Page 34 of Bears Behaving Badly
“Caro Daniels is from Canada,” David announced, holding up a battered driver’s license, which Annette all but snatched out of his hands to study.
It wasn’t a license; it was a learner’s permit issued two years ago by the Alberta Ministry of Transportation, which Annette assumed was their version of Minnesota’s Division of Driver and Vehicle Services. Caro was only fourteen in the photo—Alberta was the only Canadian province that let juveniles get a permit at that age—and her small smile and shy expression made Annette’s eyes sting in a way that the worst of the abusive photos had not.
Nadia peeked over David’s shoulder for a look. “That explains why the poor thing wasn’t in our system. It’s not international.”
“Exactly. But this is a huge help. We’ve got something to go on. When we find her, we have to show her this.” Annette tapped the Hell Folder full of hell. “When she sees what we found, she’ll understand that we’re on her side. Maybe she’ll feel safe enough to talk.”
The dozen or so Hell Folders indicated that the people behind Lund’s (richly deserved) murder had been preying on vulnerable juveniles for years, snatching up homeless teens, addicts, abuse victims, and runaways. Or luring them, then keeping them. In other words, they targeted the same at-risk kids IPA was sworn to protect.
“Or it’s the opposite,” David pointed out. “Someone found out what Lund was up to and killed him for it. Not to protect themselves, but because they knew he was nothing but a sentient bag of guts that should be dropped off a roof.”
“Urgh,” Annette said, visualizing.
“Right—to avenge the children.” Nadia gingerly poked through the photos with one long, perfectly manicured fingernail. By her expression, even that minimal amount of contact was repellent. “A parent? Sibling?”
Not that Lund had obligingly left much beyond some coded notes: a page of account numbers, the kids’ names, where they’d been “found,” and a series of dates that could have meant anything. Birthdays? Days they’d been kidnapped? Days they were
(please not)
killed and dumped?
“Jesus Christ,” David managed, dropping a pic of a bloodied werefox cringing away from the camera. He rubbed his gloved hands together as if the latex barrier wasn’t nearly thick enough. “Every time I think I’ve seen the lowest level of fuckery… What’s that sound?”
Nadia was that sound; she was gnashing her teeth in a slow, lateral grind. Annette had heard that sound fewer than half-a-dozen times in three years; it usually presaged felony-level acts of protective violence. “Nadia, do you need a min—”
“We’re supposed to be better than them!” she cried, beating her small fists on the stack of folders. “Stables are the ones who foul their own nests and kill when they aren’t hungry. But this, look, and look at these, all these—they’re monstrous!” She shook a sheaf of photos at them. “And Lund did that to his own kind! No bloody wonder she went for him! I wish she’d severed his fingersandhis cock!”
“Agreed.” Well. Not entirely. Annette didn’t think Shifters were better than Stables—both species were horrible and wonderful in their own way—but this wasn’t the time to have that argument. But about the cock thing, yes. They were in absolute agreement.
She looked at the photo again. Caro’s wolf was a brown so dark her fur looked black, her furiously bared teeth almost blinding white by comparison. Annette now understood the girl’s watchful calm in custody: she’d survived worse. Violent captivity hadn’t broken her; she likely believed the system couldn’t, either.
Had Caro escaped that night with Lund on her trail? Or had she escaped two years ago, or any time in between, and just happened to run into him this week? A werewolf could pick up a scent trail from three miles away; had she gotten a whiff, then launched? It would explain why she had been docile ever since: mission accomplished. It also explained why someone would have let her out. Not out of sympathy for her plight. And not to give her freedom.
To get her out from IPA’s protection, then pick her off.
Nadia’s right. We’re supposed to be better than this. And it’s so fucking bleak when we aren’t.
David was still shaking his head over the horrid photos. “Sure explains why Lund didn’t want us sniffing around. But now what?”
“Now we find them and set them on fire and rip their heads off and beat them bloody and pull out their hearts and punch them in their horrid facesso much.”
“Those are all solid ideas,” Annette began. “But I think David meant what do we do with all this documented horror? Do we leave it? Take it? Hand it over to our superiors? Take it home and cry and cry and cry?”
Nadia was already shaking her head. “We mustn’t hand it over. Our superiors essentially ordered us,ordered, not to investigate. They do not care about getting to the bottom of any of this, only closing it out. And you both know why.”
Silence. Because they did know why.
“They’re already edgy because there are Stables poking around. If we bring this to them, I’d wager it will all be ‘lost’ within the hour. Then we’re suspended or firedandwe won’t have a bloody thing to show for it.”
“Nadia, that sounds insaneandimpractical. Do you think it’s that bad?” Annette asked quietly.I know the department’s top priority is to keep hidden, but surely in a case like this…
“Yep.” From David. “Or they’ll use it as an excuse to pin everything on Lund and officially close it out. They’re desperate to close this. It’s why they pulled the forensics guys and sealed the crime scene. They’ll slap a small bandage on a large spurting wound and call it good. We’ve gotta keep this shit, but first we need to make copies. And it wouldn’t hurt to have a numbers guy try to do something with the account numbers.”
“Okay.” Removing (then concealing) evidence from a crime scene. Lying by omission to the authorities. Possible obstruction of justice. She couldn’t help listing the charges in her head, not that it changed a thing. “So let’s go find a UPS Store or something.”
“Perhaps it’s not as sinister as we think,” Nadia mused. “There might well be a parallel investigation, one we’re not privy to, which our supervisor can’t share with us. Or…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Annette said. “We have to act like we think there’s a superduper sinister plot—”
