by E A Price
“Gunner,” intoned the Director’s cold voice.
The bear shifter cast one last longing look at Erin’s sleeping, curvy form and reluctantly dragged his feet out into the living room.
“Problem?” barked Gunner.
“I need you at a crime scene. I’ll text you the location.”
Gunner hesitated. “I uh… I’m not alone…”
The Director clucked his tongue. “Whoever she is, she’ll wait. Get here now.”
“The rest of the team?”
“Just you, for now.”
The Director hung up, and his bear huffed in irritation. Not at the snake shifter - his boss could be as terse as he wanted, and Gunner could give a shit. No, he wanted to crawl back into bed with Erin, he wanted to feel her smooth skin pressed against his, he wanted to hear her soft breaths lulling him to sleep.
He scowled as he received the text. No way did he want to drive across town in the middle of the night to stare at a corpse. Still, he had to be responsible. Not that the thought of waking Erin up for a quickie didn’t cross his mind, his bear was all for that, but he quelled the urge because he wanted Erin to get her rest.
Gunner pulled on a fresh pair of jeans and a shirt. He gave himself a sniff and slapped on some truly dire aftershave. It was awful, but it served its purpose of covering up any lingering scent of Erin on his skin. He might cause a few crime scene technicians to pass out from the fumes, but at least Erin’s modesty would be saved.
His beast chuffed at him. He wanted to revel in her scent, and he wanted his skin drowning in her sweet vanilla smell. He wanted every other damn male to know she was his and belonged to him. But no, Gunner couldn’t risk it. Not yet. He needed to talk to Erin before he started spreading it around that he and Erin were intimate. Turning up at a crime scene covered in her smell was akin to flashing a neon light that said 'I had sex with Erin Jameson.' At least Cutter wouldn’t be there. That damn Lupine bastard was better than a freaking bloodhound.
He squatted next to the bed and brushed a strand of hair out of her face before running a thumb down her pink cheek. She always looked flushed; always flustered and embarrassed or perhaps warmed from their lovemaking. He wouldn’t mind just watching her sleep…
His bear growled as his phone beeped again. Undoubtedly the Director was asking what was taking so long. It must be bad if the cold-blooded snake shifter was riled.
Gunner sighed and kissed her temple, whispering that he would be back soon. With one last look, he left her resting peacefully.
*
“Hey, Gunner, oh, yeuch, can you smell that?”
The rabbit shifter medical examiner, Rory twitched his nose as, reluctantly, Gunner lifted the crime scene tape for him.
Gunner shrugged and rolled his eyes. He didn’t have time for the creepy little shifter any day of the week, but in the middle of the night when his body and his bear were screaming at him to haul ass back to his luscious, little human, he was understandably short. “Can’t smell anything.”
Rory shook his head in disbelief as he struggled to keep up with the polar bear’s strides. “You’re joking, right? I hang around dead bodies all day, and I’ve never smelt anything that bad. Whatever cheap perfume your latest woman has been using, I suggest you pour it down the toilet – stat.”
The polar bear curled his lips at the scorn poured onto the word woman. The stupid rabbit was just jealous; he could never get a woman like Erin.
“No wonder you’re still single,” hissed Gunner.
Rory frowned. “Because I can scent how bad you smell?”
“No because you hang around dead bodies all day.”
Ordinarily, Gunner might be polite, but he was not in the mood. Asshole rabbit.
“At least I’m not trying to pretend I don’t smell like fermented sewer water,” muttered Rory before making a beeline toward the Director.
Gunner sneered and followed. The Director nodded at him but didn’t react to the smell. Thankfully, he was too preoccupied to notice. Although whatever he was thinking about couldn’t have been good.
“What do we have?” demanded Gunner irritably.
The Director looked at him wearily, worry lines marring his usually clear face. “Dead hippopotamus shifter.”
Not to seem heartless… “What else? You wouldn’t have come out here if there weren't something more to this.”
The snake shifter took a deep breath. “He’s missing his heart.”
