Rogue Wolf, page 16
When Trey had led her to the stretch of forest where he and the larger member of the Butcher serial-killing duo had fought, she expected to see a few disturbed piles of pine needles, some broken tree branches, and maybe a drop or two of blood. What she’d gotten was a war zone of gouged earth, broken tree trunks, and what looked like two or three pints of blood spattered absolutely everywhere. It had helped some when Trey had assured her the blood wasn’t his, though he’d been seriously short on the details when it came to how that much blood had ended up spattered so far and wide.
If she had to guess—and she had to because his answers were vague BS—she’d say Trey had gone at the killer with a knife or even a machete. But Trey hadn’t been carrying a weapon like that when they’d left her place. Having essentially frisked him while getting naked with him, she knew that for a fact. And he definitely hadn’t taken anything from his truck because she would have seen him doing it.
Which meant that there was yet another secret Trey was keeping from her.
“The blood?” he prompted when she didn’t say anything.
Crap. How long had she been sitting there in a daze?
“Oh, sorry. I was lost in thought,” she said. “To answer the first part of your question, no, nothing on the DNA yet. Even with a priority rush, it will be a couple days before we can check to see if the samples match anyone already in the system. As far as the other part of your question, yes, there was something strange with the blood.”
Trey waited patiently, one brow lifted.
“This is going to sound insane,” she admitted. “But the blood I collected at the Cedar Ridge Preserve can’t be typed and doesn’t have a definitive rhesus factor.”
Trey considered that for a moment before nodding. “Okay, you’re right. That does sound insane. What exactly do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve tested multiple samples. The results either come back inconclusive or as a random mix of blood types. Same with the rhesus factor. It either comes back as positive, negative, or both. It’s like the samples were taken from a combination of a different people’s blood. You’re sure you saw the blood come straight from the big guy you fought, right?”
Trey nodded. “It was his blood for sure. Is it possible for a person to have mixed blood like that? Maybe if they’d gotten a transfusion?”
Samantha shook her head. “No way. For one thing, no doctor worth a crap would ever do a transfusion without typing and cross matching the blood for compatibility. And if something like that happened anyway, the person would have one hell of a nasty incompatibility reaction. He wouldn’t be running around the woods fighting. He’d be laid up in a hospital waiting for his kidneys to fail.”
“Then how do you explain what you’ve discovered with the samples?”
“I can’t.” She sighed. “Which is why I’ve hidden the results from Louis and everyone else. I only hope it doesn’t affect the DNA profiling. If we can match these blood samples to someone already in the system, we’ll have the killer.”
They talked for a while longer about the evidence collected at the preserve, Samantha admitting she’d been getting ready to examine the body parts Connor and the others had found before Trey had shown up with dinner. Trey seemed to take that as a sign she needed to get back to work. He wasn’t wrong, but Samantha still hated to see him leave.
“Hey, before you go,” she said as they got to their feet. “We didn’t get a chance to talk, but I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed last night.”
Mouth quirking, Trey casually rested his hands on her hips, sending her heart rate soaring with that simple touch. “Last night? Oh, you mean running around the woods collecting blood samples? Yeah, that was fun, wasn’t it?”
She slapped him in the chest, only remembering his broken ribs after the fact. Not that he seemed to care. “No, I don’t mean running around the woods collecting blood samples, you eejit. I was talking about earlier at my apartment. In my bed.”
He chuckled. “I know what you meant.” He stepped closer until all Samantha could see was his broad chest and those powerful arms, his low, rumbling voice making her shiver a little. “And yes, I enjoyed last night, too. More than I could ever say. It was special beyond words.”
Feeling exactly the same way, Samantha went up on her toes, dragging his mouth down at the same time for a kiss she simply couldn’t go another minute without. She moaned at the electric tingles running all over her body from that simply contact, suddenly wishing they were anywhere but in her office.
It hit her then that this had moved well past the falling stage at some point when she wasn’t looking and was now hovering dangerously close to the L-word, leaving her to wonder when the hell that transition had happened. Was it the sex? It seemed likely, since she’d never had orgasms that good in her life. But even as that thought popped into her head, she knew it wasn’t just about sex. The moment things between them had changed so drastically was well after the bedroom gymnastics. It had been when she’d been sitting in Trey’s truck all alone, terrified out of her mind for him.
“I didn’t realize how scared I was until I heard that howl coming out of the woods,” Samantha murmured, not realizing she’d said the words out loud until she looked up and discovered Trey was gazing down at her, his face full of concern. “It was so loud that I could hear it right through the windows. I started freaking out then, knowing you were out there on your own. I had the door open and was running through the woods before I even knew what I was doing. It was insane, and I can’t even begin to explain what the hell made me think I could find you in that pitch-black forest, but I couldn’t leave you out there on your own. Something inside wouldn’t let me sit there and do nothing.”
Trey’s arms wrapped around her, pulling her to his chest and hugging her tightly. He made gentle shushing sounds and little relaxing circular motions on her back with his hand. “You don’t have to explain it. I completely understand. When you showed up with the guys, I nearly lost my mind. I can’t believe you did something as crazy as come into the woods after me. But then I realized I couldn’t expect you to leave me behind any more than I would have left you behind.”
