Wolf Slayer

by Jane Godman

  “Too awkward,” Madden murmured, as he shut off the engine.

  “Pardon?” Wilder leaned forward in his seat, craning to get a better view.

  “He leaves his victims in their cage for us to find them. Hence the name. The Cage Killer. He makes a cage for each of them. That means he has a workshop,” Madden said. “Think about it. Making a human-sized cage is quite a feat. That workshop has to be pretty big, and he wouldn’t want to attract the attention of the neighbors. The Cage Killer case is huge. If anyone caught a glimpse of him moving one of those cages around, he’d be screwed.”

  “This place is remote, and it looks like it has a fair amount of land attached. Plenty of room for a workshop here and peace and quiet to get on with his cage making.”

  Madden shook his head as he prepared to leave the car. “Like I said, it’s too awkward. Imagine trying to get a huge cage down a slope as steep as this. He’d need winches and pulleys. I don’t see any sign of them, do you?”

  They gathered together under the shelter of a group of pine trees. “How do you want to do this?” Samson asked.

  “I want to go in there first and confront him,” Madden said. He turned to Maria. “If you’re able to do this, I’d like you to come with me. If Rainer was the man in your hospital room, I want you to look him in the eye and tell me that for sure.” He took hold of her right her hand. As always, he was careful of her injuries. “But if that’s too difficult for you, I’ll understand.”

  She looked into the amber depths of his eyes, drawing courage from what she saw there. “I can do it.”

  Brave words, she told herself, as she walked with Madden toward the house. Now all she had to do was live up to them.

  * * *

  Wilder was right. Anton Rainer’s house had a huge amount of land attached. Although there were a few well-maintained outbuildings, Madden didn’t see anything large enough to be the Cage Killer’s workshop.

  The house itself was small and neat. Unremarkable. Could this be the home of the man he had been hunting for the last eighteen months? The man who had caused so much pain and destruction? Madden had learned early in his police career not to make assumptions. That sweet gray-haired old lady? She just put powdered glass in her latest batch of cupcakes. The black youth with his hood pulled up who is running toward that woman on a darkened street? She’d dropped her purse and he wanted to return it to her. Just because the house looked innocuous, didn’t mean the guy who lived here was innocent.

  He stepped onto the porch. The silence of the surrounding mountainside and his own supercharged senses allowed him to hear someone moving around within the house. As Madden rapped on the door, those movements ceased abruptly. He supposed casual callers were not a regular feature of Rainer’s early morning routine.

  Footsteps approached the door and it opened a fraction. The face that appeared within the gap between the door and the frame was that of Anton Rainer, and Madden experienced a sharp feeling of relief. The way this case had gone so far, he wouldn’t have been surprised if this had turned out to be the wrong house, the wrong town, the wrong everything.

  “Detective Madden.” Rainer’s features expressed surprise. Not fear or guilt. Just the everyday surprise of a man disturbed eating his breakfast by a police officer he’d met a few weeks ago. His glance shifted to Maria and his eyes widened.

  “And are you”—his voice softened—“are you the person they took out of that place? I was there . . . I’m so sorry for what you went through. It’s haunted me ever since.” He held the door wide. “Won’t you come in?”

  Madden could see Maria’s indecision as she looked at Rainer. Hell, it matched his own. If this guy was acting, he was wasted in his day job. He should be doing this for a living. If this was fake, it was an Oscar-winning performance.

  As they stepped into Rainer’s kitchen, Madden placed a hand in the small of Maria’s back. “Is it him?” He spoke the words softly so that only she could hear.

  “It’s him.” There was no room for doubt in the way she said the words.

  Madden had come to trust her judgment absolutely. Maria had an inner strength the like of which he had never seen before. It was more powerful than anything possessed by even the toughest werewolves he had ever known. If she told him something was so, he knew it was true. Rainer was the man who had come into her hospital room and threatened to kill her. The problem was, did Rainer know it?

