by Sasha Parker
Excerpt from Perfect Reflection
Shifter Justice Book One
By Jana Leigh and Bryce Evans
Vander stood at the doorway while Jewel did her mojo. He would take notes of things he saw and they would compare notes later when they would type their summaries. Vander learned so much from Jewel that he was making a name for himself dealing with crime scenes, too. Jewel told him her theories and Vander told his, then they were able to come up with several scenarios that most cops wouldn’t recognize because of their different styles.
Jewel walked in a circle around the crime scene talking into her recorder. She came to the table where the Victim was tied up. “She was scared, she knew what was going to happen, only if she could talk him out of it,” Jewel said into the recorder.
“He talked to her, made her think she had a chance if she did something,” Jewel muttered and then frowned because the image would not come to her; she had no idea why he was doing what he was. It was pissing her off, as if someone was blocking her, impossible of course, but still frustrating.
The M.O. was the same. He put tape over her mouth and used thin rope to tie her hands and legs to the table. She was nude and appeared to be raped just like the other victims. “Teaching her a lesson, she should never have gone out to the bar with such a sexy outfit. She was asking for trouble,” Jewel said into her recorder—it was the same thing she felt before. Somehow, the perp felt like he was justified in killing them, as if it was his job.
The Victim was pretty and usually came from money. Looking at where the malicious perp had tortured the girl made her blood boil. This was the third victim in Atlanta. Captain John Marks informed her after the second one that he had received a call from Captain Lex Doyle from the New York Police Department asking about their murders. Captain Doyle informed her captain that they had two murders with the same M.O.
That meant he was traveling from one city to another killing, leaving his own brand of destruction in his path. His killing zone was specific though, all at construction sites. Jewel made a note to see if there was a connection there.
Captain Marks wanted Jewel and Vander to go to New York, meet with Captain Doyle, and see if the crimes were connected. They would work together in trying to solve this if it was connected. Jewel wasn’t happy about this development; she was comfortable in her own territory. A wolf traveling out of her territory would need to make sure she didn’t piss another pack off. That’s all she would need. Then there was her fear of flying, being in a small tube that is lofted into the air was not natural. Besides the fact, the cute little flight attendants that inevitably flirted with Vander got on her nerves. She didn’t care about the flirting so much as the hair flipping and disgusting odor of perfume that would always make her want to gag. Then there was her wolf; she hated being enclosed for a long period of time. Only shifters knew how much pain their wolf could cause if they were pissed, the clawing on the inside was painful, so Jewel usually drank to help with the pain.
However, since Captain Doyle believed that this was a serial killer moving from New York to Atlanta, she had to go. Now with this third murder here in Atlanta, the press would be all over it. And she was going to have to be front and center, damn it, she thought. They were going to make her cut her hair and wear something business-like instead of her standard jeans and t-shirt.
Shaking off her thoughts, Jewel walked over to the table with the victim and started taking pictures. She reached out and touched the arm of the victim. It was only a light touch to the arm. She was trying to see if you could get a vision.
It was as if she went back in time. She could see the victim lying on the table. She was talking to somebody. It looked like she said, “We had a good time, but this is going too far” but Jewel had a hard time reading the girls lips. She couldn’t hear the other voice, it was muffled, but she could feel the woman’s fear from whatever he said.
Jewel watched as the tape went over the victim’s mouth. She made a note to see if the tape was left behind. Fuck, she was terrified, the woman felt confused and scared, why was he doing this?
Then the women struggled, trying to get loose. This could not be happening to her, she had just been out for a little bit of fun and ended up here. What the hell was going on?
Jewel observed two hands reach up and touch the woman’s legs then she was pulled closer to the end of the table. She couldn’t see anyone’s face but the woman’s, but the blurred movements showed the man’s arms, she studied his skin, the way his hair was shaved off his forearms.
What Jewel saw next pissed her off. She watched a hand reach up to the woman’s stomach, then turn into claws. The claws slit the woman’s stomach in two. Jewel flinched as she could almost hear the rip of the flesh, it disturbed her.
The vision stopped before Jewel could see anymore. She knew the suspect was a male, because of the semen in the victims. Now she knew that the suspect was a wolf as well. This changed everything.
If humans found out that a wolf shifter killed the victims, it would change everything as they know it. Humans didn’t know about shifters. If they did then shifters would be put into cages and experimented on. The Elders had seen it in the past when someone found out about them, they were treated like freaks, so they went into hiding, making sure never to reveal their shifter side. A killer among them could be disastrous.
This man was smart. He never left a print or hair. Now Jewel was glad that he didn’t leave any hair. How could she explain if a wolf’s hair was found at the scene? The visions were always the same; she could only see so much of what happened. They needed more information. Jewel was getting frustrated quickly with her gift, and with the torture the victims were going through, it pissed her off.