by Desiree Holt
Logan stared thoughtfully into his mug. “I guess because he’s always been so disconnected. So withdrawn, except for his single-minded drive to destroy the Chupacabra.”
Rebecca smiled up at him. “I think it’s great that you’re concerned about him and he knows we’re here if he needs us. Let’s just see what happens.”
“And about Regan being a shifter?”
“We leave it up to her to tell us. But my guess is, if you’re right, and she and Dante have gotten close this fast, she won’t keep him in the dark. Then it’s up to them.”
“What’s up to who?”
Everyone turned at the sound of Dante’s voice as he and Regan walked into the kitchen.
Logan noticed everyone else suddenly busy with their coffee. He schooled his features to show nothing of what he’d been thinking. But even a blind man couldn’t miss the electricity crackling between the couple. Or the possessive way Dante was holding Regan’s hand, tugging her close to him as if she needed protection from them.
“Just discussing how everyone makes their own decisions about things,” he answered in a careful voice. The last thing he wanted was for his friend to think they’d been gossiping about him.
Dante looked suspiciously at each person. “Does that apply to anyone in particular?”
“Not at the moment,” Ric told him. He glanced at Regan. “I hope we were able to make you comfortable last night, Miss Fortune.”
“Very much so. Thank you. And please. It’s Regan. I don’t think we need to be so formal.” She looked at Dante then at the others. “I want to thank you again for letting Dante bring me here. I’m a stranger, someone you know nothing about—”
“You’ve suffered the same kind of loss as the rest of us,” Logan interrupted. “And we trust Dante’s judgment. He wouldn’t bring you here if he had any misgivings.”
Dante cleared his throat. “On that note, I’m sure all of you can guess that I’m proposing to include Regan on this hunt. Her knowledge of her brother’s research is very valuable and she has a stake in finding this particular devil beast.” He turned to Ric. “Your call, I know, but I’m hoping to get everyone’s agreement.”
“If it’s a problem…” Regan began.
Dante shook his head, his gaze on Ric. “Is it, Ric? A problem? She’s not the only new addition to our team recently.”
“You make a valid point,” he acknowledged. “And Regan, I agree you’d be a great addition as well as a needed resource. You all know I need to run it by Craig first, but I can do that as soon as I get myself organized. And I don’t foresee any objections popping up. You all agree?”
“I’m in.” Logan looked at the others. “You guys are, right? And I’m sure everyone else will be too.”
“Thank you.” Regan’s words were so soft they were almost a whisper.
Logan noticed Dante had kept her practically glued to his side during the short conversation. “We’re good,” he told her. “How about some coffee?” Logan indicated the restaurant-size urn sitting on the counter. “Just so you know, mugs are in the cupboard directly over it and Dante can show you where the grounds are kept. First one alive and breathing in the morning gets it started. Then we just keep it going all day.” He hoped his smile was as welcoming as he intended it to be. “It’s the fuel that keeps us functioning.”
Logan watched Dante take down two mugs, handing one to Regan. Yeah, there was definitely something going on there. It was evident in the glances they exchanged, in the way Dante adopted a protective posture next to her. Holy shit, they’d just met yesterday. Of course, it had been like that with the Greys and the Guitrons. And probably would have been for him and Rebecca, if Logan hadn’t been so concerned with professionalism and with Sophia’s reaction. Sometimes it was just meant to be. He truly hoped this woman could help Dante heal. His emotional wounds had been open and raw for a very long time.
“How about we grab muffins or something,” Ric suggested, “and then head to the war room and see if the computer has spit out anything overnight?”
Sophia and Rebecca had just risen from the table when the back door opened to admit Jonah and Dakota.
“Muffin?” Dakota rubbed her stomach. “Did I hear muffin? I need two.”
Jonah grinned and hugged her. “That’s because you’re eating for two.”
Regan smiled. “You’re pregnant? How terrific for you.”
“Yeah.” Jonah touched his lips to his wife’s cheek. “We’re pretty psyched about it. So, any news overnight?”
“I’m just about to check the computers and see if anything’s popped up,” Ric told him. “Then I want to address the issue of the Rangers again. I think I need to talk to them myself, regardless of what Craig said, and I may need everyone’s support to get him to agree. Although he did text me that he was going to make one more pitch, going over the commander’s head to the governor to see if that would get results.”
“Too bad we have to resort to that.” Logan refilled his mug and opened the container with the muffins. “It always gets everyone’s back up.”
“True,” Sophia agreed. “But we hardly have a choice. You have to admit, if we hadn’t all experienced this firsthand, we’d be hard-pressed to buy into it.”
“I’ll wait until I hear back from him.” Ric refilled his own mug and grabbed a couple of muffins. “Then we’ll take it from there.”
“Good idea,” Dante agreed.
“Ric, unless you need me, I have some work to do in the garden first thing.” Dakota was busy making her tea.
Logan saw the interest on Regan’s face. “You have a garden here?”
Dakota looked at Dante then Regan. “Yes. It’s, um, kind of a special garden.” She exchanged a look with her husband. “Dante can tell you about it.”
