Her Lone Wolf (9 page)

“What do these guys have in common?” she asked. “Don’t think about it. Just say it off the top of your head.”

“They’re all men,” Clayne said.

That was obvious, but she nodded anyway. “What else?”

“They all live in the Sacramento area,” Tony added.

“I don’t suppose any of them worked together?”

Clayne and Tony shook their heads.
Of course not. That’d be too easy.

“Any chance they dated the same people?” she asked.

They shook their heads again.

“Okay, so no connection there, either,” Danica said.

“They were all athletic,” Clayne pointed out.

She didn’t need to check for facts in the files on that. She’d looked at their dead bodies enough to know that all five men had been in great shape.

“Yeah, but none of them worked out at the same gym,” Tony added. “Hell, they didn’t even go to the same grocery store.”

Danica leaned back against the table next to Clayne and folded her arms. She could feel the heat coming off him through the thin blouse she wore, and she scooted a little farther away.

“So, other than the fact that the men were in good shape, I don’t know if they have anything in common at all,” Tony said. “Maybe the serial killer is simply picking his victims at random.”

God, that was a frightening thought. If the killer didn’t have a type, they couldn’t narrow it down to a particular demographic, which meant he was going to be even harder to catch. She was about to point that out when she realized Clayne was fixed on the whiteboard.

“Clayne, you got something?”

He didn’t take his eyes off the board. “Why were they in good shape?”

Tony looked at Danica as if Clayne were mental. “Because they worked out.”

Clayne shook his head. “No. I mean, why did they work out so much?”

Danica wasn’t following Clayne any better than Tony, but she recognized when he was onto something. Clayne did everything by instinct, even reasoning. If he thought he’d found a connection, he probably had.

Clayne walked over to the board on the left and pointed to it. “Victim one was a boxer. Not just any boxer, but one known for being a punishing hitter.” He gestured to another part of the board. “Victim two was an enforcer for a loan shark. He liked to break kneecaps. Three was an ex-cop turned private detective. He had a string of lawsuits against him when he was a cop for excessive force. Victim four was an ex-soldier working as a bouncer. Multiple combat tours with awards for valor in every one of them.”

“And number five taught martial arts but was also a competitively ranked fighter as well,” Danica finished. She was starting to get an idea where this was going.

Tony frowned. “So they worked out because they had physically demanding jobs that they excelled at? That’s the connection?”

Clayne shook his head. “It’s even simpler than that. I think the thing that ties these five men together is that they’re all basically guys you wouldn’t think of as a serial killer’s victims—unless that serial killer was interested in a challenge. I mean, who’s going to go after a mob enforcer who breaks bones for a living?”

Danica instinctively knew Clayne was right. Beside her, Tony still looked skeptical, but then he slowly nodded.

“Holy shit,” he breathed. “We should have realized it the moment the coroner confirmed what you saw at the morgue yesterday—that the killer chased every one of the men and ran them into the ground. They were prey for this sick prick.”

Clayne gave Danica a pointed look. “A soldier, a cop, a boxer, a bouncer, and a martial artist. All aggressive and violent. And the killer took all of them down without them laying a hand on him. He’s more dangerous than anybody on this task force has even begun to realize.”

What Clayne really meant was that the men and women on the task force were in over their heads. And that no one—except for the two of them—was suited to deal with this killer.

“Now that we have this prey angle, what do we do with it?” Tony asked.

Clayne glanced at him. “I’ll talk to some intel analysts I work with at Homeland who are good at finding specific types of people and wait for them to give us a list of suitable prey living in the Sacramento area. Then we use that list to figure out who the killer is going after next, and we get there first.”

Danica waited for Tony to point out that the FBI had analysts who could do that, but she was surprised when he nodded.

“Sounds good. Let me grab a couple of other agents and we’ll set up a victim—or prey—profile, so Homeland will know what to look for.”

Danica opened her mouth to tell Tony she’d go instead, but her partner was already out the door.
Great.

