I knew that voice. If I hadn’t been so interested in the mechanics of the act, I’d have recognized his hair. As it was, when I peeked again, the man had turned his face to the side, the better to nuzzle his partner’s breast. The scar that bisected his cheek was a dead giveaway.
No wonder the deputy hadn’t returned to Fairhaven. Basil Moore was otherwise occupied.
I craned my neck higher as the rhythmic thud of flesh on flesh and the accompanying moans recommenced. The woman now had her ankles crossed behind Basil’s neck. She must take yoga.
Basil lowered his face to her breast again, tongue flicking one nipple, before he took it in his teeth and tugged. The woman arched, cried out, and he stiffened, yanking her body against his and slamming into her one last time.
I shuffled backward, uncaring if they heard me now. I doubted they’d give chase. Even if they did, I could definitely outrun them. Besides, I’d seen too much. Not only Basil, naked, but his partner, too.
Lydia Kopway.
The crows flew off. I was on my own as I attempted to pick up the stray werewolf scent again, even as my mind mulled over what I’d observed. Why had Lydia and Basil been doing it in the woods when they had a perfectly good house for such things?
Why did their liaison bother me? They were young, attractive, single, as far as I knew. Maybe they had an outdoor-sex fetish—there were worse things.
Nose to the sky, I gave a snort of annoyance. The scent I’d tracked was gone. Frustrated, I headed for the cabin.
Taking the long way, I skirted the woods, hugging the shadows. What was it about the deputy and Lydia that kept nagging at me? Merely embarrassment at observing a private moment, even when that moment had been performed in public? Or something else?
On the back porch I had no choice but to change, unless I wanted to scratch at the door and wait for Nic to let me in. Not.
I imagined myself a woman, and I was. Turning the doorknob, I slipped into the cabin, then into the bathroom, just as it hit me. According to both Will and my own observations, Basil didn’t like Indians. But if that was true, why was he screwing one?
A puzzle: maybe nothing more than a bigot who made himself feel superior by sleeping with those he considered inferior. However, I didn’t think Lydia was the type of woman to give someone who looked down on her a minute of her time. She definitely wouldn’t allow him free use of her body.
Of course, I hardly knew her, or him. I could be wrong about them both.
Footsteps sounded in the hall. I wrapped a towel around me just as Nic appeared in the doorway. “Where have you been?”
My feet were grubby, my fingernails, too. I’m sure there were leaves in my hair and quickly healing bramble scratches all over my body. Did I really have to answer that question?
Comprehension dawned in his eyes. “Why?”
I filled him in on my excursion, the loss of the talisman, the werewolf scent that came and went, and the free porn in the forest.
“You watched?”
“I was stuck.”
“I bet.” He inched closer and pulled a leaf from my hair. “Did you like it?”
“Not exactly.”
“Liar,” he whispered, and kissed me.
My skin still buzzing from the change, my body aroused from the power and the real-life adult video in the woods, I let him. Hell, I let him do a lot more than kiss me.
What had happened to “never again”? The vow flew out the window the instant Nic touched me.
My back against the wall, my legs around his waist, his body again buried deep in mine, I came screaming. I wasn’t going to be able to give him up. I was addicted.
This time, instead of leaving me alone without a word or even a kiss, Nic brushed my brow with his lips and turned on the shower.
“Who do you think has the talisman?” he asked.
“No idea. The junkman could have thrown my clothes into the incinerator.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“It’s a junkyard. Why clean up?”
“True.”
“I don’t like not knowing where the icon is,” I said, “but I don’t need it anymore, and, according to Will, the thing shouldn’t work for anyone but me.”
“He’s sure about that?”
“As sure as you can be with magic.”
Nic nodded, as if he discussed magic every day. He was fitting amazingly well into my world.
“We need to talk to the ME,” he said. “And Basil, if we can find him.”
“I don’t know if I can look the man in the face.”
“You’re gonna have to.”
He offered me first dibs on the shower with a lift of his brow. I shook my head, as I wrapped the towel around my body. Despite the steamy heat filling the room, I was chilled. Losing my fur always had that effect.
“You think you smelled ghost wolves?” he asked.
“Maybe. Probably. I don’t know.”
“I left a message for Lydia asking if she had a book on witchie wolves.”
“Isn’t it awful early to be calling people?”
“I woke up and you were gone.”
He went silent for a minute and I wondered if he’d thought I’d left. If he’d cared. Had that been what the sex, the kiss, the gentleness had been about? He didn’t want me to leave any more than I wanted him to? At least not yet.
I couldn’t ask, couldn’t take the risk that he’d laugh and walk away. I still needed him. Not only for the sex but for the job. I wasn’t up to solving this case by myself.
“I wanted something to do,” he continued. “So I called Lydia. But she wasn’t there.”
“Obviously.”
Nic shut off the shower and whipped open the curtain. Any other words that might have come to my lips died at the sight of his body streaming with water. His muscles appeared bigger, polished and smooth, the curls that covered his chest, his legs, his genitals, had darkened. With his hair slicked away from his face, he seemed younger, again the boy I remembered, the one I’d lusted after so completely. I wanted him all over again. I wanted him all over me.
