by Zahra Stone
“Actually, that’s perfect timing.” I hadn’t heard Brax come in, and it seemed neither did Rae, for she jumped when he spoke behind her.
“Fuck!” She gasped, hand to her chest. “If you sneak around like that all the time, I’m gonna put a bell on you.”
“Apologies, ma’am.” Brax held out a hand. “Secret Service Agent Brax Lane. And you must be Rae Shelton.”
Rae shook his hand and gave him the once over. “I heard the Secret Service elbowed in on our case.” She softened the words with a grin, which widened considerably when Jordan came back downstairs and joined us. More introductions followed before Rae brought us back to the case in hand. “You said perfect timing. When you came in and scared the shit out of me,” she elaborated at Jordan’s puzzled look. “Perfect timing for what?”
“Sheriff Brady has the warrant. We’re to meet him at Stillwater Pharmaceuticals in one hour. Suit up; this one is official.”
“The sheriff called you?” I bristled. This was our investigation; I was leading it; it should have been me he’d called. I made a mental note to have a word with the sheriff, make sure he understood the lay of the land.
“Something wrong with that?” Brax asked. Rae looked from Brax to me and back again, not missing a thing.
“I’m going to change into uniform. I’ll be back in five,” she said, hurrying upstairs with Jordan right behind her. They’d arrived in civilian clothing, but since this was an official search, what Brax had said was right—we needed to suit up in official SIA gear.
“Same.” I hurried upstairs to my room and pulled on the black uniform specially designed to withstand sharp claws. I’d opted not to wear the black yoga-style pants, instead going for the cargo pants—the extra pockets came in handy. Black tank, followed by a tight fighting zip-up jacket that, when done up, covered my throat. The sleeves had thumb loops to protect my wrists. Around my waist, I slung my belt, slid my pyre gun into its holster, and clipped on my red SIA badge. Boots were next, knee-high with space inside for blades, and then the black baseball cap with the SIA emblem embroidered in red.
I beat Rae by mere seconds, grinning at her in triumph. We’d always been competitive as children, and nothing had changed since becoming adults. Now that Rae was with the SIA, she’d made it her mission to climb the ranks as quickly as possible—she had her sights set on becoming an Enforcer like me.
“Looking good, Guardian.” I grinned at her, admiring the gleam of her long brown curls pulled into a ponytail through the back of her cap. My hair had been that long. Once. With a quick shake of my head, I glanced around for Brax. Where had he gone? I’d no quicker thought it than I heard it. A low, threatening growl.
“Bear’s here?” I smiled in delight, flinging open the front door to find Bear stalking Brax, who had his hands up and was ever so slowly edging backward, muttering “easy, easy” as he went.
“It’s okay, Bear; he’s with us.” Rae whistled, and the giant hellhound turned his big head toward her. Then he spotted me. His tongue flopped out, and his tail wagged, and he bounded over to drop at my feet for a pat.
“Hey, boy! I’ve missed you.” Even lying on the ground, he came up to my shoulders, and I did my best to wrap my arms around his neck and hug him. Bear had been summoned to earth by some vampires and had taken a liking to Rae and had decided he’d become her pet; they’d been inseparable ever since.
“That’s a…hellhound.” Brax sounded like he was in shock. “How can I even see it? And what’s it doing here?”
“Bear belongs to Rae; he adopted her when she came home last time. And yeah, while hellhounds are usually incorporeal, we discovered that if you’re connected to Rae, you can see him.”
“Right. Of course,” he muttered, running a hand around the back of his neck and regrouping. “I was going to suggest we all go in my vehicle, but there’s no way he’s going to fit.”
“That’s okay; we brought our truck for that very reason.” Rae pointed to their pickup with the long bed. “Up,” she instructed Bear, who obediently stepped into the back, lying down with his chin resting on the cabin.
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” Brax said to me. I ignored him and stalked to the vehicle.
The drive to Stillwater Pharmaceuticals was spent in silence. Several times Brax opened his mouth and turned toward me, a question on his lips, but then he’d reconsider and shut his mouth and face forward again. I assumed he was still getting his head around the fact my cousin has a pet hellhound.
