Craven's body would never be seen again.
I was sick and tired of this shit.
Chapter 25
“You look different today,” Rosco said.
“Like you'd know.”
“I’m only saying. Are you wearing makeup?”
I snorted ungraciously. “Do I look like I'd wear makeup? Get me a coffee.”
His gaze narrowed.
Keats entered with coffee and muffins.
“Oh, look here,” Rosco said. “Coffee for the princess.”
“Don't call me that.”
“Okay, Shortie,” he teased, looking up at me.
“Runt,” I said.
“You seem different today,” Keats said.
“Told you,” Rosco chimed.
“Holy elephants,” I muttered, snatching a coffee. Sarakas and I headed for his Tahoe.
Dispatcher radioed with a public misconduct call at a local swap-meet. The suspect was unknown and untagged. Instantly, my gut sank with dread.
Outbreak.
We pulled into the market expecting chaos but finding none. Sarakas parked at the entrance. When we exited, I heard shouting. Not screaming or cries of pain: shouting. Sarakas and I exchanged a look and entered cautiously.
A crowd of pedestrians circled, watching the conflict. Three people stood at the epicenter: a medium sized male, a tiny old woman, and a bulbous man taller than myself. Body language immediately declared that the big man was throwing a tantrum at the smaller one. The merchant clutched something to his chest with one arm and shouted angrily at the large guy, who was wailing. The high-pitched sound was worse than nails on a chalkboard. The old woman blubbered and flapped her hands, trying to whimper her way to a solution.
No mutt in sight.
We breached the circle. Sarakas identified us and issued commands for everyone to get down. The old lady stupidly began to lay down in the path of the potentially violent conflict. With one hand ready on my holster and one eye on Sarakas, I grabbed her arm and pulled her away. Her hand, made claw-like with arthritis, clutched at mine. She gibbered in Spanish, but I caught little of it, except a stream of prayers and hijo. The larger man was her son. I helped the older lady sit on the floor.
“Quieto, no te muevas,” I said. “Quieto.”
Her son carried over three hundred pounds of bulbous weight on a stocky frame. His red cheeks shuddered as he made his angry noise at the merchant, who in turn shouted a string of profanity crass enough to embarrass a seasoned drill sergeant. The big boy covered his ears and wailed louder. Sarakas tried to issue commands over the noise, but the son's volume overwhelmed everything.
Sensing someone coming up on me, I pivoted and cleared the gun from its holster. The crowd stepped further back at the sight of my weapon. The mother approached me on her knees, reaching for my pants. I stepped away and pointed my finger to indicate that she stay. I didn't speak much Spanish and certainly didn't understand a hysterical version of it.
“Hey, lady,” a helpful bystander yelled. “She's trying to tell you he's autistic.”
The claim shed new light on the scene, but the truth remained, if the man turned violent, I’d have to shoot him regardless of disability.
His shrill noise was going straight to my nerves.
I strode closer.
Sarakas encouraged distance between the two loud-mouths. The autistic man maintained his tantrum, precisely as a toddler in the supermarket wails irrationally about the candy of its heart's desire. I stormed over to the merchant. Whatever he held was the catalyst of this chaos. He tried to yell explanations and accusations at me while I snatched the thing from his sweaty grip.
A cartoon action figure.
Civilization was coming to an end, witches hid their faith in order to avoid being murdered, and teenagers pulled dismembered parts of babies from a monster's maw. Meanwhile, these grown-ass men were fighting over a toy.
I punched the merchant in the face.
“Durant!” Sarakas chastised, distracted.
The ranting son saw the fated object and charged me.
Wham.
Felt everything loosen. Bones, air, brain.
Table took my impact, gave way, and crashed to the ground. I lost breath. The other man was caught in the tackle. We turned into a pile of flailing elbows and soft mass. Five hundred pounds of wailing, red-faced humans squished me.
Gunfire bellowed.
