Force of Nature Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 4) (50 page)

“I knew she wasn’t a human. I didn’t know what she was, but nothing human could have not aged like she had nor torn those people up that way without someone, anyone seeing her. And she picked her victims as well. How is that? Or even better yet, why does she do this? I don’t know anything at all about your…kind, but this can’t be the norm.” He looked at both of them before he looked to Anye. “Tell me. I have the right to know what I’m dealing with.”

“Yes, and if I had the answers for you I’d give them to you. But we…she hasn’t been on our books long. And her maker…she killed her maker before anything could have been done about reporting her.” Anye leaned against the wall as she continued. “All we know we’ve pieced together from the tales from that era. The paper, if that is what they called it, had very little to say on the girl’s disappearance. And the only thing that brought us to the small rural town was the death of one of our own.”

“So you have a rogue vamp that you don’t know, running around doing things you aren’t aware of, to people you can’t warn.” Myles stood up and looked back at him and Holly. “Just tell me how to kill the bitch and I’ll take care of this myself.”

Holly snorted. “You sound like every television show I’ve ever seen.” She made a face and raised her voice a few octaves. “Oh, help me, big, bad policeman. I think maybe a big old vampire has bitten me.”

“You got a better idea? If you do then let’s hear it.” Holly took off her jacket and tossed it on the floor, and Myles laughed as he continued. “Oh that’ll solve a lot. Getting down and—mother fuck.”

Holly growled low as she stood before him as her wolf. Phil laughed so hard at the expression on the man’s face that he nearly fell onto the floor. Myles tried to climb the wall as Holly got closer to him, stood up on her hind legs, and licked his face without touching him.

“Down, girl. We don’t want the poor man to have a stroke.” She backed away and sat on Phil’s feet at his command. “Good girl. Now please shift back. In the event I never told you before you won’t have to wait the hour to do so. Being my mate gives you all kinds of fun little treats.  We have plenty of work to do yet.”

She shifted and stared at Myles as he sat down hard on the chair again. “You’re one scary bit…woman,” he told her.

“No, you were right the first time, I’m a scary bitch. And so we’re clear, you call me that again as a human and I’ll bite your dick off and have it for lunch.” She grinned. “And that’s how we’re going to get the bitch.”

Chapter 10

After the coroner took the body away both she and Phil sat with Myles and Gregory’s granddaughter. She was so distraught that Holly was worried about her. The poor woman had practically walked in on her grandfather being murdered and couldn’t keep focused on anything around her for very long.

“He went up to bed early last night. He said that he wanted to get an early start on the files tomorrow.” She stood up, handed Phil an empty cup, and sat back down. “There’s nothing more refreshing than a cup of warm milk.”

“You said that he’d been working hard on the files, Miss Matthews. Do you know if he kept any more information elsewhere?” Myles took her hand into his and smiled. “You’re grandda was a very meticulous man. I’m sure he had some files put in a cabinet somewhere.”

“His shirts had to be ironed just so. At first, I hated doing them for him, but he told me how Grandma used to iron his shirts every morning for him while he baked. He said she and him would be in the kitchen for hours just baking and ironing.” She smiled at the memory. “He baked me a pie once. It was the worst thing I’d ever eaten.”

Holly laughed. “My mother can bake a mean apple pie. My dad used to say she’d win ribbons for hers if she entered a contest. She didn’t iron and neither did he. My mom thought if it didn’t come out of the dryer neat, then you’d iron it yourself. How long had he been saving information on this case?”

“Years, I suppose. There’s a large box of his stuff downstairs. He kept everything in neatly labeled files.” Myles let go of Mary Kathleen’s hand as she continued to tell them what she knew. “He’d set it up there first thing, his office. He told me that there were things that a woman shouldn’t see.” She looked at the stairs that led to the bedrooms. “I can understand that more than ever now.”

“Mary Kathleen, what can you tell me about what happened? Anything.” She seemed to focus on Phil for a moment when he spoke, but looked at the door again before saying anything.

“We were going to email it all to a policeman, he’d told me. Someone he’d met in one of his travels. He never said his name and if he did, I don’t remember it. Do you think I should call the funeral home and make some arrangements?” She looked back at Holly. “I can’t believe he’s gone. That woman must have come in while I was out seeing to a noise I heard.”

“She might have. I can have someone call the funeral home for you to make you an appointment if you’d like. You said there was a noise, what kind of noise?” Holly knew how to talk to distressed people. She’d had to learn how to do it in order to do her job.

“The doorbell rang. I thought it was odd because no one around here uses it. We all pretty much trust…. I went out onto the porch and then there was another noise under the bushes. I thought it was the neighbor’s cat. Delilah Jane, if you can believe that. Who names their cat such a horrible name?”

