by Paige Tyler
Alex cursed. “Don’t you have anything we can work with now?” Frustration made the words come out louder than he intended. The guys didn’t seem to care. They were used to dealing with alpha werewolves who frequently lost their cool.
Becker grabbed up a notepad covered in his neat writing and started flipping pages. “Not much. Brooks went back to the bar. He’s going to wait until they close, then shift and try to track Kelsey’s scent when no one’s around. Since Lacey’s name is on the wireless bill and she gave us permission, we were able to pull Kelsey’s cell phone records without a warrant—or hacking—which was nice.”
Becker paused as he read his notes. “Like a lot of college kids Kelsey’s age, there are way more texts than phone calls, with the exception of calls to and from Lacey. Bottom line—there’s nothing there. A lot of chatting with her girlfriends about school, professors, hot guys, getting together to go out—stuff like that. Nothing to indicate she was seeing anyone regularly or that she was having trouble with anyone.”
“What about last night?” Remy asked.
Becker shook his head. “There were only two texts after she got to the bar, both about how sucky the music was. Nothing since.”
Alex cut loose a growl. He didn’t have a good feeling about any of this. “Any reason to think someone was using the bar as a hunting ground or that Kelsey was being stalked?”
“I checked out the bar,” Remy said. “Reports of fights, assaults, suspicious people hanging around—the usual stuff. Nothing to raise any red flags.”
“I sniffed around the neighborhood near the club,” Max added. “I talked to at least fifty people, asking if they’d heard about any girls getting messed with in the area, but no one heard a thing. They didn’t see anything unusual last night, either.”
“When I dug into Kelsey’s social network accounts, I came up empty,” Becker continued. “No enemies, no drunk pictures, no stalker boyfriends. Hell, no boyfriends at all. She’s slept with some guys, but she seems to be smart about selecting men who aren’t dirtbags. As a last resort, I even checked out her Find My Phone app. Nothing came up on that, either.”
“What’s a Find My Phone app?” Alex asked. God, he hated all this tech crap.
“It’s an account you can set up with your phone,” Jayna said, coming back into the living room. “If you lose your phone, you can log into the account, and it will use the phone’s GPS to track its current location.”
Alex frowned. “Okay, that’s seems creepy.”
“It’s the twenty-first century.” Becker chuckled. “You might want to hop on board the train, bro, because it left the station more than a decade ago. Regardless, it didn’t give us anything. The app requires the phone to be turned on and in an area with cell phone, Wi-Fi, or Internet connection. Kelsey’s phone isn’t showing up anywhere. Either it’s in an area with no wireless signal of any type, it’s off—or worse, destroyed.”
Alex rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. Damn, he hadn’t been this tense in a really long time. Not since he’d gone through his change and moved to Dallas.
“So what do we think we’re looking at here?” he asked. “A date-rape abduction, a random kidnapping, a serial killer?”
Max shrugged. “Since we’ve ruled out the obvious stuff—family, boyfriend, coworker, jealous girlfriend—then yeah, I think we could be looking at any of those worst-case scenarios you mentioned.”
Alex’s gut clenched. If this was one of those worst-case scenarios, the chance of Kelsey being found alive was slim. If Kelsey died, he wasn’t sure Lacey would hold it together. Her sister was her whole life.
“You know, there is another way to look at this,” Remy murmured almost to himself as he leaned back on the other couch. “Instead of focusing on Kelsey so much, we need to pull back a minute and consider the fact that Kelsey is the third girl from RTC to go missing, along with her friend Sara Collins and Abigail Elliott.”
Becker frowned. “Alex already told us that Sara sent an email to the registrar’s office saying she went to Mexico with some guy. Then Kelsey got a text from Sara a couple of days ago, saying she was having a wonderful time.”
