by Crissy Smith
Ryan laughed. “Thank God!”
* * * *
He watched from under a shade tree as the Sheriff left her station with the FBI agents behind her. He was pleased to see that his plan to bring the agents to him had worked. He wondered how Special Agent Morris would feel when he stood over the dead body of the woman he loved, knowing he’d brought her death.
He laughed as he turned to walk into the shadows, letting the SUV pass him. Special Agent Morris would know pain like he’d never imagined.
He headed back the way he came, knowing his next target would fall right into his lap.
* * * *
Katy drove back towards the Lambert property, already tired of seeing it. This time they would be talking to Bert Lambert. Katy expected the old man would be just as horrible as ever.
She wasn’t disappointed when they were led into his home office and he frowned at her.
“I heard you took the job of town Sheriff when you came back,” he said, glaring at her.
Katy nodded, waiting. She didn’t have to wait long.
“Couldn’t make it in the big city so you just hopped back down here. And now you’re bringing trouble to my home again.”
Katy felt Cameron stiffen in the chair next to her but cut off what he would have said by laughing. “Well, you see, Mr. Lambert, I don’t look at it that way. I came back here, to my home, with experience I wouldn’t have had if I’d stayed here.”
He pressed his lips together firmly.
“Furthermore, I didn’t bring trouble to you. I didn’t find the body on your property or put it there,” she told him sternly, dropping any play at being amused. “Now if we can get down to business? That is, unless you have something to hide.”
He snorted and Katy sat back in her chair, continuing, “Special Agent Morris has some questions for you.”
Katy waited while Cameron started the questioning before taking a deep breath. She hadn’t expected the older man to be happy to see her and he obviously wasn’t.
Katy could easily recall the conversation with him three months before she graduated. She hadn’t come from money. She’d lived with her aunt in a run-down brownstone and wasn’t class like his boys. He hadn’t wanted Clint dating her and had made sure she knew it.
The words he’d said had hurt. Hurt badly and had accomplished what he’d sought. She broke it off with Clint not long after that.
Katy listened with half an ear as the man answered Cameron’s questions. She tried to see him as a serial killer but couldn’t do it. He didn’t like to get his hands dirty. He prided himself on running his company like a business but, unlike his father and his grandfather, he’d never worked out on the rigs.
Cameron finished questioning him and then leant over the desk and shook his hand. The older man’s face tightened as Cameron thanked him for his time, and Katy knew he’d added just a little extra strength behind the handshake for her.
She resisted the smile that played on her lips.
“Ms. Rose,” he called as they made their way to the door.
Katy turned around.
“No matter what your position is in this town, it is still my town. Stay away from my son.”
Katy didn’t even respond, just turned and walked away.
Chapter Five
Cameron didn’t say anything until Katy pulled the SUV up to the station. He’d heard what the older Lambert had said to her. He wanted to question her about it but he decided to bide his time.
Katy was already uneasy about him being in her territory.
They exited the vehicle and headed inside. He almost ran Katy over when she stopped suddenly.
“Allysa! What are you doing here?” she asked a very pretty blonde who stood at the counter.
The blonde smiled at Katy before giving her attention to him and his partner.
“Hi! You must be the FBI agents. I’m Allysa. Katy’s sister.”
Cameron stared at the woman in front of him before glancing at Katy. The look on her face spoke volumes. Allysa, the woman Katy had kept hidden from him. The reason he’d decided he would claim Katy as his mate. After he’d stormed out of Katy’s apartment, he had headed directly to see his Alpha.
He was determined to prove to Katy that she was his and could trust him. She kept so much to herself, but he never would have thought she’d lie about her family. She’d told him that her parents were no longer alive, that she didn’t have any siblings. He still couldn’t understand why she’d lied about her sister.
His Alpha had granted him permission to claim Katy and tell her about his family secrets, but she had already started to pull away. Then she was gone before he could even think of coming up with a plan to reveal his true nature.
But now he had the chance to tell her and more. There was no telling how long he would have waited but thanks to Allysa, his mind had been made up.
Cameron held out his hand to the other woman. “Cameron Morris, and this is my partner, Ryan Waters.”
She shook both of their hands then quickly turned her attention back to him. “Nice to meet you both. Especially you, Cameron. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Allysa,” Katy warned.
Allysa waved a hand at her sister. “Just ignore her.” She linked her arm with his and pulled him towards the back of the station. Cameron grinned. He got a good feeling from Allysa. She would be an ally on his mission to get Katy back.
“Allysa!” Katy called after them.
Katy’s sister giggled. “I brought you all dinner. It’s sitting in the room you’re using,” she called over her shoulder.
Cameron could hear Katy muttering as she followed them.
True to her word, there were metal containers of food sitting on the table. He could smell the spicy Italian food before he even entered. The board with all their notes on it had been covered.
“Davis came and cleaned everything up before he let me in,” she explained as she sat down.
