.

“The usual—the two State officers who attended the original call, the building super who let them in and us. Forensics is still on the way. Why? What have you found?”

“A print.” He glanced up at the CSM. “Record image and location of print.”

The black sphere responded immediately, zipping across the room to hover inches from his head. “Image recorded,” a metallic voice stated.

“Resume original position.” He knelt to study the print. As he did, he noticed a slight stain near the door. Liquid of some sort had been spilled near the door frame. He touched it lightly; the carpet fibers were dry and stiff, almost as if they had been glued together. He sniffed his fingers. The faint but unpleasant mix of urine and rotten eggs had him screwing up his nose in distaste.

“Jadrone,” he muttered, coughing to ease the sudden sting in the back of his throat.

“What the hell was Harry doing taking something like Jadrone? Frank’s family is human, not shifter.”

“Which means maybe our killer is some kind of shifter.” It would certainly explain why no one had noticed any strangers hanging about in the two previous murders—particularly if their killer was a multi-shifter. Multis weren’t the norm, but they weren’t exactly rare, either.
That
title went to shifter-changer hybrids, of which his old man was one—although he certainly wasn’t on any record as such. But
that
was due more to careful record erasing than his status actually being missed.

In either case, Gabriel doubted if the killer would be taking the stuff himself. Jadrone was designed to ease the inevitable bone and muscle ailments that afflicted most shifters late in life, but it also had an unpleasant side effect. After several months of continual use, the ability to tell truth from fantasy blurred. And their killer was too practical, too careful, to be on some Jadrone-inspired trip.

So why in hell was there Jadrone on the floor?

“The government took Jadrone off the market a year ago,” Stephan said. “It shouldn’t be too hard to track through records and find out who’s still taking it.”

Gabriel smiled grimly. It might not be too hard, but it was a task he had no intention of doing. Sam could. It would keep her out of his way a while longer. Her anger and frustration had been all too evident in her smoke-shrouded blue eyes tonight. A few more pushes, a few more inane tasks, and she’d be asking for a transfer. All he had to do was convince Stephan it was for the best.

He rose and continued on into the bathroom. The stark whiteness was practically blinding—it had to be hell on the eyes when the sun was shining. A slight breeze stirred the hairs at the back of his neck. He glanced at the ceiling to make sure it wasn’t the air-conditioning and then turned. A hole had been cut into the thick glass wall.

“Monitor, record bathroom evidence.” As had been the case in the two previous murders, this hole was barely big enough to fit his fist through, and the edges were razor sharp, suggesting they’d been cut with a laser.

“Any thoughts on these holes?” Stephan asked from the doorway.

Gabriel shrugged, then stepped out of the CSM’s way. “Escape route, maybe?”

“If the killer’s using Jadrone, he can’t be a shapechanger.”

“No.” Jadrone was as deadly to shapechangers as it was helpful to shapeshifters. No one knew why—though Karl, a good friend of Gabriel’s and one of Australia’s top herbal scientists, thought it might have something to do with body chemistry. “Nothing’s making much sense in this case.”

“Well, it had better. If the killer keeps to his current schedule, you have precisely twelve hours before he strikes again.”

Twelve hours to find someone as elusive as a ghost. What could be simpler? “It would be a damn sight easier if we could find some sort of pattern. Other than being the same age and having red hair, the victims have nothing in common.”

“The answers are there. All you have to do is find them.” Stephan hesitated, then smiled grimly. “And I want Agent Ryan brought in on this one.”

Gabriel stared at his brother, wondering why he was so determined to see him and Sam teamed up. “No.”

“That’s a direct order, Stern.”

And it was one he had no intention of ever obeying—if only because Sam had red-gold hair, the same as the three victims. She might not be twenty-five, but he wasn’t about to risk her safety. Not with his track record.

“Are you listening, Stern?”

“I’m all ears, sir.”

Anger flared briefly in Stephan’s blue eyes. “Good. Report to me hourly.”