“Yeah, the registrar got an email from Sara just like they got from Kelsey, but we know for a fact that one’s bullshit,” Alex said. “If we believe someone faked Kelsey’s email, it’s not that big of a stretch to assume they did the same with Sara. And that supposed text from Mexico wouldn’t be hard to pull off if whoever kidnapped Sara had her phone.”
“Okay, assuming you’re right,” Becker said, “why would the person who grabbed the girls send something to the school to cover their tracks with Sara and Kelsey but not the first girl, Abigail Elliott?”
“I don’t know,” Remy admitted. “But there’s another question I’m much more interested in getting an answer to.”
“What’s that?” Max asked.
“If there are three girls missing from RTC that we know of already, how many more are missing that we haven’t heard about yet?” Remy said.
Alex glanced at Becker. “Any chance you can hack into the RTC computers and figure out if there are any other missing girls who meet our profile?”
“Yeah, I can do that,” Becker said. “It might take a while, though. Colleges have really good firewalls, since students are always trying to break in to change grades. It would mean putting the video footage on the back burner, though.”
Alex didn’t have to think about it very long. “Do it.”
Becker glanced at Remy, then at Jayna, who was still leaning against the kitchen counter, watching them.
“What?” Alex said impatiently.
“Nothing,” Becker said. “It’s just that… Isn’t there something else you could be doing than hanging around here?”
Alex frowned. He wasn’t so great with computers and technology, but he could still look at video footage with Remy and Max.
“Like maybe going to see Lacey and find out how she’s holding up?” Jayna suggested.
Alex immediately felt bad for not thinking about doing that himself, but then again, why would he? It wasn’t like Lacey would be very pleased to see him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“That’s the problem,” Jayna said. “You’re thinking too much. Look, Lacey might not believe it right now, but she needs you. When she figures it out, be there for her.”
Alex looked around the room and saw that Becker, Remy, and Max were all looking at him like they thought the same thing. Maybe they were right. Lacey would probably want an update anyway. And with Wendy there as a buffer between them, maybe things wouldn’t have to be awkward between them.
He stood and dug his keys out of his pocket. “Okay. Call me if you get anything.”
Alex spent the twenty-minute drive to Lacey’s apartment wishing he could tell her they had a lead on Kelsey. Hopefully, they would soon. The longer Kelsey was missing, the less chance they had of finding her alive.
He squashed that thought as he pulled into the parking lot of Lacey’s apartment complex. Lacey didn’t need to see the worry on his face when she opened the door.
Wendy was the one who opened it. She held her fingers to her lips as she motioned him inside. Lacey was sleeping on the couch, Leo curled up at her feet. She looked so fragile underneath the blanket.
“She fell asleep a little while ago,” Wendy said softly. “She’s exhausted.”
Alex nodded. “I’ll go, then. I just stopped by to make sure she was okay.”
He turned for the door, but Wendy caught his arm. “I’m leaving. You’re staying.”
Alex opened his mouth to protest, but Wendy was already grabbing her purse. “Everly stopped by. She told us a lot about werewolves and about your pack. Lacey dealt with it better than I thought she would, but go easy on her, huh? This has all been a bit much for her.”
Alex was glad Everly ha
d decided to come over and talk to Lacey, though he was a little surprised that she’d been so forthcoming with the werewolf tutorial. No doubt that had been Cooper’s idea. Having recently learned that keeping secrets can come back to bite you in the ass, he’d probably thought it was best to get out in front of all this.
“You seem to be doing okay with it,” he observed.
“It’s easy for me.” Wendy shrugged. “I haven’t had the guy I’m sleeping with change right in front of my eyes, and it’s not my sister who’s missing.”
Alex couldn’t argue with that.
At the door, Wendy turned back to look at him. “Don’t let Lacey push you away, Alex.”
Wendy left before Alex could respond, which was good, since he had no idea what to say. Wendy was the second woman that night to insist Lacey needed him. He wasn’t so sure of that.
