Secret of the Wolf(10)

"Ammonia, too? Dante didn't mention that."

"Dante? MacMillan?" At her affirmation, Ash asked, "What the hell is MacMillan doing getting involved with something in District Four? He's based out of District Two." His scowl deepened. "Like you."

"Don't get your panties in a wad," Tori muttered. "Some cop named Rivera called him this morning about Barry, wondering if it could be the same guy. I told Dante I'd talk to you."

"Uh-huh." A look crossed his face she couldn't quite decipher. "Rivera's getting desperate, too. His boss probably gave him the same ass-chewing I got from mine."

Tori hunched forward and rested her chin on her fists. "So, why hasn't a BOLO gone out on this?"

"A BOLO that says what? Be on the lookout for a werewolf who's biting people?" He rolled his eyes and then stared up at the ceiling, his head on the back of the sofa. "There's no fur, no hair, no fiber, no nothing. It's like he's wrapped in plastic, for God's sake."

That set Tori's brain whirling. How would a werewolf, or even a human for that matter, keep from leaving bits of himself at a crime scene? Little booties would mask shoe prints. Latex gloves would hide fingerprints. But what about hair and skin cells? People shed hair and skin at a fairly rapid rate. For a crime scene to have none of that …  "Maybe he was wrapped in plastic," she mused out loud. "Or … he shaved?"

Ash seemed to consider that seriously. "Well, if he shaved all over, head to toes, he'd have no hair to lose. But humans and prets alike shed something like fifty thousand skin cells a day. Even if he was already in his wolf form, well, there'd be fur, wouldn't there?"

"You'd think so." Tori drew in a breath and held it a moment, rolling things over in her mind. Finally she shook her head in defeat. "I don't know what to tell you, Ash. It doesn't make any sense."

"Thank you! That's what I was trying to tell them," he said with a gesture in the general direction of the main chamber. "Not that they listened."

"Yes, well, they often don't, do they?" Tori pushed to her feet. "I'll let you know if I hear anything."

"Thanks." Ash stood as well and raised his arms above his head in a stretch. "Let's just hope someone else doesn't take a page out of this guy's book and decide to do the same thing in another quadrant." He shot her a dark look. "Maybe yours."

Tori walked out of the building, Ash's last words tumbling around in her mind. And she was struck by one thought: Why had the werewolf decided on District Four? Why not the other quads? What was so special about the north?

                       
       
           



       Chapter Five



The next morning Dante carried his travel mug of coffee out to the stables. Monsoon season was in full swing and while they wouldn't see any rain until later in the day, the humidity was already in the fifties and climbing. He was used to humidity in the teens, or lower, so this was nearly unbearable, especially when coupled with triple-digit heat. But he couldn't forgo his morning cup of coffee. Setting hierews mug on one of the flat-top rails, he pulled out his smartphone and re-read the e-mail Tori had sent him yesterday.

Ash said the suspect uses a lot of ammonia at the scene so determining his scent is impossible. The ammonia temporarily fries the olfactory sensors in the nose. I was able to check Barry's alibis for the dates in question, and he checks out. He's not the guy. Unknown suspect remains at large.

After he'd gotten the e-mail, Dante had called and left a message for Rivera, letting him know what Tori had reported. He could imagine the other detective's disappointment. And dread. Since Barry wasn't the suspect in the "werewolf incidents," as Captain Scott called them, that meant there was another attack coming.

His Appaloosa nickered, obviously impatient for his grooming to begin. Dante put his phone away and picked up the rubber curry. "All right, Benny. All right." He'd fed the horses about two hours ago, and this brushing was a weekend ritual he and Big Ben both looked forward to. On the other hand, his buckskin quarter horse, unlike the Appaloosa, merely tolerated being groomed, so he always got his grooming last. Even the little burro who acted as stable mascot enjoyed being brushed, but the quarter horse had his nose in his feed bucket, trying to get every last little nugget that might still be in there.

As Dante got started with slow circular motions of the curry on Ben's neck, he reflected on yesterday's incident. He was torn between feeling just a little aggrieved at being called out on a drunk and disorderly and feeling somewhat relieved that it hadn't been anything more serious.