“Some people shouldn’t have pets, I think. I have never even owned a cat myself.” Holly didn’t point out that cats usually didn’t get along well with her kind, but moved on to what she was working toward. “There was a picture in the room. Did you know who she was?”

Mary Kathleen nodded. “She was the one he’d had a crush on, he’d told me. She’d been…I think he told me she’d been on his first case. He said that she’d told him her name was…let me see…it’ll come to me. But that was a fake name. Her real name was Theresa Elizabeth Sykes. Tessie, he called her sometimes.”

“Tessie. What a lovely name. Did you ever meet her?” Phil asked quietly, but Holly was sure he already knew the answer. “She doesn’t look all that old to me. He must have been very young himself.”

“She died. I’m not sure if…I think he told me she’d been killed by someone she didn’t know. He said he’d have to give the notes to that policeman.” She looked over at Myles as if seeing him for the first time. “You. It was you. I remember now. I have your email address and it was your name attached to it. He…Grandda had me put them all in a draft and I was to send them to you all at once when he…I guess he’s finished now.”

She led them to the basement soon after. Holly had everything there moved to her car and was heading out of the house when Mary Kathleen stopped her. She handed her an envelope and simply turned and walked back into her house. The lock clicking home when she went inside her home was loud even with all the street noises. Holly decided to open it when she and Phil were alone.

~~~

Dallas looked over all the information in front of him. There was a great deal of it too. The man, Mr. Hooper, had kept very good notes, but the vast amount of it was a little overwhelming even for a neat person like him.

“What do you know so far?” Dallas glanced up at Phil as he walked into the room. “Shit, you look horrible. Maybe you should, I don’t know, go for a midnight rum or something.”

“You mean run and, no, I—”

“No, I meant what I said. A rum might do you a bit of good. Might take a little of the edge you have right now.” Phil laughed as he sat across from him. “Or a run works too. But seriously, what have you figured out?”

“Not too much, but I do think that Hooper knew a little more than a human should. I believe by his notes and files that he figured she was something not human, but he wasn’t sure what. There are files on vampires as well as wolves. There is also a file on mythical creatures that I’ve never heard of. He was very thorough, I’ll give him that.” Dallas handed a thick file to Phil and nodded to Myles when he entered the room and sat down. “This one is on vampires. I will be honest and tell you, while I don’t know everything about your kind, this stuff seems to be pretty dead on.”

While Phil read through the file, Dallas looked through another box. There were seven of them all marked with dates. Myles had told him that they were dates of the killings. But when he’d done a search, he’d found fourteen murders with the same MO. Dallas compared the ones he had information on to the list that Myles had given him. The missing seven were two before Gregory had started and the other five were dispersed between the others almost evenly.

“He didn’t have any access to the Internet when he started. And from what his granddaughter told us he wasn’t very savvy on a computer either. The other seven murders are on that file there. There isn’t a great deal of information on those, but…damn, this guy had a lot of notes.” Myles pointed to a thinner one at the corner of the table. He looked ready to say something and Phil spoke to him first.

“There is plenty of room at my house. You’ll be safe there. Or there’s a nice hotel in town that I’d be willing to put you up in. I know the owner really well.”

“Hotel sounds good. No offense, buddy, but there’s only so much paranormal a guy can take in one day.” Myles left shortly after, telling them he had to make arrangements with his job. Dallas didn’t say anything, but he kind of figured the guy had been fired. His mother had overheard a heated conversation earlier.

“I wonder where his source is. This is really good information.” Dallas looked over at the vampire as he set the folder back down after commenting. “Some of it is crap, but he has enough notes in the margins to let you know he thought so too. Do you think he talked to the rogue?”

Dallas understood the need to disassociate yourself from someone you were about to kill. He’d only had to bring another wolf down once before, but he’d not known his name and was suddenly glad he hadn’t. He figured it would haunt him more if he had something more tangible to remember.

“Yes, if his notes are correct. I think he was talking to someone, but he never mentions who. I think it had to be her, don’t you think? I mean, he did have a crush on her at one point. I think there was a wolf at one point as well. He has a great deal of information here that I’m pretty sure would have gotten him killed.” Dallas didn’t hand this file over. That was something he’d have to talk to Austin about. “What are you going to do now?”

“I have to find her. I wish I could have taken her out at the crime scene, but there were too many people moving around and I wouldn’t have been able to get her out of there without bumping into a few humans.” Phil stood up. “I have to go to rest. It’s nearly two in the afternoon and the sun still weakens me a little at the hottest part of the day. Will you call me if you find anything more?”

