Ripper (Hunter #1)(73)

He drank the words down like a man dying of thirst. His mouth was on mine, tongue sweeping in with none of his former polish. He kissed me, pressing me against his body. “You won’t regret it, Kelsey. I’ll take care of you.”

“And I’ll take care of you,” I promised.

“Wow,” a surprised feminine voice said. “Big old manly love ’em and leave ’em Sloane has an honest to god girlfriend. Will wonders never cease?”

The faintest hint of a blush stained Gray’s cheeks as he smiled ruefully at the woman standing on the hill with a large case in her hand. “Hello, Nicole. Allow me to introduce my fiancée, Kelsey Atwood.”

He hadn’t actually asked me, but I didn’t mention that to the perky looking blonde with round glasses. Her eyebrows practically reached the sky. “Seriously? Chambers is going to win a bunch of money. The office pool had you never getting married. Wait. Atwood? As in superhot stud Jamie Atwood?”

“He’s my brother, but, wow, you have an entirely different notion of hot than I do,” I admitted.

The blonde grinned as she set down her enormously cumbersome pack. She looked almost too small to be able to carry it, but she did with an ease that spoke of long use. “We can’t all get someone as gloriously perfect as Sloane there. Besides, I like Jamie. He’s the right size for me, not too big, not too small. Sloane would crush me.”

Sloane did kind of crush me, but I liked the feeling.

“So where’s the site?” Nicole asked, looking eager to start working.

Gray pointed down and Nicole grimaced.

“This is about that serial case you’ve been working, isn’t it? Wolves, right?”

“This is where he’s dumping the bodies,” Gray confirmed.

Nicole surveyed the site and got to work. Gray started to explain what she was doing and how she was doing it. Forensics for supernatural cases tended to be a lot harder than a regular case. For the most part the evidence collected was meant to be a case for the Council rather than a court of law. While the general public believed that supernaturals were myths, the government had known about them for a long time. I knew the Army made use of them. Most law enforcement had carefully selected people who would liaise with the supernatural world. Gray had the hard job of having to deal with the full Council. Gray would produce his evidence against the accused to the full Council or a single member who would then take it to the Council and an order would be written. Sometimes it was for incarceration, but often it was an order of execution. If Gray took matters into his own hands, he was forced to stand before the Council and have his kill be declared “righteous.”

“How many times have you had to go before the Council?” I asked, never taking my eyes off Nicole’s incredibly thorough examination of the site. She had an entire chemistry set on a small folding table.

“Three times,” Gray replied. “Luckily, I had excellent evidence and Quinn isn’t on the Council. That brother of his is, but he doesn’t seem to give a crap about righteous kills. He’s a kill ’em all kind of guy.”

“So when you take your evidence to the Council, do you have to go through the whole ceremonial thing every time? How long do you have to wait for the full Council to sit?”

Gray smiled and it was that lopsided grin that told me he was embarrassed by whatever he was about to say. “I have a councilman I regularly meet with. He always takes my calls and has been easy to deal with up until now.”

“Marcus,” I guessed.

“Yeah. He’s an incredibly smart man and very interested in justice. He’s consulted with me on a case or two. I wouldn’t call him a friend, but I certainly got along better with him than anyone else on the Council. He’s quite tolerant, if you know what I mean.”

Except when he thinks you’re working with Quinn against him, then Marcus could be quite emotional. I chose to not bring up the subject. “So you’re willing to kill the only man on the Council you actually get along with? Won’t that make your job hard?”

“He touches my wife and I won’t give a damn about my job, darlin’,” Gray promised.

“I have five bodies here, Lieutenant.” Nicole was staring at her laptop screen. It was all incredibly high tech. The laptop was connected to some strange medical looking equipment. “All five of these are female and werewolves. Four are in an advanced state of decomposition and the fifth was placed here sometime in the last twenty-four hours. I’ll bag that one and take it back to my lab, but from what I can tell she died from blood loss. Someone really sliced her up. I think she might be missing a kidney, ewwww.”

“And the other site?” Gray asked.

“Strange.” Nicole surveyed the second, smaller grave over her glasses. “Only one female and she wasn’t a wolf. It’s definitely a shifter of some kind, but I’m not sure what. I’ve collected a sample and I’ll be able to run it better at the office. My field machines aren’t as accurate.”

Something gold glinted in the grass a few feet from me. “What’s that?”

Nicole made sure the latex gloves she was wearing were snug before she reached down and picked up a small gold necklace that was lying in the grass. She held it up and in the light I could see it was engraved with a J.

“Joanne Taylor,” Gray said with a sad shake of his head. His cell phone rang and he looked down. “Speak of the devil. I have to take this, Kelsey. I’ll be right back.”