Wolves of Haven: Lone (12 page)

Something vibrating pulled his
attention to the nightstand. Without thinking about the
repercussions, he answered Akia’s cell phone.

“Good morning,” Faelan cheerfully
greeted, keeping his voice down.

“Um…who in the hell is this?”
Damian asked.

Faelan purred. “Ooh, are you the
one that smells so damn good?” he asked. “You know, I expected my
baby sister to have a hot piece of ass on the side, she deserves
it,” he continued, “but never did I imagine that she’d have a hot
piece of ass that smells so damn good or dresses so damn well.
Valentino, really?”

Damian wasn’t sure what to say.
“I’m guessing this is Fae.”

He purred in delight. “You’ve heard
of me, I’m touched…if you want, you can touch as well.”

Damian groaned. “Is your sister
available?”

“Passed out still,” Faelan
admitted. “She had a rough night, two days without sleep, sudden
loss of appetite, showered then passed out with a cell phone in
hand. I’m curious,” he said, “she hasn’t mentioned you. Are you a
mysterious lover?”

“Excuse me?” Damian said, not
about to say anything more than that. He knew of Faelan only
because Akia and he crossed paths at a hotel when she was
investigating a double homicide two years ago. Faelan was there for
a baking competition, and she was there for the bodies. She spent a
few nights with her brother at her place in the retirement
community playing catch up, and when he went back to Seattle, Akia
opened up and told Damian of her precious
Ginger Bear
, as she called that
particular brother. “Will you have her call in when she wakes
up?”

“I’m still curious,” Faelan said,
as if he didn’t grasp that Damian was trying to get off the phone
with him, “the shirt my baby sister is wearing has to be yours;
custom tailored Valentino is rather pricey.”

He tried not to, but Damian smiled.
Akia took one of his dress shirts to sleep in, so she could be
surrounded by his scent, since he wasn’t there to sleep
with.

“And Gucci, grrr,” Faelan
continued. “I love a man that smells good enough to eat. Are you
sure you aren’t batting for my team? Because I would love to play
catcher for a hottie with excellent taste in designers and
cologne,” he teasingly sang. “Ooh, let me guess; tall, blond, dark
eyes, Scandinavian descent, never smiles or jokes around. Am I
right?”

Damian shook his head; he was none
of the above, and it made him curious as to why Faelan would
automatically assume that he was, unless… “Is that what your baby
sister likes?” he asked the obvious, fighting to sound as
nonchalant and indifferent as possible, but the possessiveness
biting at him nearly caused him to growl.

Faelan sounded contemplative. “I’m
not sure, I thought so since… Never mind. I’m a redheaded bear
hailing from Ireland yet can bake as if I’m French. Interested in a
Ginger Bear that doesn’t mind being a bottom, or a top if you want
to switch?”

“No,” Damian said in a clipped
tone. “Let Lieutenant de Wolfe know that Captain Nikas called and
has a possible identification of her Doe,” he said then hung
up.

Faelan looked from the phone to his
sleeping sister many times before he groaned. “Someone has some
major explaining to do,” he said in disbelief.

“What are you bitching about now?”
Akia asked, groggily as she stretched out and rubbed the sleep from
her eyes.

He smiled, waving the cell phone at
her. “I might have gotten you fired. Oops, my bad,” he said in a
teasing, singsong tone.

She didn’t appear surprised or
concerned, and that only confirmed what he was already thinking.
“I’ll deal with it later. Was there anything in particular that he
wanted?”

Faelan huffed; that wasn’t the
response he was hoping for. “Give him a call. I’m assuming he’s the
hot piece of ass that you stole the fabulous shirt
from.”

Again, she was completely level and
indifferent.

“It’s a nice thread count and feels
great against my tits, what can I say?” Akia said with a shrug,
snatching the phone from him. “Huh, he called a few minutes ago.
Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I was too busy flirting with him,”
Faelan said, and she laughed. “What can I say? I haven’t even seen
him, but his taste in clothing and cologne makes my big bone
tingle,” he said in a deep voice with a heavy gay lisp.

Akia shook her head in resignation.
“Trust me, you aren’t his type.”

“But he’s yours,” he
sang.

She smirked but didn’t deny
it.

Faelan’s eyes widened and mouth
fell open with a popping sound. “O-M-G you have to tell me
everything! Every last kinky, sticky, sweaty, sexy detail…mainly
those about the hot bod he has to have in order to fill out the
measurements of that shirt, and the impressive cock he has to
match.”

Akia shook her head then leaned up
and kissed him softly on the lips. “I don’t kiss and tell, unlike
some horny dogs I know,” she whispered with a mischievous sparkle
in her eyes. “And you won’t be burying your bone anywhere near what
is mine,” she tauntingly sang before tackling him back to the
bed.

Akia looked at the gathered
officers and government officials that were filling the bullpen of
the small police station. She hated being front and center. She
hated attention in general, but when she was the lead on a case
there was no way around it. The identity of the fifth body proved
to be a nightmare in the making. There was a reason why Damian was
able to find the identity without a picture, DNA, or dental
records. The information on age, size, race, and the calluses on
her fingers lead him to the front page of the Boston Globe and the
headline: Progeny and Heiress Missing.

Inspector Pierre joined her,
standing in front of the group with an air of superiority about
him. “Thank you for waiting-” he started.

“Shut it!” Commissioner de Rue of
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police interrupted. “If you open your
mouth one more time, you’ll be in a holding cell next,” he
warned.

Once the identity of the fifth
victim was confirmed, officials from both sides of the border got
involved. Out of respect for the families of each victim, no
official media release has been issued, and each of those involved
in the case are being tightlipped in fear of repercussions and the
deep pockets of the fifth victim’s family.

