Like a flash, the collie was off the bed and prancing in front of her bedroom door, nails clicking softly against the wood. Tick-tick-tick. Her long tail swayed, brushing against the wall. The branch scraped behind her. All normal sounds of a normal night. So why couldn’t she settle her jumpy stomach and go back to sleep?
Fresh air would do them both some good. Still, Ollie turned and slid her gun out of the nightstand drawer, tucking it away in the pocket of her robe as she tugged it on. As stupid as she thought she was being, she couldn’t bring herself to be that dumb. The Hunter had made it obvious that this was personal, that he’d come for her sooner or later. She couldn’t sleep, the dog needed out, and what better way to settle herself down than a walk in her yard?
But she wouldn’t do it unarmed.
“Okay, girl,” she said and twisted the door handle, letting Star bound down the hall towards the kitchen. Ollie followed her out, unlocking and tugging open the sliding glass door so that the night air slipped quietly into the kitchen, cool enough to raise goosebumps over her arms. She tugged the robe closed, cinching the belt more tightly around her waist, and slipped outside. Star was already off the back porch when Ollie whistled out, calling her back. Nor was she about to let the dog go running helter-skelter around the back yard again. Not after last time.
It’d been too close. Way too close. “With me,” Ollie said, and Star swung around to pace at her hip, head lowered to the ground. Short, snuffling sounds rose as Star sniffed her way across the grass, leading them out to the field and the crime scene still quartered off.
Even the birds had quieted with sleep, leaving the night silent. Ollie longed to shift and let the wolfhound out to run, to chase this restlessness out of her and exhaust herself to the point where even a bomb going off wouldn’t wake her. But that’d be just as stupid as leaving her gun inside.
“Hurry up,” she told Star as the collie circled in the long, tangled grass. A small sliver of a moon cast ribbons of light across the field, nothing more than soft breaks in the shadows. Nothing good enough to see by, at least not without her inner wolfhound peeking out.
A branch snapped to her left and Ollie stiffened, turning. Her hand found her gun, the familiar press of it against her palm instantly soothing. Star circled a few more loops before squatting, and Ollie found herself glancing back up at the house, a massive silhouette that stood out in clear contrast against the night sky. Stars blanketed the sky around it.
Grass rustled behind her and Ollie headed back for the house. “Good girl,” she said, recognizing the fast, prancy trot behind her. Star staggered, drawing up suddenly short and Ollie found herself turning. A low grumbling, growl sounded in the darkness, and she tightened her hand on the gun. “Star,” she called softly, but the collie didn’t even flick an ear her way.
Star’s long, tapered muzzle lifted to reveal teeth, gray in the darkness, and she growled again, body stiff. Ollie’s heart picked up speed, a steady thump-thump-thump that suddenly had her breathless. “Coward,” she whispered, taunting. “You want me to run; you have to come out of the shadows for that.”
A click sounded in the darkness. The safety of a gun switching off? A snap of a branch? Her heart was thudding so fast Ollie could barely hear beyond its pounding and the rush of blood in her head. “Come here. Look me in the eye while you shoot me. I’m not scared of you.”
Though the slamming, panicky race of her pulse told a very different story.
Ollie forced her leaden legs to take a step closer to her dog, closer to the sound. The Hunter, out here playing with her again. The grass rustled, a demon stalking through it in a rush, and Ollie pulled out her gun, hands shaky as she jerked it up to take aim. Star lurched forward a few steps and Ollie opened her lips to scream at her, to call her back, “Leave it” on the tip of her tongue, when a coyote yipped from the woods. A second answered out in the field, their throaty cries shattering the silence.
Another click as a branch snapped and the tension drained out of her shoulders. Idiot. Ollie squeezed her eyes shut, instantly hating the tears that came with the rush of fear pouring out of her. Dammit. She was letting him win. Letting him get to her.
“Let’s go now.” Ollie turned and headed back for the house. Star was still growling, but the dog stayed with her, darting ahead and then turning around to snarl at the shadows behind her. Ollie headed straight up the back steps, spine straight, and jerked open the sliding glass door, ushering her dog inside and slamming it shut.