She braced herself for whatever snide comments Clayne had probably been waiting all day to get her alone to say, but instead he walked up to the one whiteboard that still had open space left and began listing the character traits that made a good victim. Being ignored by him hurt almost more than all his anger and bitter words. She swallowed hard, watching as he scrawled across the board. When they’d been together, she used to do most of the strategizing—and note taking—and he’d been happy to let her. Now, he did it on his own. Then again, she hadn’t really given him any choice, had she?

What if she had given him a choice that night in his apartment? What if she’d told him the truth instead of lying to him? Would he have agreed to let her go if he’d known it was for his own good?

More likely, he would have gone off half-cocked and done something that would have landed him in prison.

Tony came back with three other agents in tow and his cell phone to his ear. He was ordering pizza. That turned out to be a smart move because they ended up working through the night. Coming up with the list of character traits and physical abilities they thought would make the victims attractive to the killer didn’t take long, but everyone wanted to hang around to see what both the FBI profilers and the intel analysts Clayne knew came up with. Danica knew her former employer kept a full team of capable people on duty twenty-four hours a day, so they’d get the information together quickly and immediately send it to Clayne.

She wasn’t wrong. Within an hour, Clayne was downloading a list from the DCO’s secure server. Unfortunately, it was big. Apparently, there were a lot of men in Sacramento who fit their initial profile. They still had over two hundred names to work with, but it was the best they could do at this point.

“Should we go brief Carhart?” Tony asked a little after seven thirty the next morning.

Danica winced. She’d rather not, but they had to keep him in the loop.

“You spent the whole night working and all you came up with is a list of a hundred people you think this psycho
might
want to kill?” Carhart practically shouted when they told him. “Are you out of your damn minds? The governor didn’t ask the FBI to step in and take over this case so we could waste time tracking down possible victims. He wants us out there finding the killer.”

“Sir—” Danica began, but Carhart kept talking.

“Which is why I’ll be briefing the task force this morning on the profile we’ve come up with for the Hunter.”

Tony exchanged looks with Danica. “Hunter? That’s what we’re calling this guy?”

Carhart waved his hand. “That’s what the media has started calling him. And right now, it’s as good a name as any.”

Danica bit her tongue. She wouldn’t be surprised if Carhart had leaked the name to the press. Nothing grabbed the media’s attention like a good serial killer name. And her new boss was all about making a name for himself.

“When did they come up with a profile for the killer?” Tony asked.

Carhart gulped his coffee. “After we broke up into focus groups. It’s a broad list—survivalists, gangbangers, hunters—but it’s a place to start.”

More like a waste of time. Even without seeing the list, she knew there’d be thousands of potential suspects on it. The task force could work twenty-four hours a day for months and still not be able to check all of them out.

“Sir, Agent Buchanan thinks we’d be better off looking—”

Carhart thumped his mug down on the desk so hard that coffee spilled onto his hand. “For the Hunter’s prey, I know. But Buchanan isn’t in charge of this investigation, Agent Beckett. If I had my way, he wouldn’t be on the task force at all. I contacted everyone I know, called in every favor to get him tossed from the team—I mean I called all the way up the chain. I don’t know who the hell he is, but he isn’t just Teflon-coated; he’s bulletproof. I can’t touch him.”

No wonder Carhart’s list of suspects was so damn brainless. He’d spent his night trying to get his best asset kicked off the team.
What an idiot.

“If we can’t get him out of the way, we’re going to have to marginalize him,” Carhart continued. “I need you to help me do that.”

Okay. Idiot would be a step up for this guy.

“I know neither of you want to babysit this jerk, but I want him kept away from the investigation. This is an FBI operation and we don’t need outsiders from the Department of Homeland Security getting in the way.” He held up his hand when Danica opened her mouth to protest. “I know you two want to help catch the Hunter, but the best way you can help is to keep Buchanan on the sidelines. So if he wants to scour Sacramento looking for people he thinks might be the Hunter’s next victim, let him.”

Danica had to fight to keep from laughing. “Let me get this straight. You want us to keep Agent Buchanan busy while the rest of the task force rounds up suspects?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” He eyed her and Tony. “So, how about it? Can I count on the two of you to take one for the team?”

