Chapter 1
Dallas, Texas
“Man, I hope they’re wrong about someone dumping a body out here,” Officer Connor Malone murmured as he moved through the heavily wooded area ten yards to Senior Corporal Trey Duncan’s left. Fellow SWAT teammate and werewolf Corporal Trevor McCall was another ten yards beyond Connor, while Officer Hale Delaney was a bit farther out, bringing up the end of the search line. “I mean, dumping a body anywhere is sick, but this place is way too beautiful for crap like that.”
Trey agreed with his blond teammate. The Trinity River Audubon Center was part nature preserve, part public park along the southern side of the county. In the distance, he could hear the drone of vehicles speeding along the Interstate 20 belt loop, but for the moment at least, the area he and his pack mates were in was quiet and tranquil.
That would all change if they found anything. In a heartbeat, a place usually known only for its slow-moving streams and mist-shrouded walking trails would immediately be overrun with cops and crime scene technicians looking for clues to help them identify the person the local papers had tagged as “the Butcher.”
While the name of the latest serial killer to terrorize Dallas might not be original, it was unfortunately devastatingly accurate. Four bodies had been found over the past week and a half. Or more precisely, parts of four bodies had been found. In each case, the corpses—all men—had been found dumped in wooded or remote locations missing their heads and both hands. The theory was that the killer was mutilating the bodies to make it harder to identify the victims. If that was the plan, it was working, because the Dallas Police Department had yet to put a name to a single one of them.
Four bodies found with hands and heads removed was morbid and depraved enough, but unfortunately, there was more. Each victim was also missing at least one other body part—the right arm in the first case, right leg in the second, both lungs in the third, and on the body found two nights ago, several whole sections of skin had been missing. The DPD had tried to keep those details secret until they had a suspect, but somehow, it’d leaked out and the media had been running the Butcher storyline nonstop ever since.
“Did you hear what happened to make them think there’s a body out here?” Hale asked as he dropped to one knee to look under some thickets near the edge of the stream that served as the leftmost boundary for this part of the search grid. Tall and muscular, he had dark-blond hair and blue eyes.
Trey could have told him there weren’t any remains to be found under there. If there were, they’d be able to easily pick up the odor. But even by normal human standards, Hale’s nose was bad. Compared to the other members of the pack, their fellow werewolf couldn’t smell anything at all. That’s why he tended to trust his keen eyesight for everything.
“Something about an older couple out here walking their dog, I think,” Trevor said as he waited patiently for Hale to finish looking under the brush. There was a time when everyone in the Pack used to rag on Hale about his nose, but now, they all felt bad for him.
“Yeah, that’s it exactly,” Connor said as Hale stood and rejoined their line moving through the woods. “But you missed the best part. It turns out the couple’s dog ran off while they were here, and when the poor guy finally came back a few hours later, he was covered in blood. They assumed he was hurt, so they took him to the vet. When the vet figured out the dog was okay and the blood wasn’t his, she ran a precipitin test, then called the PD first thing this morning when she confirmed it was human.”
“No wonder Chief Leclair pushed to get so many volunteers out here searching.” Trevor ran his hand through his dark hair. “If the dog was loose for hours, there’s no telling where he was when he found the body. It could be miles from here.”
Trey didn’t comment and neither did his pack mates. They searched in silence for a while until Trevor spoke again.
“So, how’d your date go last night, Connor?”
If they had been close enough, Trey would have fist-bumped Trevor to thank him for coming up with something to talk about besides the mutilated remains they were out there looking for.
“In a word—a disaster,” Connor said, tilting his head back to sniff the morning air like he’d picked up a scent. But whatever it was must not have been all that interesting because he continued, “Seriously, it was the worst date ever.”
Trey was fairly sure his pack mate was exaggerating. He’d seen Connor and the nurse talking a couple weeks ago after Connor had gotten roughed up during a confrontation with a drunk man on a bulldozer. Connor hadn’t been hurt—he was a frigging werewolf after all—but a reporter had seen the blood, so a trip to the hospital had been mandatory. Which meant Trey had been forced to watch her and Connor flirt for nearly an hour as she’d taken her time cleaning his injuries. There’d definitely been a spark there.
“Come on,” he scoffed. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”
Connor snorted. “Trust me, it was worse.” He sighed. “I mean, dinner went fine and there was some chemistry—not any kind of serious connection, but we clicked well enough to see where it might lead—but it all went downhill once I took her back to my place and she met Kat.”
“Ah,” Trey said in understanding even as Hale and Trevor did the same.
In theory, Kat was the SWAT team’s feline mascot, but honestly the cat put up with the SWAT Pack simply because that’s who Connor hung out with. She was definitely his cat. Hell, she even followed him on their incident calls, regardless of the danger. And forget trying to keep her and Connor separated. Trevor had tried locking her in the armory to keep Kat from going out on a barricaded active-shooter situation, and the damn cat had shown up at the scene five minutes after the SWAT team, somehow having hitched a ride with a uniformed patrol officer who had no idea she was even in his car. No one had a clue how she’d done it. Suffice it to say, Trevor was her least favorite werewolf in the Pack. The look she gave him every time she saw him would melt the paint off a car. The only reason the creature hadn’t come this morning was that it was o dark thirty. Kat never got out of bed this early unless it was to watch Connor and the rest of them shower after physical training.
“What happened?” Trey asked, though he was sure he already knew. Kat had a way of letting people know what she thought of them.
“Nothing at first,” Connor said. “Kat was nowhere in sight when Michelle and I got back to my place after dinner, but the moment we sat down on the couch, she jumped up and shoved her way between us, deliberately knocked the glass of wine out of Michelle’s hands, then clawed her dress.”
Trevor snorted. “I guess Kat didn’t approve of your date.”
“You think?” Connor asked dryly. “Regardless the date was over. And before you ask, Michelle and I won’t be going out again.”