by Terry Spear
Yeah, working with her was great…and dangerous. Not only because of what he was, but because he totally had the hots for her. And that was a no go in this business. He told himself it would be easy because partners didn’t normally date. If he just kept it on a professional basis, he should have no problem.
His focus turned to Paul’s phone call. He knew the situation wouldn’t be a minor issue. He was anxious to learn what the trouble was this time.
Chapter 3
Debbie really loved working with Allan, though he was…different. Maybe that’s why she loved working with him so much. She could tell he really wanted to see her after hours, and he did sometimes—to talk more about a case. But she believed he wanted more. She wanted more. And yet he was clearly reluctant, probably because of his work ethics. Which was another reason she really liked him.
They would keep working on cases no matter the hour, have dinner together, and work on them some more. Get up early, start on it again. This month, they’d rescued four people who had fallen through the ice while ice fishing, saved a baby moose that had fallen through ice, and rescued two victims of accidents due to icy road conditions. Not only that, but they’d been working on this murder case, and though the vehicle and body had already been removed from the lake, she and Allan planned to see if they could find anything else in the water around the site of the accident.
She glanced at him, trying to read his expression. He had one of those faces that made her think of a really nice guy—sweet, cherublike—but she’d seen him arrest a man high on PCP and knew Allan could be all business when it came to taking someone in hand. He used military moves that she wanted him to teach her in case she ever needed to take a guy down like that. Allan’s hair was a rich, dark brown, and his dark-green eyes seemed to see right through her. It should have been disquieting, but she really found it amazing.
He appreciated her training and often remarked on what a great partner she was. She knew he wasn’t saying it just to be nice. He truly meant what he said, and she really respected him for it. She felt the same way about him.
“Are we still on for pizza?” she asked. She wanted to check on the baby and mom at the clinic to see for herself they were okay, but she was also dying to have a pizza. She hadn’t had one in ages, and it would be a nice way to take a break once she dried her wet clothes and her hair. At least the car heater was warming her up now.
“You bet.” His eyes always lit up when his gaze caught hers. He was seriously sexy, muscular, and in great shape, and that appealed too.
She always wanted to hear his SEAL stories, the ones that he could share with her. He’d told her about a couple of rescues he and his team had performed for private contracts. They’d been in the Amazon a number of times on dangerous missions. She found him to be the most fascinating man she’d ever met.
Some of her fascination was because his family was so important to him. She was estranged from her own. Her father had been the town drunk and her mother the perfect enabler. Good thing Debbie was an only child so she was the only one who had to suffer the consequences of a dysfunctional family like theirs.
When Allan had asked her about her family, she really hadn’t wanted to say anything about them. On the other hand, she appreciated how thoughtful he had been in asking. Not too many police officers she knew cared anything about their partners’ families. Maybe about a husband or wife and kids, but not about parents and siblings, unless they lived in town. But Allan seemed really family-oriented.
“While you were getting Franny’s purse, she told me a red car had nearly hit hers and slid on the ice, and she turned to avoid it. That’s how she ended up careening down the hill and sailing into the culvert. She said he did it on purpose, but she doesn’t remember the SUV being upside down. Just that somehow she managed to get out and then couldn’t get to her baby. So I suspect she just imagined the driver had caused the accident on purpose.”
“Hell, I thought she was mistaken,” Allan said. “The driver didn’t stop to help? Call it in or anything?”
“It wasn’t technically a hit-and-run, and he might have been afraid that if he tried to brake on the ice, he’d be where she was.”
“If it was a woman or someone elderly, I’d give the driver the benefit of the doubt, but her baby could have died. And Franny could have too.”
“Agreed. She said he was wearing a camo cap and his hair was cut short, but that’s all she could see before she swerved to avoid him. He was about our age.”
“Then he should be strung up.”
She wasn’t surprised at the way Allan felt. She had thought the same thing, though she had tried to see it from the other driver’s point of view too. But she had to agree with Allan.
“We can eat at the pizzeria for lunch, unless there’s a problem at home,” she said, giving Allan an out. She didn’t want him to think she would be upset if he couldn’t make it because of family obligations. His sister was pregnant with triplets and Paul’s wife with twins, so maybe one of them was having some difficulty. She sure hoped not.
When he drove into her duplex driveway, he finally said, “Uh, about lunch, yeah. I’ll give you a call in just a bit.”
Then he dropped her off, and she knew, as distracted as he was, that whatever was the matter had to be really important.
Allan pulled out of her driveway, a frown on his face as he talked to someone on his cell. She wondered again just what the trouble was and if she would be going alone to the clinic.
She realized she really wanted to be part of his life, to be there for him if he needed someone to talk to about family stuff. Not in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship particularly, but just as a friend. That had been something she’d had trouble with growing up. She hadn’t had anyone to talk to about her parents. Better to just leave home and stay away. As a kid, that had meant spending hours at the library after school and immersing herself in books until it closed for the night. Often a police officer would drive her home.