If his admission of how worried he’d been hadn’t melted her into a gooey puddle, the kiss he gave her would have. Gazing up at him afterward, thoroughly kissed and thrilled at the knowledge that this thing between them wasn’t one-sided, Samantha decided then and there that it was time to tell him everything. Yes, it had the potential to blow everything up in their faces, but she needed to tell him now. Before it was too late.
Then Louis walked in the door.
“Officer Duncan,” he said warmly, ignoring the fact that she and Trey had been in each other’s arms a moment ago, clearly in the middle of making out. But her boss was cool that way. “I heard someone up front say you were here and thought I’d check to see how you’re doing.”
Trey exchanged looks with her before giving Louis a frown. “How I’m doing?”
“Yes.” Louis reached up to adjust his glasses, eyeing Trey up and down like he was a corpse on his exam table. “I heard someone say you got into a physical altercation with the Butcher. One of the techs who was at the crime scene last night said you were so beat up, you could barely stand up straight.”
Trey chuckled. “I think that might be an exaggeration. It wasn’t anything more than a few bumps and bruises. Nothing a couple of ibuprofen couldn’t fix.”
Louis nodded. “Well, that’s good to hear.” He looked to Samantha. “Don’t stay too late. After last night, you must be exhausted. The Butcher will wait until tomorrow.”
Giving Trey a nod, Louis walked out, leaving them alone.
“You want to get together tonight?” Trey asked, giving her a smile. “I promise to have you in bed at a decent hour.”
She laughed. “I like the way you think. But let’s go to your place instead. I haven’t even seen it yet. Unless you live in a van by the river, of course.”
He chuckled and kissed her again, promising that he did, in fact, have a place nicer than a van by the river. “I’ll text you my address.”
Another kiss and he was out the door. Promising herself she’d tell him everything that night, Samantha grabbed her lab coat from the coat rack and slipped into it. If she wanted to get out of there at a decent hour, she needed to get to work.
The institute was nearly empty as she walked toward the lab. Not all of the assistant MEs had their own labs, but the senior ones like her, Hugh, and Nadia did. It was nice having a room set up exactly the way she liked it—with equipment and supplies arranged so she could find everything quickly—and knowing she didn’t have to worry about anyone messing with stuff.
She spent the next hour on the dismembered leg, taking pictures, weighing, and measuring it, recording all the details in the institute’s digital forensic database. Photos were uploaded automatically, but everything else had to be manually entered into descriptive forms that went along with every photo. It took forever, but once it was in, the computer system made it easy to bring up anything she wanted.
Samantha found very familiar burn scars on the leg, making her almost certain it had belonged to the same victim as the leg she collected Monday morning out by the homeless camp. That would make this the first time a second part had been found from the same person. She wasn’t sure why yet, but she knew it was significant.
It wasn’t until she started working on the arm that she found something that might finally help them find the Butcher—a tattoo of a winged horse, with five stars arranged above it and a six digit number below. This thing wasn’t some generic I love Mom ink. No, this was super original and specific. For the first time since the investigation started, she had a distinctive mark that should make ID’ing the person the arm came from a slam dunk.
She was in the middle of taking multiple photos of the artwork, trying to capture it from every angle, when she stopped mid-click.
Crap.
She’d seen this tattoo before.
Setting down the camera, she hurried over to the computer and logged out of the forensic database, then placed the remains back in cold storage and hauled butt back to her office. One glance at the darkness outside told her she’d already worked way too long, and that Trey was probably wondering where she was, but she had one thing she needed to check before leaving.
Back at her desk, she jumped on her computer, pulling up the files from yesterday’s staff meeting. She had to flip through nearly a hundred crime scene and autopsy photos, but when she found the picture she’d remembered, it stopped her cold.
Aidan Bridges, thirty-two-year-old male, found dead in his Preston Hollow home. Cause of death was an opiate overdose. The photo of the man’s body on the exam table showed the winged-horse tattoo on the right arm clear as day. Hugh, the ME who’d performed the autopsy, confirmed that because Bridges had no family or next of kin, the body had been cremated by the county two weeks ago.
That obviously wasn’t true because Aidan Bridges’s arm was sitting in cold storage in her lab.
Her head spinning at the implications, Samantha went through all of Hugh’s autopsy records from the staff briefing, stunned at how many cases the man cleared in a month. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for until she found a John Doe with a circular-shaped scar on the inner part of his left forearm—the same scar she’d seen Monday morning on the arm from the body dump near the homeless camp. The John Doe had been picked up in the woods west of Cockrell Hill, with Hugh declaring the man’s death a suicide. Like Aiden Bridges, this body had been cremated about two weeks ago.
