But they had been, she was almost sure of it. Her keen avian eyes caught that. Her grandmother, like all shifters, reverted to her human form upon death, but Alma had been trying to flee. She had been naked, near a kitchen window. If the old woman had been able to fully shift—
She hadn’t. Whatever had caught her grabbed her out of the air, piercing the elegant barn owl’s heart and tearing across her abdomen until she bled out.
That was how Jena found her. Pools of blood leaking out of her grandmother. There was so much blood. Would it bleed through the carpet? The floorboards? Down into the sand underneath the house?
The hawk had flown to the window, seen her grandmother’s body, and screamed in rage. Then Jena had panicked and flown to John McCann’s old place. Lowell’s grandfather was the oldest of their pack and he and his wife would be watching the children of those who had to shift. It was one of the responsibilities of older shifters and non-changing husbands and wives.
“Jena? Why are you here? You’re shaking out of your skin, girl. Is something wrong? Where are the boys?”
“It—it’s Alma… Dead, Grandpa John. She’s—”
“What?”
“Someone killed her. I think it was one of us.”
“Corinne, stay with the children! I’m going for Jeremy.”
She’d been naked and trying to remain human when he shifted. The old grey wolf leapt off the front porch and took into the night. By the time John’s wife, Corinne, came out with a blanket to cover her, Jena had shifted to a hawk again.
“Jena, wait!”
She couldn’t. Couldn’t leave her grandmother out in the desert all alone. Her wings beat against the night sky, soaring up and over the houses. Past the lights of the town and into the barren land that Alma had adored.
How long would it take Jeremy to shift back to his human form? He was young, and wolves were notoriously bad at repressing a change on moon nights. He’d be able to do it, but it wouldn’t be easy.
Moon nights were usually times for celebration. Their animals were let out to roam and non-shifters watched the younger children, often gathering in family groups and letting the children have slumber parties and game nights to fill the evening. Jeremy’s wife, Brenda, was new in town and still shy around many of his family, so she’d been happy to watch the boys for Jena while the single mother flew with her grandmother. Usually, Alma would gather the boys and go stay at John and Corinne’s house, talking with old friends, playing cards, and letting the children stay up way too late with their wolf cousins.
Jena shifted back when she landed on Alma’s porch, then walked inside and found an old shift dress of her grandmother’s that just barely fit. She grabbed the shotgun from over the door before she went back to sit on the porch. She resisted the urge to cover up her grandmother, knowing Ted would need to see her.
See her like that?
She choked back the tears and kept watch for Jeremy’s truck. Would Jeremy be able to find Ted? Ted was better at coming out of a shift, but she’d have to be tracked down. Would one of the cat elders track her down and let her know?
One of the cats…
Jena gritted her teeth, the anger clearing her eyes as she started.
Her eyes.
She let out a harsh breath and stood. Her eyes were better than anyone else’s. She could see things, especially right after a shift, that human eyes never would. Colors were more vivid to her, and she picked up and recorded visual information with an almost photographic memory.
She needed to go back inside.
Slowly, she stood and pulled the groaning screen door open, then paused, listening again for any movement. The only sound was the clock over the mantle, ticking.
It had been a wedding present from her grandfather, the wild railroad worker who had fallen in love with the girl who worked at the diner near the tracks. Alma had been stunning when she was young, a petite brunette with the high cheekbones of her Cherokee blood and a secret that she had entrusted to the eager boy who pursued her. The boy who loved her for sixty-seven years until the heart attack took him. Jena barely remembered him, but he’d had a long life for an outsider. Ninety years. His wife had longer, as all shifters did, but Alma had expected that.
Jena blinked back another round of tears as she stepped toward the kitchen. Many of the older shifters could live to one hundred ten years or more in robust health. They never got sick. Never a failed heart or a cancer diagnosis. Her grandmother, at almost one hundred years, had looked like a woman in her early eighties. Now she looked like a mangled doll.
