Not that there was anything wrong with acting feminine, but girly was shorthand that encompassed a set of behaviors men automatically understood thanks to a lifetime of societal programming.
Midas stood with his hands in his pockets, and his gaze traced the curve of Ford’s arm where it wrapped around my shoulders.
“Another tip?” I shrugged off Ford and approached Midas. “Did you speak to the caller directly this time?”
“Yes.” He craned his neck. “Where’s Snowball?”
“In the truck.” I hauled him back on track. “Tip? Caller?”
“The caller was male. He dialed the den’s landline and asked for me. Dispatch doesn’t hand out our numbers, but they did transfer him to my cell. He sounded young, Southern, and he told me that he stumbled over a packmate on his way to the parking lot. I asked for his name, he refused. I asked for the victim’s name, which he must have known to identify her as pack, and he broke character. He ditched the accent, laughed once, and hung up the phone.”
“He’s taunting us.” I studied the parking lot filled with the curious. I examined each of their faces for signs the killer was here, watching. “He’s escalating.”
This particular MARTA station was one of the busiest in the city thanks to its easy access to I-20 and Douglas and Cobb County. The parking lot held something like fifteen hundred vehicles, and it employed its own police force. There were cameras mounted everywhere and plenty of people moving through the station toward the buses and the train.
“Give me a second.” I walked away from the gwyllgi while I dialed Bishop. “We’ve got another body.”
“Fuck.”
“Pretty much.” I rattled off the address and our exact location. “Pull surveillance, and let’s find this guy.”
“Do you need me to act as your aide?”
“Ford is here. So is Midas. I need you at HQ more than I need you on-scene.”
“Small hiccup on the background you requested.”
“What kind of hiccup?”
“The cleaners have their database locked down while they run their checks. Those usually don’t last but a few hours. I can wait, or I can check my pocket for keys, if you catch my drift.”
The call was a tough one, but I had to prioritize. “Wait it out.”
“I’ll pull in Reece and Anca.” He hesitated. “Make no apologies.”
The sign-off was one our team had adapted from the Woolworth family motto passed down to Linus from his aunt, Maud Woolworth, his fiancée’s adoptive mother.
“Survive,” I agreed and ended the call.
I shot the POA an update along with a promise I could handle the job, and I prayed I wasn’t lying.
With that done, I rejoined the guys, who had been discussing notification of the victim’s family.
Confirmation the victim was gwyllgi, that the killer had told that much truth at least, had to hurt them. “You’ve got a name?”
“Tilda Wainwright,” Midas said. “She’s a nurse.” His mouth pulled tight. “She was a nurse.”
“I don’t get it. The pattern makes no sense.” A richer darkness rippled beneath me, eager for a taste, so I flicked my fingers and sent Ambrose to investigate. “No attempt was made to conceal Shonda’s body. She was left in public, in plain sight. The killer wanted her found quickly.”
“The cache was old,” Ford said, understanding. “It could have gone undetected for days or weeks longer.”
“There was no reason for him to give up his hunting grounds.” He had a sweet spot here, and he had gone undetected so far. “Unless he didn’t plan to return there. Even then, it’s risky giving us that much evidence to work with. It will put us closer to IDing him.”
“This location promised Tilda would be found immediately,” Midas said, picking up where we left off. “Does that mean he’ll call with the location of another cache next?”
“Goddess, I hope not.” That was a pattern I did not want to see emerge. “I need to see the body and speak with the cleaners.” Ambrose too. “Bishop is expecting my report.”
Thankfully, the man who provoked Bonnie into her gwyllgi form wasn’t present to hassle me. However, I grimaced at the quick efficiency with which they processed the scene to clear it up before humans could document more of it with their phones. There would be no sweeping this under the rug. Money and favors would have to exchange hands to erase this.
“Hadley Whitaker, right?” A tall redhead flagged me down. “I’m Siobhan.”
“This your scene?” I took the hand she offered, shook. “I have questions.”
“I have no answers—yet—but this is my scene.”
“I meant on the Perkerson Park case.” I ought to be looking at the body, but a connection inside the cleaners could prove useful. They weren’t a social bunch, so I chose to take it as a good sign that she had singled me out of her own volition. “When will those reports be available?”
“Tomorrow.” The blood drained from her cheeks. “We’ve been working overtime to get all the evidence catalogued.”
Catalogued was a sanitary description for the work of piecing together so many bodies.
“Thank you.” I couldn’t put off viewing the body any longer. They were prepping it for transportation to their private morgue. “I need all the help I can get stopping this guy.”
“Reece knows how to get in touch with me,” she said softly. “I’ll send over the files the second they go live on our server.”
Well, that explained how he got his samples.
One of her underlings appeared at her elbow with a baggie and a question, and I left them to their work.
Tilda Wainwright lay curled facing the wall with her arms covering her head. She wore maroon scrubs, so she had been murdered on her way to or from work at the hospital. Her blonde hair was streaked with crimson highlights, and her shoes were bright white Crocs spattered with gruesome polka dots.
From this angle, the pinkish-white bone of her spine was visible. Whoever had done this had eaten the meat between her shoulder blades and her pelvis. They had gnawed her ribs, which had splintered and cracked until they snapped off under the pressure of the killer’s jaws.
I jumped when a hand landed on my shoulder and spun to find Ford. “What’s up?”
“Just wanted to check on you.” He gave me a reassuring squeeze. “Midas is talking to Bonnie.”
“I think I’ll join them.” I had a few questions for him. “Are you coming with?”
“Not yet.” He let his focus slide to the body. “I need a moment.”
“How rude is it for me to ask you to compare the scents from the previous scenes with this one?”
“Pretty damn rude,” he groused, “but I’ll try.”
“Thanks.”
Cutting through the crowd to Ford’s pickup, I reached it as Midas was shutting the door on his conversation with Bonnie.
“Can we talk?” I ignored the corgi pressing her nose to the glass. “Privately?”
He started walking, and I fell in beside him.
“Bishop has a theory I didn’t want to believe, but I think he’s on to something.”