“The hand, it’s average size,” Smith said, “could be a woman with long fingers or maybe a man with sm—”
“No.” Cara’s denial was absolute. Said at once. She shot a frowning stare at the body. “You all need to understand something—
Michael—he was straight. There’s no way an incubus could have been with Michael.”
She’d know.
“An incubus can only seduce those who would find him attractive. Same thing for a succubus. It’s a basic, primitive response.” A firm shake of her head. “Michael would never have gone with an incubus. The killer, hell, the killer’s a succubus.”
She swiped a tear from her eye and whispered, “You deserved better than this.” She spoke to Michael, her voice the intimate one of a friend.
Or lover.
“I’m sorry, Michael.” She sounded completely sincere. Her hands balled into fists.
Damn, but Todd wanted to comfort her.
To protect and to fuck. Two drives that should have been at odds, but with her, they seemed perfectly in tune.
Todd huffed out a hard breath and wondered just what he was going to do about his sex demon.
Smith cleared her throat, looked a bit less hostile as she asked, “Uh, does she need to see the other body?”
Todd gave a grim nod. “Show her.” No sense putting it off now. Besides, he’d been the one to come up with the idea of bringing Cara to the Crypt.
He just hadn’t realized that seeing her pain would hurt him so much. “Hurry, Smith.” He wanted Cara away from that place.
Smith turned toward the vault. Pulled back the gleaming handle and grasped the covered slab. The slab rolled toward them with a rush of icy air.
Cara inched forward. Gasped when Smith revealed the body and she caught sight of the deep wounds on his chest.
“Why would a demon do that?” Gyth asked her, coming to stand on Cara’s right side. “If you guys can kill with a touch, why mutilate the man?”
“To make him suffer,” Smith said, watching Cara carefully. Like a rat watching a snake that had slithered too close.
Or a very nervous human watching a dangerous demon.
“No need for that.” Cara turned her stare directly onto the ME. “We can cause as much pain as we want, without butchering a human.”
Nice to know.
She rubbed her arms, as if chilled. “It…this doesn’t make sense. A succubus wouldn’t do this. I told you, it’s a waste—of energy and power.” Her gaze met his. “This isn’t—our way. This is rage. Hate. There’s no reason to kill this way—not when a succubus could use a simple touch.”
Yeah, pretty much his thoughts.
Two different murders. A nice clean death, versus a slaughter.
Because there were two killers?
One a sex demon who could kill with the soft stroke of a hand touch and one—one who enjoyed the red splash of blood and the screams of a victim’s pain?
Ah, shit.
Two killers—a possibility he couldn’t ignore.
Chapter 11
Smith’s hands were shaking when the detectives finally left with their little guest.
Guest.
A demon.
Oh, God, but they were everywhere—and, from the sound of things, another one was out there, a crazy psycho like the one who had attacked her. Only this time, instead of ripping out throats, the killer was seducing and murdering.
She braced her elbows on her desk and lowered her head into her palms. The faint strains of jazz swirled around her. The music had once relaxed her.
But the music had been playing when that asshole took her. He’d come into the Crypt, smiled at her, and then lunged.
She’d seen teeth. Too sharp. Claws.
Then she’d seen darkness.
Only to awake to a nightmare.
Her shoulders hunched. Every person she met. Every. Single. Person. She wondered about them. Human? Demon? Shifter?
Vampire? Something far worse?
The bodies that came in, she studied then with sharper eyes—and remembered the times bodies had been “transferred” out of her care due to a so-called overload in her department.
Had those transferred bodies been supernaturals? Were they moved so that she wouldn’t notice differences in genetics?
She suspected they had been.
The door to the Crypt squeaked open.
Smith gasped, spun around, and found Danny McNeal standing in the doorway.
She shot to her feet and demanded, “What do you want, Captain?” Their personal relationship had ended. His choice. He’d ended the best damn thing she’d ever had over six months ago. No explanations. Just a cold, hard cut.
They probably shouldn’t have ever gotten involved in the first place. They worked together. He was the captain with the bright future that everyone was always talking about.
She was the ME who carved up the dead.
But she’d wanted him.
He’d wanted her.
And late one night, when she’d gone to his office to give him a report, they’d finally given in to that need.
The passion between them had burned hard for three months.
Then he’d shut her out.
The bastard.
The worse part—he’d ripped out her heart.
Not that she’d ever let him know that.
Her chin lifted when he stepped inside the Crypt. “Do you need a case file?”
His gaze swept the room. Returned to her. Turbulent gray. “I need to talk to you.”
“Unless it’s about one of those bodies,” she pointed in the direction of the vaults, “we don’t have anything to say.” Maybe not the most adult response, but she didn’t really give a shit.
She’d been through hell the last few months, and she wasn’t in the mood to hear him ramble about crap. Besides, she had a feeling she knew what he was going to say. After the attack, he’d started looking at her kind of…funny.
With eyes too intent. Always watching.
After the way he’d kicked her aside, the jerk was probably feeling guilty. Good. He should. He—
“You need to know something about me.” McNeal stalked toward her, and yeah, stalked was the best description.
Smith tried to study him dispassionately. Really, her friends had asked her what she’d seen in the guy. He was white, for one thing, and her girls had never been into the white men. And he was older. Nine years.
And bald.
But on him, being bald, being older, even being white—it worked.
There was a hardness to him, a strength, in his face, along that stiff jaw, in those eyes. And then there was the aura of power that had always drawn her to him…
Jerk bastard.
“What do I need to know?” She snapped. “That you’re an asshole? I know that already. That you’re sorry I got taken by that freak? Yeah, I know that, too.”
