The Hallowed Hunt: A Wild Hunt Novel, Book 5 Read online

  I showed him the picture. “Ten to one, it was her. Can you unlock his phone?”

  “Idiot didn’t have a passcode on it, much to our good fortune.” Viktor handed the phone to me.

  I brought up the contacts screen and scrolled through, looking for…

  “Bingo! Penny. And it’s just her first name, so he probably knew her pretty well. Should I call?” I frowned. “Or maybe I should wait till we see if we can identify her and find out her background.”

  “I’d wait. But take a look at his text messages. See what you can find out from there.”

  “Good idea.” I flipped over to his text messages and glanced through them. There were several recent ones, but the ones from Penny seemed to be older. I began to skim through them. “Penny texted him at least fifty times in August, asking where he was, what was wrong, what did she do wrong. There seems to be no response, until she threatened to call the cops to have them come check on him. Then he texted her a curt ‘It’s over. Leave me alone. I never want to hear from you again.’ After that she texted a few times, begging him to call her, but after another text from him, ‘You fucking slut, quit bothering me,’ just…radio silence.”

  “What were his texts like before then?” Viktor asked.

  I scrolled back. “Loving, thoughtful—oh,” I paused. “They were engaged, Viktor. Right up until August, he was all over her, promising that when they got married, they’d go to France for a honeymoon, talking about having kids, all that.”

  Frowning, I stared at the messages. “What makes a person switch like that so quickly? By the date stamps, there seems to be about a week’s break between the happy times and when Penny started to text him the first week in August. What happened in one week to make him go from being the loving fiancé to cutting her out of his life so harshly?”

  Viktor pushed a pile of garbage off of another chair and, after making sure it was clear of any residue, sat down. He took the phone, staring at the texts. “I guess we ask her. Once we find out who she is and whatever background we can.”

  Herne returned at that moment. “The manager says that Elrich paid his rent in six-month increments. He’s been living here for three years, and he’s never missed a payment. Every six months like clockwork. Model tenant. Elrich always kept the place immaculate, so the manager was in shock over what I told him about the state of the apartment. And Elrich had been friendly with the manager, though standoffish from his neighbors, which isn’t a surprise given that, apparently, the neighbor to the right is one of the Dark Fae, and the neighbor on his left works nights, so isn’t around during the daytime.”

  “He say anything else?” Viktor asked.

  Herne shook his head. “There haven’t been any signs of trouble from Elrich. Ever. I talked with the cops—he doesn’t have any sort of police record. I’m baffled.”

  We showed him the phone and I told him about the text messages.

  “Then we have to figure out what happened to make him do an about-face. We’ll talk to his bank, see what we can find out about his spending habits. Talk to the utility companies to find out if he was ever late on his bills before. And once we get that computer back to the office, Yutani can see what he can find out. I’ll have Talia check out Penny. Who are the other texts from?”

  “I haven’t checked them out yet,” I said.

  “Well, let’s go. I asked the police to bring us any other evidence they find that might be important. They know we’re in charge of the investigation and they seem relieved. This is the second attack on humans and shifters in just a couple days. People are going to be getting antsy, and we need to nip this in the bud.”

  “I just hope we can,” Viktor said.

  “Me too,” I echoed as we filed back into the living room. Herne had the cops box up the computer parts and carry it down to his car, and we followed.

  All the way back to the office, I kept thinking about Penny. What could make a person shift so drastically in such a short time?

  Back at the office, we met up again. Angel had ordered lunch in for everybody.

  “I hope you don’t mind subs for lunch. I also ordered chips, salad, and a box of cookies.” She locked the elevator and followed us back to the break room, where lunch was set out across the counter. I washed my hands thoroughly, using more soap than I needed, just to scrub the feeling of grime off me. Elrich’s apartment made me want to go home and clean. I noticed Viktor and Herne did the same.