  Rainer gestured for them to sit at the table that occupied the center of the small room. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Juice? Water?” Once again, Madden was struggling to see anything in the other man’s manner except courtesy and mild curiosity.

  They both declined the offer of refreshments, but did take a seat. Rainer joined them, tilting his head to one side expectantly. “Is this about the case? Anything I can do to help. When I think of how my grandfather’s house was used . . .”

  “Mr. Rainer, where were you on the morning of Tuesday 22nd? The day after we rescued Miss Delgardo from the caves below your grandfather’s house?” Madden got straight to the point.

  Rainer’s attitude changed slightly and he glanced nervously from Madden to Maria, clearly sensing there was something here that should concern him. “Since it was a Tuesday, I would have been in the office in Seward.”

  “Can anyone vouch for where you were on that morning?”

  Rainer nodded. “All my colleagues would have been there. Tuesday is the day we have our team meeting.”

  Madden sat back in his seat. He would check out Rainer’s story, of course, but his gut told him the other man was telling the truth. “You’re not an identical twin, by any chance, are you, Mr. Rainer?” It was a long shot, but he had to ask the question.

  Rainer shook his head. “I’m an only child.”

  Chastel. It all came back to the sorcerer and bounty hunter. The man who hated Arctic werewolves and could weave trickster magic so powerful he could impersonate anyone. Or even get his followers to take on different appearances. It could have been Chastel himself who had entered Maria’s hospital room that day masquerading as Rainer, or he could have sent one of his Hellhounds in disguise. Either way, it seemed certain Rainer himself knew nothing about it.

  “Can you call one of your colleagues? If I could speak to them and confirm you were there on that day, it would help me wrap up part of my investigation.” Madden used his most reassuring tone. He was as sure as he could be that he was looking at an innocent man, but he wanted to walk away from here knowing he had done a thorough job.

  “Sure.” Rainer reached in his pocket for his cell phone. As far as Madden was concerned, that clinched it. Rainer hadn’t known they were coming. He hadn’t had an opportunity to prepare for this call. He must be certain his workmate would confirm his story.

  Maria sat quietly at Madden’s side as they waited for Rainer’s colleague to answer the call, but he could sense her disquiet. The last time she had seen this man, he had menaced her with threats and told her there was no hiding place for her. Now he was coming across like a mild-mannered citizen who offered concern about her ordeal. Like everything else in the Cage Killer case, it felt like the world had gone crazy. He took her hand between both of his. Her poor, damaged right hand. With anyone else he’d have said “Welcome to my world,” but the murderer had made this Maria’s world, too. They were both trapped in this nightmare.

  “Hey, Gloria?” Rainer was speaking into his cell phone. “Sorry to bother you before work, but I have someone here who needs to speak to you. A police officer. No, don’t worry, it’s not a big deal. I’ll see you later.” He handed the phone to Madden. “My manager, Gloria Wells.”

  “Ms. Wells? Hi, thank you for talking to me. I’m Detective Madden of the Alaskan Frontier Force. I just need to ask you one quick question. Can you verify for me that Mr. Rainer was present in the Seward office on Tuesday the twenty-second of this month, please?” Madden maintained eye contact with Rainer as he spoke. The other man remained calm, even offering
a slight smile.

  There was a pause before the woman Madden was talking to answered his question. “Is this one of Anton’s jokes?”

  Madden felt his instinct for danger kick up a notch. “Ms. Wells, I can assure you this isn’t a joke. I am a police officer and I am conducting a major investigation.” He did his best to inject his tone with the necessary authority to convince her. Across the table, Rainer’s expression altered, becoming less relaxed.

  “Detective Madden, if that’s who you really are, I don’t know how Anton got you to go along with this, but you tell him from me, I’m not falling for it. He knows as well as I do he wasn’t in the office that day. He called in sick that morning and didn’t show up again until two days later.”

  “Thank you Ms. Wells, you’ve been very helpful.” Madden handed the phone back to Rainer.

