Fair Game (Alpha & Omega #3)(22)
Author: Patricia Briggs

"How soon do you suppose the FBI will be calling us?" Anna asked. "If they decide to call us."

"Bored?" He took them to the stairs and, after her previous ride in the slick, modern, very slow elevator, Anna was happy to trot after him.

"Nope. I just want to make sure we have time to do the haunted tour tonight."

He gave her a look and Anna grinned, happily sinking into the warm, safe relationship that had somehow been restored after better than a year of fragmentation. It was too easy; she knew it. But she was going to enjoy it while she could.

"Maybe the FBI will call," he said hopefully. She wasn’t buying it; he’d have as much fun running around old cemeteries as she would – he just wouldn’t admit it.

"I’ve got my cell phone," she pointed out. "You’ve got yours. Get changed and let’s go."

He growled.

AFTER THE MEETING with the werewolves, Leslie ate an early lunch at a nearby soup and bread place before walking the rest of the block or so between the hotel and her office. She used the time to mentally process what she’d seen and heard so she could give a coherent, organized version of the highlights for Nick. She finished the last little bit as she rode the elevator up so she was ready before she hit the office.

The office watchdog, known only to Leslie’s group as the Gatekeeper, nodded at Leslie and buzzed her in. Leslie headed to her desk but a sharp whistle from her boss’s office changed her trajectory.

Nick looked tired. They’d been chasing after two different bank robbers and something that might be a terrorist cell – or might just be a bunch of broke students rooming together – before this serial-killer thing hit their radar. The terrorist cell had top priority over everything. However, one of the bank robbers had been doing his best to put himself on the top of the list. He wore a distinctive motorcycle helmet with a small sticker on top that had given him the nickname the Smiley Bandit. Lately he’d begun working with another faceless, helmeted man who liked to carry a gun and shoot it at lights and cameras after aiming it at people. One of these days really soon now he was going to start shooting people. Their team was short a few since Joe and Turk had been transferred out. The job got done, but all of them were a little light on sleep.

"How’d it go?" Nick asked after she closed the door behind her.

Leslie thought about it. "Interesting on many levels."

He gave an impatient snort. "Share. Please."

She started with a rundown on who was there. Nick grunted when she told him Heuter had come. It was a grunt she couldn’t interpret. She couldn’t tell if he liked Heuter or disliked him – or if he was just acknowledging that Cantrip had sent in their golden boy.

Leslie told him about the biggest revelation. "Our UNSUB has been killing mostly fae – we think for the past twenty-five-odd years – and no one noticed until a werewolf told us, a werewolf who wasn’t even born when the first murders began. Cantrip claims she is Anna Latham. I’ll run the name and see if I agree with them on her identity, but she didn’t deny it."

"There have been rumors, if you know where to listen, that werewolves may share a trait or two with the fae. That their ability to heal damned near anything also keeps them from aging."

Leslie absorbed that. "If that’s so, I peg our Anna at sixteen and her husband at ten thousand and change."

Nick laughed. "Impressed by him, were you? Craig was, too. He gave me a call as soon as the meeting was over to tell me that he was headed over to see Kip at the Boston PD. He was hoping the police might have someone familiar with the fae they can take the photos to, so we can get a confirmation."

"If you talked to Craig already, why have me do a basic report?" she asked, a little annoyed.

"He said he’d leave the briefing for you to deliver, as he was the senior field agent," said her boss equitably, and then got back to the business at hand. "If it’s true, that so many of the victims have been fae, why didn’t anyone in the fae communities say anything?"

Leslie shrugged. "Why do the fae do anything, Nick? Maybe they don’t want to draw attention or encourage a copycat. Maybe they didn’t notice."

"So the killer was out shooting fae and decided to hit a couple of werewolves, too."

"That’s the latest theory Craig and I subscribe to."

"What about the werewolves? Will they help us? Do we want their help?"

Leslie tapped the side of her foot on the floor. "The guy is Native American and big. He stood back and didn’t say a word he didn’t have to. All of us in that room were doing everything we could not to pay attention to him because he was that scary."

"Scary how? Cold? Crazy?"

Leslie frowned at her boss. "Like you get when you are trying to intimidate someone we’re questioning – only not so deliberate."

"Thousand-yard stare?"

"Yeah," Leslie agreed. "He’s seen some blood somewhere." And the thing that had been bothering her about the pair of werewolves coalesced. "The girl who is his wife, she looks so sweet she ought to be attracting honeybees. Innocent. Even Jim Pierce was feeling protective around her; you could see it in his body posture – and Dr. Singh deliberately distracted the Cantrip agents when they got in her face and tried to intimidate her. And you know Singh."

"You think she was faking it?"

Leslie shook her head. "No. Not really. But both of the werewolves looked at photos of dead bodies and didn’t bat an eyelash. Granted we didn’t show the bad ones in full color, but the old police black-and-whites are pretty nasty."

"You think they’ve spent some time looking at dead bodies," Nick said. "You think they’re killers."

She nodded. "Him, yes. He has that…that look. You have it. A lot of the armed forces guys have it. I think he could have killed us all and not given it another thought. As for her…" She frowned, trying to get a better handle on it. "Have you ever worked with Lee Jennings? The guy the Behavior Analysis Unit sends to interview the nasty guys in prison?"

Nick frowned. "Yes."

"He’s pretty unremarkable. I like him a lot, and so does everyone else who’s worked with him. And the reason they send him into the prisons with the scum of the earth and the crazies is because they like him, too. They fall all over themselves to give him whatever information he asks for."

Nick raised his chin and his face went still. "Right. She’s like that?"

Leslie nodded. "Her husband didn’t say more than two or three words, but he dominated the room. The only one not intimidated was Craig – and he just wasn’t looking. I’d bet Charles Smith is an Alpha of some pack we don’t know about."