Ursula considered and then nodded once curtly. “Probably true.”
“Murder,” said Avery. “Gray comes back and all hell breaks loose.”
Dana sighed. “Maybe it’s murder. I mean, what’s the guy’s motive? Did he really want to kill fifteen people?”
“If it’s deliberate, it doesn’t matter why he did it,” said Ursula. “He goes in solitary confinement. There’s room down there. We’ve only got Randall.”
“You don’t think we should look into it further?” Dana asked. “Try to figure out why he did it?”
Ursula shook her head. “I don’t think it matters. He admits to it. He’s dangerous, and we can’t let him out. What more do we really need to know?”
She had a point. Dana nodded. “I guess that works for me.”
“Great.” Ursula stood up. She turned to Avery. “Brooks, you get the paperwork on his transfer to solitary filed, all right?”
“Sure thing,” said Avery.
“Gray, you’re with me,” said Ursula. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Dana got out of her chair and followed Ursula. The two made their way to a corner of the tracker office, where Ursula’s desk sat. She settled behind it and motioned for Dana to sit in front of her.
“So,” said Ursula. “How was your first day back?”
“Fine, I guess,” said Dana. She wasn’t going to mention the trouble she was having keeping her wolf under control. Ursula didn’t need to know that.
Ursula smiled. “Good. We’re happy to have you with us again.”
“Happy to be back,” said Dana.
“I know you want to put this business with Randall behind you, and I completely support that. You and I had talked right afterwards, and you indicated to me at that point that you weren’t comfortable talking to the press about it.”
“That’s true,” Dana said slowly. Where was Ursula going with this?
“I wouldn’t ask, Gray, but I’m getting pressure from the higher-ups. You keep up with the news much?”
“Not recently.”
“Perfectly understandable, given everything you’ve been through.” Ursula took a deep breath. “There’s legislation they’re trying to get passed to cut funding to the SF. If it goes through, it’s probably the first step towards instituting the kind of see-wolf-shoot-wolf policies that the talk radio guys are always yammering on about.”
“They can’t do that,” said Dana. “Are you serious?”
Ursula nodded. “We’re doing what we can with lobbyists, but the upper levels of the Sullivan Foundation think we need to try to sway the people to our side any way we can. They think if you talked to the media about what happened, if people knew you as a hero, it might help sway public opinion in favor of the SF—show them that we’re the good guys.”
Dana rubbed her forehead. “You want me to talk to reporters, don’t you?”
“Maybe just one,” said Ursula. “Weren’t you dating a staff writer for that big internet newspaper? The Jefferson Post or whatever?”
Dana studied her fingernails. “Hollis and I haven’t been in touch much since it happened, really. I sort of pushed him away.”
“Well, can you get in contact with him again?”
She could. She guessed she could. After all, Hollis still left weekly voicemails for her, checking in, asking to see her. But she was too confused about Cole to let Hollis back into her head or her heart... Or her pants. She leaned her head back. “I don’t know, King.”
“You know I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t important.”
Right. She owed the SF so much. They were asking this of her. She should do it. Take one for the team.
“He’ll be kind to you, won’t he? He cares about you? It will be a positive piece.”
“I’ll talk to him,” said Dana. It would be as positive as Hollis could make it. The Jefferson Post was a little biased against werewolves. Hollis had gotten some heat for dating her in the first place. But Dana was sure that Hollis would never intentionally hurt her. They had cared about each other.
“Great,” said Ursula. “Thank you so much.”
Hollis would be all over this too. He’d love to write about the werewolf serial killer. He’d asked to have access to interview Cole before, but Dana had always ignored his calls. Now she was going to have to talk to him.
* * *
Dana flipped open her suitcase and began taking out clothes to put back in drawers. She’d officially moved back in her apartment the night before, but she’d been too tired to unpack. She lived on SF headquarters, like many employees did. Some lived close by, especially if they had non-wolf spouses, but Dana had always liked being right at the center of things. Her job was her life. It wasn’t just a job. It encompassed who she was, and she thought that what she did was meaningful. She helped people.
But she’d been living offsite for the past few months, during her leave. It had been her psychiatrist’s idea. When Dana told Chantal how tempted she was to go and see Cole, Chantal had suggested that for the time being, it might be easier if she was far away from him.
Now, she was back living in headquarters, and Cole was in the lowest level of headquarters, on the maximum security level. He was just an elevator ride away.
She took a deep breath, telling herself not to think about him, and began shoving her clothes into her drawers. She needed to keep busy. She didn’t need to take that elevator ride down to Cole’s level and use her access badge to see him. She didn’t want to see him anyway. He was a killer. He’d tried to murder her. He’d terrorized her. She never wanted to see him again.
Except Dana knew that she was lying to herself. Cole was all she thought about. She hated him, but she was drawn to him. He disgusted her, but he intrigued her.
Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she could still hear the hitch in his voice when he told her she was beautiful. Sometimes, she could swear she still felt his hands on her. Hands that had caressed her. Hands that had mutilated her. Hell, she had the scars. Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? And why did it make her clothes feel too tight every time that she did?
