Chapter One
It was the end of his shift, and Ethan Wolfe was exhausted. He’d worked a double at the fire station so his buddy could be home for his sick wife, and now, Ethan had to grab a quick shower in the locker room and get into his forest ranger gear before heading out for the day.
Being a firefighter was something he’d wanted to do since he was a kid. Hell, what little boy didn’t want to be a fireman at some point? As he’d grown older, he’d discovered an intense love of nature, as well. This wasn’t merely because he was a werewolf. No, it went further than that.
His brothers picked on him, calling him a “tree-hugging hippie” whenever he went off on a lecture about how the litter left by campers was harming the animals in the woods or how they needed to tear down some of the old hunting cabins that were abandoned or uninhabitable. They just didn’t see the dangers those things could cause innocent creatures who lived in the…
Huh, so maybe, he did kinda sound like a hippie.
Once showered, Ethan approached his locker and prepared himself for whatever today’s joke might be. As he opened it, he noticed the centerfold picture of a beautiful, tanned woman stretched out on satin sheets in a very provocative pose. It would have been sexy if his picture hadn’t been glued to her face.
The guys had been ribbing him for weeks over the stupid photo shoot he would be supervising out in the woods. They all insisted he should just go for it and accept the invitation to model. Being from a small town, they all were eager to see the models when they arrived and had been hounding him, asking if he needed any help or offering to keep an eye on things while he was being photographed.
Ethan still had no intention of allowing himself to be plastered, half-naked, in pictures for women to gawk at, though the thought of seeing some of the female models posing was enough to get any red-blooded male’s fantasies going.
However, the annoying little photographer had been harassing him constantly since his brothers Abraham and Erik’s weddings, mailing calendars and magazines to him for the last few weeks as samples of his work. This particular photo shoot was to have a rugged outdoors theme and would be sold nationwide for use in various advertisements. They were looking for sexy women and rugged men to pose in various settings…and that little pest was still hounding him.
Ethan groaned, truly hating the thought of having to oversee what would surely end up causing him an ulcer.
Hell, he didn’t even think it was possible for a werewolf to get an ulcer!
* * * *
Lacy Anders regretted taking this assignment almost as soon as she’d been tapped for it, but her commanding officer insisted she was the only one in the department who could pull this off.
Recently, the cold case had been reopened. For years, a serial killer had been killing models then he’d suddenly disappeared. Now, five years later, the murders had begun again. It was the same “accidental” deaths, the same model types and the same time of year. The higher ups were positively foaming at the mouth for the chance to finally apprehend him.
This was why Lacy was currently being ushered into a quaint little house, in the small Mayberry-ish town of Hastings, with the rest of the models. Luckily, they’d been able to rent out the only local hotel and this little house for the next two weeks. This would make it easier for her to protect the female models while her partner covered the males.
The killer always targeted brunette models. Gender didn’t seem to matter, though there was a pattern to the killings, two female, one male, two female, one male. If their reports were accurate, the next victim would be a man, and since all of the attacks had previously taken place at outdoor shoots—and this was the only one happening for the next two weeks—all she needed to do was play her part as a model and hope she caught the bastard before he killed again.
There were only four female models and four male models for this shoot, so keeping tabs on the women shouldn’t be too difficult for Lacy, though a few seemed to be more than a little flighty. All of them were currently flouncing around the house in their thigh-length robes while various beauticians waited to do anything from mani/pedis, facials, hair, spray tan or massage.
Ugh, she’d kill for a good rub down right about now, but she needed to slink off and call in a report. Slipping out the back door, she dug her phone from her robe pocket and dialed in, not at all surprised when the chief answered on the first ring.
“How’s my favorite centerfold doing? Blending with the natives, I hope.”
Lacy usually found his rumbling baritone voice soothing, but today, all she wanted to do was wrap her hands around his throat until he couldn’t utter one more smart-assed comment. It wasn’t as if she didn’t get enough of that crap from the other officers who treated her like their kid sister, picking on her, although in a good-natured way.