And Logan wondered just how that conversation would go. Most of the garden was taken up with the herbs he and the other shifters needed on a regular basis to keep their inner wolf under control.
“We’re good,” Ric told her.
“One more thing before we get started,” Dante said. “After a while, I want to go to Regan’s to get some of her things.” He took her hand. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to leave here until this is all resolved.”
“I should go with you,” she protested.
“I have to agree with Dante,” Ric told her. “You don’t know if the media is still lying in wait—or whatever else is out there.” The smile he gave her was filled with understanding and compassion. “Trust us on this one. Okay, guys. Let’s grab our stuff and get to work.”
* * * * *
“That damn hound is back again, Dan.” Harley Shaw, one of his senior hands, let himself into the house through the rear door after his usual knock.
“You’re kidding?” Dan looked up from the table where he was just finishing his breakfast. “Damn. The sun’s barely up. It must be from around here somewhere.”
“Not from any of the ranches near us.” Harley helped himself to coffee. “Anyway, I got close enough to see it must have been hunting its food. It had blood on its jowls.”
“No shit? Well, we don’t need that around here.”
“I told the men to keep an eye out for any small animal carcasses or see if them damn buzzards are flying around anywhere. And to be sure to chase it away from the cattle.”
Dan pushed back from the table. “Yesterday it didn’t seem like the cattle attracted it at all. Almost as if the thing was afraid of the beasts.”
“Then why come around here?” Harley asked. “Doesn’t make much sense.”
“Maybe looking for smaller prey. Who knows? But I’ll tell you, the damn thing gives me the creeps. And it stinks to high heaven too.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. Turpentine, right?”
Dan nodded. “Weird, huh? Maybe we should check contractors working around here. See if one of them brought a dog to work with them. I’ll get Tina to look it up on the computer and see what she can find.”
“Well, whoever it belongs to, I sure as hell wish they’d come fetch it.”
“You talking about the dog?” Russ had let himself in through the backdoor and he also headed for the coffeepot. “I think it’s feral and been out killing things.”
“You saw the blood on its jowls?” Harley asked.
Russ nodded. “Yeah. Not only that, riding across the south pasture, I found a couple carcasses of smaller animals. Squirrel. Maybe fox. It’s hunting for food.”
“If that’s the case, maybe our construction theory is all wrong. If someone owned it, he or she would be feeding it, right?” Dan asked.
“I’m not one for killing animals just for the hell of it,” Russ said, “but I’m about ready to shoot the fucking thing if I see it again. Maybe I should have done it yesterday when it was scaring the piss out of the cattle, but it ran off into the trees and out to the meadow beyond.”
“What do you suppose it wants here?” Dan asked.
Russ shrugged. “Don’t know. But I think if I’d been on foot instead of on my horse, it might have attacked me.”
“Same here,” Harley put in. “I was saddling Rush Job and it didn’t seem to want anything to do with the horse.”
“And that damn smell,” Russ added. “Next time I think I’ll turn the hose on it.”
Dan laughed. “Might be a way to get rid of it.”
“Well, better make sure it’s not killing anything around here,” Harley pointed out. “If it is, I’ll shoot the fucking thing myself.”
* * * * *
The devil beast curled into itself in a bower of dense foliage. The frightening creatures thundering across the ground all around it terrified the beast. There were so many of them. Where did they all come from, these things that loomed over it like monsters? And why did the signals programmed into its brain keep sending it to this place?
Lying in the darkness of the thick vegetation, it tried to ignore the vibrations rumbling up through the ground and shaking its body. It wanted food. No, it wanted blood. The signals pulsing in its brain were stimulating its hunger center but other signals were tamping it down. The mixed stimulation made its head and body hurt.
This morning it had caught and trapped small creatures scampering through the underbrush, leaping on each one with ferocity, snapping their necks with sharp teeth before feasting on the carcasses. So for now, at least, the extreme gnawing hunger, the thirst for blood, was temporarily eased. But soon it would be back.
The vibrations disturbing the ground increased in their intensity and the beast burrowed even deeper into its hiding place, claws clapped over its ears. It wanted to leave this place, to get far away. Search for prey where there wasn’t such an ever-present threat. But every time it tried to leave the area, something in its head sent a sharp pain through its entire body.
Sleep. If it could just sleep. Then it would be time to hunt again.
* * * * *
The Texas Rangers, headquartered in Austin, Texas, were acknowledged as the oldest state law enforcement in the United States, unmatched by any other unit in the country. In their long existence, they had taken part in many of the most important events in Texas history, and were involved in some of the best-known criminal cases in the days of the Old West. Their duties consisted of “conducting criminal and special investigations, apprehending wanted felons, suppressing major disturbances; the protection of life and property, and rendering assistance to local law enforcement in suppressing crime and violence,” according to the Texas Department of Public Safety website.
But none of them had ever dealt with a situation like the eviscerated, bloodless body of Reed Fortune, the disappearance of his fiancée and the total absence of any clues whatsoever. Both the body and every scrap of possible evidence they could find had been brought to Ranger headquarters in Austin, to its state-of-the-art forensics lab.