Gunner exhaled and for a change, his beast was quiet. “Fuck, not good. Do you think…?”
“I hope not. Take a look at him.”
The Director turned away to talk to some local police officers, and Gunner stepped closer. Rory twitched his nose in annoyance but didn’t say anything. It was a body of a naked young man, aged about 30, and sure enough, he was missing his heart.
Gunner cocked his head at Rory. “How long’s he been dead?”
“Can’t you smell it?” asked Rory maliciously.
The rabbit shifter’s eyes widened as the polar bear let out a low growl; Rory cleared his throat. “About two weeks, I would guess.”
Wordlessly, he left the rabbit to it and found the Director.
Gunner folded his arms over his chest. “What happened?”
“We’re standing on the property of the Cinderella Waste Disposal Company. It’s a company that handles some private contracts, but also contracts that include hospitals and even the SEA. They dispose of waste; or rather, they incinerate it in an environmentally friendly fashion.”
“Spare me the company spiel,” muttered Gunner.
“Anyway, one of their machines has been out of use for the last few weeks, so they’ve been backed up and all those containers,” the Director pointed to what looked that shipping containers, “are what are waiting to go in. They’ve been working overtime to try and get through all this. Earlier this evening, they had a rookie operating the crane that lifts them. He dropped one of the containers, it opened and out came our victim.”
Gunner looked over to a pile of trash that numerous crime scene techs were wading through. “That the rest of the container?”
“Yep. The guys who work here pulled the body out of the trash and covered him with a blanket, out of respect.”
“Sure. Has anything else been found in the rest of the trash?”
“A wallet, a shoe that would fit the victim and a shirt. Hopefully, we’ll find the rest of his stuff.”
Gunner swung his gaze back to the body. A couple of years back, when he first took over the Alpha team, they had a case where a witch was kidnapping shifters, dissecting and using their organs to create potions. He was caught and currently resided in a high-security mental institute upstate. But he’d killed a lot of people before he was caught, and there was always the fear that someone else might try it too.
Hundreds of years ago, when shifter and witches truly hated each other, it was common practice to create potions out of the bodies of shifters. Just like it was common practice for shifters to snack on a witch if they got hungry. Times had changed, at least for most people they had, but there would always be a few people who would cling to their hate.
“What does Cinderella have to say to all this?”
The Director quirked an eyebrow. “Not much, mostly because the guy I talked to is in shock. I imagine, they’ll rally their lawyers pretty quickly though; I doubt we’ll get much more than basic information from them.”
“I guess it’s possible that someone at the company decided to kill the guy and then get rid of his body this way.”
“Or possible that anyone, who knew about their pickup schedule from the many companies they service, knew to put the body in with their regular trash.”
His polar bear stirred unhappily. “Do you think we have another rogue witch on our hands?”
The snake shifter eyed him coldly and calculatingly. “My gut says no. I would expect that if someone went to the trouble of killing this guy for his organs, they wouldn�
��t have stopped at the heart.”
“Unless they were interrupted…”
“In which case I wouldn’t have expected his body to have been disposed of so well. This machine breaking down is a fluke; the crane operator dropping it and it spilling everything are both flukes. If those things hadn’t happened, then the body would already be incinerated.”
“Hmmm, why didn’t you want the rest of the team here?”
“I wanted to speak to you alone, to make sure we’re on the right track. The last time bodies turned up missing organs it was a nightmare. The press went wild, accusing witches – it turned into a literal witch hunt! The number of witches, who were hurt by angry shifters, was phenomenal. And while Los Lobos was panicking like fuckwits, that bastard killed seven people. I don’t want that happening again. No panic; as far as we are concerned, this is a straightforward murder for the time being. Got it?”
Gunner exhaled loudly. “Got it.”
He didn’t exactly agree with that, but he wasn’t about to argue over it. Hah, maybe he was going soft in his old age. The thought tickled him for a second, until he was warmed by thoughts of Erin. Or maybe having met his mate had calmed him.
