I wondered if he was even still in town. After all, he could have killed Rudoldir then immediately gone back through the portal to goodness-knew-where. That would have meant he could be hiding out anywhere in the paranormal world. But if none of the shifters guarding the portals had seen him, then he had to still be in town. I mean, the secret portal wasn’t that well known, and a random shifter who had never been here before would certainly not be able to find it without help from the locals. And I couldn’t imagine anyone in town helping a shifter they didn’t know.
I quickly found a few news articles about the arrest of Raoul and Adolpho as well as an article about their appeals being denied. I started off by clicking on the article about the arrest.
Two wolf shifters were arrested today in Shifter Fe after an extended investigation by the International Paranormal Investigations Unit. The agent in charge of the investigation, Alexandre Desrochers, heading up his first international investigation with the unit, had this to say:
“This morning we arrested two shifters suspected of a string of bank robberies in the southwestern United States. Raoul and Adolpho Lupo, brothers from the Shifter Fe area, are suspected of having committed seven robberies in total, with their total takings in excess of one hundred million abras. They were also responsible for putting four security guards in the hospital and killing a fifth. They ran an impressively sophisticated operation, but through the hard work of my colleagues at the IPIU, we were able to track them down, and we are confident that the court system will bring them to justice.”
I let out a low whistle as I read the rest of the article. It turned out that of the four security guards, one had permanently lost the use of his left arm. These guys were not kidding around. I wondered how on earth they had gotten out of Spellcatraz so quickly. After all, the article was dated from nine years ago; they should have been sentenced to a lot more prison time than that.
Flipping to another article about their release, I was given the answer I needed.
Two shifters jailed for a string of robberies in Arizona and New Mexico have been released from Spellcatraz after their second appeal was accepted. Their original appeal, overseen by Rudoldir, a judge from Washington, was denied. They had claimed that the initial jury in Arizona was prejudiced against them, which Rudoldir found to be incorrect. However, the Lupo brothers’ lawyer was able to find evidence that one of the jurors had falsely claimed no connection to any of the victims when he was, in fact, a cousin of the shifter who was killed. On this basis, a new appeal was given, and this time, the convictions were reversed.
I let out a low whistle as I read. So Rudoldir had denied their appeal, and then it turned out that their claims had actually been correct. I could understand the two brothers being especially upset at Rudoldir for not having ruled in their favor the first time, even if he didn’t know that the one juror was related to the security guard the brothers had killed.
Raoul Lupo’s motive just went from one hundred to one hundred and ten, as far as I was concerned. I had to find that shifter.
Chapter 15
“So, I want to say my day was crazier than yours, but knowing what you do, there’s no guarantee that’s true,” Willow said as soon as she walked through the door. I grabbed the bags of Chinese food off her and passed her a plate, the two of us shuffling around each other in the tiny kitchen as we heaped piles of fried rice, sweet and sour pork, lemon chicken, and spring rolls onto our plates.
“My day itself wasn’t that crazy, but it turns out there might be a murderous shifter that’s just been let out of Spellcatraz wandering around town.”
“Well, that’s a comforting thought.”
“Tell me about your day, though. It sounds more interesting.”
“It was certainly an adventure. We had a couple of tourist dragon shifters who decided to wander around the mountains after flying there. They got trapped in an avalanche and tried to use fire to melt the snow around them, but unfortunately, they just succeeded in freezing it around them before they ran out of energy and therefore flame, so they trapped themselves in a sort of igloo.”
“Oh no,” I said. “What happened?”
“Luckily, they told some other shifters where they were going, and when they didn’t come back, those friends of theirs raised the alarm. All the dragon shifters in town went looking for them, and they eventually found them half-frozen in the snow and brought them down to the clinic. We had to make a whole bunch of warming potions to get them back to normal. It took hours, and the whole time I was worried we were going to lose them. They had turned blue and back into their human forms. They couldn’t even shift back into dragon form when we found them, they were so weak. I couldn’t believe it.”
“How long were they missing?” I asked, stunned.
“Two days. The fact that they were alive at all, up there in the mountains where it’s so cold, is a miracle.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Wow.”
“I’m glad they’re ok, though. When the potion was finally finished and one of them drank it, he burped out a little bit of fire and everyone cheered.”
“I bet,” I replied with a laugh. “Imagine being able to spit fire, literally. Well, I suppose there’s probably a spell out there somewhere to be able to do that, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Hm,” Willow said. “I’m not sure, either. But you’re right, there’s probably one.”
“Grandma Rosie would know. Although then we’d get