Safe inside, she yanked a beer out of the fridge and headed for the living room. Sleep was already a distant memory, one she didn’t think she’d revisit any time soon. But a cold beer and “I Love Lucy” reruns, that might give those demons nibbling away at her resolve a run for their money. Besides, when all else failed, she’d wake Brandt up, put him on watch duty, and drink herself stupid.
“Can’t sleep?”
Speak of the devil. Ollie twisted to see her brother standing in the hall, flannel pajama pants loose around his hips, his ratty t-shirt rumpled with sleep, and a gun in one hand. She shook her head. “No. Coyotes.”
Among other things. She pressed her lips tight against the rest of the words. He sighed.
“Then I guess I’m joining you.” He sank down onto the other side of the couch.
The Lucy episode was almost finished when exhaustion won out, Brandt having started snoring long before her. But somehow not even the distant calls of coyotes managed to keep her awake in the end.
***
Sawyer flopped down on the wheelie chair next to her, kicking her feet up on the desk as she glanced over at Ollie. “The lab techs are ranting up a storm. He ‘contaminated evidence’ and all that jazz.”
The lioness lifted both eyebrows, and Ollie found herself laughing for the first time that day. “I could barely even smell him on it, but the latex gloves he used to write, yeah...”
Still, she’d already had ‘the chat’ with Lennox about botching up what could have been evidence, even if her superior had understood. Ollie had done what she could with it, scented it, poked at it with her magick, anything to see if there were clues. And when she’d been done, Brandt had taken over. Nothing, nada, zip. “He’s going to get away with yet another one at this rate.”
Sawyer closed her eyes. “God, I hate serial killers. I thought...”
The words shriveled up and died in her throat, one second a sentence was on its way out into the world, and the next the lioness had clamped it down with a sharp sigh and glanced away. Ollie understood. The office buzzed with activity, Hounds milling from desk to desk, phones ringing. They had a stack of cases to go through, paperwork to fill out, and Ollie could barely keep herself in her seat. “Let’s go.”
Sawyer jerked her feet off the desk, startled, the chair swiveling with the sudden motion. The slim woman’s hand caught the desk with a loud slap, causing several Hounds to jerk their way. “Where?”
Ollie really didn’t care. Just out. “For a walk. Lunch. It is past our lunch break.”
Without another word, they left the stack of unfinished work behind and headed out the door. The cool autumn air settled her in a way that the building behind her used to. It eased the nerves running wild under her skin, and Ollie forced herself to suck it down deep, letting the brisk wind fill her lungs until she let it all go with a sigh.
Sawyer stepped up behind her, holding out her leather jacket. Ollie took it with a smile. “Thanks.”
She slipped it on, stuffing both hands in her pockets, and headed down the road. For a while they just walked. The trees were filled with color—reds and golds, canary-bright yellows and the lingering touches of green, poignant reminders of summer. An occasional car horn blared from the street, the rumble of traffic filling the air around the Enforcement office. And threading through it all was the nearly constant chatter of people on cell phones merrily going about their ordinary lives.
Some days Ollie wondered what it’d be like to be so naïve. To be able to wal
k down the street and forget there was a killer on the loose. Be able to live with the belief that it’d never happen to her. Ollie paused on the corner in front of the park, glancing both ways before crossing the street.
It wasn’t until they were both surrounded by trees, the scent of decomposing leaves and acorns strong in the air, that Ollie spoke, her voice a low, half-whisper. “I always wanted this stupid case.”
She glanced over her shoulder in time to see a smile steal over Sawyer’s face. “Not me.”
“No? Then what did you think you were going to do? Why’d you take the job if not to catch the bad guy?”
Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Lot of reasons. Never wanted to be the victim again.”
That, Ollie could understand. Even before the Hunter, she’d known what being a victim was like. As far back as her memories went, she knew what it felt like to be powerless, scared, unable to help herself or anyone else—her father’s fists had taught her that lesson.