She was naked, lying in a pool of dark blood. Both arms were spread, reaching out as if she was just about to fly from the room. Her body was angled toward a large open window, where the dusty night breeze still flipped the curtains into the house. Her legs were bunched under her, bent as they would be when she first went into her shift.
Was she human or owl when she was killed? From the position of the body, Jena was guessing owl. She’d fallen, then shifted back to her human form. Jena couldn’t—couldn’t look at the deep gashes that marred Alma’s torso. She tried, but every time, the urge to vomit almost drove her from the room. So she dug her teeth into her lower lip and forced herself to look around the kitchen.
There were pies cooling on the counter. One in a box, as if ready for a guest to take home. For Jena? Maybe. How had Alma’s attacker gotten inside the house? She walked to the back porch, carefully stepping around the body to push the door open. There were scratches at the bottom that looked new. Small, not a mountain lion. Bobcat, maybe? Lynx? She didn’t know enough. Maybe Ted would. There was something different about the claw marks, but she couldn’t think what. Her brain felt scrambled. She took one last mental picture, then went back inside.
The blood. The sight of it hit her again, and her stomach churned. There was so much blood. Alma’s eyes were wide open in shock. Jena couldn’t help herself. She reached down and closed them. Then she crumbled to the ground, her back against the cupboard doors her grandfather had carved.
“Are you with him now, Grandma?” she whispered as the tears poured down her face. “Please be with him. Don’t linger like Lowell did. Please. Go to Grandpa. I’ll be okay.”
Alma was silent, her body only a shell of the vital woman she had been. Other than the warped gashes across her abdomen, she looked curiously unharmed. There were no scratches or bruises that Jena could see. But her sun-darkened skin was pale and bloodless. Her lips more blue by the minute. Jena pulled up her knees, laid her forehead on them, and sobbed.
Jeremy and Ted found her like that, curled on the ground, shaking and aching to return to the safety of her hawk form.
“Jena, why are you in here?” Ted sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “Come on. Come out on the porch with me.”
“I can’t!” she cried. “I can’t.”
“Jena.” Jeremy’s voice was soft and firm. “Let me take care of her now. You go with Ted. I need to get a scent profile. Then I’m gonna have to call Chief Gilbert. I need you out of here, Jena. Your scent is too strong.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
“No, hon.” Jeremy knelt down and helped Ted get Jena to her feet. “You’ll help her more if you’re out of here.”
She nodded and let them lead her out to the porch. It was better, better for Alma that way.
“Do you need to go back inside?” she asked Ted.
“No. It’ll be easier for Jeremy to scent if I’m not in there. Just having your smell and mine clouding the area is going to make it difficult enough.”
Just like Jena’s vision still wore the strength of her hawk form, Jeremy’s body still wore the strengths of his wolf. He was one of the smaller wolves in the pack, but smart and quick, according to Alex. He had quickly moved up the complicated wolf hierarchy that no one truly understood outside the McCanns. His sense of smell could be a definite advantage in finding out who had killed Alma.
Ted continued. “I’ll be a
ble to examine the body—I mean… examine her later. And she’s probably going to have to go somewhere else, Jen. Another… lab. I don’t have the facilities here.”
Just the thought choked her again. Ted pulled her into her arms.
“Oh, Jena,” she sniffed. “I’m so damn sorry. I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe it.”
“We were gonna go flying. We hadn’t been out together in months. If we’d just stuck with our routine, then she wouldn’t have even been here.”
“I know.”
The weariness was starting to hit. “Why didn’t we just stick with routine?”
“This isn’t your fault, Jen. Only one person is at fault for this, and we’re going to find him.”
“Okay.” For some reason, she didn’t doubt it. “Someone we know, Ted. One of our neighbors. Could it have been an animal attack?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe it was random.” She knew she was rambling. “Or—or an accident?”
