Wolves of Haven: Lone (27 page)

Why was He in Haven of all places?
Was he trying to acquire again? Better yet, how did he survive the
last time they met?

“What’s going on?” Varg demanded,
tired of the silence.

Damian pushed his hand through his
hair, struggling to keep from lashing out. “There is a werewolf,
one that is evil on levels that you have never seen before, that
you never knew existed, and that has been blackening the history of
our kind for centuries. According to historians, he had no origins,
no pack, no blood ties to our species, and yet he infiltrated packs
with bloodlines hundreds of generations strong and single handedly
decimated them. He has no face, no prints, no voice, and yet his
scent carries with it a signature you cannot deny
exists.”

Connell pulled his hands over his
face. “Who is he?” he asked. “Is he the Master, and the Stray is
simply his Apprentice?”

Damian shook his head; Akia was
right, the fourth was different. It was when He took the Stray
under his guidance that the killings were refined and progressed so
drastically. “He has no Apprentices; there is no one that can match
his level of darkness. He only has toys, puppets if you will, that
he manipulates, plays with, and then when they no longer serve his
purpose they are disposed of. Everything is expendable to him,
everything. He has been referred to by many names throughout
history. To most he is simply called the Puppet Master, but to
those that survived and severed the strings, he is
Moriarty.”

“And you know this how?” Connell
whispered, struggling to swallow the lump in his throat.

“Because I was one of the few that
survived,” Damian said in a tone so level that it caused chills to
creep across Varg and Connell’s skin.

****

Pierre paced in front of the desk
the blue-haired young man was working at, his long, pale fingers
moving over the keyboard faster than the Inspector had ever seen
someone’s fingers move before. Ulrik was able to easily retrieve
the files, and while he read through the reports that were
compromised, trying to figure out why they were worth deleting, he
dove deeper into the system and tried to connect the dots that Akia
had the faith that he’d connect for her. As it was, at the moment,
he had more data then he knew what to make sense of, but he was
confident that Damian and Akia would be able to figure it out, so
he kept pulling and compiling it.

When the door opened, everyone but
Ulrik turned to regard the three that hurried in.

“What do you have?” Damian
demanded, shrugging out of his suit jacket.

“Printer,” Ulrik said; the printed
reports from the bodyguards of the fourth were waiting for
him.

“Where’s de Wolfe and Paquette?” he
demanded, quickly reading over the report.

“He’s in a holding cell under
suspicion of evidence tampering and possibly these murders, and
your shadow went to get coffee with Leclair,” Pierre said. He asked
that same question once Paquette was in a holding cell. “It’s nice
of you to-”

“Shut up,” Damian snapped at him.
“According to both of Winterfeld’s guards, the Cadillac Escalade
hybrid they were driving was filled with gas on the mainland before
heading to the Island for sightseeing at the victim’s request.
Twenty-five gallon capacity at twenty-three miles per gallon, they
traveled only a hundred miles on their adventure, using
approximately six gallons of the twenty-five, and yet they had to
fill up again on the Island and that is when Miss Winterfeld was
taken.”

“And that means what?” Varg
asked.

“Someone made sure that they would
have to stop for gas,” Damian said. “The gas was siphoned somewhere
along their trip when the vehicle was unattended. That forced them
to stop to refuel. One of the guards called it in to their security
detail back at the hotel, requesting that they schedule the
Escalade for maintenance because of a possible faulty fuel sensor.
Both guards confirmed that they were not the ones that fueled the
vehicle prior to the trip, that was an assistant in their motor
pool, but the receipt in their records would have confirmed that it
was filled… The receipt book was unaccounted for when the
responding Officers did a sweep of the vehicle.”

Why her?
Damian wondered.
Arianna Winterfeld
was weak. She couldn’t have fought him off; Moriarty would have
known that from the smell of her. The medications were very
noticeable. Was that why the Stray, his child of the moment, took
his frustration out on the young woman’s body, or was that just
adding to the severity of the situation and crime? Going after
someone that was known in the human world like that was extremely
risky, but it was suicidal to go after the sole heir of a werewolf
and mogul like William Winterfeld the Third. Arianna was the very
last person any werewolf would go after. That alone
would…

“Oh fuck,” he choked, understanding
washing over him.

“What is it?” Connell
asked.

“Ha!” Ulrik shouted, throwing his
arms in the air in triumph. “You thought you could hide from me,
but I’m better.”

“What’d you find, Kid?” Varg asked,
very concerned about Damian’s response to whatever he just figured
out and Akia’s absence.

Ulrik hit print then hurried over
to the map. “That black push pin I couldn’t figure out. It was the
weight station, but I couldn’t connect the dots. According to the
reports on the server, the ridiculously detailed report, the truck
driver had no connection to the Island. But that isn’t true. Four
months ago that driver crossed paths with an officer from the
mainland.”

“What does that have to do with the
Island?” Connell asked the obvious.

Ulrik pulled the pile of papers off
of the printer. “Weight stations record the load and hours logged
for a driver, but they also log how many passengers. That truck
driver had multiple passengers over the course of his career; men,
women, it didn’t matter. I don’t think he was trafficking, I think
he was simply picking up hitchhikers!” he said excitably, feeling
like a detective all of a sudden.

“So it was one of those hitchhikers
that killed him?” Pierre asked, skeptically.

“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “But
that isn’t what I’m getting at. That truck driver was pulled over
and given a warning ticket for a plate that was unreadable due to
grime from the road. The Officer documented that the truck had a
male passenger with identification. That I.D. was for a Simone
Matisse of British Columbia.”

“Matisse is our guy?” Pierre
surmised, not entirely sure where the young man’s train of thought
was going.

