Chapter Twelve
Briefings, Blunders, and Brand-New Suspects
Nick
Everyone stares at the fresh murder board I’ve prepared for the last two murders while chewing on their pizza slices.
“Why does it only have the last two murders?” Bree asks between chewing.
“Ugh, close your mouth when you’re chewing. Ew,” Sloan chides.
Bree gives her a finger. “I’ve literally seen you eat Skittles off of mud. Shut up.”
“For the hundredth time, I was wolfed up. It doesn’t count.”
I scrunch my nose. “I’m hygienic even when I’m wolfed up. That’s not really an excuse.”
Matt laughs. “Says the man who—”
“Think before you finish the sentence. You don’t want to shake that precarious domino,” I warn him.
He snaps his trap shut.
Sloan points her pizza at me. “Well, I’m not related to you, and I’ve seen you roll around in the mud. If you’re hygienic wolfed up, then I’m the President of the country.”
“Don’t point your pizza at me.”
“Still better than the current President,” Cami says
Everyone, including Sloan, nods.
“Anyway, I want to look at the case from a fresh perspective. We know this is the work of a serial killer, and we know they target people we’re already investigating.
Since in the last two cases we were close enough to actually catch them, I think it’d be a good idea to look deeper into them.
” Also, because these two were committed by a different killer than all the other ones.
“Hmm, I agree.” Cami takes out her notebook and shuffles through its pages. “The last two victims also had way higher doses of the drugs than others.”
Marcus nods. “In all the previous autopsies, I noticed the victims had attempted to shift before their demise. Not in the last two.”
Matt raises an eyebrow. “Looks like the killer is getting braver. Going for victims that are actively under investigation by the Bureau.”
That tugs at something in the back of my mind. “Do you think they know the Bureau was investigating them?” I blurt out.
“Don’t you? Has to be too big a coincidence if they randomly chose the only two criminals who were as good as arrested.” Matt, the genius, carefully takes a bite of the pizza drooping in his hand.
“Bree, can you find the list of all the criminals the Bureau has been actively investigating for the last month in the city?”
She picks up her phone and walks out of the room to hopefully call Meena.
“Can it also mean the killer is getting less dramatic?” Sloan offers.
Oh, Elliot is going to love this one. “Why do you say that?”
“I mean, it was a bit theatrical to give the victims just enough drugs to watch them die slowly while they’re conscious enough to know what’s happening but too paralyzed to do anything about it.”
“I have a theory for that,” Cami says before I can defend Elliot. “They were probably just putting enough in the drinks to make sure the weres don’t sniff it out.”
“But not anymore?” Sloan asks.
“Another way the killer is getting braver?” I offer. I tuck that information aside to think over later.
Bree comes back, looking down at her phone, almost tumbling over a chair before Cami gets up to help her back into her chair. She smiles up at Cami, dropping a kiss on her cheek before going back to her phone again.
“So?” I ask Bree, who proceeds to ignore me.
Sloan nudges her. “What did she say?”
“I was looking at this reel. You have to—” Bree looks up to find everyone staring at her. “Oh, sorry, what were we talking about? Right, Meena said we investigated four criminals last month. Two were already in custody before the murders.”
I cock my head. “Can you call her again and ask her to give us the list of current active investigations? We should definitely keep an eye on them.”
Bree nods and goes right back out. Hopefully she’ll remember why she picked up her phone this time.
“We have hundreds of open cases we’re slowly going through. These victims didn’t even commit their crimes recently. One killed two women three years ago, and the other killed his student more than a year ago. So why choose these particular people other than to directly challenge us?” Matt asks.
“But how could they know we’re investigating them?” Sloan asks.
“The killer is someone from the Bureau?” Marcus suggests.
“Or we have a leak,” I mutter.
***
I park in Elliot’s driveway after a long, tiring day of chasing down a Bureau tech guy and figuring out whether anyone accessed the investigation files on the victims, including the ones killed by Elliot.
The Bureau’s information is strictly available on a need-to-know basis. The rule even applies to the higher-ups in the hierarchy. So, unless our leak was part of the previous team hunting Elliot, they shouldn’t know enough details about the case to replicate the murder scenes.
After we were able to get him access to the investigative reports, he found that the Bureau stopped tracking logins because the documents aren’t publicly available. Now that’s some information I could have used before we started the goose chase.
So, here I am, back at Elliot’s with nothing but disappointment.
As I walk towards his house, his scent does nothing to calm me down.