No, in his opinion, this guy was targeted for his heart. The cut marks in his chest just seemed too clinical for it to be a crime of passion. He’d had a case where an emu shifter actually had performed a little amateur surgery and had cut her ex-lover’s heart out of his chest. She said it was fitting that he literally was heartless after she was done with him… This was nothing like that. Although, whoever had done it hadn’t bothered to sew him back up, so clearly once they had the heart out, they considered the job done.
“We’ll brief the team tomorrow,” declared the Director, “for now, we’ll both interview witnesses, stressing the importance of keeping quiet about this whole matter.
“Let’s do it.”
All thoughts of crawling back into his warm, occupied bed were sunk. He put on his most professional face and decided to tackle the men who found the body.
Chapter Eleven
Erin looked up as Gunner stomped out of his office. His face was a picture of barely restrained rage. She hadn’t seen him so angry since she’d been in hospital, and he punched the wall. She wondered if he had to pay for that wall…
The rest of the bullpen went quiet as Gunner stormed over to her and the rest of the team.
He eyed them all in turn before alighting on Erin. Cutter, Avery and Wayne had the grace to incline their head slightly in submission. Erin, in a hitherto unknown fit of defiance, jutted her chin and stared right back at him. Moody bear.
Erin was peeved. He had no right to be angry at her. He wasn’t the one who woke up in the middle of the night, in a strange bed to find himself all alone! How would he have reacted if she’d just skipped out on him?
His eyes travelled down to the stuffed cat sitting next to her computer. He snorted derisively. Erin picked the cat up and began stroking its matted fur. She pouted at him. Don’t mess with my cat!
He huffed. “Conference room, ten minutes,” he barked, and turned away without waiting for an acknowledgement.
Seconds later his office door shut with a resounding slam, and everyone in the office sighed in relief. BBB, indeed.
“Wow, that was actually kind of mild for him,” commented Avery, over the divider between their cubicles.
“Oh?” replied Erin, uninterestedly.
“Yeah, nothing got broken, no walls were hit, yep, this has to be one of his nicest bad moods yet.”
“Good to know,” she murmured.
She stowed the cat safely in her bottom drawer and stood up. “I’m going to the bathroom; I’ll see you in the conference room.”
Avery nodded as Erin walked away.
In the bathroom, she splashed cool water on her cheeks. She could kind of understand Gunner leaving her during the night. She assumed it was about work. At least she was praying that was what it was about. A horrible, tiny, little, niggling, oh-so-anxious part of her couldn’t help but worry that he had left her to run off and see another woman. She didn’t like herself for thinking it, but she couldn’t help the unbidden thought taunting her. The truth is she had no idea where he went. Maybe if he’d left a note or texted her… But nope, nothing.
It sure as hell wasn’t nice to wake up in the middle of the night screaming from a nightmare and find herself all alone. And that was the crux of what upset her. Having nightmares wasn’t something new for her, but waking up and being disappointed that he wasn’t there to comfort her was. She resented the fact that he hadn’t been there when she needed him. Unreasonable? Maybe a little, but it sure as sugar had hurt to wake and find him gone.
Oh, well, better get going. Don’t want to give him another reason to be mad. An insolent part of her considered hanging around in the bathroom, and purposefully being late. Ha, that would rile him.
Erin looked at herself in the mirror and giggled – yes, actually giggled – while the rest of the world seemed intent on staying out of Gunner’s way when he was mad, she seemed to want to make him even madder. It was strange; she’d never been so… so… naughty or disobedient. Usually her mottos were, don’t make waves, blend in, pretend you’re invisible... But no, here she was trying to enrage a seven-foot polar bear shifter on purpose. She found it odd at how comfortable she was with him, and how she really didn’t fear him hurting her at all. Well, not physically anyway. Emotionally was a whole other ballgame.
Well, she’d waited long enough. She really ought to get going.
She made her way out of the bathroom and ran smack-dab into a solid wall of chest. Mmmm, a yummy solid wall of chest. Gunner.
