LustUndone (3 page)

She and Dante Martello, the former Chicago cop, were the
only non-shifters on the team and sometimes she found herself a little jealous
of the others.

“We’re here.”

Lost in her own thoughts she was startled to discover they’d
turned onto Darcie Street and pulled into a parking lot she’d used many times
in her life before leaving for the Night Seekers. Like everyplace else, the
acreage around it was covered with huge drifts of snow, but the driveway and
parking lot had obviously been plowed. The flags at the top of the poles on
either side of the front door snapped in the sharp wind.

They had barely stepped through the door when Sophia felt a
small warm body slam into her and slender arms tighten around her.

“Oh my god. I’m so glad you’re here.”

Sophia managed to disentangle herself enough to take a step
back and look at her sister. Rebecca was as light as Sophia was dark. Blonde
where Sophia had raven hair. Startling green eyes where Sophia’s were a
green-gray-hazel mixture. But the faces were so similar it was impossible to
take them for anything but sisters.

“How are Shelley and Damien?” she wanted to know.

“Good. They’re good.” A tiny smiled quirked her lips. “Her
pregnancy’s coming along nicely.”

“They must be thrilled to death. At least,” Sophia added,
“it sounded like it the last time I spoke to them.”

“Absolutely,” Rebecca agreed. “And it’s just such a blessing.”

Sophia sobered. “How are they reacting to this
latest…situation? It’s been all over the newspaper and television. It can’t be
an easy thing for them.”

Bec shook her head. “Not easy at all, although they seem to
be handling it okay. I made sure to tell them about it before the story went
viral.” She sighed. “At first it just brought everything back about the twins’
deaths but then Damien reminded Shelley they had a new growing life to take
care of and she should try not to stress herself out. It’s been hard but
they’re handling it.”

“And your sergeant was okay with you giving them a
heads-up?”

Rebecca shrugged. “He’s a hardass but he still has feelings.
He didn’t want them to get slammed in the face with it out of the blue.
Although it’s a dicey situation. He’s far from convinced the killings are
connected, and he’s certainly not ready to buy into my theory.”

“But there were two other kills at the same time the boys
died,” Sophia pointed out. “That’s the pattern of the beast. Three at a time.
What did he say about that?”

Rebecca made a face. “Deranged serial killer. Using some
kind of weird tools.”

“If that’s the case I can’t believe you got permission to
bring us in,” Sophia said. “Usually we have to sneak around back doors and
alleys and cook up some strange cover stories. When Cary and Timmy were killed
they announced it was a wild animal and that was that.”

“It wasn’t easy, believe me.” Bec lowered her voice. “But
your big boss did some powerful arm twisting.”

“If anyone can do it, he’s the one,” Sophia agreed. “So
what’s the climate here?”

Rebecca shrugged. “Skeptical. Territorial. Irritated. But
there was one thing no one could get around.”

“What’s that?”

“When Paul Maquire who owns Crown of the State Sporting Camp
went to check on the victim it had stopped snowing. We had to make a
guesstimate on time of death but we think it snowed after the kill but stopped
before the body was found.”

“So they had no clue how anyone or anything had gotten to
the house to make the kill,” Sophia guessed.

“You got it. And trust me. These guys don’t like to be
confused. Or think they’ve been tricked.”

Sophia heard a throat being cleared next to her and a voice
asking, “Think maybe I could get an introduction?”

She grinned. “Rebecca, meet Logan Tanner. Logan, this is my
sister, Bec.”

She watched the two of them shake hands and was stunned at
the electricity arcing between them that was almost visible. She saw Rebecca’s
eyes widen fractionally and Logan’s narrow just a bit. It was at least thirty
seconds before they broke eye contact.

Well, well! Very interesting. But what happens when Bec
finds out Logan’s a shifter?

Dakota had adapted very well as a human mating with a
shifter, but Dakota had her own mystical background. Not everyone was as
accepting. Sophia might have to do a little groundwork here if things between
her sister and her teammate went beyond the incendiary handshake situation.

“I hate to interrupt, but isn’t everyone waiting for us?”
she asked.

