True Colors (Elder Races #3.5)(3)

Nah, he was trying to put too many curlicues on the whole scenario. If the woman had been an active participant, she would have been gloved and her identifying scent cloaked, and she probably would have left with the killer. And if she had witnessed the murder, she would have had plenty of time to escape the scene before Riehl arrived. And what sort of person could remain still and silent while watching someone get butchered with such precision? Riehl’s already black mood darkened further.

As he watched, he pulled out his cell and hit speed dial.

Bayne answered. “Yeah.”

“He got her,” Riehl said. “It’s our boy and the body’s still warm. She couldn’t have been dead more than an hour, hour and a half.” He listened to the sentinel swearing.

Bayne asked, “What do you think, is it the Jacksonville killer or a copycat?”

“If you’re asking me to guess, I’d say yeah, it’s the Jacksonville killer. You have to eyeball for yourself the meticulous butchery he did here. A guy like that could have the self-control to wait seven years, if the wait had some kind of special meaning for him.” He gave Bayne the address and said, “Listen, I gotta go. I’m following up on a possible witness.”

“I’m heading over to the scene myself. Call me back when you can,” Bayne said. The sentinel disconnected without saying goodbye.

Riehl started to pocket his cell just as the apartment building door opened and a woman stepped outside.

He froze. Everything froze. Body, mind, spirit. The world tilted on its axis and repolarized.

Though the woman’s torso was hidden in a thigh-length black woolen coat, it was clear she had a slender, elegant frame. An abundance of gold-tipped, dark brown corkscrew curls sprang out from her head. She wore straight-cut jeans, boots, and wire-rim glasses, and her complexion was the rich, warm color of cocoa and cream. She carried herself with the tense fragility of someone suffering from deep shock. Even from across the street, her thin intelligent face looked strained. She reached the sidewalk and paused, one narrow, fine-boned hand holding the high collar of her coat together in a defensive gesture as she scanned the street.

It was her, the woman from the apartment. He knew it. He didn’t have to catch her scent. Horror and tragedy still lingered in her eyes.

Another kind of knowing settled into his bones, a strange, deep pool of certainty that he had undergone an undefined, irrevocable shift that he didn’t understand or have the time to explore. The woman turned and began to walk in the direction of the nearby subway station. Riehl pushed through the delicatessen door and moved to cross the street, the whole of his attention laser-locked on her retreating figure.

Alice’s feet started carrying her automatically on her normal route home after visiting Haley, toward the Bedford Avenue subway station. First Peter was killed. Then yesterday they found out David had gone missing, and now Haley was dead.

David was dead as well. She knew he was, even though the police had not yet released any official word. Three of her friends, gone in as many days.

The street looked innocuous but a hint of the monster’s scent still lingered, warm and sensual in the cold wet air. Alice couldn’t stop shaking. The image of Haley’s poor mutilated body was frozen in her mind. What was she supposed to do next? Oh yes, call 9-1-1.

She dug in her pocket for her cell phone as her gaze darted around her surroundings. She glanced over her shoulder.

A man in black jeans and a battered leather jacket was crossing the street. He was immense, as tall as a tree, built like a linebacker, and he moved like a killer. His white-blond hair was cut military short, and the sharp, ruthless lines of his face were weathered and harsh. His piercing eyes were some kind of pale color, either gray or blue, and they reflected the light as he looked straight at her.

The bottom dropped out of Alice’s world as recognition slammed into her. Too many nightmarish epiphanies happened at once. They nearly knocked her to the ground.

It was the monster. He was no longer caught in a Wyr’s partial shapeshift, but she knew him. She knew him.

He’d found her, just as she’d been afraid he would. He had caught her scent, and now he had seen her face.

And she had seen his. He might be the one who had killed her friends. He was the most terrifying male she had ever seen.

And he was her mate.

Oh gods. Oh gods.

A hot wash of horror licked invisible flames along her skin. She had heard of such a thing before, two Wyr recognizing each other as mates at first sight. She had thought it was an urban legend. Deeper than love, more dangerous than lust, Wyr mated for life. This couldn’t be happening. It wouldn’t happen, not if she had anything to say about it.

She whirled. Terror whited out her thinking and lent wings to her feet.

Riehl lunged into a sprint after the woman.

Holy hell, that chick could move. Riehl was fast but he was big. She darted lickety-split between cars and people like nothing he’d ever seen, her slight, slender body able to take sharp turns and squeeze through tight spaces in a way he couldn’t hope to match.

Then in a hopscotch skip straight into the land of weird, as she ran she faded into her surroundings. She didn’t quite disappear, not totally. Her clothing was too solid for that, but somehow it was harder to track her just by vision alone.

Huh. That was fascinating as shit.

Good thing he could track her with more than just his vision. He could catch her if he changed. If they had been anywhere but the city, he would have. He was faster in his wolf form, and he could run literally for days. But if he changed into the wolf, he couldn’t speak unless they were close enough for telepathy, and he could already taste her panic on the wind. Besides, NYC might be the seat of the Wyr demesne, but it was also home to millions of others as well. He didn’t trust how people might react to the sight of a two-hundred-pound wolf hurtling down a city street.