Nic grabbed a towel, started rubbing himself down, which only excited me more. Turning away, I grabbed my toothbrush, then forgot what I was supposed to do with it.
“Sun’s up.” Nic handed me the toothpaste. “Day’s a-wasting.”
I climbed into the shower, taking the toothbrush with me. The air of domesticity—sharing a bathroom, a shower, the toothpaste—was both disturbing and comforting. Which would I miss more, the sharing of our bodies or the sharing of everything else? That I couldn’t decide was more upsetting than the decision itself.
Half an hour later, Nic and I strolled along Midtown Road. We checked the sheriff’s office—no Basil, no kidding—then headed for the clinic.
The door wasn’t locked. Nic walked in first. Practically on his heels, I smelled it right away.
Fresh blood.
I shoved Nic to the ground, nearly ran over his back. “Stay down.”
The rear door slammed open as someone ran out.
I followed, taking note of a dead Dr. Watchry as I went past. One step outside and a brick landed on my head. Or at least that was what it felt like. I fell to my knees, then onto my face. By the time I glanced up, the assailant was gone and Nic was there.
“Person or werewolf?” he asked.
“Daytime.”
“Which only means a person at the moment.”
He was catching on. To discern a werewolf in human form I had to touch them, and they hadn’t waited around long enough for me to get a good grip. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I blamed the brick to the head.
Nic helped me sit up, touched the knot on the back of my head, mumbling, “Sorry,” when I winced.
“Man? Woman?” Nic lifted me to my feet, and I wobbled.
“No clue.” I put my fingers to the throbbing ache, and they came away wet with blood.
“We should probably get that stitched,” he said.
“By who? The damn doctor’s dead.”
Which really pissed me off. I liked Dr. Watchry. He’d called me “sweet child.”
“Unless he hit me with a silver brick, I’ll heal fine on my own.”
Nic picked up a fist-sized rock lying near the building. “You’re safe.”
“Swell.”
“Come inside. We shouldn’t be out in the open right now.”
“If he wanted me dead, he’d have shot me with silver.”
Which meant this assailant and the one in Montana were not the same. Yippee.
“He?” Nic asked. “I thought you didn’t see anyone.”
“He, she, it. Whatever. Let’s get inside.”
“Try to be nice to someone and they bite your head off,” he muttered.
“Watch it or I will.”
Nic actually laughed. Was he getting used to what I was? How could he, when I wasn’t?
He tugged me into the clinic, slammed then locked the door. I collapsed on a stool next to the work station.
“You okay?” Nic asked. “I’m going to take a look at him.”
I nodded, then regretted the movement as agony sliced through my brain. Nic knelt next to the doctor, checked his pulse, then sighed.
“How did he die?”
“Skull bashed in. Assailant probably had the same thought for you, except your head’s too hard.”
“Ha-ha. Is there a bite mark?”
Nic found a pair of gloves. Snapping them into place, he proceeded to search. The microscope nearby caught my eye. The doctor appeared to have been using it recently—perhaps when he died—since there was a slide on the stage. I inched closer and read his notes.
“There was a bite mark on the doctor’s receptionist, too.” I leaned closer and read a notation. “Body stolen, like the sheriff’s.”
Nic grunted as he continued to check the doctor for evidence.
“According to Dr. Watchry the same set of teeth was used for both bites.”
“We kind of figured that,” he said.
According to the notes, the slide held a saliva sample from the bite mark on Sheriff Stephenson. Curious, I peered through the lens. At first I merely stared, then I lifted my head, blinked, rubbed my eyes and tried again. The specimen on the slide remained the same.
“Nic?”
“Give me a minute. He’s dead weight.”
“Nic!”
He heard the urgency and stopped what he was doing to join me. “What is it?”
“The slide.” I pointed at the microscope, but I couldn’t force the words from my mouth.
He squinted into the lens, then shrugged. “Means nothing to me.”
“This is saliva from Stephenson’s bite. I’ve seen some like it before.”
“You know who the sample belongs to?”
“No. But—”
“Where did you see it?”
“In my lab.”
“The bite mark is human. How can that be werewolf saliva?”
“It isn’t.”
“Explain. Slowly. For those of us without the doctorate.”
“When a person is bitten their chemistry changes. Even when they’re human, they’re different.”
I could see from the tightening of his mouth that he knew what I was going to say before I said it.
“The sample on that slide is from a werewolf in human form.”
Chapter 27
“You can’t tell whose saliva that is?” Nic flicked a finger toward the microscope.
“Only if I’d seen the same person’s—the same being’s--saliva before and I had my notes. But really, what are the odds that one of those I’ve examined has turned up here?”
“Pretty damn slim,” he agreed.
Sure, the werewolves in the basement could be free, but they’d also been locked up when the disappearances began.
“Did the doctor have a bite mark?” I asked.