  After choosing a ham and cheddar sub, and piling my plate high with chips, I poured myself a cup of coffee and added cream and sugar. Finally, we gathered around the table, lunches in front of us.

  “Thanks,” Herne told Angel. “Good idea to order lunch in. We’re working through today.”

  “I figured as much,” she said. She seemed over her argument with Herne, and I glanced at Talia, suspecting that the harpy had managed to have a calming talk with my BFF.

  Talia seemed to have a knack for bringing a sense of peace to the agency. Her silver hair was pulled back in a tidy braid today, and she was wearing a pair of blue trousers with a button-up shirt that had been embroidered with flowers across the top of the bodice. Talia looked like a fit, healthy woman in her mid-sixties, which was the glamour she had chosen when Morgana offered to give her a permanent illusion so she could fit in with society.

  “Okay, let’s start with what we found at the apartment,” Herne said. He told them what the manager had said about Elrich, then added, “But here’s the disconnect. The place was a cockroach’s wet dream. It was a total wreck. We found stacks of propaganda about the Tuathan Brotherhood. The computer was trashed—somebody took a hammer to it, but we brought the remains back with us, in case the hard drive was still viable. Yutani, get on that after lunch. Ember, your turn.”

  I set the phone on the table along with the packets containing the unpaid bills and the picture of Jasper and Penny, while telling them about the texts between the two. “We need to do some digging and find out what her last name is, along with whatever else we can find out before contacting her.”

  Talia picked up the phone. “I’ll tackle that this afternoon.”

  “The cops will let us know what else they come up with,” Herne said, taking a bite of his sandwich. “So, what did you two find out?”

  Yutani tapped away on his laptop. “I just sent you each a dossier on Elrich. He was a model citizen. I already can tell you who Penny is. She is—was, apparently—his fiancée. They met at work. Until the past two months, Jasper Elrich was an art teacher at one of the local schools. He taught a mixture of students—human, Fae, shifter—and there were zero problems. In fact, the kids loved him. But at the tail end of July, he abruptly quit with no notice. He’d been at that job for five years, and not once did he present a problem.”

  “There it is again. The end of July. What the hell happened?” I took a long sip of my coffee. “Gods, I needed this. I didn’t get enough caffeine this morning.”

  Angel snorted. “That’s because you forgot to buy coffee, and we didn’t have time to swing by a Starbucks.”

  I snorted. “I know, I know. I forget these sort of things.”

  “You mean, you don’t like to go grocery shopping. That’s why I ran down to the local coffee shop and bought a couple pounds while you were out. I know you won’t remember, since you and Herne have a date.”

  “Can we get back to the topic at hand?” Herne asked, sounding tense.

  “Sorry,” I murmured.

  Angel grinned.

  “Thank you. Go on, Yutani. What else did you find out?” Herne glanced at me, a slightly irritated look on his face.

  “What happened at the end of July? That’s the million-dollar question. Before you ask, I already ran his financials. He’s got enough in savings to cover about six months of bills.”

  “Then why didn’t he pay them in September? And obviously he didn’t pay them this month either.” It didn’t add up. If he had the money, why not pay them? Then I thought of somet
hing. “Did he have a will? Who gets his savings?”

  “That I can’t tell you. But it looks like at the beginning of August, he dropped out of every organization he was part of. He was in good standing with Névé’s Court—I already checked on that, though that’s obviously over with. His family is going to have a buttload of fallout over this.” Yutani shrugged. “As to what happened, I don’t know. But I’ll see what I can find out with the remains of his computer.”

  Talia picked up the phone. “I’ll download all his text messages. I’ll focus on those in July, August, September, and this month, to start. I can look through the older ones later.” She paused. “Back to the missing girl. Do you want to hear what I found out about Amanda’s relatives?”

  Herne nodded. “Yeah. Anybody we should be watching?”