Instead, it’s a stark reminder I’m failing to protect him each day the copycat killer walks free.
Right now, the best-case scenario is that the killer is someone hiding behind Elliot’s reputation to mock the Bureau, and they don’t actually know Elliot’s identity.
But even if that’s a possibility, as long as my team is looking into the case, Elliot is at risk of being caught. After everything that happened last month, the guy deserves some rest. And here I am, making his life more and more difficult every day.
It makes me wonder if he’d be happier and safer without me dragging danger to his door every day. After all, he’d been pretty successful in keeping his identity hidden for years until I crashed into his life.
As I hit the doorbell, I curse myself for being the most selfish bastard in the world because there’s no way I’m giving up Elliot.
The door opens to a gleeful Sam. “Ah. Just the man I wanted,” he says, then turns and heads back inside, leaving the door open for me.
I close it behind me and follow him. “A corporate-slave werewolf and a guy with years of Pilates, weight training, and jiu-jitsu under his belt. Who would win in a fight?”
I spot Elliot on the couch and beeline for him. I drop a kiss on his cheek as he scrunches his face. “Is the other guy you?” I ask Sam, flopping down beside Elliot.
“That’s irrelevant.”
Elliot snorts. “No, it’s not. Because you didn’t attend a single jiu-jitsu class, you just paid the fee.”
“That month wasn’t great for me. I found Dick.” Sam sighs happily.
I frown. “Wow, you must be a late bloomer.”
Elliot laughs.
“My ex-boyfriend Dick, you dick,” Sam says.
I raise my hands in defense. “Where is this Dick, by the way? Sounds like you want to get back together. You should go do that now.”
“Stop behaving like you just found your dick, Nick. We need to focus.” Sam claps his hands.
“Dick ghosted him after that month,” Elliot stage whispers. “We're observing a respectful mourning period.”
Sam stares daggers at both of us. “He didn’t ghost me. He left on an epic quest to bungee jump his way around the world.” Sam stomps to the kitchen, Mickey on his heels.
I watch my dog, my son, my flesh and blood, trot behind Sam like he’s made out of his favorite treats. “Tell me Sam has treats in his pockets?” I rest my head on Elliot’s shoulder, burying my face in his neck.
He ruffles my hair. “Don’t worry. He still loves you.” Sam comes back with his laptop, Mickey happily following him. “I think?”
I bury deeper into him.
Sam flops down in the chair. “Ugh, no PDA in the common area, remember? Don’t be rude.”
I groan but let Elliot go. His hand slides off my head, and I reach up to hold it.
Sam looks at our joined hands. “I’ll allow that. So, Elliot said there was another murder?”
My mood plummets again. I sigh. “Yes. Last Saturday. The day of your fair, in fact.”
Sam nods. Elliot squeezes my hand. “No evidence again?”
I shake my head. “Everything was the same except this killer is using a higher dose of the drugs to finish them off quicker.”
“We tried that. The smell was too obvious.” Sam clicks on his laptop. “See, any variation in the combination clued in the werewolves right away.” He turns his laptop so I can see a graph plotting the ratios of Valmeron and Myocardiner against their Odor Units.
Impressive.
“The Bureau was going to arrest both the victims too. Our theory was that the killer wants to get our attention this time. This is not someone killing for noble reasons.”
“Or maybe they don’t like the Bureau’s style of justice,” Sam offers.
“We have a fair system which sees them serving for their crimes. I don’t know why anyone would have a problem with that.”
Sam tilts his head. “That’s still a lot of resources and time wasted on someone who we already know is guilty. And is not against committing crimes again.”
“Do we? Most of our evidence is circumstantial. If we don’t give them any chance to defend themselves, we’re no different than another cold-blooded killer.” I realize my mistake the second the words leave my mouth.
I feel Elliot’s hand go slack. He tilts his head. “You mean like me?”
“Get off your fucking high horse.” Sam snaps. “Your organization thinks too highly of itself for someone who makes arbitrary rules for a population that didn’t choose them.”
I glare at him. “And what will you have us do then? Let the human authorities deal with werewolves? Or you know what, we could just go on a killing rampage.” Fuck, why am I letting this man goad me?
Elliot’s jaw drops, and he snatches his hand away. “We’ve protected more people than your entire organization while we were active.”
I blow out a breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry. We slacked off, and people paid the price. But you have to admit, rules are the only thing keeping people from murdering others at the slightest annoyance.”