Stephan turned and walked away. Gabriel stared after him for a long moment, then glanced up at the CSM. “Position of autopsy team?”

“Entering the building now.”

“Good. Resume original monitoring position.” Gabriel followed the monitor back out to the living room. The answer was here somewhere. He could feel its presence, like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. He stared blankly at the corpse for a long moment and then turned.

Why had the killer vacuumed? And why just the section behind the sofa?

Frowning, he crouched down, studying the vacuum marks intently. Something had to have been spilled or dropped here. Why else vacuum? He shifted slightly and caught sight of something glittering deep in the white pile. He carefully plucked it out—a shard of glass. Then he ran his fingers through the carpet. A plate-size section near his feet felt damp. He sniffed his fingers again. Ginger and lemon, mixed with something spicy he couldn’t define. Its touch burned across his skin.

He knew the scent.
Heat,
the latest rage in perfumes and one designed solely for female use. The manufacturers claimed it made the wearer irresistible to men—a claim that had proven so true that the government was considering putting the perfume on the illegal substances list. Oddly enough, when used by a male, Heat lived up to its name in an entirely different way, burning where it touched.

Harry had no wife, no girlfriend. No reason to buy Heat.

So the killer was female, not male.

S
AM LEANED BACK IN HER
chair and rubbed her forehead wearily. She’d had an almost constant headache for the last two days, and sitting for hours in front of a com-screen certainly didn’t help. Nor did the lack of sleep. In fact, that was probably the cause.

But if she slept, she dreamed. Though she couldn’t remember what those dreams were about, she always woke drenched in sweat, with her heart pounding at the walls of her chest as if trying to escape. And always,
always,
there was a name dying on her lips.

Joshua.

Why, she had no idea. She had no friends by that name. She’d never even met a Joshua, so why dream of him? And why were those dreams always so full of fear?

Sighing, she opened her eyes and stared blankly at the com-screen for several seconds. It was seven thirty in the morning. She should go home and get some rest. Shower, at the very least. But her apartment didn’t seem right anymore. It was too sterile, too neat. The builders and painters had restored the living area after the bombing three months ago, but no one could ever replace all the knickknacks and books she’d collected over the years. And the apartment just wasn’t the same without them.

Maybe she should sell it and start anew. Hell, she’d done it before. She’d left the orphanage with nothing more than the clothes on her back and a hand-drawn picture of her mother. At least she now had a job and a decent amount of credits to fall back on—and given that her apartment was in a posh part of town, it could fetch a small fortune in any sale. A fact Gabriel had noted more than once, and always rather suspiciously. But it wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried her damnedest to uncover who’d left her the apartment in his will. According to the solicitor involved, part of the terms of the gift were anonymity—and that was frustrating, especially when she could remember nothing at all about her parents or her early life.

She picked up her coffee, took a sip, then said, “Hey, Iz.”

The com-screen blinked to life. Dizzy Izzy, a hot pink fur-ball that was the current cartoon rage, stared at her while slowly swinging the end of a purple boa. “Yes, sweetie?”

“Can you do a quick search for Assistant Director Stern’s former partners? Minimal detail—who and where they are?” Izzy’s foot tapped for several seconds. “Results onscreen.”

Two names flashed up—Andrea Morris and Michael Rose. Both dead. And
that,
she thought grimly, was probably the reason for his current determination not to have another partner. Yet even though she could understand his fear, it made his behavior no less annoying.

“That other search you requested is completed,” Izzy added.

“Split screen, and show results.”

“Can do.”

The screen split in two. One side held the images of the four men she’d downloaded from the CSM, and on the other, their names and addresses, courtesy of the Motor Registration Board. Fortunately, they insisted motorists update their license photos every two years. As a State Police officer, there’d been countless forms to fill out before she could access the MRB’s information. The SIU, it seemed, was more powerful. She’d yet to find a system she
couldn’t
get into.