She needed a distraction, and the only thing that worked was physical exhaustion. Dana turned back to the drawer she’d been putting clothes in and rifled through it until she found a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. She threw the clothes on, and laced up a pair of tennis shoes.
The SF had a nice gym with varied machines. There were television screens there and music. And people.
Dana wanted to be alone.
She headed outside instead. She got the guy at the gate to let her out the first gate, and she ran between the two high chain-link fences that surrounded headquarters. It was early dark outside—twilight—and the air was cooling. There was a tiny bite to the breeze, chilling her nose. She knew she’d soon be sweating too much to feel the cold.
She started off at an even jog, steady and easy. She’d read about all the things that she’d been diagnosed with. She knew the drill. Stockholm syndrome. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Apparently, everything she was experiencing was normal for someone who’d been through a situation like she had.
But Dana couldn’t quite believe that. She knew that people who were kidnapped or captured sometimes came to sympathize with their captor. She’d read all about Patty Hearst and the SLA. Her situation with Cole didn’t seem very similar.
Chantal said that she shouldn’t give the thoughts of Cole what she called “a starring role” in her mind. “The thoughts are normal, but you know they’re irrational. Let them happen, but don’t engage with them. Accept them and move on. Eventually, they’ll go away when they see they aren’t bothering you, just like grade school bullies.”
A lovely idea in theory. More difficult when nearly every thought that crossed her brain had something to do with Cole. Even without engaging the thoughts, Cole still had a “starring role” in her mind.
The moon peered out from behind a cloud, bright, round and full. Like alw
ays, Dana felt the tug of it, its seductive pull on her wolf. That was probably why she’d had so much trouble today dealing with her beast. It had wanted to come out because of the moon. (Never mind the fact that she never used to have the problem of controlling the wolf on full moons, at least not before Cole.) There were three wolf moons a month—the full moon, and the days immediately before and after. Tonight was the true full moon. Last night had been the night before, but Arnold had still shifted. He’d given in, let the moon do what it wanted to him.
The moon gave Dana a cold, knowing grin. Shift, it whispered in Cole’s voice. Shift for me. You’re very beautiful, Dana. Shift for me.
Dana’s scar throbbed on her abdomen, pulsing with the beat of her heart. She picked up the pace, pumping her legs. Sometimes, she could run hard enough that she was too tired to think. She could push her body to the point where exertion was her only reality. It was the only time she had relief.
* * *
Her hair was pasted to her forehead with sweat, which was running down the back of her neck and over her forehead when she got back to her apartment. She shut the door after herself, and there was movement out of the corner of her eye.
She shrieked.
“It’s me.”
Avery. He was in the living room. All the staff apartments in headquarters were set up the same way. They opened onto a small kitchen, complete with a breakfast bar that jutted out from the wall, bisecting the kitchen area from the living room. Bedrooms were off the left or right of the living room, depending on whether the apartment was one, two, or three bedroom.
Avery was getting up from her couch, his hands up in surrender.
She put a hand to her chest. “Brooks. I didn’t... I wasn’t expecting...”
He made his way over to her. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He looked at the floor. “I guess I shouldn’t have let myself in. It’s just that I always used to walk right in.”
“It’s fine,” she said. She crossed to her refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. She sucked on it eagerly.
“You been working out?”
“No, I’ve been in a sauna.” But her joking tone didn’t come off quite right. She sounded a little too cutting, too sarcastic.
“You always used to work out in the mornings,” said Avery.
She guzzled the rest of the bottle of water. They said you weren’t supposed to drink it that fast for some reason or other, but she didn’t care right now. “I still do sometimes.” She wasn’t about to tell Avery that she sometimes went for a run five or six times a day. It depended on how hard it was to stop thinking about Cole. The more she ran, the more stamina she built up. The harder it was to exhaust herself. It was a vicious cycle.
Chantal said it was becoming a compulsion. She said Dana needed to confront her unwanted thoughts about Cole, not run from them.
Dana thought that was rich, since she was also not supposed to engage with them. Wasn’t confrontation engagement?
“Hope you didn’t wear yourself out too much,” he said. “We got a call.”
Dana wasn’t sure why she hadn’t been expecting that. The full moon was their busiest time. It was very rare for problems to happen at other parts of the month. Wolves couldn’t shift without the full moon. The SF spent most of the month playing catch up from the previous full moon.
She looked down at her sweaty self. “Right. Do I have time to jump in the shower?”
“You better,” said Avery, grinning. “You reek.”
She laughed.
“So, um, I’ll come back in ten minutes?”
“Oh, hang out,” she said. “You can tell me all about the case while I’m in the shower.”
Avery raised his eyebrows. “Um...”
She laughed again. “Relax, Brooks. I didn’t actually just ask you to shower with me.”
“Too bad,” he said.
It was her turn to raise her eyebrows. “You trying to flirt with me, Brooks? Maybe you like my sweat smell more that you let on, huh?” She darted into the bathroom and turned on the water.
“Trust me, you smell horrible,” called Avery.
She stuck her head out of the door. “Stand over here. Let me know what’s going on.”
Avery trundled over. “I can come back.”
“Am I making you feel uncomfortable?” She moved behind the door and began peeling off her clothes. The door was open a crack. She could see the back of Avery’s head. He was facing away from her.