Alex locked the door, then walked into the living room. The blanket had slipped off Lacey’s shoulders, and he leaned over to adjust it. She groaned in her sleep and tugged it up under her chin. He smiled despite himself.
Sighing, he dropped into the chair adjacent to the couch, then sat there watching Lacey sleep and praying this all worked out. Not getting back together with her—he was pretty sure that ship had already sailed. But he didn’t want Lacey to lose her sister. The world had already been unfair to her, and he just hoped that God, or fate, or whatever power ran the universe let her have a pass on this. She’d already lost so much in her life. Losing Kelsey too would be beyond cruel.
Chapter 13
“Nicole isn’t in trouble, is she?” the dark-haired resident advisor asked with concern as she led Alex and Remy down the hallway to Nicole Arend’s room. Nicole was one of two RTC female students whom Becker discovered were also mysteriously missing.
“No, it’s nothing like that,” Remy assured the girl. “We’re just checking to see if she might have some outside involvement with another case we’re looking into.”
The girl eyed Remy dubiously but quickly forgot what she was going to say when he flashed one of his charming smiles her way. The flustered girl couldn’t get her set of master keys out fast enough.
Becker had called Alex at Lacey’s apartment that morning to tell him that buried among the forty students who’d dropped out of classes recently, only five of them—all young women—had left without coming in to talk to their advisors and fill out formal withdrawal paperwork in person. Four of those five had sent emails to explain their sudden disappearance.
“Guess who didn’t?” Becker asked.
“Abigail Elliott,” Alex said.
“Bingo. In addition to Kelsey and Sara, the other two girls who supposedly sent emails are Nicole Arend and Carla Jones. Nicole has a dorm on campus. Carla lives with three roommates at an apartment close to the school.”
Alex had agreed to meet Remy at the RTC dorms to check out Nicole’s room while Becker, Max, and Brooks would see what they could dig up over at Carla’s apartment.
Lacey had wanted to come with him, but he’d convinced her to stay home. He had no idea where the investigation was going to lead him after checking out Nicole’s dorm, and he couldn’t focus on Kelsey if he was worried about Lacey.
Thankfully, she seemed to understand, saying something about going into work for a while, then hanging out with Everly again. Alex was glad she had someone she could talk to, especially since she obviously couldn’t talk to him.
“Nicole left about three weeks ago, but since she didn’t have a roommate and we won’t have anyone showing up needing a room until the fall semester, I still haven’t packed up her stuff yet,” the RA said as she unlocked the door. “I was hoping she might come back at some point. She was a really quiet girl and didn’t have a lot of friends, but we got along well.” She smiled at Remy. “I’ll be downstairs if you need anything else.”
Alex followed Remy into Nicole’s room, taking in the motivational posters and school paraphernalia covering the walls.
“Would have been nice if Nicole had a roommate we could talk to,” Remy remarked. “We can check with the other students on the floor, I guess, but I get the feeling Nicole didn’t talk to many people.”
“Might be why she was targeted in the first place,” Alex murmured. “It doesn’t seem like anyone even noticed she was missing except for the RA.”
Remy went through the girl’s desk while Alex searched her nightstand. He was flipping through a dream journal she kept in there when he picked up a familiar scent. He closed his eyes, using the scent recovery tricks Khaki had taught him. There were a lot of them, but the one he found most useful was to imagine himself digging through a bunch of old boxes stored up in an attic, with each box holding a different scent he’d picked up at some point in the past. The idea was to stimulate his memory by going through the mental process of searching for a scent. He had no idea why it worked, but sometimes it did. Like now.
Shit. He tossed the journal back in the drawer and closed it.
“We can stop worrying about finding Nicole,” he said.
Remy looked up from the drawer he’d been searching. “Why’s that?”
“Because I recognize her scent. She’s the girl Lacey and I found dumped with the dogs.”
“You sure?” At Alex’s nod, the other werewolf swore. “Damn, that poor girl. Well, this is officially no longer just a kidnapping case, and it got real ugly fast. Lacey is going to freak out when she learns about this.”