“Jena—”
Ted broke off when the front door opened. Jeremy was looking ragged around the edges, obviously feeling the effects of forcing himself to remain human, but his voice was still calm and soothing. His eyes were steady and confident.
“Ted, you can come in now. I’ve got as much as I’m gonna get. Now, Jena, I’m gonna have to call the chief. You understand that, right?”
She nodded. “Right.”
“Which means you better think of a good reason you were out at your grandma’s house in the middle of the night on a Tuesday. Ted drove your car over here, so you won’t have to explain that. Think up a reason Alma wasn’t wearing anything.” Jeremy looked like he was at a loss. “I… I wish I had a suggestion, but you’ll probably—”
“I’ll think of something.”
Ted got up to retrieve her case from the pickup truck, and Jeremy knelt down next to Jena on the porch steps. “I know we gotta keep him in the dark about a lot, but try to give him as much information as you can without revealing anything you can’t. He’s good, Jena. I’ve seen his record. Murder cases. Drug rings. Gang stuff. He knows his stuff. If anyone can find who did this…”
“Did you get anything from the scents?”
“I did. But don’t worry about that now. I want to let Ted get her stuff and the chief get his before we start putting all this together.”
“I saw some things, too.”
“Figured you might have, but we’ll talk about it later. Right now, I’m gonna make that call, okay?”
She nodded. There was no delaying it. She wanted to see Caleb again, but she didn’t want him to question her. For once, she wanted to be held by someone who felt stronger. Someone she could depend on. She wanted to cry and rail and know that someone was aching because she was hurt. Something told her Caleb Gilbert might just be strong enough, but that wasn’t why he was coming. Jena took a deep breath, pulling the raw grief inside. She only hoped the man was as good at his job as Jeremy seemed to think, because there was a hell of a lot they weren’t going to tell him.
Chapter Ten
Why had he thought it would be easier?
As Caleb drove out to Alma’s house, following the cryptic directions Jeremy had given him, he steeled himself to deal with seeing the body of the lively old woman who had served him pie and teased him about her granddaughter. The same granddaughter who had found her dead body a matter of hours ago.
“Why were you out there, Jena? Why did it have to be you?”
Unlike the city, here there was no one to call. No backup or disinterested detective.
‘I know the victim. Put someone else on it.’
‘I’m involved with her granddaughter. Find someone else.’
There was no “someone else” anymore.
Caleb realized something as he pulled into the gravel in front of Alma’s house. While the city may have been impersonal at times, it had sheltered him with anonymity. In Cambio Springs, there was no shelter. He would know every victim along with their families and friends. He’d deal with the aftermath of violence long after the case had closed. He hadn’t thought about that part. He’d looked forward to the expectation of easy days and no midnight calls.
Now, as he looked at Jena’s slumped shoulders on the porch—her devastated eyes, her shaking body—he didn’t want to question her. He wanted to hold her. In some ways, this was going to be the hardest case he’d ever solve. But he would solve it. Caleb may have had a bad track record of taking care of the living, but the dead were a different matter.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and focused. Then he opened them and looked at the house with new eyes.
Jena had found her grandmother before dawn on a Wednesday morning. Why was she here? Had Alma called expecting trouble or was this related to the cryptic conversation he’d overheard her having with Jeremy?
“—I just know she’s new in town. I don’t want to impose.”
“It’s fine, Jena. Call her. I can almost guarantee it won’t be a—”
“I wouldn’t even ask, but… well, you know.”
“It’s fine. She gets it. Really, she does. And she really likes the boys. Just call her.”
He would bet Brenda McCann was at Jena’s house that very moment. And Jeremy was already here, which meant Jena had called him first. Not all that unexpected. Despite their growing friendship, he was still the unfamiliar element in this town. Well, that and murder. Caleb had looked at the sheriff’s records. The last homicide in Cambio Springs had been fifteen years before, when a man had shot his wife in a domestic dispute. It had been tragic, but a clear crime of passion. The husband had been sitting on the porch when the deputies had come, weeping and near suicide over his actions.