The vampire slayings he'd investigated earlier in the year had been gruesome, so much so that the images still scrolled through his mind every now and again. And while he, Tobias, and Nix knew who had been behind the murders and why, they hadn't been able to make that particular report because of the uncertainty of the players' identities. He and his friends had been victorious in the end and had managed to get their hands on the device the bad guys were using to communicate through the rift. But having been informed that some of the council members were at the very least aware of those communications and had seemingly been doing nothing about it had added a level of danger that made this particular tightrope hazardous to traverse.

In the end, they'd all decided that for the moment no one but the three of them-and later, Tori-needed to know they had the device, or that there even was a device. For now, the official report was that the slayings had been related to a group of rogue preternaturals but the motivation was unclear.

Tobias had held onto the apparatus and corresponding schematics, waiting for things to cool down. He'd given them to Tori within the last several days, asking her to look it over and see if she could figure out how it worked. But he hadn't told her where he'd gotten it or from whom.

Dante had been itching to look it over, too, but he had held his tongue. This was more of a pret issue than it was a human one. And he trusted Tobias to do the right thing. If the new council member felt Dante needed to be brought into things, he'd call.

So Dante told himself to be patient. He'd soon enough get a chance to see inside that thing. And a chance to work with Tori on something unrelated to being a city detective.

Not that he should be looking forward to spending more time with her. She was a temptation he just didn't have the luxury of giving in to right now. Because he knew as surely as he breathed that once he had a taste, it would be impossible to walk away.

Deciding he didn't want to think about that now, Dante forced himself to concentrate on grooming his horse. He let himself be calmed by the motions and soon was lost in the rhythm of n te rhyththe process.

He'd just picked up a towel to wipe down Big Ben in the final step of grooming when his sister, Liliana, walked into the stables.

"How are my boys doing today?" she asked.

The burro brayed and shoved his head over the gate of his stall. Lily stopped and scratched his forehead, grinning when he draped his chin across her shoulder. "Hello, Sugar," she greeted.

Dante noticed his sister looked a little pale this morning. He turned away before she could catch him staring, and he sighed, making sure the sound was vexed without any trace of the concern he really felt. "I don't know why you insisted on givin' him that sappy name."

"Don't you listen to him," she crooned to the burro. "Sugarplum is a perfectly acceptable name for a sweet boy like you." She glanced at Dante, mischief dancing in her dark eyes. "Besides, who's the softie who adopted him from a Bureau of Land Management roundup three years ago?"

"Only because you wouldn't stop pestering me about it."

"Uh-huh." She let Sugarplum nuzzle her palm. "Look at this face. How could anyone resist it?"

Dante finished up with Ben and draped the towel over the top railing of the stall. He patted the gelding on the side of the neck and closed the gate behind him. Handing his sister the curry comb, he said, "Why don't you groom this refugee from the glue factory while I take care of Stud over there?"

Sugarplum hee-hawed again.

"See? He wants it." Dante walked over to the equipment storage area and grabbed another curry. As he went into the quarter horse's stall, he asked, "How can you say no?"

She stuck her tongue out at him but went into the stall with the little burro. "Okay, sweetie. Let's get you clean."

Two hours later Dante put all the grooming equipment back in storage while Lily gave each of the horses a few slices of apple she'd had in a plastic baggie tucked away in one of her pockets. She gave Sugarplum a carrot and another scratch on his forehead. As she walked toward Dante, her shoe caught on a rough patch of cement and she stumbled.

Dante rushed forward, stopping at her glare. "What? I'm supposed to let you fall?"

She shot him a look. "Of course not. But even if I did fall, I'm not some fragile little thing you need to keep wrapped in cotton." As she walked toward him she muttered, "I can take care of myself."

"I know you can." He kept his voice gentle. He knew how hard she'd found it to have to rely on him while she went through chemo and then radiation treatments for her breast cancer. But the stress of a divorce right after her diagnosis had sent her into a tailspin. Dante understood that her ill-humor was not directed at him so much as at her circumstances. "But having family means you don't have to."