All Alex could do was nod as he reached for his phone and called Gage. His pack alpha answered on the first ring. “What do you have?”
Alex quickly filled him in, telling him about Becker tracking down two more suspected kidnapping victims and their subsequent search of Nicole’s room. “She’s the dead woman I found when I was out with Lacey the other night.”
Gage muttered a curse. “Homicide’s going to need to know about this, but we have to come up with some other way to explain how you identified this girl. We can’t exactly tell people you ID’d her by scent.”
“Maybe Mac can say someone dropped her an anonymous tip,” Alex suggested.
“If we do that, homicide is going to hone in on the tipster, assuming that person knows something about the murders. We need another way. One that won’t lead to more questions.” Gage was silent for a moment. “Get down to the ME’s office with a picture of the girl. Tell them that you were digging into the missing girls from the college and thought you recognized one of them as the dead woman you saw. That should get the ME close enough to confirm the identification.”
“Roger that,” Alex said.
As Alex hung up, he realized he was going to have to do some serious tap dancing with the ME’s office to make this work. Nicole Arend’s face had been unrecognizable. If he didn’t handle this right, they were going to know he was full of crap.
* * *
Samantha Mills, one of the staff medical examiners at the county ME’s office, regarded Alex and Remy with curious blue eyes. Tall and slender, she had on a white lab coat over a silk blouse and a pair of dark slacks. “I know you found the body, Officer Trevino, but I’m not sure I understand your continued involvement in this case beyond that.”
Alex hesitated for a moment as he looked around the fancy crime lab. He’d never been to the place before, but the huge glass-and-brick facility known as the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences didn’t look anything like the dark, dank basement he’d envisioned as the home of the county’s medical chop shop.
He was also surprised to run into the extremely suspicious blond-haired doctor now regarding them with her arms crossed over her chest in a blatant I-think-you’re-full-of-crap stance. Remy had tried to use his patented Cajun charm on the doctor when they’d first walked in, but she ignored him as if he wasn’t even there. Remy fell silent after that, apparently deciding to let Alex try it his way while he attempted to repair his damag
ed ego.
This wasn’t their first run-in with Samantha Mills. She was the ME who’d been out at Gage’s in-laws’ ranch after it had been shot to hell by the Albanians and Jayna’s old pack alpha. She was also the woman whom Senior Corporal Trey Duncan—the team’s other medic—had a thing for. Alex had been worried the woman would find something conclusive concerning the existence of werewolves among all the dead bodies at the ranch, but the ME report had come back surprisingly generic.
Trey had sworn it was all because of him. The doctor hadn’t been able to focus on her work once she’d gotten a look at the hunky Trey Duncan. In some ways, Trey was nearly as delusional as Remy.
Fortunately, Alex had expected the ME to be suspicious, so he’d spent most of the ride over coming up with a believable story to explain why he thought the woman in their cooler was Nicole Arend. One close enough to the truth that Dr. Mills wouldn’t be able to catch him up in a lie when it turned out he was right.
“To be honest, we’re not officially involved in the case at all,” Alex admitted. “We were helping out a friend whose sister disappeared a couple of days ago. While we were looking into it, we stumbled on a picture of another student who’d dropped out of classes at RTC three weeks ago, named Nicole Arend. The moment I saw her picture, I recognized her as the dead girl I found over on Ridgecrest.”
Dr. Mills lifted a brow. “That’s hard to imagine, considering how badly damaged the girl’s face was.”
“Trust me, after finding her like that, I’m never going to forget her face. Ever.”
The medical examiner sighed. “That I can believe. Come on. Let’s go take a look.”
Alex glanced at Remy, who just shrugged as they followed the woman out of her office, down a long hall, and through a door with a swipe-card security pad on it. Alex hadn’t expected the ME to take them to see the body, but if it helped make the ID, that was fine with him.