She’d gotten to know nearly everyone on the police force that way. One of the officers had rescued her father from his submerged truck when he’d gotten drunk and crashed it through the bridge. The officer had only delayed the inevitable though. Her dad killed himself a year later in another accident, one with a concrete bridge column. But the officer’s dedication as a diver, and her love of the water and subsequent scuba diving certification, had made her career decision for her. She had become a contracted police diver just like Officer Hardy Monroe.
She knew Allan had chosen to be one so he could work closer to home and spend more time with his family, though he had told her that when he was needed for a mission, he would have to take a leave of absence and deal with it. She was surprised he would continue to do missions away from home, considering how close he was to his family. In the four and a half months he’d been working with her, he hadn’t gone on any. She was glad because she really enjoyed working with him. Trying to train with a new dive partner would mean learning his or her idiosyncrasies all over again.
Paul Cunningham also was continuing to do contract work out of country, though he’d set aside that business because his wife was pregnant. Debbie had felt bad when he’d broken his leg and hoped it would mend just fine. He was out of the cast now, but he was still using a cane. When he was fully recovered, would he go back to being partnered with Allan?
That made her feel a little blue.
After washing up, getting dressed, and drying her hair, she was hopeful she could have lunch with Allan and head over to the clinic. But when she checked her phone, she saw that Allan had texted his regrets: Need to deal with some family issues. Talk to you soon. Allan.
No “sorry about lunch.” No “wish I could see Franny and the baby.” Debbie knew those family issues had to be bad news or Allan would have said something more. He was always good about that. And he was always conscientious about personally seeing t
he victims they’d rescued to learn how they were faring.
She wished she could help in some way. She put in a call to the clinic as she headed over there, hoping when she saw Allan again, he’d feel comfortable sharing with her.
* * *
“We don’t know who she is?” Allan asked Paul, angered that a lupus garou had come into their territory, maybe looking for protection, and had been murdered.
His countenance stormy, Paul stared out the window of his cabin overlooking the lake, his arms folded across his chest. “No. Since she was naked and one of our kind, we presume she was trapped and killed as a wolf. Your sister and my mate were out running as wolves before dawn’s first light and came across her body in the woods near the cabin.
“Whoever did it caught her in an animal trap and shot her. The ladies saw burn marks on the bullet wounds. Though ballistics haven’t come back to confirm it yet, the rounds had to have been silver. The ladies smelled the sweet, subtle scent of pure silver. She had lots of defensive wounds from trying to get loose from the trap and bite her attacker.”
“Did she actually bite him?”
“Yes.”
“What about DNA samples from his blood? Skin?” Allan considered the ramifications further. “What if her bites transferred the lupus garou genetics into his bloodstream and he turns into a wolf? He won’t have much control over it for some time. He won’t be able to shift for another week since it’s the phase of the new moon right now.”
“The forensics lab is testing the blood and tissue samples. But you know it takes a while for the results of the lab work to come in. If he hasn’t committed any crimes, or even if he has, he might not be in the database. An autopsy is being done as we speak. If we find the bastard soon, he’ll be wearing some hefty bite marks and scratches. But if he’s been turned, that’s another story. That means we have a week to catch him before the half moon appears. What’s worse is someone anonymously reported the murder. If he was a wolf, we’d have to handle it on our own. But now the police are involved.”
“The killer reported it?”
“Possibly.” Paul let out his breath. “Probably. Neither Lori nor Rose saw, smelled, or heard anyone. The killer had to have been wearing hunter spray while in hunting mode. Rowdy Sanderson is the homicide detective in charge of the investigation. Because the killer used silver rounds, whoever murdered the wolf had to have known she was a lupus garou. Even if he wasn’t certain, once she shifted into her human form after she died, that would have confirmed it.”
“He didn’t try to remove her body to claim he’d killed a werewolf?”
“No. I’m declaring that no one in the pack shifts until we can learn who did this and take him down.”
“Good idea. Any clues?”
Paul shook his head. “I suspect the woman was coming here to meet with us so she could join the pack. But why was she running as a wolf? I want you to check out the crime scene. I’ve got Everett trying to track down who she was. I’ve asked Lori’s grandma to find out if the woman had any contact with any member of our pack, since Emma and your mother have been involved the most in asking single female wolves to join the pack.”
Thinking in a purely police-procedural way, Allan said, “Often the killer is actually someone who knew the victim. It’s a family member or a close friend or an acquaintance. Random killings are more unusual. But in the case of someone using silver rounds to kill a wolf?” Allan didn’t even want to think they might have a self-professed werewolf hunter in the area. “Sounds like we have a werewolf hunter on our hands, don’t you agree?” In all the years of their existence, they had never had to deal with such an issue.
“It sure as hell sounds like it. On the other hand, what if it is a lupus garou, and he covered his tracks by making it look like a werewolf hunter was after her? If that’s the case, his victim wouldn’t have turned him.”