“And, well, I thought it was about time Shifter Town Enforcement opened its doors to other shifters. Not just dogs.”
Especially since the killer who had kidnapped Sawyer had been a rogue Hound on a mission to rid the world of all lion-shifters. He’d killed seven people and kidnapped five, including Sawyer and her young niece. Thankfully, one of the other people he’d kidnapped had been Lennox, and she’d turned the tables on him and helped Sawyer escape. Still, for the most part, Ollie was still aware that there was a divide between STE and the shifters they were supposed to protect.
Enforcement considered their primary mission to be the protection of humans from shifters. Shifters had, for the most part, gotten the shitty end of the deal—most wound up dead long before they ever saw a jail cell. That was actually what the rogue Hound had been counting on. Mass extermination, while using his Hound magick to cover his tracks, so that in the end, he could get off scot free.
They walked in silence for a while, Ollie trying desperately to forget the man who’d killed so many people, who’d kill again soon if she couldn’t stop him. He was a demon she couldn’t escape, one who had claws hooked so deeply into her soul that he followed her constantly, a second shadow. In a fury, she lashed out, her boot sending a rock skidding up the sidewalk before it disappeared into a clump of grass.
“Lennox re-ordered flyers of the sketch you had done after—”
Sawyer didn’t have to finish. The moment Ollie had gotten back to Enforcement after being held captive by the Hunter, she’d worked with a pair of sketch artists to whip up a composite. They’d flashed it around the news for weeks. Nothing. He was ordinary. The kind of face most people would see on the street and forget.
To Ollie, he was burned into her memory like he’d been branded into her brain. She’d never forget the wayward, almost boyish smile, or the way it twisted when she said something he didn’t like, the dimple on his right cheek suddenly cavernous. Dark. He’d dressed in plaid and jeans, his body lean and muscular, more than fit enough to do the job.
More than anything it was the wolf she hadn’t forgotten. The brilliant gold eyes that seemed to light up when they caught the moon’s silver light, lantern-bright in the dark. He’d been blacker than any shadow, a sleek eidolon that could vanish into the night as if he’d never been there at all.
In the end, the sketch had simply taunted her more. The Hunter had stared at her from paper, his brutal eyes flat under the hard, graphite etchings of a pencil. The cruel line to his mouth looked ordinary. The dark, dangerous dimple was simply a line on the page. Even on paper he mocked her.
Ollie wrapped her arms around herself, refusing to acknowledge the nagging sense of powerlessness, and turned back towards Enforcement.
It only took one other person to see him, to recognize him, and that could be all they needed. Just one. It was a shred of hope Ollie clung to, a prayer she dared whisper again and again. The devil couldn’t be invisible. Sooner or later, someone had to see him for what he really was. Not an ordinary man.
A monster.
Chapter Nine
Caine caught Miranda Rawson’s trembling hands in his, squeezing gently to give Claire’s mother a chance to catch her breath. More people than just the pack had shown up for Claire’s funeral, people none of them had even recognized, all coming to pay their respects. “You okay?”
“Feel like I’m about to shatter.” She squeezed her quivering lips into a thin line, and Caine stepped forward, his gaze automatically stalking the crowd for Mrs. Rawson’s husband. There he was with their other daughter, the sixteen-year-old Rawson girl sobbing against her father’s shoulder. The old man looked about ready to break himself.
With a soft sigh, Caine wrapped an arm around the woman and tugged her close, pinning her hands to his chest. “It’s okay to break,” he whispered and felt her shoulders stiffen, still trying to fight. He leaned his chin against the top of her head. “No one will judge you for it.”
“I still can’t...” Her breath hitched in her chest, locked on a sob, but she didn’t have to finish. She’d been repeating it for the past two days, over and over again. I still can’t believe she’s dead.
He wondered when she’d get around to saying: I still can’t believe you failed. Pain pounded in his head, a throbbing between his eyes that Caine had yet to shake. Most of the pack was here, shaken, their nerves on edge with grief and the sheer number of people present. Trey was making the rounds, doing his best to keep fur under skin, hoping they’d all make it through the day without a shift.