“No,” he said. “Maybe a little bit like one of your slumber party girlfriends, though.”
She put a hand under the shower stream to test the temperature. “So, I’m emasculating you?”
A chuckle from Avery. “I really did miss you, Gray.”
She slipped behind the shower curtain, felt the water pelt her skin. “Me too. Now what’s this new case?”
“Supermarket,” said Avery. “It’s in upstate New York. They tried to shoot the wolf, but it just shook off the bullets like nothing. Called us right away. We’ll have to give them the final body tally.”
“Upstate? We’re going to be driving for hours.”
“Yeah,” said Avery. “I call iPod control on the way there.”
She laughed. “You know, you should start being more mature.”
“Whatever, Gray. You’re just annoyed because you didn’t call it first.”
She grabbed some shampoo and began soaping up her hair. “Man, a supermarket? Last night it’s a bar, tonight it’s the grocery store. What’s up with all these big public places? Bet there’s gonna be a high body count.”
“You know it,” said Avery. “More bad press for the SF.”
Generally speaking, rogues usually weren’t out and about when their first change hit them. There were symptoms before hand, a general feeling of unease and discomfort. Usually people thought they were coming down with a cold and stayed home. Of course, there were always those who ignored it and went about their business, which could have horrific results. For the rogue, Dana wasn’t sure which was worse. On the one hand, staying at home meant a rogue didn’t usually rip ten or twenty people to shreds. On the other hand, not being in public meant the people they did attack were usually their families and neighbors. A lower body count versus massacring a loved one. They both sucked.
She stuck her head out of the shower curtain. “Hey. Brooks. Thanks for staying with me while I shower.”
“No sweat,” he said.
“It’s hard to be alone sometimes,” she said. Especially when she was naked.
“Gray...”
“Don’t say anything,” she said. “Seriously.” She didn’t want his sympathy. Before, they’d never had a friendship like that. They’d always been buddies, and they’d never taken anything too seriously.
He was quiet, and there was no noise except the water rushing over her skin, hitting the linoleum.
“I could kill him, you know.” Avery’s voice sounded different. There wasn’t any of his general joking anymore. “I could go down there at night. I have an access badge. I could squeeze the life out of him.”
She thrust her face under the water. It wasn’t as if Cole didn’t deserve it. But would he go away, leave her alone, if he were dead? Dana had a feeling he’d hang on.
CHAPTER THREE
Six months ago, Dana awoke to pain. Screaming points of it. Her neck. Her arms. Her torso. She couldn’t feel her hands, and as she stirred into wakefulness, she realized it was because they were chained above her head. She was somewhere dimly lit. Concrete slab walls, a poured-concrete floor with a drain in the middle of it. She stood upright, her arms and legs both shackled. Her clothing was drenched in blood, the collar of her shirt dried stiff with it.
She screamed.
A light came on.
Dana realized she was in a basement. There was a set of stairs on the other side of the room, leading up to a door. It opened, and Cole appeared. He started down the steps. “You’re awake.”
/> Dana shuddered. She’d been blind. No part of her had ever thought to suspect Cole of something like this. Cole was intelligent, gentle. Squeamish even. She remembered the way he’d reacted to the carnage of their high school gymnasium, the revulsion in his eyes. The terror. How could Cole be the killer she’d been looking for?
But she had to admit that it fit, didn’t it? She had thought that she and Cole fit the killer’s victim profile. Now, it was obvious that the victim profile was based on her and Cole. He was sick, obsessed with their past, and it had warped his brain somehow.
So why wasn’t she dead?
The killer didn’t usually take his time with his victims. He tore them to pieces in one violent episode. The trackers couldn’t be sure, of course, because the killer obscured the evidence, washing his victims down thoroughly, ridding them of his scent and anything else he might have left on them before dumping them. But examining the evidence meant they were reasonably certain.
If she was to be the next victim, she shouldn’t be alive.
Cole crossed the room to her. He clasped his hands together and made an apologetic face, as if he was expressing his regrets for leaving a dinner party too early. “I’m so sorry, Dana.”
She thought she might start crying. He was crazy. He was completely, absolutely insane.
“I’m having trouble killing you,” he said, his tone regretful. “I meant to do it. I really did. But... I couldn’t.”
Maybe there was something human in him yet. Maybe she could talk to him. Didn’t they always say that you should try to make sociopaths see you as a person, not an object? “My hands are numb. Everything hurts. I’m very scared. Please unchain me. Let me go, Cole. You know me. We’re friends.”
“I might unchain you at some point,” said Cole. “I haven’t decided yet.” He took his glasses off and cleaned them, looking flustered. “I really meant to get it over with right away. But seeing you again...” He drew in a noisy breath.
“You’re hurting me,” she tried. “People are worried about me. People—”
“Did you tell anyone you were coming to see me?”
She hadn’t. Dear God, she hadn’t told anyone. She’d called Avery and left a message on his phone, only saying she thought she’d nailed down a profile for the killer, not telling him any specifics. No one else knew. Should she lie? If he thought they were coming, what would he do? “I told everyone. They all know where I am.”