Page 51 of The Doctor's Wolf: Part Two
Maxim slowed.“Ah.”
“Shit,” Adler said.
“It’s possible, right?Maxim, you said you were pretty sure someone compelled the police officers who should have investigated Pearson but didn’t.What if that vampire has been at this for a long time.Since the Ripper case or even before then?”
Maxim said nothing, and he’d gone still behind the wheel.
“That would make them old.And strong,” Adler said.
He turned, looking at Gordon, and Gordon saw the worry in his mate’s eyes, the protective instinct turning to fear.
“Don’t worry about him.I’ll keep you two safe.”Maxim’s voice was low, sharp.“I’ll keep everyone safe.”
Gordon decided not to press on further.After all, Maxim, mother hen that he was, had a son born of a union between vampire and human, probably not something their killer approved of.
What knowing that did to a parent, Gordon couldn’t begin to fathom, but he wouldn’t want to be in the killer’s shoes when Maxim and all his many knives and mother hen instincts found him.
Consequences indeed.
Chapter 28
Oncemore,Adlersmelledthe scene before he saw it.Once more, there were crime scene technicians in anonymous white at the scene, an apartment painted in light purple, pale bottle green, and bright sunflower yellow.
Someone lived here and loved living here.
The photos mounted in the hallway were proof of that, many of them small groups of smiling people, but there were vacation photos too, selfies.Two lovers, smiling for the sake of making a memory.
A few of the technicians turned to give the three of them cursory glances, much like the NA police officers outside had.
“Professor Megan LeRoux was a fae and lectured on English and French literature at New Amsterdam University,” Maxim said, indicating the dark-haired woman who’d rubbed her cheek against her husband’s in one of the pictures.“Married to Jonathan West.He worked with at-risk children in a group home, and before you ask, his record is clean, according to Heath.”
Gordon wordlessly went to find his own sterile whitesuit while Adler and Maxim looked at the scene from the hallway.Adler pressed his lips shut so as not to ask his mate if he was okay, if he’d not be more comfortable waiting outside where the scent of blood didn’t permeate.Gordon is used to it, don’t be weird.Let your mate shine at what he’s good at, at what he chose as his calling.
Adler looked at their two victims.“Their chests are torn open.They’re missing their hearts, just like the other family?”
Maxim nodded.“Yes, and there is very little blood, considering.Even if we do factor in the wicked calligraphy.”
He pointed to a yellow wall bathed in morning light.“The deserved suffering before death,” it read there, and red dripped from the base line of the T and the open loop of the d and s and g.Adler stared at the crudely and cruelly written words, a respite, because the bodies were not easy to look at.
“Time of death is easily yesterday morning,” a white-clad Gordon said, his hand inside the husband’s body.He explored further, and Adler noticed the minute tightening of his mate’s muscles; surprise.
Gordon changed his gloves and examined LeRoux’s chest, which had been torn open much more viciously, jagged edges showing.Then, he pulled the gloves off and walked out of the room, past Adler and Maxim, and outside of the apartment toward the stairs at the end of the hallway and up a few steps.Adler and Maxim followed.
“No one’s close enough to hear us, right?”Gordon asked.Eyes finding Maxim’s.
“No, this is fine.”
Gordon nodded.“They are both missing their kidneys.She’s missing her liver.I have to get them both on my table for all the specifics, but there are marks on her ribs and tear marks inside both of them that look like teeth.”He looked at Adler.“I’d say wolf teeth, if I really had to guess.”
Maxim crossed his arms in front of his chest.“And you are putting the time of death at before nightfall?You’re certain?”
Gordon nodded.
“Another mixed couple,” Adler mumbled.
The words, the thought of that, made his skin feel heated, and he angled his body so that his back shielded Gordon from any threat that might come up the stairs.Instinct,Adler thought,silly instinct.But he didn’t move, and thankfully, Maxim, who couldn’t not notice, didn’t comment.
“They are.They were.We seem to have a motive that lines up with everything else we know,” the hunter said.“Though it’s strange that there are no witnesses here.All the neighbors said they didn’t hear or see anything because they were watching TV.”