Sarakas fired three warning shots, which stopped everything except the autistic man. My partner's forearm slipped around his throat, dragging him off me. Breathless, I rolled away and struggled to my feet. My entire body felt pulverized and I grabbed my knees, swaying dramatically. The merchant started to stand. I summoned all my strength and used my anger as fuel. With a forward thrusting kick, my boot struck his chest. He flew backward. After all, his shit had started the mess.
I gave the toy to the linebacker-sized autistic man and he instantly shut up. End of conflict.
Wheezing, I realized I'd lost all healing progress on my broken ribs. Probably had free-floating shards rolling around inside me.
“You okay?” Sarakas said.
“Peachy.”
I glared at the merchant.
“Someone needs to pay for that,” the greedy man said. I kicked him again, sending him sprawling back, breathless.
Sarakas flexicuffed the merchant and autistic man, lecturing about appropriate behavior. I limped over to the mother. Tears streaked her face, and she knew. She knew the hopeless situation would one day culminate in the loss of her son.
“Take him home before Homeland Security decides he needs a walk in the desert. Ve a casa ahora,” I said. I helped her to her feet, ignored her desperate string of Spanish, and slipped a bill into her hand.
“Taxi,” I commanded.
She ushered the now-docile grown man through the dispersing group.
My partner set his hands on his hips and lectured me. Justifiably.
“Goddamn it, Durant. Don't forget people are dangerous even if they're not L-pos. And don't hit people anymore. I nearly shot an unarmed man because you couldn't stow your temper.”
He was totally right, so I didn't say anything. Besides, my hand hurt. My ribs were screwed. I tried not to pout, but Sarakas must have seen the signs.
“Let's get out of here,” he said. “I want donuts. At least half a dozen.”
We cruised to a bakery, ordered a ridiculous quantity of sugar-saturated confections, and milled around the neighborhood. I tried not to reveal how much my ribs were killing me, but Sarakas wasn't an idiot. Muscles along his jaw ticked every time I shifted or took a delicate breath.
He reached across the cab and flicked open the dash, dropping Gorgonblood capsules into my hand. Injuries, drugs, injuries, more drugs. Vicious cycle.
“Richard Daltry reached shedding temps,” Daisy from dispatch said. “Tag temp is at one hundred degrees and climbing, heart rate in red zone. He's incredibly spooked.”
I stuffed the pastry in my mouth as Sarakas drove. He was a smoother, slower driver than me, but I didn't complain. Work—however murderous—would be a welcome distraction from his disapproving silence.
“He's calming down,” dispatch said. “Maybe it was a false alarm.”
“Any cameras in the area?” Sarakas said.
“Traffic cams near that location don't show any traffic or pedestrian disturbances. His stats are still dropping,” Daisy said.
“Did he shed or not?” I demanded.
“Can't say. And his temp is at ninety-eight now.”
“What? How does a body temperature drop five degrees in ten minutes?”
“He's dead,” Sarakas said. “Has to be dead.”
“Heart rate…wow. Forty a minute.”
“So he is dying.”
“A body normally takes longer to cool,” I said. “Get Yoshino on the phone.”
“Someone is jerking us around,” Sarakas said.
“Maybe. But if he's a mutt and he shed,
how did he come down so fast? How could a mutt emerge in public without causing utter pandemonium?”
“Wait, we're getting a beat here,” dispatch said. “Heart rate is climbing. Temp rising, too. We're at ninety-nine degrees, two hundred beats per minute. Lord! Shedding temp again, but heart rate is crashing back down to…seventy.”
“He's having heart attacks,” I said. “Maybe shedding is causing him such a massive strain that his heart gives out and his body backs down from the change.”
“Daltry is twenty-three. He's a little young for heart attacks,” Sarakas said.
“You have another explanation?”
“A broken tag. Tech went kooky,” he said. “We'll get to the area and there won't be a mutt. You'll see.”
We arrived. No mutt.
“Tag is on the move, northbound 17,” dispatch said.