“Yeah, I was just thinking that too. And if he’s not recently turned, that can be good and bad. Good, because he won’t shift unexpectedly around humans and give our kind away. And bad because he’ll be harder to track down.”
“Either way, we have to stop him. But if he hasn’t been turned, we need the police to handle this.” Paul headed into the kitchen and got them each a bottled water. Then they moved to the living room and took seats on the couches.
“Agreed.” Allan noticed Paul’s cane leaning next to the couch, but he wasn’t using it today. “How’s your leg?”
“It’s fine. If one more person asks…”
Allan nodded. He knew how much that had to bother Paul. “But you’re getting around without the cane, and I don’t see you limping.”
“Inside buildings I’m fine. Plowing through snowdrifts or walking on ice…” Paul shook his head. “Besides, I get enough coddling from Lori, Mom, Rose, and Grandma. I don’t need it from you too.”
“Me coddle you? When have I ever done that? It’s not in my SEAL or wolf nature. Hell, any of us, broken leg or not, can have trouble on ice unless we’re in our wolf form and have better traction. It’ll get better.”
Paul grunted, then took a swig from his water bottle. “There was a lupus garou pack that had to deal with a werewolf-hunter group. They successfully turned one of the men, and he works for the pack. The others had to be put down. The pack members couldn’t have the men arrested and tried for murder, but they had to deal with the threat permanently. Otherwise the men wouldn’t give up their quest to destroy the wolves and convert new wolf hunters.
“They hadn’t even been looking for werewolves initially. They were searching for Bigfoot but saw a lupus garou shift. The same could have happened with this case. I could be mistaken, but I suspect the shooter is someone who had prior military service or is a hunter. I can’t imagine the average man taking up a gun to hunt werewolves.”
“All right, so that’s a possibility,” Allan said. “That the hunter didn’t know about our kind until the woman shifted and he saw her. I would agree with you about him being a hunter or prior military.” Allan set his bottle on the table.
“Here’s another thought, though it’s even more far-fetched,” Paul said. “After seeing the murdered woman, Rose told Lori that while we were away on a mission, she had looked into one of those live-action role-playing—LARP—groups in southern Montana: werewolf versus villager werewolf hunters. She wanted to see if it was just a game or if any of the players were real wolves.”
“Hell, Paul. Why would she even do that?”
“She had been corresponding with one of the players online, thinking he was one of us. She had no one to date in the area, and she had discovered his website where he talked about werewolves and being one.”
“Which should have clued her in that he wasn’t.”
“I agree. But no lupus garous had passed through our area in months, and she was lonely. When she began to talk to him, she convinced herself he really was a lupus garou. So she went down to see him. This was a month before she met Everett. Which shows we were right to stay here and take over the pack.”
“Sounds like it.” Allan couldn’t believe his sister had done that. “I’m surprised Mom wasn’t upset about her doing something like that.” Rose was way too curious for her own good.
“She told Catherine she was going on a shopping trip to pick up leather-crafting supplies to make some things for her shop. Catherine never knew the real purpose of her visit because Rose brought back leather-working materials. When Rose arrived in Helena, she had lunch with the man, Guy Lamb, and discovered he really was a wolf.”
Allan’s jaw dropped, then he shook his head. “I never would have believed it. And by the name of Lamb?”
“Yeah, it was his parents’ idea. Everyone teased him about being a lamb when he was a kid, so he had fun with saying he was a werewolf on his website.”
“A wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“Right. An
yway, he liked Rose, but once she met him, she wasn’t interested in getting to know him further. She said he was too weird for her. Loved horror stories, music she didn’t care for, books she wouldn’t read. He was such a big horror fan that he loved to act in plays of that nature and visit horror conventions. They just didn’t have anything in common. But she wanted to check out the game for curiosity’s sake, in case one of the other players was also a real wolf. Someone she might connect with more.
“Rose did manage to meet with the group, which had eight werewolf hunters, one seer, and two wolves. Though who was playing which roles was a mystery. She said no one smelled like a wolf. But when she and Lori came across the woman’s body, Rose was pretty rattled and told us about the group, in case it had any bearing on this situation.”
“Okay,” Allan said. “I can’t think of any other scenario offhand. The notion the killer saw the lupus garou shift and then eliminated her has my vote.”
“I agree. Even so, just to be thorough because we certainly don’t want any more surprises like this one, I checked to see if any LARP groups were listed online. I didn’t see anything like that in our area. If it is a local group whose members don’t share about it on the Internet, then we wouldn’t know about it.”
Allan rose from his seat and paced across the living room floor. “It doesn’t sound like someone who was just playing a game. The business with silver rounds and luring a wolf into a leghold trap first…”
Paul finished his bottle of water and set the empty container on the coffee table. “After viewing the wounds inflicted on the woman, I really think something deeper was going on. The murderer attacked her in a rage. It wasn’t just a case of killing a random person. Passion was involved—anger.”
“Maybe he was a former lover and discovered what she was?”