Obviously Carhart’s finely tuned detective skills had yet to inform him that few people kept Clayne Buchanan in check. Her least of all. She didn’t answer his question right away. She’d been planning to help Clayne regardless, only now she wasn’t going to have to sneak around behind her boss’s back to do it. But she couldn’t give in too easily. So she sighed loudly and put on her best resigned look.

“Yes, sir.”

Carhart turned to Tony. “Agent Moretti?”

Beside her, Tony nodded.

“Good,” Carhart said, sounding pleased with himself. “That’ll be all.”

Danica wondered how pleased her boss’d be if he knew they’d catch the killer way before the rest of the task force did. At least she hoped they caught him. Because if not, things were going to go from bad to worse for the city of Sacramento.

When Danica explained he’d been exiled to the periphery of the investigation, Clayne almost laughed. He was going to do his own thing whether Carhart approved or not. Although if he didn’t know better, he’d think Danica had manipulated the fed into ostracizing him so he could go after the shifter without being under the watchful eye of the Bureau. Because he knew for a fact that the woman had a way of getting what she wanted.

He swore under his breath as he followed her and Tony to the car. It had taken him a good portion of yesterday to get his head to a place where he could push all personal thoughts about his ex-partner to the back of his mind and focus on the case. He’d be damned if he was going to slip up and get distracted again. He was here to do a job, and once he did it, he was leaving. End of story.

He had to admit the previous night had been like old times, though. He was never as sharp and instinctive as when he was with Danica. She had a unique way of suggesting possibilities and ordering his thoughts that made him better at his job.

Damn, he’d said he wasn’t going there and yet he was doing it again. Thinking about her, letting her invade his every thought. Why the hell was he doing this? This was a one-time deal. He’d do fine once she wasn’t around, just like he had the last two years.

Clayne distracted himself by watching Danica and Tony argue over who was going to drive.

“You drove yesterday,” she pointed out.

Tony put his hands on his hips as he squared off against her. “I didn’t know we were keeping track.”

“We always alternate.”

“Since when?”

She lifted her chin stubbornly. “Since now.”

Clayne resisted the urge to chuckle as the fed shook his head in obvious exasperation. Besides coming up with a list of potential victims last night, Clayne had also come to the conclusion that Tony wasn’t the asswipe he’d pegged him for. The guy was okay and seemed like a good agent. It wasn’t his fault he was Danica’s rebound partner.

The longer Danica and Tony argued, though, the more amusing it got. Clayne couldn’t remember her ever caring about who drove when they’d worked together. He’d driven and she’d navigated. But what’d worked for them obviously didn’t work for her and Tony. Clayne was just about to grab the keys and say he’d drive just to put a stop to the argument when they solved the issue with a game of rock, paper, scissors. Danica won.

But before they could get in the car, someone across the parking garage called Tony’s name. He muttered something under his breath. “Hold on. I’ll be right back.”

Clayne’s phone rang as he opened the back door of the car and got in. It was Kendra.

“Hey, Clayne. I continued working on the list of prey suspects I gave you this morning, hoping I could narrow it down.”

“Hang on and I’ll put you on speaker.” He thumbed the button. “Go ahead.”

“I think I have something, but I’m not sure,” Kendra said. “Regardless, it’s really weird. All the victims had the same rare blood type—AB. Can you think of any reason a shifter would select his prey based purely on what kind of blood they had?”

Clayne swore. “I can think of a really good reason. AB blood smells better.”

In the front seat, Danica arched a brow. “Shifters can tell one blood type from another by scent?”

He nodded. “Yeah. It’s just something I never thought about. But if all the victims had AB, I can almost guarantee it’s because it matters to the killer.”

“How would he even know what blood type they have?” Danica asked.

“I don’t know,” Clayne said. “Like you said, AB blood is really rare. Maybe all these guys were on a blood donor registry.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” Kendra agreed. “Anyway, if you think this is a good lead, it’ll narrow your list of names to less than twenty people. In the meantime, I’ll see if the victims were on a donor list and see who had access to it. It might help find the killer.”

Clayne circled the names of the AB blood types as Kendra read them off. She was right. There were eighteen people to focus on now. By the time Tony got in the car, he and Danica had already worked out the order in which they would talk to them. They filled Tony in on the new lead and headed to the first address. He was skeptical about the blood thing, especially since they couldn’t tell him the killer was able to smell it, but he agreed it was too much of a coincidence to overlook.