“Is there a heart rate?” Sarakas said. “Because I'm not chasing a tag across country if there’s not a body attached.”
“Heart rate confirmed,” Yoshino said. “Barely.”
“Yoshino, talk to me,” I said. “What the hell is this?”
“Maybe the tech went bad?”
“Have you ever seen a tag this erratic?”
“Most tag malfunctions will echo the last reading. When the temp drops so far so fast, it usually means we've got a crime scene. It usually doesn't bob up and down. No one can shed back and forth like that. It's a glitch.”
I busily fit information together. Only one scenario came to mind: poachers grabbed Daltry. Hunters repeatedly dosed their prey to keep him sedated, making his temp and heart falter. The rise and fall of vitals was the result of his body trying to work past the T-61 cocktail.
I grabbed Sarakas' earpiece and clicked off.
“We've got a problem.” I relayed what Mullen told me about poachers and mutt victims. At first Sarakas didn't believe me but finally admitted the pattern might fit.
“Okay, maybe someone drugged Daltry, however, everyone knows what a tag does. Why wouldn't they ditch the tracker when they grabbed him?”
“Good question. Unless Daltry kept the tag on purpose. Maybe he hid it. How would he keep a tag without letting his captors know?” I rubbed my forehead and strained my neurons. “Shoot. What was the last stable temperature it read?”
“Ninety-six degrees.”
“Holy crap. He swallowed it,” I said.
“What?”
“I'm guessing Daltry saw something big and nasty coming so he swallowed the tag. He wants the FBHS to find him. We're finally the lesser of two evils. Keep tracking him.”
“Durant, we can't run wild with this. If authentic humans are involved, we need to include local law enforcement. FBHS has jurisdiction over mutt crimes, but we don't have the authority to target a group of humans.”
“Whatever, Sarakas. How about we trace the tag and learn where it stops? Maybe we even investigate this as if it's a real crime?”
“Don't get bitchy.”
I was quiet on the drive. Andreas was still mad at me about my shitty protocol and the sucker punch, and I didn't want to think about how long it would take for pelters to start cutting on Daltry. Worse, if he was in mutt form when the FBHS arrived, we wouldn't save him. We'd put him down like a sick animal.
At least it would be fast.
We stopped at Daltry's place to investigate. Everything was clean, organized. No indication of a struggle or temper tantrum. His refrigerator was loaded with protein, largely pork. Medicine cabinet contained SlumberPrime, RestX, and SheepCounter. He suppressed the disease with powerful sleeping aids. This man was a monster, targeted by worse monsters.
God, the hunters would take his skin. Over...and over.
Goosebumps riddled my flesh.
“He's in the air,” dispatch reported.
“What?”
“The tags are on a plane. It's the only way to explain the speed and trajectory.”
Jesus. I grabbed the last donut and ate viciously while Sarakas changed the radio station to jazz. I soothed my emotions with sugar, he used classy music.
After sitting in the office for a tense hour, Daisy and Yoshino found the tag's final location. The info went to Santi, who took even longer to believe the T61 story than Sarakas. I nearly summoned Mullen for a second opinion. When I finally convinced the blockheads, Santi eventually came to the same conclusion: humans fell out-of-bounds.
“Our mission requires a group effort,” Santi said. “The great state of Utah is organizing SWAT to accompany us. More like we're accompanying them. Shouldn't be but a few hours until the plane leaves. We'll need to exercise utmost caution. Tad from PR is already composing a statement—”
“We found a group of serial killers with an unknown number of victims,” I said. “I don't care how the public wants to see it, we need to get there as soon as possible, before they have a chance to skin these people alive.”
“Mutts,” Santi reminded. “The vics are all L-pos, Kaidlyn. The offenders are human. Usually we dispatch a team to save humans from the big bad wolf, but now you want to save the mutts from mankind? What you're proposing is entirely unprecedented. Frankly, it's outrageous. I know you love the guns-blazing motif, but this time we play by the book. Policy doesn't lend credence to the idea that humans can be killed in the defense of mutts. These people need to be read their rights—the whole legitimate business—or the media will have a carnival. Can you even recite the Miranda rights?”
