Catastrophe by Liz Schulte Read Free Book Online Page B

found.”
    I nodded. Chances were the others didn’t look at the humans. No one ever did. “What I really need is for you to find out about the other human killings. That’s the top priority.”
    “Why?” he asked.
    I breezed through the lobby and stopped outside the door. “Which way?”
    He pointed to the left. “Up two blocks then three blocks to the left. Why are the humans so important?”
    “I don’t know yet. I just have a feeling that to solve this case I need to see the whole picture. Is it a problem?”
    He shrugged. “It won’t be easy. I don’t know how it works where you are from, but we pretty much stay clear of the humans here. They are superstitious enough without us feeding into the fear.”
    “Just do the best you can.”
    I took off down the sidewalk the way he had directed me. There was a crowd of people bunched around the yellow tape as police officers and a silent ambulance sat off to the side. Never a good sign.
    I ducked under the tape without slowing and walked down the alley. No one stopped as I walked up to the body and squatted in front of it, careful not to touch anything as I took it in. More of the body had been left this time, but the wounds definitely appeared to be bite marks. Through a large hole in the skull the brain had been removed, and the chest cavity was fair torn up. It looked like a much more frenzied attack than the pictures I had. I breathed in deeply. There was something vaguely canine, but there were too many foreign smells to really connect it to the body and not just the area.
    “Who is that? What the fuck is she doing in my crime scene?” said a voice from behind me as footsteps quickly approached.
    I looked up at the man in a suit with a silver badge connected to his belt. He had intense eyes, with heavy dark circles beneath them, and a sharp nose. He frowned at me.
    “Looks to me like you have a problem,” I said, glancing back to the body. “Whatever did this sure as hell wasn’t a dog.”
    “I couldn’t agree more.” He hauled me up by the arm. “Now, why don’t you tell me why I shouldn’t arrest you for contaminating my crime scene?”
    “Because you have a serial killer on your hands and you don’t even know it,” I said. It was a long shot, especially since I couldn’t prove any of it as far as humans were involved. But it was worth the risk. Working with a human detective could get me information about both sides of the attacks.
    His jaw tightened. “It’s a feral animal. That’s all,” he said as he nodded to someone else. “Escort her out of my crime scene.”
    I pulled my arm out of the other man’s grip. I walked backward as I spoke. “A feral animal no one has seen or witnessed? One that leaves behind random, chewed-on body parts? Have you wondered why the only pieces left are all marked by something man-made? Look at the crime scenes. You’ll see what I am talking about.”
    “Hey, X-Files,” one of the other police officers said. “Tell her your theory.”
    People around us laughed as I held his serious eyes for a moment.
    Finally, I nodded and ducked back under the tape. My display might have been a waste, but at least I got the human’s attention. If more crime scenes popped up, he might actually seek me out. Mace’s murder scene was the next closest to where I was. I started toward it, though I didn’t expect to find anything at the Abyss spots. The bodies would have been cleared out by now, and countless people would have traveled over the area.
    The human scene was such a contrast to Gus’s crime scene. The killings had similar aspects, but enough of the body was left that I couldn’t even be sure what I’d said to the detective fit his crime scenes. That body did look like it had been mauled. Obviously not by a feral animal, but a hell of a lot more wolflike than what was left of Gus. Gus’s grave was cold and surgical. Sure, there were bite marks, but there was something that didn’t feel right about the