From what little Jeremy had told him when he called, this was something altogether different.
“Not sure, Chief. Looks like an animal attack. It may be that, but it’s inside. It’s possible something wandered into the house, since she does live out in the middle of nowhere. It’s a weird one.”
Alma Crowe was no dummy. She wasn’t likely to let an animal in her house in the middle of the night. What was really going on here?
Caleb opened the door and stepped out. Jena, wearing an odd dress, was sitting on the porch steps with Jeremy. Not her dress. He could see that immediately. Had she gotten blood on her clothes and wanted to change? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d encountered it with witnesses. Blood was a primal reminder that something had gone terribly wrong. Most people avoided it. The sight of it. The smell. Caleb tucked the information into the back of his mind and looked around the house.
The scene. Not the house, the scene.
Jeremy’s pickup was pulled up front. Jena’s car around the side. A kitchen door? Family and close friends would use the kitchen door. He couldn’t see Alma’s car, but it might have been in the detached garage he could see behind the house. Were they going somewhere? Was Jena supposed to drive? He approached the two cautiously. Jeremy was speaking in a low voice, and Jena kept nodding mechanically. Her eyes were red from tears, but her skin was pale and drawn. She was a hundred victims he’d seen before. She was the only victim ever.
Caleb wanted to hold her.
He pushed the urge back and nodded as Jeremy looked at him.
“Chief.”
“Deputy. Jena.” He kneeled down on the lowest porch step so he was even with her. Jena lifted swollen eyes to his and he couldn’t help himself. He reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, brushing a finger over her cheek. It was hot, like she’d been crying for a long time. He saw her eyes start to well again, so he pulled back. “I’m sorry,” he said in a soft voice. “I’m so sorry, Jena. I’ll help her now. Do you understand?” She nodded and closed her eyes. Then she took a deep breath and started to speak.
“I was coming out here—”
“Let me…” He interrupted gently. “Let me go look first. It’ll just take a few minutes. I’ll be back. Jeremy, you picked up Ted, ri
ght? Is she in there?”
It hadn’t surprised him to learn that Teodora Vasquez, only doctor in Cambio Springs, was the coroner as well. But unlike some coroners in small towns, he had a feeling Ted would take this job just as seriously as setting bones or giving exams. That said, it was a quiet town and this was probably her first violent death.
“Yeah, she’s in there.”
“I’ll go back. Wait with Jena?”
Jeremy nodded while Caleb rose and walked up the steps. He paused a moment before he entered the house, wishing he’d had time to visit before its owner became a murder victim. He quickly shoved the thought to the back of his mind and opened the door.
It was the same everywhere. The metallic scent that sometimes hit him at scenes. Death had many scents, but this time, it was the overwhelming smell of blood that drifted to him. He followed the quiet sound of Ted’s voice that led him to the kitchen. She was taking notes into a small voice recorder. All the expected stats as she measured and sampled. The myriad familiar tasks that a forensic examiner performed as she cared for the remains and collected evidence. It wasn’t quite as exciting as the television shows made it out to be, but the evidence was important, nonetheless.
Ted glanced at him once, but kept speaking her notes into the recorder as she crouched next to the body. Caleb could tell from her actions that she’d done this before. She paused and switched her recorder off before she stood up and met his professional stare. She was devastated, but hiding it well. She also anticipated his question.
“I worked for a few years in L.A., but no, it’s not the same.”
“It never is when it’s someone you know.”
“You ever had a victim you’ve known?”
“That I investigated? No. Not like this.” Created? That was a different story.
“We could call Dev.”
He tried to not be insulted. “He knew Alma better than I do. It’d be harder for him to be objective.”
“Yeah, but he’s not trying to get into her granddaughter’s… Never mind. You’ll be fine.”