Cerulean Sins( Anita Blake - 11 )(170)

I set the arm aside and went back to where I'd found it. My hand sunk in a little farther this time, and I pulled out a nearly meatless bone. It didn't look like a piece of person, so I didn't think of it that way. I just looked at it as if I'd found an animal in the woods and was trying to figure out what had eaten it. Big teeth, lots of crushing strength. Very few real predators had this kind of bone-cracking strength, but most lycanthropes did. I doubted that some hyena had escaped from the zoo to rampage in a suburban bathroom.

I let the bone drift back into the water, slowly, easing it down, because for some reason I really didn't want it to splash on me.

I turned away from the bathtub, walked carefully to the doorway, stripped off the gloves, threw them in the sack that Zerbrowski held open for me, leaned against the doorjamb, removed the booties, threw them into the garbage sack, stepped out of that awful room, and kept walking until I hit the bedroom.

The air seemed cleaner, more breathable here.

Zerbrowski followed me out, and it was Merlioni who said, "She did it, didn't she?"

"Yep."

Merlioni made a sort of crowing sound. "I knew it, I won."

I looked at him, then at Zerbrowski. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

Zerbrowski didn't even look embarrassed when he said, "We had a bet going on whether you'd actually fish around in the tub."

I sighed and shook my head. "You are all such unmitigated bastards."

"Unmitigated, ooh," said Merlioni, "if you use big words to insult us, Blake, we'll never figure it out."

I looked back at Zerbrowski. "It's a shape-shifter. I don't know if it's the same one. The first vic was done in her bed. Was the second?" He nodded. "This was in the bath, and there's at least two bodies cut up in the bathtub."

"Why two?" Zerbrowski asked.

"Because the pile is too damn high to be only one woman's body, especially since he ate parts of it."

"You say 'he,' like you know."

I shook my head. "I don't know, but I'm assuming male, because you don't find many women willing to do this kind of shit. It happens, but it's rare."

"We actually got a witness that the woman who owns the house and another girlfriend were seen entering the residence at about 2 A.M." Zerbrowski had his eyes closed, as if he were quoting. "They appeared drunk, and there was a man with him."

"You have a witness?" I asked.

"If the man who brought them home is the shape-shifter, and not part of what is in the bathtub, yeah."

I hadn't thought about that. "He could be in the tub. By the way, why is the water so deep, why isn't the overflow valve working?"

"Our rookie says a piece of body has been stuffed into the valve."

I shivered. "No wonder he freaking threw up."

"I lost on that one," Merlioni said.

"Lost on what?" I asked.

"Most of us bet you'd be sick."

"Who bet I wouldn't be?"

Zerbrowski cleared his throat. "Me."

"What did you win?"

"Dinner for two at Tony's."

"What did you win for me fishing in the tub?" I asked Merlioni.

"Money," he said.

I shook my head. "I hate you all." I started for the door.

"Wait, we got one more bet," Merlioni said, "who was the chickie on the phone when Zerbrowski woke you?"

I was about to let loose a scathing comment, when a voice from the door stopped me. "Haven't seen anything this bad since New Mexico?"

I turned to find my favorite FBI agent in the doorway. Special Agent Bradley Bradford smiled and offered me his hand.





55




Bradley was with the Special Research Section; it was a new division set up to handle preternatural crime. We'd last worked together on some very gruesome murders in New Mexico.

I took his firm handshake and gave one of my own. He smiled, and I think we were both actually glad to see each other. But his gaze swept the room until he found Zerbrowski. "Sergeant Zerbrowski, you must be living right."

Zerbrowski moved towards us. "What do you mean, Agent Bradford?"

He held up a slender manila folder. "There's a store across the street from the club where the two women went to last night. The store got robbed last year and put in a very nice surveillance system."

All the joking was gone; Zerbrowski was very serious all of a sudden. "And?"

"They caught a picture of a man matching the neighbor's description with the two women last night. They walked right past the store window." He opened the folder. "I took the liberty of getting a still made."

"And passed it to all of your men," Merlioni said.

"No, detective, this is the only copy, and I brought it here first."