As they worked their way through the list, they asked each man the same questions. Have you seen anyone hanging around, checking you out, watching your house or your routine? Has anyone talked to you about your exercise regimen or what you do for a living? Have any of your family or friends mentioned seeing anyone or asking them those same questions?

Checking names off the list made for a long day running around the city from one possible target to the next, but as much as Clayne hated admitting it, he liked spending time with Danica. She was fun to be with, dammit. On the downside, being trapped in the car with her meant he couldn’t avoid inhaling her scent. He tried putting his window down, but without sticking his head out like a dog, it didn’t do any good. He had to sit there and deal with it.

The sun was already well down behind the trees as they pulled up to an apartment complex in the El Dorado Hills. The next guy on their list lived in a unit toward the back, where the buildings butted up against the rolling hills that gave the community its name. Danica had just parked in one of the visitor spaces when Clayne caught sight of movement off to the right as he got out of the car. He jerked his head in that direction, eyes narrowing.

He caught the shifter’s scent at the same moment he saw movement near the separate garages that lined the back of the complex. The shadowy figure of a man dragging something—make that
someone
—toward the hills behind the apartment buildings.

Clayne gave Danica a shout before he sprinted across the parking lot. He couldn’t shift completely in the middle of the apartment complex, but that didn’t stop him from growling softly. The shifter must have heard because he froze, his gold-green eyes wide in the semidarkness. He cursed and dropped his prey, taking off.

Clayne paused long enough to make sure the man on the ground was alive before going after the shifter again. The guy was out of it, but otherwise didn’t seem hurt. Footsteps echoed behind Clayne, then stopped at the exact spot where he’d left the shifter’s would-be victim, just as tires squealed on pavement. Clayne knew without looking back that Tony was the one on foot, while Danica had sped past him into the hills so she could try to get ahead of the killer. It was a herding technique they’d used before. Good to see Danica remembered it.

Once he got behind the garages, he fought the urge to shift completely and let the wolf take over. But in this case, having long claws and fangs wasn’t going to help him. He only needed the superior sense that came with a partial shift. The darkness disappeared around him, and he knew that if someone saw him, his glowing yellow eyes would freak them out. Luckily, his enhanced sense of smell and hearing never came with any physical changes. He would have hated having furry ears and a long snout.

He cleared the eight-foot privacy fence that surrounded the apartment complex and took off at a run the moment he landed on the other side. Even with his natural night vision, he couldn’t see the other shifter ahead of him in the trees. But he could sure as hell hear him, smacking aside branches and kicking up rock.
That’s right, asshole, see how it feels to be the one getting chased for a change.

Clayne heard a thud behind him, quickly followed by a whole lot of cussing. Apparently, Tony wasn’t having such an easy time with that fence. Clayne felt bad for the fed, but not bad enough to slow down. He wasn’t about to let the shifter get away. Besides, it was better if Tony was otherwise occupied for the moment. Having to explain to the fed why he could clock speeds of twenty-five miles an hour over rough ground might be a little difficult.

He tried to use both his sense of smell and hearing to predict which way the cat shifter would go, then take the shortest path to intercept him, but the asshole didn’t make it easy. The cat shifter was fast. Maybe faster than Clayne. And he obviously knew these hills a whole hell of a lot better. While Clayne stayed with him, he wasn’t catching up. In fact, if it wasn’t for the scent the shifter left, Clayne would have lost him more than once already.

Clayne growled and shifted completely, allowing the claws on his hands and his fangs to slide out. It was a risky move in such a heavily populated area, but he didn’t have a choice. He had to let out his inner wolf and everything that went with it if he hoped to catch this son of a bitch.

A heightened sense of smell, better night vision, and an extra burst of speed weren’t the only things he felt when he shifted this time, though. As bizarre as it sounded, he swore he could sense Danica. She was somewhere on the hill directly above him, moving fast in a line that would cut right across the killer’s escape route. He didn’t get how he knew she was there. Maybe it was his senses going a little nuts from spending so much time with her the last few days. But what the hell? Maybe they’d all get lucky and Danica would run the murderous piece of shit over. Save everyone a lot of trouble. Not to mention get him back home faster.