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney—”
“We're waiting, Durant. Sit down and shut up.” Santi turned on his heel and left. He had been bluffing anyway.
No one cared about rights anymore.
I glanced at my team. Sarakas was deliberately unreadable and no one else offered an opinion. I grabbed my ceramic coffee cup and whipped it at the wall. It broke and coffee splatted. I threw myself into my chair and thunked my head on the desk.
“Jesus, Durant,” Rosco said.
“Wake me when the spineless bureaucrats are done dragging their pussy feet.”
“Explain this to me again,” Keats said.
“We suspect a group of poachers has been abducting mutts to harvest their skins. They sell the pelts on the black market to pretentious buyers. Butchers, pelters, call them whatever. The creeps are skinning people.”
“But fur recedes when a mutt dies.”
“Apparently, rubbing fresh skin with myrrh preserves it long after it's separated from the victim.”
“Pelters.” He thought about it. “That's messy. Who would willingly get that close to a contaminant? How can they contain the animal for skinning? It sounds implausible.”
“Theoretically, they use a drug cocktail to cause cardiac arrest. It puts mutts into an unconscious breathing state long enough for sociopaths with knives to do their dirty work.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Don't I know.”
Even with credible witnesses, this would never go to court. Please, find a way to end this. I wasn't sure who I was pleading to—my guns, maybe. I wasn't good at waiting and wishing. I needed to be in the field, shooting something.
Rosco started to clean my coffee off the wall. I didn't like him thinking he could clean up my messes, like he was managing me.
“I can get it.” I picked up a few shards of the broken ceramic.
“I got it, Princess.”
“Whatever.” I dropped the pieces, threw myself back in the chair, and waited.
“Nice to know you care about something, Shortie,” he said, tossing paper towels into the garbage.
“Go to hell,” I said, heartless and soft. The arrogant pretty boy smiled, riling my temper. “Look, you smug prick, you don't have a clue when it comes to what motivates me, comprede?”
“Whatever, bitch.”
“Whore.”
He went to his desk, all pleased
with himself, like he figured me out. I shook my head, determined to stop flaunting emotions. This was business. No reason to think about Daltry being skinned alive, screaming, waiting for us to rescue him.
Keats rolled his chair to my desk and came within whispering distance.
“Kaidlyn, this case seems especially stressful for you. Now, I'm not judging. We all know the job can be an extreme trial. If you ever need to talk with a kind group of people, my church holds several evening sessions aimed at supporting servicemen and their families. You might find comfort—”
“Thanks, Keats, but not a chance.”
One emotional display and he wanted to soothe my soul. I would rather chew glass. Luckily, I was out of ceramic mugs. I phoned Yoshino.
“I need a list of veterinary clinics and animal shelters consuming an unusually high amount of T-61, sodium pentobarbital, or anything similar. Find out how much of the drug is needed to put a dog to sleep and see who receives in excess. Then get a list of pharmaceutical companies that supply those clinics.”
I hung up.
“You have horrible phone etiquette,” Rosco said. “No hello, no goodbye. Rude.”
“I hate wasting time on phone foreplay. I’d rather cut out the bullshit.”
“So you're all about quickies?”
“I'm guessing all sex with you is quick. Probably have the staying power of a rodent.”
He laughed and shrugged.
Sarakas hung up the phone. “The tag's signal has been stable and stationary for twenty minutes. We have a location north of the Utah state border.”
“Great.” I jumped up.
“Apparently there is more activity at the site than we predicted. Satellites observed seven vehicles and multiple persons moving across the property.”
“Great, fantastic, fine. Lessgo.” I slid into my jacket.
Santi poked in and said, “Utah has their team. Our plane leaves in an hour.”
“An hour?” I screeched. “The plane should have been ready twenty minutes ago.”
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