“Of course.” Dallas tried not to look at the man, but he had to ask all the same. “Is Holly…is she going with you?”

Phil didn’t answer right away and finally, Dallas looked up at him. “Do you have a problem with me being with your sister, Dallas?”

“No. Nothing like that,” he answered quickly. “But she is my baby sister. And the thought of you…it’s the sex thing, if you want to know the truth. The thought of her having sex of any kind with anyone is…fuck, Phil, she’s my baby sister.”

Phil laughed as he put out his hand. “You don’t ask me about my sex life with her and I promise I won’t ever give you reason to be concerned. Deal?”

“Deal,” he said as he took his hand, but he didn’t release it right away. “You hurt her in any way, shape, or form and I will tear you apart piece by tiny little piece.”

“Deal.”

Dallas worked for another three hours. He was exhausted and his body ached. He decided that taking a run was just what he needed. He was just coming through the kitchen when he could smell his mom in there. She was standing at the stove, her usual place, when he leaned against the jamb and watched her.

He remembered his dad sitting in the kitchen when he’d been smaller. Mom would be cooking something, as she was now, and he’d be making passes at her. As a kid he’d thought it was the grossest thing he’d ever seen. As an adult he was no less grossed out about it, but he could understand now how much they had loved each other. She looked over at him and started.

“What are you doing there sneaking up on an old woman? Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Come here and sit. I was just coming to get you to feed you. You missed lunch again.” He moved to the table, but kissed her on the cheek before he sat. “You always were a flirt. For that, I’ll give you an extra piece of pie.”

She set a pile of sandwiches in front of him, four ham and cheese on rye, two turkey, one on rye, the other on white bread, one peanut butter and jelly with so much jelly on it that it was oozing out the sides, and crackers. There was also a pickle and three chips. He pushed the platter away, pushed her into the chair, and got her a drink of tea.

“Tell me what’s wrong.” When she started to no doubt deny that there was anything wrong he nodded toward the plate. “Tell me that after you take an inventory of that food. Tell me.”

“She doesn’t need me.” After sobbing that out, she started crying. “I try my best to stay away, but I want to help her so badly. But she is so capable and organized that I feel so…so….”

At a loss, Dallas kneeled down in front of his mom. He was pretty sure she was talking about CJ and the new babies, but he couldn’t be sure. Alexis was about to have her baby any day now and she was the most organized person he knew. And CJ was not. So to his way of thinking, it could have been either.

“I’m sure she needs you more than you think. I saw you with the women yesterday, you holding the baby and Alexis laughing at CJ.” He wasn’t sure what was going on in the living room when he’d walked in, and had beat a hasty retreat before they’d seen him. “And you cook for us all. You’ve no idea how much we all appreciate that. I bet they do as well.”

She rubbed her hand over his forehead then smacked him hard on the head. “You are such a charmer, but you don’t have a clue. Go eat what you want there and let me be. I was talking about Stacy, you idiot.”

“Stacy? What does that woman have to do with this? You want to help her? Shi…darn, Mom, she’s half wild, and I don’t think she’s capable of spending more than five minutes in this house without picking a fight with somebody.”

Every time he saw her, she would snarl and bite at him like he was something she’d seen crawl out from under a rock. He rubbed his head again when she hit him a second time.

“She’s a nice girl that’s been treated badly. Shame on you for not seeing that. Why, that girl has a lot to offer this pack and you should be nicer to her.” His mom stood up and walked back to the stove. “And she protects Alexis as if she was the world to her.”

She did do that. Dallas thought she’d also make a great addition to his team if she’d stop being so— “What do you mean a great addition to this pack? Has she found her mate here?”

He didn’t like the sound of that. He wasn’t sure why, but the thought of her being with another male made his beast snarl. Dallas knew she wasn’t his mate. He’d been around her enough to know that she didn’t have a scent that drove him over the edge. Her personality did that all on its own.

“I think she’s seeing that young boy, Vincent Banks. You remember him, he joined us last fall. I just wish she’d let me help her set up her house before they move in together. Here, taste this and tell me if it has enough salt.”

He took the proffered bite and nodded. He didn’t have a clue what it was or whether it had too much salt or none at all. He was still thinking about her moving in with someone he’d not checked out completely yet.

Going outside, he stripped down and shifted. His run was going to be hard and long, and he hoped that he’d come across just one animal that gave him lip. Dallas didn’t know why, but he wanted to hurt something in the worst way. And when he was about a mile from his home he realized that he had forgotten to eat or ask where Stacy was
thinking
she was living.