“Do a complete background on those four men, as well as our murder victim, Peter Lyle. Concentrate on current work details and banking activities.”

Izzy frowned, and the boa went into overdrive. “That’ll take time, sweetie.”

“I know. Proceed.”

“You’re the boss.”

“Only in this shoe box,” she muttered, then turned as the door opened. Gabriel walked in and dumped a file on her desk.

She eyed it wearily. “What’s that? More of the newly turned to be cataloged?”

“No. I want you to do a search and find out who’s still being prescribed Jadrone.”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Why?”

“Because we found traces of Jadrone in Harry Maxwell’s apartment.”

“Harry Maxwell? Frank Maxwell’s kid?”

Gabriel frowned and sat down on the edge of her desk. Given her office was little more than a glorified broom closet, he practically loomed over her. “Yes. Do you know him?”

“Sort of. Jack and I often ran across him during our shifts.”

“Doing what?”

“He was a regular at Maximum
.”

Gabriel raised a dark eyebrow. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Really? A major outfit like the SIU doesn’t know about the existence of a dive like Maximum?”

“The SIU might well be aware of it—I simply said that
I
wasn’t. This organization has hundreds of investigations underway at any one time. I’m certainly not aware of all of them—just the ones my department are responsible for.”

A perfectly reasonable answer, except for the fact that, from what she’d seen over the last few months, both Gabriel and Stephan lived and breathed work—whether it was for SIU or for the Federation. Not that she was much better, but, hell, they had friends, a family. A choice.

And probably the only reason neither of them knew about Maximum would be because it hadn’t come into the SIU’s sphere until now. Which was understandable, given that Maximum was more a vice squad problem than SIU.

“It’s an underground rave house. Popular with the gay scene, and for those seeking prescribed or illegal drugs.”

“So Harry was a user?”

“He’s what I term a prescribed druggie. He used to hit up on Jadrone.”

“But Jadrone has no effect on humans.”

“Which can only mean that Harry wasn’t entirely human, because he got blasted pretty regularly.”

Gabriel frowned. “But even shifters have to take it daily for several months before it has any effect—at least in terms of blurring the line between fantasy and reality.”

“So says the government, but take a large enough dose and the hallucinogenic effects are pretty immediate.”

He studied her for a minute, his hazel eyes intense and unreadable. “Why was he never pulled in?”

“He was. Several times. But Frank Maxwell knows all the right people. The department kept dropping the charges.”

“Did you know his supplier?”

She hesitated. “No.” In truth, she did—but if she told Gabriel, she’d remain stuck in this shoe box for yet another day. “But I can find out if you want.”

“I want. I’ve got nine hours before the killer strikes again.”

I’ve
got, not
we’ve
got. He still wasn’t letting her in. “Anything else?”

His sudden smile was almost predatory.
Here it comes,
she thought.
The inane task to end all inane tasks.

“I want you to get a list of everyone who’s bought Heat in the last month, then contact every one of them to see if any of them happen to know Harry Maxwell.”

She stared at him. “But that could take days! Heat is the perfume world’s flavor of the month.”

“Then you’d better get started, hadn’t you?”

He rose and left, but not before she’d caught the amused glint in his eyes. “Damn you to hell,” she muttered, and kicked the door. Easy to do when she was so damn close to it. It slammed shut with wall-shaking force.

“Hey, careful!” yelled the guy in the neighboring shoe box.

She snorted. She’d probably woken the old bastard up. Her office was in an area the SIU called the vaults, but was more commonly known as the black hole. Once in, never out—or so the saying went. It was a cataloging area and generally reserved for those close to retirement or no longer able to cope with the pressures of the SIU. Gabriel’s excuse for putting her here was lack of office space elsewhere.

Of course,
his
office was large enough for four desks.

