Fair Game

‘You said “original killer,” ’ said Anna to Goldstein, and Charles had to fight to hide his smile. He’d thought she’d missed it, but she was just waiting for the right time to spring it on them. ‘You don’t think we’re still dealing with the same man?’

‘Right,’ Goldstein agreed, completely ignoring the Cantrip agents and Singh to focus on the murders. ‘We noticed some differences in the UNSUB’s killings starting about 1995 that seemed to indicate he’d acquired a partner. Then in 2000 the killings took place over six weeks. Though we – 2000 is the first year I caught this case – only found five bodies, the timeline indicated that there might be six victims. As there were six the next year, and every year thereafter his killing window has been six weeks instead of four, we’re pretty sure that there were six victims in 2000 as well.’

‘If the MO didn’t match, how did you know they were still the Big Game Hunter’s victims and not some other killer’s?’ Singh asked. He was caught up in the hunt for their killer – even though his hunt had started with an entirely different prey: the werewolves. Brother Wolf agreed with Charles’s assessment of Singh: smart and distractible if something more interesting than his current prey ran in front of him.

Goldstein reached into his briefcase and pulled out … a bright yellow ear tag. The kind ranchers staple to their livestock. ‘He tags his kills. In ’seventy-five he used hunting tags for deer, stolen from a hunting supply store. In ’eighty-two, he switched to this. The current batch can be purchased on the Internet in bags of twenty-five for a buck each.’

His prey were things to him, thought Charles. Livestock.

Or he was trying to turn them into things, said Anna. ‘Let’s keep going through the victims and see if we notice anything more that we can help you with.’

Goldstein continued his slide show. As forensics had developed, the killer’s methods of dealing with the bodies changed. Instead of leaving them to be found in some out-of-the-way place, he put them in water. Rivers, lakes, swamps – and here, in Boston, the Atlantic, trusting the water to wash away his sins, which were many.

‘There have been several changes besides his choice and number of victims,’ said Goldstein. ‘1991 had several. The torture was more ritualized, and he seemed to place more importance on it. The killings also started to move back a month. From 1975 until 1990, all of the murders happened in November. In 1991, he moved to October. And each year after that, he moved back a month until 1995, when he started killing the first of June – where he is now.’

‘If you’ll give me a list – with photos – of the victims,’ said Anna, when Goldstein was through, ‘I’ll do my best to see if we can’t sort the fae out of the rest. I believe that the first werewolf victims were the ones here in Boston, but I’ll be able to tell you that for sure after I make a few calls.’

Charles was fairly sure the wolves killed this year were the only ones, but it wouldn’t hurt to be certain. Besides, with a list of the victims, he could send them out to a couple of fae he knew who might be able to come up with more information on the fae victims, maybe ID a few more.

‘All right,’ agreed Goldstein. ‘We can do that.’

Anna frowned, one hand rubbing lightly on her chin as she stared at the collage of photos of the current year’s victims – five so far. The last one was a school photo of a little boy. One more victim to go before the Big Game Hunter moved on until next year.

‘I’m not an expert on the fae,’ Anna said. ‘But I know wolves. For a normal man, or even a pair of normal men, to take on a werewolf – that’s pretty ambitious. Predators usually pick victims that aren’t likely to leave them dead.’

Heuter frowned. ‘He didn’t seem to have much trouble with these. Three wolves, right? And no one saw a thing. I don’t think it’s as hard as you say. Otherwise someone would have noticed.’

Anna tipped her head back, meeting Charles’s eyes. We’re here to advise. To give them information. Should we show them?

Charles moved from behind her to the end of the heavy conference table where no one was sitting. He glanced under it to make sure it wasn’t anchored to the floor, then lifted it to his chest height while making sure it stayed level so none of Goldstein’s expensive electronics fell off. He set it down.

‘Just killing us,’ Anna said. ‘That’s tough, but it’s not impossible. But holding a werewolf while you torture him …’

‘Magic?’ asked Singh. The Homeland Security agent had totally forgotten that his first intention had been to find out more about the werewolves. Charles found that he liked him – and he hadn’t expected to.

Anna shrugged. ‘That or extremely good planning. It’s not just strength – we metabolize very quickly. Drugging or incapacitating one of us for long without killing us is extremely difficult.’

‘Holy water,’ said Pat the former FBI and now Cantrip agent.

Anna didn’t roll her eyes but she let Charles feel her exasperation. ‘I could drink it every day for a week – and do it while living in the Sistine Chapel.’

‘Silver?’ That was Heuter, again.

‘Are there black marks where they’ve been restrained?’ Anna asked. ‘Silver burns us like fire or acid.’

They didn’t answer her question. Charles had noticed that from the 1990s victims on, the photos of the now- dead people were from the neck down, and sometimes there were no crime scene photos at all. He was pretty certain that the lack wasn’t an oversight.

‘And how,’ Anna continued, ‘did he know they were werewolves? Only one of them, the local wolf, had come out publicly.’

There was some more discussion, but Charles let Brother Wolf assimilate it while he observed the room. Agent Fisher was watching Anna with the same look that Asil got when he found a rose that he wanted for his greenhouse, sort of greedy and satisfied.

We’re not going to have to talk our way into helping with this case, he told Anna. Agent Fisher wants us for her very own.

Brother Wolf brought his attention back to the room, where the other Homeland Security agent, Jim Pierce, was speaking. ‘What if the killer was a werewolf?’

Anna shook her head. ‘Then you wouldn’t be finding tagged bodies; you’d be finding body parts.’

‘Werewolves eat people?’ asked Heuter, coming alert like a hound. ‘That killing in Minnesota – that was werewolves?’

Anna snorted and lied like a politician. ‘Look. Becoming a werewolf doesn’t make you a serial killer – and it doesn’t make you a superhero, either. Whoever you were, that’s who you are. If a bad guy gets Changed, he’s still a bad guy. However, we police our own and we’re pretty good at it. Mostly we’re just ordinary people who turn into a wolf during the full moon and go out and hunt rabbits.’

Being Changed turned everyone into killers. Werewolves weren’t timber wolves or red wolves who hunted only when they were hungry. Werewolves were killers – and the ones who couldn’t control it sometimes took a lot of people with them before they died.

No one looking at his mate’s earnest freckled face would ever hear the lie – unless they were a werewolf, too. His da would be proud.

4

Anna followed Charles out of the hotel, trying to figure out what had happened with him and why so she could decide how to proceed.

Charles led the way out of the hotel and turned in the direction of the condo where they were staying. Charles, the Aspen Creek Pack, and the pack’s corporation had condos all over the place. The one in Boston belonged to the corporation. It made travel more discreet, no hotel charges, no strangers coming in to clean every day.

‘Wait a minute,’ she said.

Charles turned back. The expression on his face was exactly the same as the one he’d had when they left their house yesterday, heading for the airport so he could fly them to Seattle, where they had caught the