“No, not unless he’s a pissed off
ghost,” Ulrik said with a chuckle. “Matisse’s body was found three
months ago in Lac La Plonge, Saskatchewan. According to the M.E. he
had been dead for six months or more. There was no way that Matisse
was the guy in the truck with the first victim.” He hurried over to
the white board that was covered with the pictures of the victims
and stuck the photo of Simone Matisse from the system on the
board.

They looked at the picture
curiously; the man looked familiar but they couldn’t say
why.

“What connects the two?” Varg
asked.

“That is what I’m getting to!”
Ulrik beamed and flipped through the papers he had printed out.
“The Officer that wrote the first victim the warning for the plate
was none other than RCMP: East Prince Detachment, Officer… Oh
fuck,” he gasped, looking up from the photo and report to
Damian.

****

Akia looked at her nearly empty
coffee. “Are you sure this isn’t decaf?” she asked through a yawn,
her eyes getting ridiculously heavy. Obviously she was more
exhausted than she realized because she simply sat in the vehicle
at the sixth’s dumpsite and sucked down two quad lattes while
Leclair walked the area. Now she was on her third latte, but it
wasn’t helping to wake her up in the least. “I don’t remember
Canadian espresso being so weak,” she mumbled, shaking her head to
clear it.

Leclair chuckled, flexing his
fingers on his right hand, trying to work the stiffness out of
them. “It isn’t decaf, but you’re most likely feeling the effects
of the Rohypnol by now,” he said with a smile.

She went for her sidearm but he was
quicker and his fist slammed into Akia’s face, smashing her head
into the side windows, shattering the glass, and she slumped over
unconscious.

“That took longer than I thought it
would,” he said in a singsong tone, searching her pockets for her
phone and gun. He tossed both out the window as he sped down the
highway. “This will be fun! Master will be very pleased that I have
found a replacement, one that will give a superior species and
gender, that she feels she’s above, the respect and praise they
deserve. She’ll be begging for me to kill her before I’m done with
her,” he said, pulling off of the highway and onto an overgrown
trail that was barely visible from the road.

****

“What we are dealing with,” Damian
said, trying to keep his head on straight, but he was on the verge
of losing it, “is what is called a Changeling. This type of killer
takes the identities of those that look similar to him, typically
have no families or relationships thus no one will miss them,
someone that’s absence would be easily undetected and not
questioned. Officer Leclair,” he said, pointing to the picture that
Ulrik was able to retrieve from the compromised personnel files of
a smiling man at the police academy, “was the same build, height,
race, and had the same hair and eye color as the Changeling.
Leclair had no family that he was in touch with, no kids, no
personal life, and had requested to go to the Island for personal
reasons.

“It is speculation, but I believe
that the Changeling crossed paths with the real Officer Leclair at
that traffic stop of the first victim months prior to the first
kill. His co-workers and superiors said that he was a personable
Officer, one that was charismatic and empathetic, wrote more
warnings then citations, and possibly the unfounded complaints
filed against him was what caused his request of a change in
scenery. The Changeling is very skilled at getting people to talk,
to open up, and most importantly, to tell him all about themselves.
He is very charismatic and that causes people to let their guard
down around him. Once he decided that he had his next identity, he
and the truck driver parted ways, and he became Officer Clarence
Leclair of the Haven Police Department.”

Pierre raised his hand; he was
stunned and honestly at a loss for words. He was pissed, they all
were because they were played, in essence, by the killer who was
right in front of them the entire time. But at the same time he was
terrified for the well-being of the innocent woman, another badge
carrying member of the team, so he was trying to revert back to his
Detective mindset that he hadn’t had for years. “Why did he allow
the truck driver to leave? Why didn’t he kill him then?” he
asked.

“There was no reason to,” Damian
explained. “With these types of killers, they rely heavily on the
relationships they make along the way. That is what allows them to
maintain appearances and seamlessly blend into their surroundings.
The truck driver crossed paths with him months later at a truck
stop, according to the driver log, and most likely when he saw that
Simone Matisse was wearing a badge and nametag stating he was
Clarence Leclair, that threatened his new identity and life,
resulting in the first kill on the Island. From there, it
snowballed. The true identity of the Changeling is unknown, most
likely he doesn’t even know what it is anymore because he’s taken
so many lives at this point; his body count could be in the
hundreds.

“What we do know is his face, his
current identity, so that is what we will be working with at the
moment. All roads leading from the Island have been blocked,
vehicle by vehicle searches are being done to all those attempting
to leave. The harbor is on lock down. Trained tracking dogs are
assisting and have Lieutenant de Wolfe’s scent. They will also be
searching the woods and along the highway. Those that worked with
him know this persona of the Changeling. You know him better than
he knows himself at this point since he’s in flight mode. Where
would he go? Does he have a hunting retreat he goes to? Favorite
fishing spot? A boat that he goes out on from time to time? A place
he goes to clear his head?”

Damian waited, fighting the urge to
crack his knuckles or yell, but he had to keep a level head because
Akia’s life depended on it. The Stray he wasn’t concerned with, he
knew that she could take him without question, but she was no match
for Moriarty. The demonic Puppet Master has the ability to pull out
the wolf in a werewolf, and since Akia has no control over her
wolf, it wouldn’t end well. He would see her as a prize possession
to mold into his evil counterpart, or as a threat that needed
removed from the equation before she tried to rip his throat
out.

Neither option would end well for
Akia.

Paquette cleared his throat,
raising his hand. “A few weeks ago,” he said, sounding unsure,
“when I was driving down the highway heading north I saw Leclair…or
whoever he is, coming out of the woods not far from those old road
markers that they stopped using twenty years ago.”