Fair Game (Alpha & Omega #3)(15)
Author: Patricia Briggs

Organized, thought Brother Wolf, ratcheting up for the chase. A good hunter took only what he needed when he needed it, and their prey was a good hunter. The killer’s victims changed gradually through the years, Asian girls and women and then, in Texas, a teenaged boy who was also Asian. The boy was the first victim who was sodomized, but after him they all were, male and female alike. The next year after that his prey was split two and two, women and boys. Then only boys. After that he added a black teenaged girl.

"It’s like he’s searching for the perfect meal," said Anna softly – and got an appalled glance from Dr. Singh that Charles didn’t think she saw; her attention was fixed on the screen. "He started in ‘seventy-five. Maybe he was a Vietnam vet?"

"The Asian victims, yes," said the senior FBI agent, looking even more frail than before. "They weren’t all Vietnamese, or even mostly. But some people can’t see the difference, or don’t care. The police already had that theory before the first time the FBI was brought into it in the early eighties. The UNSUB wouldn’t be the only one to come out of that mess with a need to kill."

"’These are the times that try men’s souls,’" quoted Anna in a soft voice, and Charles knew she was remembering another veteran warrior.

"It took more than five years for the FBI to get involved?" asked Heuter.

Goldstein gave the Cantrip agent a patient look. "Nearer to ten. First, it took a while for the police to figure out they had a serial killer, communication being what it was. Second, the FBI is not in charge of serial-killer cases. We are support staff, not primary." He hit a button and a new photo came up.

"Here’s where we came in, the FBI – it was before my time. I first hit this case as a rookie in 2000. In 1984, the Big Game Hunter was back in Maine. This is the first victim that year, Melissa Snow, age eighteen."

Charles recognized her – and she hadn’t been eighteen. The next victim was a black boy, a stranger. He didn’t know the third victim, another Asian girl. This one was ten.

Brother Wolf decided, looking at the delicate joyful face, that they would find the killer and destroy him. Children should be protected. Charles agreed, and the ghosts of the unjustly executed who haunted him withdrew further.

"Those were the only three victims that we found that year, and after this year the number of bodies we found started to vary. In 1986 and ’87, we found three bodies. In 1989, there were two. In 1990, three bodies again, and so on until 2000, when several things changed, but I’ll get there in a minute. We don’t think that he’s changed how he kills. That one week interval between the first victim and the next seems pretty set. So we think he began putting the bodies in less accessible places."

In the next year’s group of victims, Charles recognized two of the three. He also noted that the crime scene photos were of better quality – a sign of the FBI bringing in a better photographer, he thought, or just a combination of the advance of technology and the way time degraded color film.

Goldstein commented, "In 1984, two of the victims matched our UNSUB’s previous victim choice. From 1985 on out, there are no apparent patterns to the victims. Men and women, young and old. He’s still kidnapping, raping, and torturing them for a week before going after the next victim." He took his time, showing them each victim’s face. Charles noticed that Goldstein never had to consult his notes for the names, and that when he did go to his notes, it was usually to confirm something he’d just said. "The next year he started in September."

Charles knew three of the victims in 1985 and all of the bodies found in 1986.

Stop him, he told Anna, deciding that the killer’s victimology was no coincidence. This is important. Go back to that first year, the one the FBI joined in the hunt.

"Wait," Anna said, glancing down at her notes. "Can you go back to the victims in 1984?"

The fae came out about that time, Charles told Anna. Melissa Snow was fae and as close to eighteen as my father is. She wasn’t out then, I don’t think, but she was fae.

Maybe it was an accident? Anna thought as Melissa’s face, shining and happy in a family-type snapshot, appeared on the monitor next to her gray and lifeless face. The fae aren’t exactly everywhere, but it is reasonable that he picked one up by mistake.

She wasn’t a half-breed, he told her. If someone picked her up thinking they were getting a teenaged human, they’d never have been able to keep her. She wasn’t powerful, but she could defend herself better than a human would have.

Can I tell them that?

Absolutely. Then have them go to the next year. Some fae have no bodies when they die. That could be why there is no fourth victim.

Goldstein watched Anna with sharp eyes. "Was she a werewolf?"

"No," Anna said. "Fae." And then she told the feds what Charles had told her.

"Fae." Singh frowned. "How do you know?"

"I’m one of the monsters, Dr. Singh," Anna said without a pause. "We tend to know each other." It wasn’t quite a lie. "The question is, how would the – what did you call him? The Big Game Hunter? How would he know what she was? If he attacked her thinking she was human, she’d have escaped."

"I knew the agent who worked this case," said Goldstein. "Melissa had parents and two siblings who were ten and seven at the time. He talked to them. She was eighteen years old."

No parents, Charles told Anna. Or maybe they were fae as well. Or she could have taken her appearance from a dead girl. Hard to say. But I knew her…not well, but well enough to say that she was not eighteen.

Could the victim have been the real Melissa Snow and the fae took her identity after she died?

Anna was just covering all the bases, but it was a good question. When had he met Melissa? Years tended to blend into one another…I knew her during Prohibition, she was working at a speakeasy in Michigan – Detroit, I think – but long before the eighties.

"She was fae," Anna said. "If she had parents and siblings, I suspect they were also fae. They know how to blend with society, Agent Goldstein. Apparent age has very little to do with reality when you’re dealing with the fae."

"The other two?" Goldstein asked, though he didn’t sound convinced.

"I’m not an expert on fae," Anna said. "It’s just chance that I recognized Melissa. But there are fae among the victims every year from here on out."

Goldstein asked, "Every year?"

That would account for the lack of bodies, Charles told her. Some of the fae just fade away when they die. If the fae lost his glamour, the other fae would make sure the body never came to light.