“At least someone kept some sense about them,” Katy murmured, but sat next to her sister.
Cameron and Ryan sat and they all pulled their dinners closer.
The first bite of lasagne woke up his mouth and he practically moaned.
Ryan did moan. “This is great,” he admitted.
Allysa grinned, taking a bite of her own food. “Thanks. I love to cook. I try to make sure Katy at least gets one good meal a day.”
Katy continued to eat without saying a word.
Allysa caught his eye and winked. Oh yeah, Cameron liked her.
“So you feed your sister regularly?” he asked.
“Yep. I make dinner every night. I’m sure you know she has no cooking skills whatsoever.”
Katy growled and Ryan snorted.
“Yes. It was always take-out for her,” Cameron agreed.
“Sounds like her. So tell me, Cameron, how long were you two together?” Allysa asked.
Katy choked on her food.
“Are you okay?” Allysa asked as she pounded on her sister’s back.
Katy straightened and nodded. “We were partners for two years but you know that, Allysa,” Katy said, the warning clear in her voice.
Allysa just smiled and batted her eyes in fake innocence. Even Cameron knew she was in no way innocent. She was up to something. He hoped it was only Katy on the chopping block. Still, this was the most fun he’d had at dinner in months.
“I’m just curious about your life back in Dallas. This man…your partner knew you better than anyone else,” Allysa explained to her sister.
Katy wasn’t having any of it. “There is nothing to be curious about. Now drop it,” Katy ordered.
Allysa sighed and Cameron decided to come to her rescue.
“So what do you do, Allysa?” he asked, steering the attention to the other woman.
Katy didn’t exactly relax but she did seem to calm down as Allysa told them about her job as a teacher and coach. Anytime she got close to revealing something too personal, Katy would
change the subject, always back to Allysa. Just the emotion in her voice told him how much she loved the other woman. Katy was extremely proud as she added tidbits of Allysa’s stories.
Cameron enjoyed the talk and when Davis stuck his head in and called for Katy, Allysa looked up and grinned.
Katy leaned over and whispered in her sister’s ear. Both Cameron and Ryan pretended they couldn’t hear the order not to reveal anything to them. They wouldn’t have heard it if they’d had normal hearing.
Allysa nodded and waited for her sister to leave. Ryan stood and started to gather the trash. He glanced at Cameron and winked. He was giving him time with Allysa alone.
Once it was just the two of them left in the room, she leant forward.
“Okay, we don’t have much time before she comes back. Let’s do this quickly,” Allysa told him.
Cameron nodded and shifted closer. “She told you about me?”
“I know you were more than partners.”
Cameron was surprised. He really hadn’t expected that Katy would tell anyone about him. She had hidden it from everyone back in Dallas. “What exactly did she say?”
“Let me ask you something first,” she countered.
When Cameron nodded his agreement, she smiled.
“Did you love her?”
Cameron didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“She loved you too,” she told him.
“She has a funny way of showing it,” he commented and it sounded bitter even to him.
Allysa sighed and folded her hands together. “She had to trust you to even let you in. But even though you were close, she couldn’t trust you enough. She held back. She had secrets,” Allysa told him.
Cameron nodded.
“I am one of her secrets,” Allysa continued.
“Why?”
“I’m different. So is she. She protects me, always has, always will. She trusted others in her past, growing up, and they always let her down.”
Cameron let that sink in. “Who is Clint Lambert to her?”
Allysa shook her head. “That’s…complicated. He was her first love…her first betrayal. He didn’t fight for her.”
Neither had he. “Why not?”
Allysa shrugged a shoulder. “He was young. They both were. He knew her better than anyone else, but still… Some secrets should never be revealed.”
“I don’t believe that,” Cameron argued, thinking about his own secret. “When you love someone there should be nothing between you. No hiding.”
Allysa grinned. “I knew I liked you.”
Katy’s boots echoed as she headed back towards them.
“We’ll talk more,” she assured him.
Katy walked back into the room. “Not if I can help it,” she snapped as she stopped by her sister’s chair.
Both Katy and Cameron laughed.
“You about ready?” Ryan asked as he also returned to the room.
Cameron stood and held out his hand to Katy’s sister. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”
“And you.”
He looked over at Katy and held back the laugh that wanted to escape at her scowl.
“Ryan and I are going to try to get a look around town. Just scope things out. We’ll follow some paths and see if they look like the ones in Dallas,” he told her.
“On a hunch, I sent Davis over to the library a town over. They found her vehicle,” she told him.
“A hunch?” he questioned. He had learnt long ago that Katy’s hunches could break cases wide open. Another thing she kept close.
She shrugged. “Her car wasn’t here in town. Someone would have noticed it. I asked her mother where she might have gone, and she told me she would go to the library in Christi once in a while.”
She was lying. He didn’t know what about exactly, but there was something she was not telling him.
“Fine, we’ll check it out,” he told her.