After clearing security at the gate, we pulled into the parking lot. Sheriff Brady was already here, leaning against his patrol car, by his side Deputy Chase Harvey. I was surprised to see Chase. Last I knew, he was working on a mine five hundred miles away.
“Sheriff. Deputy.” I climbed out of Brax’s car and nodded at the law enforcement officers.
“Wowee, Katie Shelton, you look hawt,” Chase drawled, eyes crawling over me. “That’s some uniform. Why can’t we have uniforms like that instead of this god-awful beige?” he complained to the Sheriff.
“Focus on the job at hand, Harvey.” The Sheriff sighed, and I bit back a grin.
“Between us, we have three teams,” Brax said, cutting across the chitchat, an edge of steel to his voice. “Sheriff, you and the deputy focus on the administrative offices, me and Shelton will take the labs, and Buchanan and the other Shelton will take the warehouse.”
“Sounds good to me.” Straightening up, the sheriff slapped the search warrant against his thigh. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Stop telling me—and everyone else—what to do,” I hissed at Brax, dropping back a couple of feet so the sheriff couldn’t hear us as we followed him across the parking lot to the reception area.
“What? I’m just doing my job,” he said defensively, and I shot him an angry look.
“This is my investigation. I’m the lead. I don’t need you to tell me how to do it.” I didn’t give him the chance to reply, stalking ahead and stepping in behind the sheriff as he opened the door.
Chapter Seven
We didn’t find anything of consequence at Stillwater Pharmaceuticals, but then I hadn’t expected to. They’d have realized their operation was compromised as soon as Nate and Paige had broken in. Still, it was the only lead we had at this stage, and I could only hope the forensic searching of their digital data would turn up something, some small thread we could pull and follow.
Of course, that would take time. We’d linked their hard drives to our IT department in Redmeadows before heading back to our new SIA offices. Now we had to wait while they scoured the databases, and god only knows how long that would take.
“Sleep well?” Rae beamed at me the following morning as she sat down at the workstation opposite.
“No. I did not,” I grumbled, then kicked myself for the frown that darkened Rae’s face.
“What’s wrong?” She was instantly all concern, and while I loved my cousin dearly, this was one of the reasons I’d joined the SIA. To get away from my overly concerned family.
“What’s wrong was that I had the dubious pleasure of listening to you and Jordan having sex half the night.”
A sly grin replaced the frown, and Rae leaned back in her chair. “Oh,” was all she said.
“Yeah, oh, indeed.” All I’d had was about three hours of sleep. Which meant Jordan and Rae should be sleep deprived too, but here they both were, bright-eyed and full of pep. I wanted to bang their heads together.
“What’s the plan today?” Jordan asked, and my irritation fled in an instant. He’d turned to me for orders. He and I were both Enforcers, both the same level, yet Nate had entrusted me to lead this case, and Jordan was respectful of that.
“Paige told us that her friend, Lani’s mom, was a ghoul. That was the connection at the time between Stillwater Pharmaceuticals and the ghoul population. You and Rae pay her a visit. See what you can find.” I paused, tapping my finger against my lips. “Can Bear scent ghouls?”
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p; “We’re going to find out.” Rae was all business, and her energy was infectious. The SIA clearly agreed with her, and I was glad, for she’d had such a bad deal of it throughout her youth, being admitted to a psychiatric facility when she was eighteen and labeled insane when she wasn’t. Life hadn’t treated her fairly, yet here she was, healed, whole, and well adjusted. I’d been through nothing like what she’d suffered, yet I remained broken.
I knew it but wouldn’t admit it, not to anyone that my ability to love was gone. It had died along with my fiancé and daughter. As they bled out in the mangled wreck of our car on the highway, I’d prayed that I would die with them, that I wouldn’t be forced to endure the torture of living without the two people I loved most in the world. Fate had other ideas. I survived. They did not. My heart kept beating, I kept living, but inside I was dead, incapable of loving again.
