Page 31 of The Alpha's Grave Secrets

A small consolation, “My team and I will be right there.”

I glance around the van. The silence is too loud now that the computers are shut down. We were too late. The weight of our failure settles in the pit of my stomach.

He wanted us to find her quickly, to know the extent of his toying with us. Here we were chasing down a ghost while the killer was probably watching, laughing, and knowing it was already too late.

As soon as we park, I pull out my phone and shoot off a text to Elara, “There’s been another body found. It will be a little longer until I can get home.”

Stepping out of the van, the crunch of gravel under our shoes rings out into the night. Caution tape hangs around the perimeter, and forensics and a few officers walk through the crime scene. Even still, it is eerily quiet.

“We have to get ahead of this bastard,” I say through gritted teeth. My wolf within me howling with rage and sorrow. He’s killing our kind. He’s toying with an Alpha and will pay for it.

Hati, to my left, moves with silent grace. He scans the perimeter as though he expects something or someone to jump out of the shadows.

Callie and Gun are to my right, both of them tense, ready to spring into action at any moment despite their apparent exhaustion.

Bruce is still outside of my home, protecting the most important person to me in the world. I’m going to have to buy him so many steaks at his favorite steakhouse as a thank you.

As we approach the taped-off area, one of the agents on the scene nods grimly, “You’ll want to see this,” he says, stepping aside. The moon’s barely visible through the thin cover of clouds, and the place feels darker than it should—too quiet, too still.

My stomach tightens the moment I see the body. She’s young, maybe mid-twenties, lying half-buried in a shallow grave.

She looks like Elara. Same long dark auburn hair. They have the same delicate features and full lips. It hits me hard. Harder than I expected. My chest tightens, and I can feel the blood pumping in my ears.

She was discarded without a second thought, not even given the dignity of being fully covered with earth. The dirt around her is disturbed.

Heat floods my body as I work to keep my rage under control. The last thing I need right now is to make a spectacle of myself at the crime scene.

The medical examiner crouches beside her, taking notes. I can’t tear my eyes from her, and the haunted look is frozen on her face.

“She looks alot like the one he left alive, doesn’t she?” An agent says from beside us.

“Damn,” I mutter under my breath. “She does.”

“Almost like our killer was trying to recreate the crime with the outcome he’d been hoping for all along,” he speculates.

“Almost,” I nod in agreement. “Will you make sure that the forensics team tags and bags absolutely everything they can find? I don’t want to risk missing anything -- even a piece of trash might be helpful at this point.” I say to the agent.

“Will do,” he nods curtly and hustles off, shoulders squared with one sure-footed step after another.

“Another statement,” Callie says, her voice low. She knows what I’m thinking and probably feels it, too.

“A big one,” Hati says, looking at the body. “This is a disrespectful grave even for our unsub. Why here? Why next to a playground?”

“It’s a taunt. He’s basically saying, ‘Look what I can do.’” Callie adds.

“Look what I can do, and look how you’ve failed to stop me,” I say grimly. My mind is already spinning. This girl isn’t Elara, but she could’ve been. And that thought makes me want to rip the world apart.

“What have you got for us so far?” Hati asks the medical examiner, stepping forward, his tall frame casting a long shadow over the scene. He studies every detail of the disturbed earth around the grave.

“It appears to be the same MO,” he says confidently, his deep voice cutting through the quiet of the night. I’ll bet once I get her on the table, we will see signs of sexual assault; she’s within the age range, throat slit before burial, shallow grave, minimal signs of struggle, so tests for drugs in her system will likely come back positive.”

“Okay,” Callie says, taking a breath. “So, the unsubs changed the burial location, which we expected, but not much else. Still, the fact that she wasn’t fully buried seems like another message.” Callie and I lock eyes before returning our gazes to the body.

“It’s a sick game, and he’s playing it with us,” Gun says.

“A sick game indeed. I’d like to get the body onto my table as soon as possible; we’ll know more after the autopsy. Whenever you give us the okay, we will take the body.” The M.E. says.

“Have we already got photos of the body in the grave?” Hati asks. He knows the answer, but we must ask.

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