Ripper (Hunter #1)(42)

“You said something about the rest of them?” I asked, remembering that he’d told Syl to tell the rest of them to stay away from me. I wondered if there was an army of neat-freak demons waiting to dust Gray’s bookshelves.

His thumb rubbed across my palm as though he deeply enjoyed the contact. “My father is insistent. He sends messengers and servants. They’re really spies. He tries to keep tabs on me. He’ll know about you. Syl tells him everything. I would have preferred to keep you off his radar.”

I laced my fingers with his. “Gray, I don’t think that’s going to be possible unless you plan on a short or very private relationship. Were you planning on keeping me hidden?”

“No, I’m not. I’ve already announced my intentions to your brother. I don’t intend to hide them. We’ll deal with my father.” He sighed and smiled. “Now, how about I turn your attention away from my truly awful family with something even more awful?”

“If you’re ready to explain the case to me, then I’m beyond ready to listen,” I said, steeling myself to get down to work.

Gray gracefully stepped down from the barstool and helped me down as well. “All right, but don’t forget I warned you. I would rather keep you out of this, but…damn it, I need your help. I’m at a loss. I’ve never dealt with anything like this.”

I let him lead me to a small room behind the kitchen just before the door to the garage. He opened it and I walked into his nightmare. The room was an elegant, masculine office with a big desk, computer, printer, all the things one would expect from a well-organized investigator. There was a large white board covered with notes and photos. My eyes went straight there, past the carefully written notations and the neatly drawn lines and right to the photos.

“Oh my god.” I took a deep breath and thanked the universe for my formidably strong stomach. I’d expected to see postmortem photographs, but this was something completely different. There’s something distant about the pictures crime scene investigators take, as though the person taking the photo can step back and make the scene emotionless, logical.

If that was true, then the person taking these photos wanted to show the true horror of death.

“These weren’t taken by the police.”

“No. He’s been sending them to me for a month.” Gray stood behind me and it was hard for me not to reach back for his hand.

The pictures were black and white and I was grateful for it. I don’t think I could have stood it if they were in color. Even without the color, I could almost feel the rage from the photos. Rage and useless, meaningless death.

I forced myself to stare at the first one. It took a moment to truly understand that what I was looking at used to be a female. The body was torn and cut, but it wasn’t an animal attack. This was a focused form of torture. I noticed that her hands were over her head, wrists shackled together.

“He uses silver,” I said, trying to banish the tears that threatened. I needed to be cold and professional. I didn’t need to think about the indignity these women had been put through. I didn’t need to feel the pain and torture someone had inflicted on them. I needed to see what was there. I needed to look at it without emotion.

“Yes,” Gray replied quietly. “He uses silver, either cuffs or chains or rope, to hold them down. His victims, so far, have been either wolves or shifters. He has to hold them down in some fashion. These aren’t women who would go down without a fight.”

“How many?” I moved to the next, forcing myself to see, really see each photograph.

“Five victims so far. I’ve only managed to ID the second one.” He pointed to a series of photos on the far right side of the office. “Her name is Laura Nesson. She’s a wolf from the Fort Worth pack. It’s smaller than Dallas, but not insubstantial. The only reason I managed to ID her is from an arrest record. She was arrested for DUI two years ago and has a juvenile rap sheet a mile long.”

I moved down the line, taking in what I could of the women’s faces. And then my heart fell. I’d seen the last face. She’d been smiling, her whole life ahead of her in the photo I’d seen. I was going to have to tell Helen Taylor that her precious daughter was gone. She would have to survive another unthinkable loss. Tears blurred the picture before me, but I forced myself to point. “I can ID that one. Her name is Joanne Taylor. She’s my missing person.”

Her pretty blonde hair was matted with blood and she was completely naked. She’d been made as vulnerable as a female could be, all of her intelligence and hard work, all of her love meaningless against one man’s hatred. Her torso had been sliced open with surgical precision and it was obvious she’d had organs removed.

I couldn’t help it. I sank down to the floor and I cried. All I could see when I looked at that wall was Joanne Taylor’s smiling face. She was young and ripe and ready for the world and the world had eaten her up. She was her mother’s darling and I was the one who had to tell her mother she was gone forever because she’d lost her f*cking scholarship. Such a simple thing. Twenty thousand dollars shouldn’t be the price of a life, but I knew deep down many were cheaper even than Joanne’s.

Gray knelt beside me, his arms enveloping me. I was surrounded by his warmth and sank into the comfort of it. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered as he rocked me gently. “I wasn’t sure it was her, but I thought it might be. Is this your first murder case?”