Page 41 of So Twisted

“Fair enough. Can’t say I’m all that upset that they’re dead. But I wasn’t the one who took the wheels off.”

“Can you prove that?”

James sighed. “You said Reeves was killed when? Four days ago?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, I have an alibi for that one. I was giving a presentation in Hollywood for the Animal Trainers Guild.”

“Can you confirm that?”

“Sure can. Pictures, blog articles, and if you call my representative at the guild, she’ll confirm my attendance. I was one of the speakers for day four.”

Faith looked at Michael. Michael nodded and asked James, “Do you have a phone number I can call?”

“Sure. There’s a business card in the small drawer to the left of the refrigerator in the kitchen. It’ll say ATG on the front of it and have a number for Valerie Collier.”

Michael stood and headed to the kitchen.

“While he’s following up on your alibi,” Faith said, “Tell me honestly. Do you think the world is a better place without Marcus Reeves, Elena Vasquez and Alison Chen?”

“Honestly? I think the world is a better place without a lot of people.”

Faith didn’t know how to respond to that. From the kitchen, she heard Michael talking to Valerie Collier. “I see. Thank you for confirming that, ma’am.”

He hung up and returned to the living room. “All right, Mr. Hawkins. Your alibi has been confirmed. It looks like you were out of town not only for Marcus Reeves’ murder but for Alison Chen’s. We’re certain that Dr. Vasquez was killed by the same murderer, so you’re off the hook.”

James nodded. With the threat of arrest no longer looming, he relaxed a little, and his tone was gentler when he said, “For what it’s worth, I do hope you find this guy. At the end of the day, humans are animals too. When we give into our lowest instincts, we quickly reach a point where it becomes impossible to stop. Eventually, this guy will stop worrying whether the people he targets are guilty or not. That’s when this will become a problem.”

Faith stood. “I guess that’s the difference between you and me, James. From where I’m standing, this is already a problem.”

The three of them left James and began the drive back to their hotel in Council Bluffs. They remained silent for the journey, both of them irritated and discouraged by their lack of progress.

And James was right about one thing. Killers like this one couldn’t stop. Like the wolves, they were wired differently thanothers. The only way to stop them was to lock them away where they couldn’t hurt anyone else.

At the moment, their wolf still roamed free, silently prowling through the darkness looking for his next kill.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The two human agents continued to be silent while they ate their lunch—sandwiches and fruit ordered from room service. Turk tried to engage with both of them, but when it became clear that his humans weren’t going to be cheered up, he retreated between the beds and sat, resting his head on his hands with a glum look.

Michael finally broke the silence when he finished his lunch. “We need to look into our victims’ backgrounds.”

“We have been,” Faith protested. “That’s all we’ve been doing.”

“Okay, good point. Let me clarify. We’re approaching this case like it’s an animal rights case, like our killer is getting revenge on behalf of the animals.”

“Well, yeah. The evidence for that is overwhelming.”

“And yet all of our leads evaporate,” Michael countered. “Forrester was all bark and no bite and Hawkins was more irritated about being fired than that the victims got away with their crimes.”

“That’s only two leads, Michael.”

“Well, that’s another thing. We’re not finding much. We’ve been narrowing our search to one specific thread and hoping that it will lead us to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Have you heard anything from Cuthbert about the other Knights of Nature?”

She shook her head. “That doesn’t mean he won’t find anything, though.”

“There were only a dozen people in that group, Faith. All college kids. That’s not a lot of life for a team of investigators to dig through. If there was something to find, he would have found it already.”

---