Katy waited until Cameron and Ryan left before turning to her sister. “What did you think you were doing?” she practically shouted.
“I wanted to meet him! And you know as well as I do it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t come here,” Allysa argued.
“You didn’t need to meet him. We’ll close this case and then he’ll be gone.” Oh, she should have expected something like this. She had been so torn up when she’d first returned she had told her sister everything.
“He loves you,” Allysa told her softly.
“Don’t. Don’t go there,” she ordered. She started to gather the files that covered the end of the table. They were the reports from the cases in Dallas. She hadn’t had a lot of time to go through them yet, but she planned to plough through them tonight.
“He loves you! Even after you left him the way you did, he still loves you,” Allysa pressed on.
Katy closed her eyes and fought tears. She didn’t deserve his love. She was a freak.
“Drop it, Allysa,” she demanded. “It’s over between us and I don’t care about him anymore.”
“Just talk to him! Tell him why you won’t give him children!” her sister pleaded.
Katy froze. They’d only talked about that once. The night when Cameron had held her in his arms, softly talking to her as she drifted to sleep. He had whispered how much he loved her. How he couldn’t wait until she was his, until he claimed her and they could start a family together. A family. She had never discussed that with anyone else. She wouldn’t give him children. She wouldn’t pass on what she was to a child. It was then she’d known she had to leave. The opening had come a few weeks later when they’d been found out, then Allysa had called, bringing up another one of her lies.
“I’m sorry.” Allysa rushed over to hug her, the files between them. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s…” Katy stopped when she saw her sister’s face. She had one of the files in her hand. The file was closed but it was obvious she was getting a vision.
Katy dropped everything else in her hands and wrapped both arms around her sister.
Allysa’s body shook as she took the journey her gift provided. Her eyelids fluttered and her body tensed. Tears fell from her eyes and Katy held her tight and rocked her.
Allysa screamed and collapsed into her arms. They sank to the floor and Katy tried to calm her.
Her sister was wide-eyed as their gazes locked. “He’s after you,” she said, right before she passed out.
Chapter Six
Cameron opened the passenger door and let the small grey wolf out of the rental car. They’d decided on the way over to let Ryan change and Cameron would remain in human form. If anyone was to see them, it would look like a man and a big dog walking around.
At least from a distance.
Ryan raised his head and sniffed around. Amanda Caldwell’s car had already been towed away from the lot, but if the killer had been there, there should be some kind of lingering scent.
Cameron followed behind Ryan as he stalked across the lot.
Ryan sniffed and walked in circles before he settled on one spot in particular. There Ryan sat, lifted a paw, and whined.
This was it then. This was where Amanda Caldwell had been taken. Cameron looked around using his superior sight to try to see into the shadows that surrounded him.
There were plenty of trees and bushes that would have allowed the killer to sit and wait. He nudged Ryan with his foot. His partner stood on all fours, shook his body, and headed off towards the trees.
They searched amongst them until they came to a spot where they could see both the library door and where Amanda had parked her Jeep. Ryan pawed at the ground. There was a light impression.
Yes, this was where he’d waited. Cameron took the digital camera from his neck and started to take pictures. Ryan roamed behind him but he knew his partner wouldn’t go too far.
Cameron took pictures of where the killer had waited and then some of the parking lot and library door to show his view. A whine behind him told him R
yan had found more. Cameron put the cover back on the camera and went to his partner.
There, in the softened dirt, were drag marks. He had taken Amanda through this way. They followed the small trail until it came to the street. This was where he would have parked.
Cameron took some more pictures before he whistled for Ryan. Tomorrow they would interview everyone in the area to see if they had seen a vehicle parked here.
Katy closed Allysa’s bedroom door and headed into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. Once that was done, she sat at the table and got out the files she’d brought home.
She separated them into piles of each of the murders. She went through the very first murder. Janette Collins, a twenty-six-year-old, single pre-school teacher. She had been taken from a mall in Dallas where she had been shopping for her sister’s wedding present.
She had been found in a drainage ditch. Her hands and feet bound, her body beaten, and her pinkie missing. The pictures did nothing to calm Katy’s already turning stomach. This man was an animal.
She made a cup of coffee and opened the files on the second case. Carla Moffit, a twenty-five-year-old kindergarten teacher. Taken from a park where she jogged every morning at five o’clock.
The pictures were so similar to the first, there was no doubt that the murders were related. Carla had been found on the side of the highway when a truck driver had stopped to take a piss.
The third and fourth murders matched the first two. She had just opened another file when there was a knock on the door. She frowned at the clock above the stove. It was already past ten and no one should be by.
She grabbed her sidearm as she made her way to the front door. She looked out the peephole and saw Cameron on her porch.
Opening the door, she glared at him.
Cameron just smiled and leant against the doorjamb.
“How’d you find out where I live?” she asked, not that it would have been difficult.
He shrugged. “Small town and all that.”
She sighed. “It’s late, what do you want?”