They were close, too. All they had to do was make it through the speeches and the final farewells. He blew out a long, steady sigh, trying to calm the woman in his arms. “I’m sorry,” meaning it with all his heart, even if the words were beginning to sound more habitual to him than mournful.
Caine started to move towards the crowd, ushering Mrs. Rawson with him, when he saw a familiar black-haired beauty, her black dress hanging nearly to her knees, nowhere near long enough to keep his eyes from tracking up those long legs. Holly Lawrence didn’t come alone, either.
He recognized her brother at her side, the lioness-turned-Hound flanking them. The assortment of people behind them were probably the rest of the Hound pack. He’d wondered if Enforcement would make an appearance today, heard the mutterings from his own pack about how they didn’t even care that shifters were dying. Once, he’d have probably agreed with them, but nothing about Holly could make him believe that she didn’t care.
Approaching the procession now, everything on her face seemed to scream it. “Miranda,” he said softly and she looked up, handkerchief in hand, then spotted the incoming Hounds. She didn’t recognize them.
“More people I don’t know? Why can’t they just leave us be today?”
“They’re the Hounds who worked your daughter’s case.”
As if she could hear him, Holly’s head jerked his way, those gunmetal gray eyes bonding instantly with his. With one glance, Holly could deliver a physical blow to his gut. This time out of sorrow. Pain. Her gaze flicked to the woman in his arms, and he saw her face soften. She turned, said something to her brother and the red-haired woman beside him, and then headed their way.
Miranda gave a small gasp. “I don’t know if I want to speak to them.”
“Her name is Holly Lawrence.” Miranda looked at him, realization glittering in her eyes along with the tears, and he nodded. “The one who got away.”
He squeezed her hands gently in his. “She tried.”
Just like that, Claire’s mother sagged against him, exhaustion and grief winning out. She broke into a soft sob, a tear trailing down over her cheek, leaving a streak in the makeup. Holly paused still a few feet away, pain contorting her face. Her red lips parted, and Caine found himself fighting the urge to go to her, to wrap her in a hug.
The need to keep them all safe and happy roared through him. But he forced himself to simply clear his throat. “Mrs. Rawson, this is Holly Lawrence, the Hound in charge of your daugh
ter’s case.”
Holly flinched at that, and he recognized the guilt in her eyes. It was the same feeling that chopped away at him. Should have been there. Should have done better. From the looks of it, it didn’t go away. At least not with Holly.
“Holly, this is Claire’s mother.”
The wolfhound looked ready to run, but the red-haired woman who had come in behind her was suddenly there, a hand on Holly’s shoulder. She held out a hand to Miranda. “Lennox Donnelly, STE alpha. We’re so sorry for your loss.”
The words wrenched another sob from Miranda, but she took Lennox’s hand, then Holly’s. “Thank you.”
With a broken cry, Miranda turned back to him, leaning in to press a kiss against his cheek. “Thank you. I’m going to go find Ron.”
Caine let her go, watching as she picked her way tentatively over the grass on shaky heels, waves of grief pouring off of her. The crowd parted around her, people stepping forward to lend their condolences, and then Trey was there, helping her through them. Caine watched until she was safely in the arms of her husband, their remaining daughter wrapped between them, before he turned to face the Hounds in front of him.
“We hope it’s okay that we’re here,” Lennox said. “We wanted to come and pay our respects.”
Caine nodded, gesturing with one hand towards the crowd still settling in their seats. “By all means.”
He took a step towards the gathering and paused, his gaze automatically seeking Holly’s. Her brother’s arm was wrapped over one shoulder, holding her tight. She seemed every bit as ready to break as Mrs. Rawson had.
“We also think,” Brandt said, glancing over her head towards Caine, “That he might show here. No guarantee, but we wanted to be ready just in case.”
Caine stiffened. Here? The bastard would dare to show himself here? One glance around the cemetery, the woods off to one side, from one of the open rows of headstone after headstone to the other, and he could feel the sickening twist in his gut. It would be just like that monster to show up here, now.
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