Hands dropped as if burned by fire and both people did their
best to act as if nothing unusual had happened.

“Of course.” Rebecca smoothed a stray hair back toward her
ponytail. “Down this hall. By the way,” she glanced at Sophia, “you know your
old friend Bobby Lacroix is the lead on the case, right? That a problem for
you?”

“Not as long as he doesn’t make it one. There was never
anything between us. My choice, though, not his, so I hope he doesn’t hold
grudges.”

“It won’t be for that,” she laughed. “He’s a newlywed and
damn happy about it.” Then she sobered. “But he was the detective who made such
an issue of how absurd your claims of the cause of death were when the twins
were…slaughtered.”

“Maybe he’s had a change of heart,” she muttered as they
entered a conference room.

Several people sitting at the table looked up expectantly as
they entered. Some of the faces were familiar to Sophia, some of them not. But
the man belonging to the most familiar one stood up and held out his hand. He
wasn’t smiling.

“I can’t say it isn’t good to see you, Sophia,” Bobby
Lacroix said, “but not under these circumstances.”

“I understand.”

They shook hands and introduced Logan to the man who rose
beside him.

“Greg Flannery. Our sergeant.”

The big blond man with wide shoulders and gray threaded into
his hair shook hands with them, his face expressionless.

“Your boss…or whatever he is…certainly threw his weight
around, making sure we had everything together for you,” he told them. “I hope
you’ll be some damn help here but I doubt it. You know how I feel about this
insane theory of yours, Sophia.”

Sophia bit back her irritation. “Craig Stafford doesn’t
throw his weight around, as you so bluntly put it. He just has a lot of
influence. And I might say, a lot of resources at his disposal. We’re not here
to get in your way. We’re here to help and share information. And it isn’t a
theory. We have proof. Pictures. Other things.”

“You have to admit, this whole thing sounds like something
out of a horror movie.”

“You said the same thing when my nephews were victims of the
last killing spree,” she pointed out. “You ignored everything I told you yet
never found a human being to pin those murders on and now the creature is back
again.”

“The same mythical creature you tried to sell us before.”

Sophia sighed. “Greg, the Chupacabra is very real. A mutated
animal of some sort that kills in a very specific way. It’s not a legend, it’s
a fact. Believe me. When you look at the pictures you won’t think that.” She
handed the folder to Bobby. “I’ll let you give this out to your folks.”

“And help you promote this crazy theory of yours again.” His
words were clipped. Taut.

“You won’t know whether it’s crazy or not until you hear
what we have to say and look at the evidence,” she pointed out. “We’ve brought
all this information with us to share.”

“Let me ask you a question.” He studied her face. “The other
killings we were told about took place in Texas. Why would an animal migrate
all the way to Maine and start killing again?”

Sophia chewed her bottom lip. She’d been wondering if
someone would ask that. How to answer it without giving away the real theory,
the stuff science fiction nightmares were made of.

“We’ve only recently come to the conclusion there might be
more than one of them. Twice in the last few months we thought we’d killed it
only to have it turn up again in another state. It’s possible,” she said
slowly, “that it’s a hybrid of some type that over time has spread out to
different areas of the country.”

“You really believe that?”

“It killed my nephews two years ago. And two other people.”
She swallowed back the rising anger.

“You don’t know that. Nothing was ever proved. We never
found whatever animal it was. If it even was an animal.”

“You never found a human either. One who had a reason to
kill those people, including two little boys. And we just worked cases in Texas
that were exactly the same. So our theory isn’t any more farfetched than
yours.”

“Maybe it’s just some mutated strain of coyote,” Greg
suggested. “They’re everywhere.”

“We’ve brought things to distribute to everyone, too, on the
cases we’ve worked on. Photographic proof the creature exists.” She pulled a
thick folder from her briefcase. “And believe me, it looks nothing like a
coyote.”

He stared hard at her for a long time. “All right. I won’t
make waves. For now. But there were no tracks around the body, no indication
that any animal had been there. A human being could figure out how to erase his
tracks but not an animal. So we’re still looking for who might want to kill
Darrell. And we haven’t given up on the illegal alien angle, either. Someone
who snuck over the border and was desperate for food and shelter. Maybe Darrell
caught him and the illegal killed him.”