After seeing Rae and Jordan off, I returned to my desk. The door keypads were being fitted this morning. Someone needed to be onsite to receive the pass cards and instructions on resetting them and issuing new ones should the need arise. While the locksmith was doing that, I hacked into the sheriff’s database and ran a search for missing persons. Maxxan had plenty of secrets, and I had a hunch more was going on here than what we already knew about.
I was in the kitchen on my seventh or was that eighth cup of coffee for the day when Brax arrived. Of course, he couldn’t get in because the front door was now locked, and he didn’t have a keycard. Holding my coffee in hand, I made my way to the front door where Brax was currently pounding and calling my name.
“Okay, okay, I’m here, geez,” I smirked, knowing he could hear me but not see me since I hadn’t opened the door yet.
“Katie? Let me in,” he demanded. I paused, considering. This was my turf. This was SIA, and I was in charge of SIA in Maxxan—for now, at least.
“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re the boss. I’ll stop giving you orders. Just open the door. Please.” Damn it; he’d spoilt my fun way too early. With a huff, I pressed the button by the door, and it clicked open.
“Thank you,” he said with exaggerated politeness. I shrugged and returned to my workstation.
“Would it be okay if I set up here? Naturally, I won’t use the SIA Servers, and I have my own laptop, but it makes sense for us to pool our information, and it’s easier if we’re in the one location.”
“Fair enough,” I replied, watching my screen as the search I’d run trolled through the database.
He chose a workstation to my right, and I watched out the corner of my eye as he opened his laptop and was soon engrossed with whatever was on his screen.
“Can I ask you something?” he asked.
“You just did.”
“Haha. So, this place”—he waved a hand around—“you’re heading the Maxxan office of the SIA?”
“I’m running this current investigation. Once we have Ridgeway, I’ll be returning to Redmeadows. Why?”
“No reason. Just curious.”
He was silent for a while, making me jump when he suddenly said, “I’ve got something!”
“There’s a cream for that,” I joked.
“You’re full of sass today.” He smiled, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest.
“What did you find?” I asked, not liking the way he was looking at me. Like he imagined me with no clothes on. Unfortunately, as soon as that thought entered my head, all I could see was him—naked. A rush flooded my body, and I cursed my hormones.
“That there has been a lot of death by animal attacks in Maxxan lately,” he said.
“That was going to be my next search.” I sighed. He’d beaten me to the punch. Again.
“Why? What are you working on?”
“Missing persons. That’s been Ridgeway’s MO in the past. Snatch humans off the street to experiment on, preferably ones who wouldn’t be easily missed, wouldn’t be reported.”
“Good call.”
“Why, thank you,” I replied sarcastically.
Brax stood and left the room, and I watched his retreating back in surprise. Shaking my head, I returned my attention to my screen. There were a handful of missing persons, and my eyes zeroed in on one name in particular. Mrs. B. Lani had reported her missing a week ago, just before I’d returned to Maxxan. Pulling out my mobile, I phoned Jordan.
“Mrs. B was reported missing by her daughter a week ago,” I said as soon as he answered.
“Yeah, we figured she was gone. Her place is empty, mailbox overflowing, indoor plants wilting, food in the fridge is starting to turn.”
“Did Bear pick up anything?”
“Rae is out with him now. It looks like he did pick up a scent, but whether it will lead us to anything we don’t know. I’ll catch up with her as soon as I’ve finished here. I want to be thorough, see if she slipped up and left any clue as to where she might have been headed, what her next steps are.”
“Keep me posted. And keep an eye on Rae. She’s new at this.” I was nervous that he’d left her to follow Mrs. B’s trail alone. Although she did have Bear with her, and he was a formidable opponent who would fight tooth and nail to protect her.
“Will do.” He hung up, and I slowly did the same, startled when I noticed Brax by my side, my coffee cup in his hand.
“Hey, that’s mine!” I reached for it, and he handed it over.
“Decaf,” he said, returning to his seat. “You’re all jittery. I think you’ve had enough caffeine for one day.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I grumbled.