The family of Arianna Winterfeld,
the only child of Boston real estate mogul William Winterfeld the
Third, demanded that the United States government get involved in
the case when he came to claim the body. That demand, in turn,
caused the RCMP to get involved. When Mr. Winterfeld was informed
by Superintendent Manning of the Boston Police Department that his
best was already on the case, and after dropping the long list of
cases Akia had closed in her career, the mogul demanded that
Lieutenant de Wolfe stay on the case as the American liaison and
lead detective.

Pierre said no way in hell, but
when Commissioner de Rue walked through the door with official
documents in hand, the look on the older man’s face made it more
than obvious that he was pissed off and would take it out on the
first to cross him. Pierre knew he was on the way out of the
investigation, so he was shutting up, for the most part, in order
to stay in the know since it was, without question, the biggest
case of his career.

“Lieutenant,” Commissioner de Rue
said in a clipped tone, motioning for Akia to start the
briefing.

Akia nodded. “Thank you, Sir. I’ll
skip the formalities and get right to it. What we are dealing with
is a serial killer that is trying to cover his crimes by making
them appear as if they are animal attacks.”

One of the officers raised their
hand. “There were hairs consistent with a wolf on two of the
bodies,” Officer Paquette argued without being called
on.

Akia nodded. “Yes, there were,” she
agreed.

“And that doesn’t seem odd to you?”
he pressed. “Nowhere in your report and profile has a wolf or
animal been mentioned. Does he own a wolf? Does he do something
that requires him to be around wolves? Maybe he’s one of those
handlers from up in Montreal?” he argued.

“The wolves at the Montreal habitat
are not the same species of wolf, thus they were not a match,” she
explained.

“You can’t know that already,”
Paquette said, his voice raising.

“The foremost expert in canine
pathology and psychology has confirmed that the hairs found on the
bodies are from a breed that is not common in these parts, or on
this continent even,” Akia assured all of them. “The division of
the Jeffersonian that Dr. Michele Arberdeen works for is a
benefactor of the Winterfeld Natural Resources and Sciences grant,
which supports the work of more than a dozen departments at the
Jeffersonian in Washington D.C., and because of that generosity,
Dr. Arderdeen was more than happy to drop everything and assist
with the case. It is in the opinion of Dr. Arderdeen, and that of
the Jeffersonian, which I am in complete agreement with, a wolf, or
wolves, were not responsible for these deaths.”

“You can’t be serious,” he scoffed.
“What are you? Some animal lover that can’t handle the thought of a
precious four-legged beast of God killing people?!” he
sneered.

Officer Leclair absently smacked
him. “Relax,” he said, “not everyone has a hug a tree mentality for
God’s critters like the animal rights groups that we have to arrest
every summer for chaining themselves to trees. I’m sure the Lead
has a reason why the wolf element is being excluded from the
profile.”

Akia nodded; she liked Leclair
because he said very little, paid attention, when something didn’t
make sense he asked questions instead of simply assuming, and when
he did speak without being prompted by a question, it was always
asked with a sense of levelheadedness and was well thought out.
“You are correct, Leclair. It is in my professional opinion that
they were staged to look like animal attacks. Four years ago there
was a case in the Great White North where the perp was guising his
murders by mutilating the victims postmortem with gloves that were
fashioned from the paws and claws of bears. It wasn’t until the
fourth victim that the M.E. was able to deduce that they weren’t
animal attacks. The perp had lost the tip of the knife used to kill
his last victim in the ribcage and then tried to retrieve it,
without success. That led to a new profile and the apprehension of
the Kodiak Killer.”

They nodded their understanding.
They would never admit it, but the small police department’s staff
was in awe over the level of knowledge the young woman had in
serial killers and her professionalism, something they never saw
from the Inspector.

“At this time I am confident in
stating that the perp is a white male between the ages of
twenty-five and forty-five; he is impulsive but learning patience
with each kill; educated but secondary education he most likely
either dropped out of due to inability to focus, perhaps finding it
much too tiring to concentrate on academia, or forfeited it all
together; most likely he is single, however we cannot rule out that
he is married and in what would be considered a relationship that
doesn’t hold his interest; he has knowledge of the area and
survival tactics; and he has knowledge of counter forensic
measures, which means he might have law enforcement experience, or
some type of correlation or relationship with law
enforcement.”

That got many murmurs.

“These are not crimes of passion or
sexually motivated,” Akia continued. “The perp is crossing gender
and race barriers, as well as mixing it up, in a matter of
speaking, by varying the age of the victims, thus causing us to not
have a clear and precise victimology.”

“That isn’t normal?” Leclair asked,
taking extensive notes.

She shook
her head; typically she wouldn’t humor someone that just blurted
out questions instead of waiting to be called on, but she admired
his eager to solve the case mentality: she could relate. “No.
Sadly, when sociopaths are involved nothing is normal. However,
statistically speaking, vary rarely do serial killers cross the
lines of gender, race, age, and so forth. From anyone looking from
the outside, if this was a bigger area like Toronto, Montreal, or
even Boston for that matter, these crimes wouldn’t have been
linked, even with the animal attack aspect. Victim two,” she
pointed to the picture of the victim on the board, “was a local
that was known of but not known in the least, on this very island
and town. The second victim suffered from near debilitating
anthropophobia and haphephobia: fear of society or people, and the
fear of being touched. That caused her to be a shut in that rarely
left her home, so that means the perp is either local,” she said
and whispers of disbelief filled the crowded bullpen, “or the perp
happened to have come across a shut in that never left her house.
If that’s the case, we have to ask ourselves where would the perp
and victim have crossed paths?”