Brad DeWitt, chief of the Texas Rangers, hung up his phone and leaned back in his desk chair. The day he was accepted into the Rangers was the most memorable one of his life, outside of his wedding day. The walls of his office were lined with framed pictures and certificates that told a visual story of his years with the department, the major cases they’d dealt with. Some had taken longer than others to bring to a successful conclusion but in the end, all of them had been closed.
At fifty-five, he thought he’d seen everything that could come down the pike but this latest case was beyond weird. He had a gnawing feeling it was going to haunt all of them for a long time. Reaching into his desk drawer, he found an antacid tablet and popped it into his mouth. His consumption of them had risen exponentially with the increase in calls from the media, demanding answers. Just his damn luck that some asshole idiot had stumbled onto the scene of Reed Fortune’s body and snapped some pictures, instead of reporting it to park rangers.
The park employees had acted quickly, cordoning off the scene after a traumatized couple had reported the body. They called for the Texas Rangers immediately. But whoever the jackass was who’d taken the pictures had sold them to a tabloid and there was now an all-out media assault.
He was getting pressure from everywhere, from the governor on down.
On the one hand, the gruesome details of the case, along with the still-missing fiancée, fed the salacious hunger of the masses. On the other, the media and businesses were screaming about tourism possibly taking a big hit until there was a resolution and people felt safe again.
As if he didn’t have enough to handle with the strange nature of the killing itself.
He pulled up a file on his computer and opened it to study the pictures of the body. The crime scene unit had taken their shots and the medical examiner had added several more. Brad had seen a lot of bodies in his time, people killed by both humans and animals, but these were probably the most gruesome photos he’d ever looked at. Reed Fortune had been completely eviscerated, ripped open with one slash from his throat to his pubic bone, every internal organ pulled out and on the ground beside him. And every bit of blood had been drained from the body.
Brad had seen more than his share of bodies attacked by coyotes, bear, bobcats, wild hogs and other feral animals. But this! This wasn’t like anything he’d ever witnessed. He’d made the autopsy a top priority and had nearly everyone in forensics analyzing any tissue or other debris left by the killer. Any trace of any kind at all.
They’d all come up with nothing.
He couldn’t stall on this much longer. The media would only wait so long before going over his head. The governor was all over him about the effect on tourism. And he owed Fortune’s sister answers. Then, of course, there was the missing woman, Fortune’s fiancée. Her family and their attorney were calling almost every hour. Searchers had been all over every inch of the park, up and down the trail ten times, without finding even a smidgen of a trace. She just seemed to have vanished into thin air.
The latest message from her family said they were tired of getting nowhere with “the famous Texas Rangers” and were hiring their own experts to search for her.
Why the fuck did this have to happen in a popular state park, anyway? And here in Texas?
A knock sounded on the frame of his open office door and he looked up to see Ranger Garth Myers standing there with a message slip in his hand.
“Stella said you were on the phone when this came in. She saw me headed this way and asked me to deliver it.”
“The girl’s family again?” Brad asked.
Myers shook his head. “Another message about that guy Craig Stafford. This one from the governor’s office.”
Brad reached out for the slip of paper. “As if things aren’t bad enough already. The guy doesn’t give up, does he?”
“Who is he, anyway?”
“A guy with enough money to buy the state of Texas. Maybe even the entire country. And who apparently likes to throw his weight around.” He swallowed a sigh as he read the message from the governor’s executive aide.
“What does he want with us?
” Garth didn’t even try to hide the curiosity in his voice.
“Bullshit.” Brad wondered if he should pop another antacid. “He’s got some kind of nonsense about chasing the Chupacabra and some team he has working on it. Says they want to help us with this.” He snorted and tossed the message on his desk. “I’ll get a fresh cup of coffee and call the capital building. Jesus, as if we didn’t have enough shit going on.”
“Before you get indigestion, why not Google the guy and see if he’s legit?”
“Legit? With talk of the Chupacabra?” Brad snorted. “Everyone knows it’s just a legend someone made up.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. And maybe they made it up because there’s something out there close to it.”
Brad stared at him. “And here I thought you were an intelligent man.”
“Just sayin’. You know? Give me an hour to see what I find. If it’s a dead end, then we haven’t lost anything but sixty minutes of my time.”
“Suit yourself.” He looked at his watch. “It’s still early enough that it won’t cut much into your workday. I’m going back over to the lab. Have Stella find me when you get through Googling.”
“Okay. I’m on it.”
“Wait. Did you want to see me about something?”
“Just to ask if you wanted to kick this around between the two of us. I know you’ve got a whole team on it but maybe we can find something we’ve overlooked. I did a complete search again on the park and the wild animals there.”
“Maybe,” Brad said. “But I’d better make this call first.”
Just as he reached for the phone on his desk, it rang, startling him.
Brad picked up the handset. “Yeah?”
“I see how charming you are this morning,” said Dr. Leo Moran, the medical examiner. “This case is obviously giving you fits. And I’m probably not going to improve your disposition.”
Brad frowned. “Now what? I thought you’d finished the autopsy on the body?”