Page 20 of The Alpha's Grave Secrets

“I remember,” he smirks, and it drives me wild. My wolf wants to jump his bones right here and now. She’s practically in heat with how desperate she is for him. “I’ve got a confession to make, I already ordered the food. It’s in our main office. Are you ready to eat?” He asks, extending his elbow.

I take his arm and let him lead the way. The room is full of pictures of the victims, copies of pieces of evidence, and photographs from the crime scene. Paperwork litters various desks pushed against the walls, and a few tables are pushed together in the center of the room.

My stomach growls again as Kato pushes in my chair and pulls out food containers. My eyes shift to a ‘murder board’ with the photos of all the other identified young women. Photographs not of their lifeless bodies but as their family and friends remember them, smiling, bright, and in the prime of their life.

Something about those smiling photographs makes me realize that onecould have been of me.My photograph could have been tacked up on that board, frozen in time, while my body lay in a fridge down in the basement of the building.

Goddess, I am lucky. Even despite the horrible things that I’ve been through, I am so blessed to be alive. I won’t let this second chance at life pass me by. I can’t, it would be a slap in the face to all those young women who didn’t make it out alive.

There’s a twisting in my stomach, and I realize I am hungry—for the first time in days.

“We can go to another room to eat if it makes you uncomfortable to be here,” Kato says, following my gaze and glancing around the rest of the room. “It is a little morbid.” He says this as though he’s realizing this for the first time.

“No way,” I say, popping a crispy fried crab Rangoon into my mouth. “You said you’d catch me up to speed while we eat. I’m eating, so tell me everything,” I say through a mouthful.

Kato’s eyes light up in a way they haven’t in a long time as he scoops various helpings of all our old favorite Chinese dishes onto a paper plate for me. As he tells me everything about the case, I listen and eat, realizing that almost everything he knows came from me except for the commonality of the bar, the creepy patron of that bar, and the letter…

“You know almost everything you have on this case, I already know. Did you trick me with this deal just so I would eat?”

“That sounds like something I would do, doesn’t it?” He chuckles, but his eyes darken. “I wish I had more. We keep running into dead ends, a lack of physical evidence, and we still haven’t been able to identify all the victims. This guy’s almost like a ghost. I feel like I’m failing you and all of his other victims.”

“You aren’t,” I say, fighting the urge to kiss him. “Do you know how many cases go unsolved for the same reasons? Sometimes, these guys are better at hiding than others.”

Kato doesn’t say anything, he just keeps his head down for a moment before letting out an exaggerated sigh, “Don’t worry; this won’t be another unsolved case. That letter gives us a lot more insight, doesn’t it?”

“He’s gunning for the SPIU, he has something personally against me, he’s mocking me, us, and he doesn’t like your boyfriend. Actually, he and I might have that last one in common.” He says with a slight smile on those delicious lips of his.

“Kato!” I laugh, reaching out and shoving him playfully. He shrugs and takes a sip of his soda.

“That’s not how he spoke when he talked to me,” I say out loud finally after rereading the letter for the third time. “It’s like in this letter, he’s trying really hard to sound intelligent. He’s definitely taunting you and when I read this, I can certainly understand how a man with this level of inferiority complex could do such terrible things to these women.”

“He definitely wants to prove he’s smarter than us and at this point I don’t know how much of an act it is. He hasn’t left any evidence behind. All we found at the grave site was a cough drop wrapper and some thin plastic in your grave, and honestly, those items could have come from anyone or anywhere. There was nothing significant in the letter. It really does feel like he’s going to win.” Kato says with a bit of a defeatist attitude. That’s so unlike him.

“He won’t. With an ego like that, he’s bound to make a mistake. What worries me is that he’s going to keep killing. That he might have someone in his disgusting clutches right now.” I say emotionally almost pleadingly.

“That’s why I sent the team home. We’ve been running on fumes, and everyone needs a good night’s rest. We’ve got little to nothing so far to work with but come tomorrow that’s not going to stop us from finding this young woman and putting a stop to this psychopath.” He says determinedly. Now that’s more like him.

“If you have any suspects, I want to hear their voices. I’ll never forget his voice.” I offer.

As the night continues, Kato and I sit sprawled across the rug on the floor, paperwork, photographs, and copies of the letter sprawled out around us. Eventually, my eyelids grow heavier and heavier, and the next thing I know, I wake up with Kato’s heavy muscular arm wrapped around my bare stomach and the rest of the SPIU staring down at us.

“Morning,” Gun says, “I hope we aren’t interrupting anything.”

He winks, and the rest of the team does their best not to look too amused.

I push Kato’s arms off me, and he yawns, opening his eyes and looking around wearily.

“We’ve got bad news,” the wickedly tall blonde man with a head of thick golden hair says, kneeling down and sorting through the documents sprawled out around us.

“The media is in a frenzy over the case. Somehow, they got a copy of the letter and now we are basically fucked if we don’t get this all figured out soon.”

“What?” my jaw tenses and my heart sinks. Callie grabs a remote that’s mounted on the wall and flips on the television.

“Watch for yourself. It’s on every local station, and it’s starting to make its way onto national news, too.”

“Crap,” I say, repeating the general sentiment. “This is really going to fuel his fire. He’s so starved for attention I wouldn’t be surprised if he sent in a copy of the letter himself.”

Hati nods approvingly, “I believe that’s exactly what happened Elara.”

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