“It’s not that…” McNeal looked damn uncomfortable. “You need to know—”
Now her heart was racing too fast. “What? You’re seeing someone else? Great.” No, it wasn’t, and the pain clawing through her chest told her that. “Look, I don’t have time for this. I’ve got to finish working on the Monroe case and with all these damn monsters around I—”
“I’m one of them, Nathalia.”
Her blood iced. “One of wh-what?” But she knew. God, but she knew.
“I’m not completely human.”
Her knees threatened to buckle. “I really don’t need this now, Dan.”
He took a step toward her.
The back of her legs rammed into the desk when she instinctively moved back.
“Jesus, babe, relax, you know I’d never hurt you.”
But you did. “What are you?” Not a demon, or a shifter, please not—
A muscle flexed along his jaw. “I’m known as a charmer.”
“What? What the hell is that?” A nightmare. That was it. She was having one really wild-ass nightmare—
“My kind—”
His kind?
“—we’re highly psychic and have the ability to communicate with certain animals.”
Her eyes widened. “Your apartment. That fucking big snake—”
McNeal coughed. “That was…ah…actually my mother’s.”
This just kept getting worse. “Your mom talks to snakes?”
A quick nod.
It was unbelievable. No, it should have been unbelievable.
But she knew it was the truth. “So what do you do?”
“Cats.”
“Like what? Meow-meow kitties that—”
“Tigers.”
Of course. No soft and friendly little cats for him.
“I found my connection with Shaman, a white tiger who used to be housed at the zoo, when I was a kid.”
The man talked to tigers. Her head pounded so hard that Smith was a bit afraid of passing out, and she refused to humiliate herself that way in front of him. “Get out, McNeal.”
Another step toward her. This time, the move put him close enough to touch. “We’re not all bad, babe.”
She stiffened at the endearment and the touch that had her wanting to lean closer to him. “I can’t deal with this” you “right now.”
There was a flash of torment on his face. “I am so fucking sorry about what happened to you. I never, ever wanted anything or anyone to hurt you—”
“But you just didn’t want me, right?” The words she’d held back for so long burst forth and she was glad. She was tired of pretending everything was fine and that she wasn’t human enough to feel pain.
Because she was human, even if he wasn’t.
The saddest smile she’d ever seen curled his lips. “No, baby, that wasn’t it at all.”
Liar. She knew her eyes said what her mouth didn’t.
“I was afraid if you found out the truth, you wouldn’t want me.” He glanced down at her, eyes narrowed.
She realized that she was all but flinching away from him. Her body recoiling, knees shaking.
“I guess I was right.” He dropped his hand. Stepped back. Then turned and walked away.
Before she found her voice, the door had swung shut behind him and she was left with the sting of memories and the bitter taste of fear on her tongue.
“Brooks.”
Colin’s gruff voice stopped him just as Todd reached for his Vette. He tensed at Colin’s approach, really not in the mood for a pissing match.
But when Colin stood beside him, the guy hesitated. Colin drove his hands into the deep pockets of his jacket. Glanced around the all-but-empty parking lot.
“What is it, Gyth?” Maybe something had come up about the case or about Cara or—
Colin’s bright stare turned slowly back to him. “I couldn’t tell you.” Stark.
Todd didn’t speak, just waited.
“When I was in Illinois, my partner—he found out what I was.” A pause. “He tried to kill me.”
Well, shit.
“I couldn’t take the risk that you’d—I just couldn’t risk another partner turning on me.”
Yeah, Todd could see where an attempted murder would make a guy hesitate. “I’m not your old partner. I’m not gonna reach for my gun just because you’re…different.” Too tame of a word for a werewolf.
“Good to know.” Colin’s eyes held his. “Why didn’t you say something, after you saw—”
Because at first, he’d been too damn stunned. Then he’d tried to convince himself it hadn’t happened, then he’d gotten so furious and then—“I wanted you to tell me.” But now, knowing what Colin’s last partner had done, Todd understood more about the guy—and he knew that Colin probably would never have told him.
He tried to kill me.
Shit. No wonder it had been hard for Colin to trust him.
Colin exhaled. “So what happens now? Are we gonna keep working together, or—”
“Hell, yeah, we’re gonna keep working together.” Like he’d really go to the trouble of breaking in anybody else. Besides, Colin was one damn fine cop.
With a few peculiarities. What had shocked him weeks ago, now just, okay, still shocked him. But he was dealing with the situation—or at least learning to deal with it.
Todd narrowed his eyes. “But no more secrets, man. You trust me, and I’ll trust you.” Simple.
A grim nod. “Agreed.” Colin held out his hand. The shake was brief, strong.
“Now get the hell out of here,” Todd said, jerking his thumb toward Colin’s old Jeep. “You don’t want to leave that sexy doc of yours waiting too long.”
A smile broke Colin’s lips. “No, man, I sure don’t—my doc’s not exactly the waitin’ type.” He turned away, then hesitated. When he glanced back at Todd, his smile was gone. “Be careful with your lady, Todd. A woman like her, she’s got a lot of secrets, too.”
Yeah, he knew she did. And he also knew those secrets weren’t going to stand in his way. He wanted Cara—and he intended to have her.
Todd heard the soft knock at his door just as he was about to head into the shower. He paused, sent a quick glance at the clock.
Midnight.
His steps were swift as he hurried from the bedroom. He knew the identity of his caller even before he opened the wooden door.
He’d smelled her.
Cara stood just past the threshold, dressed all in black with her hair pulled into some sort of sexy twist. Her eyes were lined with dark shadow, her lips tinted red.
“You missed my first show tonight,” she said. Then stepped forward.
He fell back, knowing she’d come fully into his apartment and wanting her there.