“No. Which leads me to believe the making of a witchie wolf involves the bite of a werewolf in human form.”
I contemplated the body, which was still quite visible. “I’m thinking that, too.”
“We still don’t know why.”
“No.”
“Maybe Lydia will find a book, and it will explain everything.”
“Including how to get rid of them.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Mmm.” I continued staring at the doctor. “Do you think he was killed because he was on to something?”
“If the bad guy meant to keep his identity a secret, why leave the evidence behind?”
“We interrupted him.” I plucked the slide from the stage and the notebook from the table. “Just in case.”
“Maybe I should send that stuff to the crime lab. Free service for all U.S. law enforcement agencies.”
“I don’t think so.”
“But—”
“Can you imagine what would happen if a government scientist got a gander at the saliva of a werewolf in human form?”
“I doubt he’d know what it was.”
“Exactly. So what good would showing him do?”
“None.” Nic sighed. “And then we’d have FBI all over the place, asking questions.”
“Getting eaten by werewolves they didn’t know about.”
“I see your point.”
“We should just handle this on our own as we’ve been doing.”
“Right.” Nic glanced at the doctor. “We’ll need to get someone to take care of the body. Leaving it here isn’t practical.”
“Damn.” I waved a hand at Dr. Watchry. “I’m not used to this.”
“Death?”
No, that I was used to.
“People I’ve just met, and liked, getting killed the minute I turn my back.”
“Oh.” Understanding spread across his face. “Happens.”
“How do you stand it?”
“By pushing aside useless emotion and focusing on what’s important.”
“Important?” My voice rose several levels in pitch and volume. “What could be more important than someone’s murder?”
“Finding the one who killed them and making them pay.”
All the righteous indignation went out of me like the air out of a popped balloon.
“We’ll handle this.”
Unspoken was the word together, but I heard it nevertheless.
“Let’s find Basil,” I said. “Tell him about the doctor’s death.”
“And ask him about stray Ojibwe warrior graves. I could also use a list of the missing. Any connection between them could give us a clue.”
Thoughts like those were why I kept him around. My gaze wandered over the biceps that stretched the seams of his T-shirt. Among other things.
We locked the clinic behind us—didn’t need any citizens stumbling over the body—then headed for the sheriff’s office.
The place was still empty. Nic started rooting through the paperwork on the desk.
“Can you do that?”
“I’m a Fed. I can do anything.”
“Thinking like that is usually what gets you guys in trouble.”
He ignored me. I had to say I found his take-charge attitude attractive. What didn’t I find attractive about him lately?
He held up a sheet of paper. “List of missing persons.”
He located a copy machine, made a copy, and slipped the original back into the file. “He’ll never know I was here.”
The door burst open. Both Nic and I turned in that direction with welcoming smiles, which froze on our faces when we didn’t recognize the man who ran inside.
I’d seen a few survivalists in Montana. This guy must have been one of their friends. Beard, long hair, jeans, boots, and a flannel shirt. He was young, perhaps twenty-five, no more than thirty. Might even have been handsome without all the hair and the dirt.
“I need the sheriff,” he announced.
“The dead one or the new one?” Nic asked.
“Basil.”
“Not here.”
“Who are you?”
“FBI.”
An expression of relief filled his eyes. “I found a body.”
Hell. Another one?
Nic grabbed a pencil and a sheet of paper. “Where?”
“Out on the old highway. Anderson homestead.”
Nic and I exchanged glances. “Where Sheriff Stephenson’s body was found?”
“Yeah. Exactly where his body was found.”
“A second body? Left in the same place.”
“Not left. The grave was dug up.”
“Grave desecration.” I smacked myself in the forehead.
My only excuse for not seeing the connection earlier was that I’d been focused on finding an Ojibwe warrior’s grave, not that I would have known what one looked like even if I’d seen it.
“What are you talking about?” Nic asked.
“The reason the sheriff was at the old Anderson place was that there’d been a report of a grave desecration.” I turned toward the mountain man. “But we didn’t see anything disturbed.”
“There is now. From the paw prints in the dirt, I’d say dogs.”
Maybe. But doubtful.
“They probably couldn’t help themselves,” he continued. “The body was pretty fresh.”
The room went silent.
“You mean skeleton,” Nic said.
“No. Definitely a body. Newly dead. I’d say no more than a week or two.”
“Could you guess at a cause of death?” Nic asked.
“I’m thinking the large, gaping knife wound at the throat had something to do with it.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’ve seen a few.”
Nic and I exchanged glances again. I really didn’t want to know where this guy had seen death by knife wound to the throat.
“We need to get another ME,” Nic muttered. “We have to find out who was in the grave.”
“A woman,” Mountain Man stated in a dry, clinical tone. “Native American. Pretty old.”
“Dammit!” Nic said at the same time I kicked the desk. Mountain Man stared at us as if we’d lost our minds.
“Uh, yeah. Thanks for coming by.” Nic ushered him to the door. “We’ll send someone out as soon as—”
“We find someone,” I said.
Dark Moon Page 18