  “Nope. Her family seems to be the poster family for functional. They’re the most boring family I’ve ever seen. Not a whisper of scandal other than a few cousins ticketed for minor traffic violations. These are people who probably take cheesy pictures for the holidays and you know they must have an ugly sweater contest. Her late husband’s family checked out too, though there are a couple drunks and one kleptomaniac on his side. But nothing to trigger alarm bells.”

  “Well, hell,” I said. “Where does that leave us?”

  “We still have the mall video footage, and we haven’t yet looked into—”

  “Excuse me, but Erica texted me this morning. In the furor over Elrich’s attack, I forgot to mention it.” Viktor pulled out his phone. “There have been three abductions and murders over the past few months, but the cops haven’t been able to find out what’s going on and given the manpower crunch, I doubt they’ve been as thorough as they might be otherwise. Let me download the document she sent me and see what it says.” He fiddled with his tablet for a moment. “I sent it to the rest of you, as well.”

  I brought up my email, then opened up the document on my tablet so I could read it easier than on my phone screen. “Crap. Viktor’s right. Three little girls, all between two to four years old. All blond. All found murdered about ten days to two weeks after they vanished. One a month since July, and all abducted on the 22nd of the month.” I glanced up. “Eleanor was kidnapped on the 22nd. It has to be the same person.”

  “Then we have a couple days leeway, if the murderer hasn’t escalated. Given Eleanor’s been missing three days, we have, at best, eleven days left if it’s the same perp,” Herne said.

  Talia scanned the document. “Well, this is odd. None of the bodies showed any marks—no bruises, no sign of sexual assault, thank the gods. They were all found in child-size white coffins, hidden out in the woods, and they were all wearing pretty dresses and bows in their hair.”

  “That’s odd,” Yutani said. “That shows remorse. What did they die of?”

  Talia glanced back at the report. “They died of…” She stopped, looking puzzled. “An overdose? They were drugged to death with crackalaine.”

  Crackalaine was the hottest illegal drug in town. It hearkened back to old-school cocaine. It was as cheap as crack to make, and it provided the same euphoria as ecstasy. Incredibly addictive, it took as little as one dose before the user was physically addicted. Its effects included euphoria, carefree attitude, loss of inhibition, and in some cases—paranoia and hallucinations. The overdose threshold was low, and it was cheap and plentiful in the underground drug market. Usage had actually decreased once marijuana had been legalized, but there were always thrill seekers looking for the next, best high. And it made sex amazing, like ecstasy, so it had an extra appeal, especially to college age students.

  “Let me get this straight,” Herne said. “We have a serial killer out there who abducts two- to four-year-old blond girls, doesn’t hurt them from what we can tell, then two weeks later, gives them an overdose and lays them out in child-size coffins, in pretty dresses?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “My guess is that we’re dealing with a female suspect. And it was a woman who abducted Eleanor in the video. Think about it for a moment. Women tend to utilize poison as a weapon far more than men do when they commit murder. And dressing up the girls and putting them in a coffin to protect them from the elements? It might be remorse, or it might be a maternal instinct to protect their bodies.”

  “Even after she killed them?” Yutani asked.

  “We have no idea what’s going on in her psyche. I don’t know, maybe it’s ritualistic. Or maybe it’s remorse, or a dozen other things. But it’s a pattern and, given the children aren’t harmed…well, other than being killed,” I added, realizing how incredibly bizarre that sounded, “at least we know she’s not a pedophile or into torture.”

  “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Herne cautioned. “The woman on the tape could be our serial killer, or it could be someone else entirely. But I grant you that Eleanor fits the profile of the other victims. I just don’t want to assume anything. It might be a copycat, or someone trying to cover up another reason for kidnapping the child. We chance overlooking evidence if we only look in one direction.” He skimmed over the document Erica had sent Viktor. “It says here, all the girls were abducted from outside the home.” He glanced over at Viktor. “We should interview the parents of the murdered girls. I’ll contact the mayor and ask if she can give us official access to any info the cops have on this. We don’t want to step on toes.”

