“Oh! I smell him!” Kristin suddenly said, sitting bolt upright.
“Where?” Jetta asked.
“Um… I don’t know,” Kristin said, looking unsure.
“Yes, you do,” Caeco said as she slowed the car to a crawl. “Close your eyes. Concentrate on the scent of the killer, putting aside every other smell, every odor, one by one.”
The new werewolf closed her eyes, a furrow of concentration between them. Gradually the frown relaxed.
“Oh, you’re right! I can tell,” she said, opening her eyes and pointing at a tan ranch-style house on the opposite side of the street.
“The property is listed as belonging to Mark B. Scherre,” the car’s audio system said.
“Shit. Mark Scherre,” Chief Kent said, surprise mixed with recognition. Caeco shot him a sideways look. “He’s extremely outspoken, always protesting at Town Board meetings, always filing complaints with my department.”
“About what?” Caeco asked.
“Mostly about people on the greenbelt trails,” the chief said, eyes locked on the house.
“Is he the one that wants all the land trust property closed off?” Hekla asked.
“Yeah, he’s some kind of environmentalist—or maybe environmental activist is a better term,” Kent said.
“I have found one hundred and seventeen emails from this ISP to various state and federal agencies, municipal governments, and the land trust itself espousing increasingly virulent demands for protection of this township’s greenspaces. I also see that he has this morning been researching AirBnB properties in Halifax, Canada.”
“Hacking like that isn’t legal,” Kent said.
“You have seen the news recently where Omega took charge of government resources all over the planet, right?” Mack asked.
The chief frowned but lifted the handset clipped to his body armor and keyed the mic. “Angelo, the name for the warrant is Mark B. Scherre. Morris, make sure units are at both ends of the road. He might be thinking of running.”
“Correction,” Mack said. “He’s definitely running.” He pointed at the garage door that had just lifted and the tall man who was loading several bags into the back of a Subaru Forester.
“How sure are you, Kristin?” Chief Kent asked over his shoulder, eyes still on the suspect.
“That’s him! That’s the man who killed Ren and Lucas… I can smell him. And blood. I smell their blood.”
“She’s right; there’s blood,” Caeco said.
“You can smell blood?” the chief asked.
“Ah, not to interrupt, but he’s closing the tailgate,” Jetta said.
“Pull in behind him and block the garage,” Kent said, already unbuckling his seat belt. “Morris, roll up to my position,” he said into his mic.
Caeco pulled up behind the man, who turned quickly, his eyes narrowing at the unmarked vehicle. But as soon as the chief exited, his eyes went wide. Lights flashing, two of the department’s patrol vehicles came from opposite ends of the street.
The suspect, Scherre, took in the police cars and the chief, then suddenly bolted into his house. Kent took off after him, yelling for him to stop. Caeco unbuckled and jumped out. “You four stay here; you’re not cops,” she said, then ran around behind the house.
“I can hear him knocking stuff over inside,” Kristin said, head tilted in listening mode.
They all heard the chief yelling, then the sound of glass breaking. Caeco’s command to stop came from out back and then the man was barreling around the front of the house. The Suttons suddenly produced guns but neither made any attempt to get out of the car, just sat and watched as the man charged their way. Kristin immediately growled, her voice going much deeper than a teenaged girl should be able.
“Omega, you got this, or do I need to shoot the bastard?” Mack said, his window now down.
“I have this under control, Mack Sutton.”
The police cars screeched to a stop and three officers piled out, but they were down by the end of the driveway. Mack held his pistol low ready, the muzzle pointed at the ground a yard in front of the running man, and Kristin’s growling ramped up a notch.
Suddenly three black golf-ball-sized orbs shot into the yard from different directions, all converging on the man, whose face was contorted with fear and rage. The mini drones smacked into his torso, front and back, and immediately crackled with arcs of blue electrical discharge. Mark Scherre froze up, his body shaking for several long seconds before his eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed to the ground.
Four hours later, the local DA and Chief Kent announced the arrest of Mr. Scherre, even releasing the fact that a modified clam rake and bloody wolf fur costume had been found in a cluttered corner of his basement. Two hours after that, the three investigators were on their way back to New York with multiple Tupperware containers of Icelandic cuisine to tide them over.
“Frigging nature guy killing kids and trying to blame an innocent werewolf,” Mack said, shaking his head, his mouth half full of pickled meat and dark rye bread.
“Just goes to show you that you can’t always judge the nature of a person by their circumstances,” Jetta said. “Kristin is a tough survivor but not a violent person. That wacko was supposed to be all for nature first, but instead he was a killer.”
“Ah, but Jetta, nature is full of killers,” Caeco said as she accelerated up the onramp and merged onto I-95 South.
“Well, it’s just lucky that we all put a quick end to that. He might have killed more, or Kristin might have been hunted and killed,” Jetta said.
“Yeah, lucky,” Caeco agreed with a smirk for her two companions.
Threefold
How do you raise a child who can bend reality with his mind?
“Declan lad, where do ye be?”
She’d found me… again. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. What is it about a six-year-old mind that thinks it is already a match for its parent?
“I am here, Mama,” I said, turning to look through the gap in the trees in time to witness the moment my mother, Maeve