“Do you want to hear about these animal attacks or not?”
Taking a sip of my coffee, I eyeballed him over the rim of my cup. “Yes.”
“It looks like Maxxan has always had its fair share of animal attacks over the years,” he began. When I opened my mouth to interrupt, he held up his hand. “Let me finish.” I shut my mouth with a snap. “Go ahead.”
“Some of them are most likely legitimate. After all, Maxxan is surrounded by wilderness. There are coyotes and all sorts of creatures out there capable of killing a human. I can see certain fluctuations, though, especially over the past five years, like clusters of attacks.”
This caught my attention, and I rose to peer over his shoulder at his screen. He’d mapped out the attacks on a timeline. He was right. There were spikes. Starting five years ago, with four spikes, but slowly diminishing to two spikes a year.
“Could this be related to the vampires and their drug crops, though? Maybe at harvest time, there were more vampires in town, meaning more deaths.”
“Could be. I’m going to pull autopsy reports—it’ll take a while.”
“I’ll help. Send me a list of names.”
“I’m looking for types of injuries. Where on the body, that type of thing.” Then he realized what he’d said. “Sorry. I know you know what to look for. I wasn’t telling you how to do your job.”
“I know.” I shrugged and turned my attention to my monitor, where his email had just arrived. He’d given me half the list. Just over one hundred names. It was staggering to realize that two hundred people had died from animal attacks over the last five years. Why hadn’t people moved away? Or were they oblivious?
“I’d like to track the background info on the victims, too,” I said. “Like did they have family here, would they be missed? Or not.”
“You think it’s connected?”
“Maybe.” I shrugged, “Maybe not. But that’s a hell of a lot of people to die and not have the world pay any attention to it. It’s like it’s all gone under the radar.”
“A cover-up?”
“Most likely. Let’s see what we can find. I want to know if any of these could be linked to ghouls.”
“Ghouls usually take possession of a body,” he pointed out.
“Not always. And if they need food, they make a kill. I want to know if body parts were missing that were never retrieved.”
The hours passed, each of us engrossed in our re
search. Behind me, where Grandma’s television used to sit, was now an electronic case board. Whenever an autopsy result came up that looked of interest, I’d flick it to the board. Brax did the same. Soon we had a collection of suspicious animal deaths that could have been a result of a paranormal attack by all intents and purposes. Or experiments by Ridgeway. I still wasn’t sure if she was the link, not on all of these cases. Still, the SIA intended to have a permanent presence in Maxxan, which meant digging into the cover-ups by the local law enforcement.
I was in the middle of reading a particularly gruesome autopsy report on a young man who had been disemboweled when my phone buzzed.
“You need to get here.” Jordan’s voice came through as soon as I hit connect.
“What’s happened?” I was already on my feet. I tossed a pass card at Brax as I rounded my desk and headed to the front door.
“Rae needs you.” A shiver ran down my spine.
“What’s happened, Buchanan?” I snapped, needing answers.
“We found her. Mrs. B.”
“And?” By now, I was out the front door and hurrying to my truck, Brax hot on my heels.
“Dead. A shallow grave.”
“Where?”
I followed Jordan’s directions to a small patch of parkland not far from Mrs. B’s house. It was getting late in the day, the sun close to dipping below the horizon—we’d lose light soon. I jogged across the park to where I could see Jordan standing with his arm around Rae’s shoulders. Bear lay by her side.
“You okay?” I addressed Rae, who was a lovely shade of grey.
She nodded. “Sorry. I puked on the crime scene.”
“It happens. This your first?”
She shook her head. “No, I saw a vampire kill back when Jordan first came to Maxxan when we were searching for the gunslinger. But this one? This is so…gross.” She pointed, and I turned, seeing a shallow grave a few feet away.
“You dug it out?” I asked Jordan, approaching the grave. The smell was the first thing that hit me, that undeniable stench of rotting flesh.
“Nope. Found it like this. Think they may have been disturbed, so they fled, left it like this.”