“Greg,” Sophia began.

He cut her off. “That’s how it is, Sophia. We’re going to
continue conducting this as a normal murder investigation.”

Of course they were. She wouldn’t have expected anything
less. She and Logan were there only to offer a possibility they couldn’t afford
not to explore.

“As requested,” Greg went on, “I made folders for each of
you with crime scene reports and the autopsy.” He gave one to Sophia and to
Logan then turned to Bobby. “Your show.”

Sophia dropped into a vacant chair and noticed that Logan
had managed to seat himself next to Rebecca. In the midst of such despair she
actually swallowed a smile. The big Montana native and her petite sister would
make an interesting couple.

“Why don’t you let us take a look at the pictures from the
recent killing?” Logan asked, his voice calm and steady. He and Sophia had
already seen them, thanks to the strings Craig had pulled but Sophia knew he
was trying to set a tone for this meeting. “I understood you’d have copies for
us.”

Bobby stared from Logan to Sophia then back again. Finally
he sighed. “All right. Take a look.”

He picked up a stack of eight-by-ten prints and dealt them
out in a row like cards. The two Night Seekers were prepared for the shock of
them, but still, one never quite got used to this kind of horror. A man who
appeared to be in his sixties was lying on his back on the wide porch of a
long, low house set in a sea of snow. He was dressed in thermal underwear and
jeans, barefoot, a rifle still clutched in one hand. His face was set in a
rictus of horror and his body had been ripped open from throat to waist, the
entrails pulled out and draped over him.

Like all the other scenes the Night Seekers had seen, there
was no evidence of blood.

Sophia looked at Logan. “You know it’s our devil beast.”

He nodded.

“Tell me what makes you say that?” one of the detectives
demanded.

“How about you look at what we brought and see for
yourself.” Sophia pulled the pictures from her briefcase and began laying them
out. “I think these speak for themselves.”

There was dead silence while everyone studied the shots.
Finally Bobby stood up at the head of the table, his folder open in front of
him. “Sophia, why don’t you walk us through the information you’ve brought.
Then we’ll give you the full briefing on Darrell Franklin’s death.”

She nodded and rose. “Let me begin,” she started, “by
explaining exactly what you’re looking at.”

Chapter Two

Sophia was exhausted, all her energy gone. They were all in
the same state of utter fatigue. The meeting had been intense, the pictures and
details gruesome. They had talked it to death for two hours. Back and forth, up
and down. Every detail of every gruesome crime scene had been rolled out on the
table, both by the detectives and the Night Seekers. But the worst part had
been the icy politeness and the blatant distrust.

Sophia kept coming back to the fact that the victim had been
found on his porch wearing nothing but long johns and jeans, not an outfit one
wore outdoors in Maine’s freezing winter temperatures. The CID people wanted to
insist he’d gone to the door to let someone in but there had been no trace of
anyone approaching the house. And none of the detectives had a plausible
explanation for why every bit of blood had been drained from his body.

“He must have heard something,” one of the men said over and
over. “We found his shotgun lying close to him.”

Patiently Rebecca and Logan had detailed the scenes the
Night Seekers had pictures of, exactly like this.

About all they’d agreed on was that it was too late tonight
to do anything. Dark came early in winter and anyway, snow had covered
practically everything at the scene.

Finally, with no conclusion reached except they needed to
visit the scene and start over again, most everyone from the CID had filed out
of the room with orders to gather again at eight in the morning. Only Bobby,
Rebecca, Logan and Sophia were left.

“Nobody believes us,” Rebecca said in a flat voice. “They
didn’t before and they don’t now.”

“You have to admit,” Bobby pointed out, “it’s a pretty
farfetched scenario.”

“No one else had a better explanation,” Rebecca reminded
him. “And the serial killer theory won’t wash unless you believe someone’s
running all over the world killing randomly in this inhuman way. With some kind
of bizarre instrument. Come on, Bobby. Give me a break.”