Samantha wasn’t sure how long she sat there staring at the photos of Aiden Bridges and the John Doe, wondering how many more of the Butcher’s victims had first been on Hugh’s autopsy table. She finally closed the file and logged out even as she tried to understand what exactly was going on. Had Hugh murdered those two people himself, then used his position in the ME’s office to cover up the crime so he could give them to the Butcher? Or had those men actually committed suicide, then Hugh gave the bodies to the Butcher so he could dissect them? Or was Hugh the Butcher, doing some kind of insane experiments on people using the parts from these two corpses? Considering his medical and surgical training, that made sense on some sick level. No wonder she’d been having such a hard time coming up with any viable clues in the case. Who better than an ME to know how to hide stuff like that?
Samantha stood and ran for the door. She needed to tell somebody about all of this, and fast.
Chapter 16
“Trey, it’s Samantha,” she said into her cell, knowing how stupid it was to drive with one hand and operate a phone with the other. But she needed to talk to him about what she’d found. Unfortunately, she got his voicemail. “I stumbled onto something really big with the case I need to talk to you about it. Call me as soon as you get this.”
Samantha almost said I love you before hanging up, but then chickened out at the last second. Yeah, maybe it was too soon for that. She should probably wait to see if they made it past the part where she confessed to stealing his blood and sending it out to a private lab for testing.
As she drove through the well-maintained streets and fancy homes in Westover Hills, Samantha began thinking she had the wrong address. When she reached the house taking up the entire end of the cul-de-sac, she was even more sure she’d taken a wrong turn. With its stacked stone walls and turreted roof, the three-story structure looked more like a castle where a king would live than a house belonging to a chief medical examiner.
She pulled her car into the broad driveway and stopped, staring up at her Louis’s home in disbelief. Even with the light streaming through the leaded-glass windows on the lower floor, “dark and foreboding” was the best way to describe the house. Not that it wasn’t beautiful. It simply wasn’t the kind of place she’d ever want to live.
Getting out of the car, she headed for the front door, taking in the manicured lawn and impeccable flower beds. She knew Louis came from money—or at least that’s what the rumors around the institute were—but if the man could afford a place like this, why the hell did he keep working? Especially as county medical examiner.
She rang the doorbell and waited, praying he was home. If he wasn’t, she’d have to go with her backup plan—going to see the task force lead detective or Chief Leclair. Truthfully, she wasn’t comfortable with either one. She didn’t know the lead detective well enough to refer to him by anything other than his title. She didn’t know his first name and couldn’t remember his last name. And while she’d at least talked to the chief a time or two outside of the Butcher case, the woman had always struck her as overwhelmingly busy and not very interested in the thoughts of anyone not wearing DPD blue.
It didn’t help that Samantha had no idea how well her theory would be received. The idea that Hugh was either the Butcher or working directly with him was a little out there. Especially when the only evidence she had at the moment was that two of the body parts she’d recovered had come from corpses that had been on his examiner’s table. It’s why she wanted to talk to Louis first and see if she was completely off base. If he found her ideas sane and reasonable, the task force would be more likely to take them seriously.
She lifted her hand to ring the doorbell again when the front door opened. Louis stood there in the entryway wearing a Mr. Rogers cardigan, clearly surprised to see her.
“Samantha! What are you doing here so late?”
“I discovered something disturbing about the Butcher case and wanted to talk to you first before I told anyone else.”
Louis’s expression quickly became all business, and he opened the door wider, motioning her forward. “Of course. Come in and we can talk.”
Samantha stopped inside the large foyer, completely awed. The circular space was breathtaking, open all the way up to the third floor, with lots of marble and gilt edges, beautiful curving stairs leading to the floors above. But the most unexpected find were the gleaming suits of armor positioned on pedestals all around the perimeter of the room, each holding a weapon that looked real as hell to her.
“Forgive my taste in home decor,” Louis said with a laugh, motioning toward the suits of armor. “My family name has historical roots in sixteenth-century Italy, hence an obsession with antique armor and weapons from that time. Feel free to look around if you wish, or if you prefer, my study is ahead and to the left. I have to take care of something I was in the middle of when you knocked.”
Samantha spent a few moments looking at all the armor and weapons but was too distracted to pay them any attention, so she instead headed for the arched doorway Louis had pointed out.
The study was as nice as the entryway, with antique furniture and shelves loaded with leather bound books. While she waited for her boss to take care of that thing he’d been in the middle of, Samantha looked around. Taking in the books, paintings, and the glass case filled with more edged weapons and a handful of extremely modern handguns and rifles, she was pretty sure this one room was worth more than her whole apartment.
One particular painting on the back wall behind the desk caught her attention. It was extremely well done, depicting Louis with a teenage boy and a pretty, dark-haired woman. The boy was obviously the son she’d heard about that had died years ago. The woman in the painting must have been his wife, but Samantha had heard rumors they’d gotten divorced a little while after that.
“Jamison was killed in a car accident several years ago,” Louis said from behind her and Samantha turned to see him standing in the arched doorway, gazing up at the painting she’d been studying. “I’m sure you knew that already, though. But the fact that my wife divorced me less than a year later is probably something not as widely known. Not that I blame her for leaving. I was an inconsolable prick after my son’s death and gave her no reason to stay.”