  “The cops didn’t add Eleanor to the list of possible victims,” I said, frowning.

  Viktor shook his head. “No. Erica told me the department is stretched thin as it is, and Eleanor vanished right before the first Tuathan Brotherhood attack, which of course they’re fixated on. Let me text her.” He began tapping away at his phone.

  “I wish we could have seen the woman’s face on the security film.” Angel frowned. “Did they check through all their other film that day—especially around that time—looking for any other footage that might match the woman in the video?”

  Talia shook her head. “I doubt it. It’s a blurry image, though Eleanor stands out pretty well, and they only got her from the back. The woman’s petite, wearing a nondescript jacket and jeans, it looks like, and she’s either a blonde or light red head or light brunette. There could be hundreds of similarly dressed women in that footage and I don’t think mall security is going to spend the time combing through it. And before you suggest it, neither am I.”

  “I can write a program to scan through, looking for similarities,” Yutani said.

  “Before you spend time on that, let’s see if we can even get hold any more of their tapes,” Herne said. “Otherwise, it’s a waste of time.” He glanced at the clock. “All right. Input all your notes, and Yutani, you get busy on sorting out what’s left of that computer. Talia, get cracking on the phone. As soon as I talk to Cernunnos, we’ll hand out new assignments.”

  As we carried the rest of our lunches back to our desks, my mind was on the murdered girls, and I found myself murmuring, “Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row.”

  Yes, they were all pretty little maids, and all very dead. My thoughts somber, I began to type in my notes.

  Chapter Five

  By afternoon, Yutani had managed to salvage the hard drive of the computer and he was busy transferring data to his own computer. I was finishing some paperwork—entering notes from one of our recent cases into the system—when Herne called Viktor and me into his office.

  “I got the go-ahead to interview the parents of the murdered girls. In fact, the cops are welcoming our help, given the situation. I’m sending the two of you out to interview the first set of parents now. Dana and Hadley Longtooth. They’re puma shifters. They live in West Seattle, not too far from where Amanda lives. Be discreet, they’re still in mourning.”

  “What was their daughter’s name? And when did she die?” I asked, wanting to have as much information as possible before we went in.

 
“Her name was Cassie, and she was the first victim. She was abducted on July 22nd, and found on the 30th. She was barely three.” Herne handed us a photocopy of her picture. “The parents own Sappho’s Bookstore.”

  I glanced up. “Sappho?”

  Herne nodded. “Lesbian couple. Here’s a rundown of what they told the cops. See if you can find out anything else.” He handed me a sheet of paper. “Viktor, you drive. Try to get back before rush hour. It’s one o’clock now, so…get back here by four if you can.”

  I nodded. “Sure thing.”

  Viktor and I informed Angel where we were taking off to, and then headed to the parking garage to Viktor’s car. But instead, he stopped at a compact pickup.

  “You get a new car?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I bought it last week. Had to. My old clunker died the final death. I’ve had my eye on this model for a while, so I figured I might as well take the plunge. There’s a surprising amount of head and leg room inside, which I need, given my size.”

  Viktor was six-foot-five, and well over two hundred pounds of solid muscle. He beeped the key fob and I swung into the passenger side, surprised to see that it had more than enough room for the half-ogre. As he fastened his seat belt, I played with some of the different buttons on the dashboard, which included controls for the passenger seat.

  “Cool, you have heated seats!” I leaned forward, looking at what other goodies the truck had to offer.

  “Keep your hands to yourself. I have everything pre-set the way I like it.” Viktor gave me a stern glance, but then laughed and started the truck. “You want to stop for an espresso before we head over to the Longtooths?”

  “Sure thing. I could use the buzz.” I leaned back, enjoying the feel of the leather against my back. “Nice truck.”

  “I know,” Viktor said, as we headed down the street. He swung into the nearest Starbucks and we ordered our drinks. “This is on me. You’re going to owe me a hundred bucks when Skyler beats Balentine.”