  “She told you I was there, right?” Rainer’s voice broke in midsentence. “She told you . . .

  “Mr. Rainer, did you make an anonymous call to the police telling them there was a Cage Killer victim in the caves below your grandfather’s house?”

  Rainer’s eyes opened wide in confusion. “Oh, God!” His hands went to the sides of his head, his knuckles pressing hard into his temples. “No, not again. Get out of my head, you evil bastard.”

  He leaped up from his seat, moving swiftly across the room. Although Madden was just behind him, Rainer was too fast for him. Before Madden could stop him, Rainer had snatched up a carving knife from the counter and plunged it deep into his own throat, slashing it across from one side to the other.

  * * *

  “Chastel has done this before.” Madden held Maria tight against him, stilling her tremors and turning her face away from the horrific sight of Rainer’s body. “He used mind control on a group of escaped prisoners. When he had no further use for them, he got them to go on a killing spree. Although they were friends, they murdered each other at his command. The last one left was called Axel. He cut his own throat the way Rainer has just done. Samson and Valetta were there when it happened.”

  She lifted her head to look at him, grounding herself in his amber eyes. “I never knew there was evil like this in the world.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to know it now.” His voice was sad.

  She shook her head, trying to find the words to explain what she meant. “I finally get why the world needs you. Why the brotherhood is necessary.” As if on cue, the door flew open and the others burst in. Maria shook her head. “It’s incredible the way you can talk to each other without words.”

  “You’ll get used to it.” She took a second to understand the hint at a long-term future. This was not the time or place to go delving into hopes and dreams. Madden’s gaze searched her face. She could sense his concern and she loved him even more for it. Despite everything that was happening, he still had time to check how she was doing. “Are you okay?”

  She gave him a reassuring nod. “‘Okay’ might be an exaggeration, but I’m not going to fall apart. That’s probably the best I can give you right now.”

  “It’s the best any of us can hope for.”

  “What the hell happened here?” Lowell knelt beside Rainer’s body, even though it was pointless. There was no way any medical procedure was going to help him now. The self-inflicted wounds were so violent Rainer had almost severed his own head.

  Samson gazed down at the bloodied remains. He looked like a man who had seen a ghost. “Fuck. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible for someone to do that to himself if I hadn’t seen it once with my own eyes. Seeing his body is like looking at what happened to Axel all over again.”

  Madden nodded. “That’s exactly what I thought.” Quickly, he filled them in on what had happened. “It looks like Chastel used mind control on Rainer, getting him to go to the hospital and threaten Maria as if he was the killer. Once Rainer was released from Chastel’s hold, the poor guy knew nothing about it. He actually believed he had been in work on that day. I have a hunch Rainer was the person who made the anonymous call to the police. If the two parts of himself were conflicted, and neither one really knew what was going on, it would make sense that his rational self would try to get help. We’ll never know for sure.”

  “Why did Chastel do it?” Vigo asked.

  “The same reason Chastel does anything. Because he can, and because it amuses him.” Madden’s lips twisted with disgust. “This time he used Rainer to scare Maria and confuse the police hunt. It messed with our heads. At some point, Chastel must have known I would catch up with Rainer and make the connection. I’d seen him once, so I would recognize him again. This is the sort of game he loves.”

  “Game?” Maria shivered. “A man has just cut his own throat.”

  “It’s a game to Chastel.” Madden went to the window, looking out at the view of the mountains. “He’s watching us closely. To get inside Rainer’s head with such precision, he knew we were here.” He glanced at Rainer’s cell phone. “Chastel was probably monitoring Rainer’s calls.”

  “What now?” Wilder, always practical, turned matters to their next move.

  “I’ll call this in to the Alaskan Frontier Force.” Madden grimaced. “Which means I’ll have to wait here until forensics arrive. When I’ve taken care of the practicalities, I want to go out to Piedmont House again. It’s a long shot, but I don’t want to leave here without checking it out again in case the Cage Killer has Hendrik there. He’s never used the same place twice in the past, but I want to be sure.”