He steadied her and placed his hands on her shoulders. Oh, she just wanted to climb him like a tree.
“What have you been doing in there?” he demanded irritably.
And just like that, all sexy thoughts were vanquished.
“Why do you hang around outside women’s bathrooms?” she asked with equal ire. This wasn’t the first time she’d careened into him outside a toilet.
His mouth gaped open, surprised at the vehemence in her retort.
Erin squirmed under his gaze. “Shouldn’t we get going?”
“They’ll wait,” he said gruffly. “Why did you leave this morning?”
She narrowed her eyes and squared her shoulders, not easy with the way he was gripping them. “I woke up alone, I didn’t know where you were,” she replied, trying to keep the hurt out of her voice, not altogether successfully. “But I knew I needed clothes, so I went back to my apartment.”
“How did you get back there?”
Erin shrugged. “The bus.”
“The bus!” he exclaimed incredulously, eyes bulging. “What time was this? You shouldn’t be riding the bus at night alone. You shouldn’t be going anywhere alone. You shouldn’t have left my apartment.”
“I could say the same to you,” she muttered petulantly.
Gunner grimaced. “I had to work.”
“Well, I didn’t know that!”
Were fumes coming out of her ears? She suspected there might be fumes coming out of her ears.
Gunner visibly relaxed and stroked his thumbs over the edge of her shirt. “Okay, fine, you’re right. But know this, I wouldn’t have left if it weren’t important, and I didn’t think I was going to be so long.”
Erin sighed as her anger melted. She was such a pushover. “It’s okay, I was just worried when I woke up and you weren’t there.”
Gunner swivelled his head and scanned the empty corridor before giving her a quick kiss on the lips. “We better go.”
They walked together, side by side, towards the conference room, both a little happier than they had been earlier that morning.
“It probably wasn’t a bad thing for you to have showered at home and got fresh clothes,” he said in an amused voice. “At least my scent won’t be on them.”
She stopped and cocked her head at him quizzically. �
��Oh?”
He shrugged his Herculean shoulders, making the fabric of his t-shirt stretch impossibly tight. “We don’t want people to get the wrong idea.”
“The wrong idea…” she repeated slowly.
A small pit of worry was forming in her stomach. Oh, she didn’t like where this was going. What the heck was the wrong idea?
He furrowed his brow. “Yeah.”
All her crossness and crabbiness from the morning came flooding back. “Okay, yeah, we don’t want anyone to think there’s something going on with us.”
But instead of the anger laced words she was expecting, he seemed almost fearful. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I think we should go in,” she said prissily as she pushed the door open and ignored his almost inaudible groan.
Erin seated herself between Jessie and Avery and avoided looking at him altogether.
“About time,” snapped the Director.
Gunner huffed but didn’t bother to apologize.
Succinctly, and in a low, hard voice, Gunner proceeded to tell them about the body they’d found. Gingerly, everyone looked at the crime scene photos. Erin could feel Gunner’s eyes boring into her as she bent her head over the gruesome pictures, but she studiously avoided him. Childish? Maybe, but he had it coming!
“We identified our victim as James Silver,” said the Director. “He was part of the Roystan pod of hippopotami, and he was also reported missing almost two weeks ago.”
Gunner looked up sharply. “He was one of the suspicious disappearances Zeta team was looking into?”
“Yes, he disappeared in the same way as the others. Potentially, we have to consider the possibility that they all died the same way too.”
Wayne tapped the photos. “Why do we think his heart was missing?”
The Director pursed his thin lips. “We don’t know yet, it may yet just be a simple murder.”
“Cutting out someone’s heart is hardly simple!” scoffed Cutter.
“Let’s not make any assumptions,” rumbled the Director. “We don’t want anyone panicking about this. For now, it’s just a murder. He was reported missing by his mother who found a note at his home stating he was leaving town, and some of his belongings were gone. But not many and his car is still parked at his home. She didn’t believe it and reported it.”