Then he heard tires squeal, followed by a crash.

He stopped cold, his boots sliding across the rough ground. Something clenched deep inside his chest.

Danica
.

He took off running again, faster than before. When he reached the top of the hill, he saw a car smashed into a tree and his heart stopped beating. Then he realized it wasn’t Danica’s sedan and his heart started up again.

Thank
God.

But if it wasn’t her car, where was she?

Clayne looked around wildly and spotted her sedan a few hundred feet away from the other vehicle. He immediately headed toward it only to stop when he caught sight of her kneeling down beside the other car. She was checking on the driver and talking on her cell phone at the same time.

A part of Clayne wanted to go after the shifter, but he knew it was too late. The killer would have had a getaway vehicle parked somewhere nearby to transport his prey. This little distraction was all it’d take to give the shifter enough time to get to his car and drive off. Chasing him would also mean leaving Danica, and he didn’t know for sure she hadn’t been injured.

He glanced over his shoulder, searching for Tony. But the fed was still way back there somewhere. He wasn’t going to be any help.

Swearing under his breath, he ran over to Danica, retracting his claws and teeth as he went. Inside the car, a young woman leaned back in her seat, blood running down her face. The airbag had inflated, but the impact with the tree must have bounced her head off the side window.

Danica finished calling in their location, then glanced at him. “The suspect ran into the middle of the road and darted right in front of her. She went into the tree and I had to choose between helping her or going after him. I’m sorry.”

“You did the right thing.” Clayne searched her face. “You okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Did you get a good look at him?”

Clayne shook his head. “You?”

“No. I didn’t see crap. He was lightning fast, though.”

“Yeah, no kidding. Something to keep in mind the next time we catch up to this bastard. Don’t let him get close to you.”

Danica opened her mouth to say something, but Tony came stumbling over the crest of the hill, gasping like he’d run a marathon. He took one look at the woman behind the wheel of the car and mumbled something that sounded like a curse before collapsing on the ground. He leaned back against the car and eyed Clayne in amazement.

“How the hell can someone as big as you run so freaking fast?” he demanded.

“Good shoes,” Clayne told him.

The fed looked down at his feet. “You’re wearing boots.”

Clayne looked, too. “Yeah. But they’re the right boots.”

Tony just shook his head and put his head between his legs, gasping for more air.

* * *

Even though he knew the trail was cold, Clayne had followed the shifter’s scent anyway. He’d been right. The trail had disappeared in a subdivision one street over from the apartment complex.

Clayne would rather have kept the whole event quiet and not let the rest of the task force—especially that prick Carhart—know how close he and Danica had been to the killer, but that turned out to be impossible. Within the hour, the crash site turned into a three-ring circus. As soon as the press found out the FBI was on the scene, they put two and two together and came up with
Hunting
the
Hunter: Drama in the El Dorado Hills
.

The man the killer had tried to kidnap—an up-and-coming MMA fighter—was talking a mile a minute by the time Clayne, Danica, and Tony got back to the apartment complex. Unfortunately, he hadn’t seen much more of the killer than Clayne had. It had been dark in the shadows where the rogue shifter had made his move, and he’d attacked from behind, so the target never saw his face. The would-be victim had no problem using his imagination to fill in the gaps in his fifteen minutes of fame, though. He went to great lengths to describe how he’d fought the killer, saying his attacker was muscular, freakishly strong, and growled like an animal. Clayne wished he’d left off that last part, especially since the media clearly ate it up.

He glanced over to where Danica stood talking with Carhart. He probably shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but that had never stopped him before.

“How the hell did Buchanan stumble across the Hunter? You were supposed to be keeping him away from the investigation, Agent Beckett.”

Danica gave him a contrite look that Clayne couldn’t have managed in a hundred years. “I’m doing my best, sir. But Agent Buchanan is tough to control.”

Clayne snorted. If only Carhart knew. She’d never had any problem wrapping him around her finger when they’d been together, that was for sure.

The task force leader didn’t look quite as amused. Actually, he looked as if he might just blow a gasket.