  The mention of Hendrik’s name cut across the horror of the mood, lowering it even further and reminding them of the urgency of their mission. Every minute they spent not knowing where their friend was brought them a minute closer to his death. Maria sensed Madden’s frustration. He had to do the right thing by Rainer. The guy had been cruelly used by Chastel and then brutally murdered. He had to be treated with dignity and his death deserved careful investigation, even though the final verdict would be suicide. The problem was that the investigation was taking Madden away from the search for Hendrik.

  “Why don’t we meet you at Piedmont House?” Sebastian suggested.

  Madden hesitated, and Maria knew why. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his friends to undertake the search for Hendrik in his absence. It was because he didn’t want her to go back to Piedmont House without him. He was terrified of what it would do to her to see and step inside that place again, and he wanted to be there to support her. I want that, too. She had never needed him more. But she also knew how selfish it would be to take him away from his duty. She risked a glance at the body on the floor. From the shoulders up, there was little recognizable that was human. All she could see was blood. Anton Rainer hadn’t deserved his fate. He had been selected by Chastel because he happened to have been briefly included in the Cage Killer investigation. Wrong place, wrong time. Something in those words struck a chord inside her, but she couldn’t grasp why.

  “I’ll be fine.” She spoke the words quietly to Madden, attempting to alleviate his concern.

  Although the frown that was pulling his brows together lightened slightly, it didn’t disappear. Reluctantly, he released her. As Maria accompanied Wilder and Jenny out to the car, she recalled Madden’s words about Chastel watching them. She was dwelling on them too much, convincing herself she could feel evil, gloating eyes boring into the back of her neck as she clambered into the car.

  Her artistic imagination had always been inclined to go into overdrive, but now it seemed determined to work against her. She tried to force her fears aside, chastising herself for her foolishness. It’s stress. What you just witnessed. The prospect of walking back into Piedmont House without Madden.

  The lecture didn’t work. As Jenny took the wheel and drove the car down the narrow track toward the coast road, she was still convinced she could feel invisible observers following their progress.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Piedmont House was not a traditional Alaskan dwelling. It was built of gray
stone that perfectly matched the cliff face, with tall arched windows reflecting the sunlight back at them, like eyes that hid their expression from the world. It was nothing like the brightly painted wooden structures they had left behind in Seward. Maria was reminded of the horror movies she had watched through her fingers during her teenage years.

  You didn’t come here prepared to fall in love with it, she reminded herself.

  She hadn’t seen the house from this angle. When the Cage Killer brought her here, she had a hood over her head. Stumbling over the threshold as he thrust her in front of him, she had only gained an impression of the place. Cold, dusty, and unused. Those had been her first impressions. But there was something deeper. Something rotten. It reminded her of the pond in the backyard at her parents’ home. Most of the time, Maria’s favorite place to take a rug and sit and read was right next to the picturesque little pool. But in hot weather, it would get a rank, putrid smell to it that made her wrinkle her nose in disgust. On those days, she would avoid it and take her book to the other side of the yard. That was what Piedmont House smelled like. Noxious, like something was festering beneath the surface.

  Then her abductor had taken her down into the caves, and she had been too busy to take in the ambiance. Her whole time had been about surviving the pain.

  When the police had rescued her from the caves beneath the house, she had caught a brief glimpse of it from the boat they had used to take her away. Madden had carried her down the steps that led to the water and she had clung to her rescuer, determined never to let go. Her view of the house had been distorted by the angle. It had loomed over the water, dark and menacing. Scared, she had quickly looked away.

  Now, from this new angle, she couldn’t look away. Because, although she hadn’t seen the house before, it wasn’t new to her. Not only the house, but the whole area, the haunting view, the sweeping bay, the snow-tipped mountains. I know this place. The thought caused her to feel suddenly lightheaded. The edges of her vision darkened and she swayed. A strong arm went around her waist just as she felt her legs give way.