He was obviously trying to piss her off enough to quit, and, in part, he was succeeding. But she wouldn’t quit, and she wouldn’t ask for a transfer, if that was what he was after. She’d ride it out, if only because being his partner gave her access to a whole new range of computer systems. And one of them surely held some clue to her past—although it wasn’t as if she’d actually made use of the SIU’s system yet. She hadn’t dared to risk it, given her initial three-month probationary period. But with that now almost ended, she had to take the chance—just in case Gabriel succeeded in getting rid of her.

She leaned forward and picked up the folder. Inside she found photos and the crime scene report. She thumbed past the photos, barely bothering to look at them, and then scanned the autopsy results.

Interestingly enough, no traces of Jadrone had been found in Harry’s system. Which meant he couldn’t have had a fix for at least a week. But Harry was a junkie. If he’d been off Jadrone for any longer than three days, he would have been a mess. Frowning, she sorted through the papers and found the follow-up report. He’d showed up for work, on time, every single day.

She’d seen Jadrone junkies being weaned off the drug. Harry shouldn’t have been able to piss on his own, let alone get up and go to work.

Maybe she should head down to Maximum and find old Max, the owner and chief supplier. “Izzy, I need two more searches.”

The pink fuzz-ball reappeared on the screen. “I’m stressing out here, darlin’.”

“You’ll live. I want a complete list of everyone who’s bought Heat in the last month.”

The purple boa became a blur. “Why don’t you ask for the moon to turn blue? Hell of a lot easier.”

“Tell me about it,” she muttered. “The other search I want done is for all available information on the following names.” She hesitated and dug the birth certificate out of her drawer. After unfolding it, she added, “Meg More, Mike Shean, David Wright, Jeremy Park, Alice Armstrong, Rae Messner, Mark Allars and Fay Reilly. That’s a priority-one search. All channels.”

The purple boa stilled. “By what authority?”

“Gabriel Stern, Assistant Director, badge number 5019.”

“The director has a note online to be informed if you request information on these eight names.”

The only way Gabriel could have known about the birth certificate was if he’d been snooping through her desk. She certainly hadn’t mentioned it. “Then inform him and get on with the search.”

“Search underway. It may take the whole day, sweetie.”

And she wasn’t about to hang around waiting. “Save all the results to my personal folder and scan a copy onto disk.” Working with Jack for so many years had taught her to be careful. Computers could be hacked into, and data erased or changed. But if you made a hard copy of everything, you at least had a backup.

“Consider it done. Have a nice day.”

“Yeah, right.” She rose and stretched. A shower and a few hours’ sleep were her first priority. Then she’d head to Maximum and have a cozy little chat with Max. Harry had been a reliable customer for at least three years. And if Max didn’t know how Harry had come off the drug with no side effects, no one would.

She grabbed her bag and headed out the door.

Gabriel entered his office, yanked off his tie and tossed it across the arm of the nearest chair. Then he loosened the top two buttons on his shirt and walked across to the autocook. “Coffee, black, two sugars.”

He whistled tunelessly until the coffee was ready, then walked across to his desk and sat down.

“Computer on.”

The com-unit hummed softly. “Good afternoon, Assistant Director.”

“I want a complete background check on Harry Maxwell. Priority one.”

“Proceeding. The search results for Anna Jakes and Raylea Burns have also been completed.”

“Split screen and show results.”

“Proceeding.”

He leaned back in his chair and sipped the steaming coffee. They’d begun using decent beans in the AD’s machines of late, and the coffee actually tasted like coffee, rather than the bitter metallic substitute that was used in the rest of the SIU’s machines. It was a nice change.

The com-screen came to life, displaying the bloody images of the first two women killed. Underneath the photos were their histories.

He scanned through them both quickly and frowned. They’d been born on the same day, in the same military hospital.

“Display the birth certificates for both women.”

“Displaying.”

The two documents came onscreen. He raised his eyebrows. A birthday wasn’t the only thing they’d shared. They also had the same mother. So why hadn’t Emma Pierce raised her daughters? And how could both girls be listed as being born at ten fifteen p.m. if they had the same mother?