Chief Kent looked undecided for a moment, then shook his head. “My own contact at Quantico said that you were the real deal. I’ll just have to take your word on these two. Come on; I’ll bring you up to speed,” he said, leading them down a hall around a corner and then through a door with the title Chief on the wall next to it.
All three noticed that the building was fairly new, appeared to be well-built, and was quite a bit bigger than a little village should need. Caeco’s research, which she had shared on the ride up, had indicated less than ten thousand full-time residents, but the police department consisted of one chief, one captain, three sergeants, a detective, six patrol officers, a community liaison officer, and a school resource officer along with a harbormaster. Mack had commented on how new and well-equipped the police patrol SUVs in the parking lot had been.
The chief shut the door as he pointed to chairs across from his desk. The office was large but seemed to do double duty for other police activities, as there was a weapon clearing barrel in one corner and a digital camera system linked to a printer in another. Firearm cleaning gear occupied a table against the back wall, which was also where Jetta and Mack found chairs.
“I issue all the local pistol permits here,” he explained when he noticed Caeco glance at his unusual furnishings.
“Jack of all trades,” she said with a nod, glancing at the manila folder in the center of his otherwise clear desk.
His big right hand moved over and pressed flat against the file. “Before I share this with you, I need to impress upon you the sensitivity of this situation,” he said, giving all three of them a stern look. For her part, she just looked back at him, her face blank. Neither of her friends said a word, and the silence resulted in him raising a brow.
“Every case I work on is sensitive, Chief Kent,” Caeco said. “It’s pretty much Bureau tradition, but Special Threats is even more sensitive.” He looked at her, then turned his eyes to the others.
“Keeping secrets at our school is a survival skill,” Jetta said.
He nodded and looked at her brother.
“Witches are really unpleasant to people who breach their trust, Chief,” Mack said. “We don’t gossip to anyone, although I’ll tell you that if our summer employers ask us, we’ll have to tell them.”
Immediately he frowned and shot an annoyed look at Caeco. She just smiled, which caused his glare to change to curiosity.
“Who are your employers?” he finally asked Mack.
“Chris Gordon and Tatiana Demidova,” Mack said.
“You two work for Demidova Corporation?”
“No. We’re working for Chris and Tanya, directly. They have a training site that we’ll be doing a ton of work on.”
To his credit, the chief didn’t act incredulous, instead just widening his eyes slightly. “This is a small community, but it is one of the more desirable places to live in this entire area. People pay high prices to own homes here, and they do so with the expectation that it’s safe and quiet. The death of these two boys will change every bit of that. The deaths are public knowledge, but not all of the circumstances. The public knows there was an animal attack but not what kind and we’ve closed the trails. But things will likely change very soon, either through a leak to the press or because we hold our own conference. I very much want it to be the second of those choices. I was told you could help close this out fast.”
“We’ll do our best,” Caeco said, holding his gaze. After a moment, he nodded and handed her the file. She carefully looked through every page and every photo, taking her time, but after one pass through, she handed it to Jetta, who in turn handed it straight to Mack.
The chief started to comment but she held up one hand. “Let’s hold off until Mack looks it over with an unbiased eye.”
Surprised, Chief Kent turned and looked at the siblings. Jetta just smiled back, but Mack was frowning at the coroner’s report and one of the crime scene photos simultaneously. Then he flipped back to another page.
“Can we speak to this James Oliver and this Marika Kelly? And I presume you have a full case file on this missing Kristin Vilhelmsdottir that Marika mentions in her statement?”
“We haven’t ever found a body, so for all we know Kristin was homesick for her home in Iceland and ran away,” the chief said, frowning.
“Do you know if she traveled there recently?” Caeco asked.
“I understand her family went back on spring break. Her father is an executive with a major shipping company with offices in Portland,” Chief Kent said.
“Which was when?” Mack asked.
“Spring break? A month ago, almost exactly.”
Mack handed the file to his sister and turned to Caeco with raised brows. She nodded, which prompted Chief Kent to lean back in his chair, his own eyebrows going up in disbelief. “You have a theory already?”
“I have a lot of questions already,” Mack said. “Jet, do those photos look like a were kill?” he asked his sister, who was now also frowning at the gory photos.
“Not really. The one boy was killed by what appears to be a clawed blow across the face, which tore off his jaw and ripped open a carotid artery. The other boy had two blows, one across his stomach and a second, killing blow across his throat as he lay on the ground, at least according to the coroner,” she said. “I see tracks around the bodies that are definitely canine and large enough to be a small werewolf, but something about them bothers me.”
“Exactly right,” Caeco said. “Chief, we’ll need to see the crime scene right away and then talk to your two young witnesses, as well
