Sadie Hart Page 3

  A cold thrill touched her spine. He was still there. Still watching. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did. Intuition, perhaps. Instinct, more likely. Survival instinct. The same one that had a deer lifting its head even if the wolf hadn’t made a sound. Some days it just kicked in better than others. Hers had been running on overdrive since the day he’d caught her.

  She’d been jumping at cars backfiring, odd shadows on the wall, and the squeak of her dog moving across her ancient kitchen floor. Now every sense in her body was sharply attuned to the forest in front of her.

  “Ollie?” Lennox’s smooth voice came over the phone. The woman sounded relaxed, content. A pair of men laughed in the background.

  Lennox had told her to go home, get some rest. Instead, she’d gone straight back to work. It’s this kind of obsession that’s going to force me to remove you from this case, Ollie. Don’t go there. Don’t make me have to reassign you. “I went there,” she said. “Went back to the bar.”

  If her boss was angry, Lennox didn’t show it. If anything, the ridgeback’s attention seemed to sharpen. “You find something?”

  “He’s here.”

  “Shit. Did you spot him?” She heard Lennox scramble on the other end, the sound of a screen door swinging open, but Ollie’s world had narrowed on the forest, on the scent coming stronger on the night breeze. “Don’t do anything until I get there. You need backup. Don’t fucking go after him on your own—”

  “I’m not alone. The Sanctuary Falls alpha is here with me.”

  An engine revved, and Ollie took a step towards the woods, Caine right behind her. “Still, Ollie, be safe. Stay with the werewolf and don’t go out on your own. You’re the prey that got away; don’t give him a chance to get you back.”

  “I won’t.” Her voice came out hard, icy. Calm. She’d never give him that chance again. Ollie hung up, scanning the forest around her, the haze of twilight yielding nothing to prying eyes.

  “Ollie?” Caine asked, his voice oddly distant.

  She couldn’t help the sudden smirk. Somebody liked to eavesdrop. She pitched her voice low, but she couldn’t resist teasing, “My, my, what big you ears you have.”

  Caine gave a soft, sudden exhale, like a restrained laugh and the tension strung out between them eased. It steadied her, so she kept on talking. “Holly, Ollie.” She shrugged. “My grandmother calls me Ollie. Now everyone else does too. It stuck.”

  “We’re not waiting.” It wasn’t a question, and she smiled, the certainty in those words an echo in her gut. No. They weren’t waiting.

  “No. We’re not. Don’t do anything stupid, and know he’ll be armed.”

  He gave her a lopsided smile, flashing a fang in the low light of the moon. Feral, brutal. He screamed of impatience, power, the need to go find what was his...and that was one hell of a soothing balm to her nerves.

  “Then let’s go.”

  Gun braced in a two-handed grip, muzzle pointed down at the dirt in front of her, she headed into the woods. The forest was quiet around them and even with her inner dog, only the occasional bird and the soft crunch of their shoes on the forest floor reached her ears. Swallowing quietly, Ollie called up the magick given to Hounds when they passed through the STE Academy. It filled her, leaking out as she searched with both canine senses and magickal.

  Caine snarled at the first touch of her magick, but he didn’t flinch away. Hounds were the only shifters who had magick. They didn’t have the full powers of a witch, but they were given a slight magickal talent, enough to give them a one-up on the shifters they were sent to arrest. She could scry, erase her tracks, and heighten her senses, among other talents. It was the first she needed now.

  Her dog half flinched as she let the magick stretch out, her inner canine never thrilled by the touch. It wasn’t natural for shifters, and Caine’s snarl said as much. But other than that soft sound of disapproval, he didn’t seem deterred. Instead he paced along at her side, and she could smell his wolf just under the surface, waiting to break loose.

  They slipped past the spidery shadows of the trees, shrubs scraping at her jeans as she moved into the woods and towards the scent of sweat, wolf, and blood. Caine caught the scent too, his growl becoming a deep, vibrating sound that rolled over her skin like oncoming thunder. A branch snapped ahead and they both jerked, Caine’s body going stiff, hers spinning as she turned, gun upraised.

  A squirrel darted up a tree.

  A shaky breath slid from her. Damn. Heart pounding, she turned back in the direction they’d been heading and a flash of white caught her eye. She jerked the gun back up to aim before her brain registered the paper impaled on a small branch. The wind blew and it jerked, then started flapping. The sound hadn’t been there a second ago.

  “Shit.” Caine snarled and stalked past her, his shoulders drawn tight as he circled the tree, nostrils flared as he dragged in deep breaths that were more wolf-like than human. A car engine turned over in the parking lot and they sprinted back towards the Balljoint.

  “Dammit!” Caine lashed out as he reached the edge of the forest, his fist catching the side of a tree. The scent of burnt rubber filled the evening air.

  Ollie tracked the Hunter to a now-empty spot at the far end of the parking lot, the complete opposite end from where he’d parked the night he’d abducted Claire Rawson, and the morning he’d come back. Damn. Spinning on her heel, she stalked back to the woods, Caine Morgan pacing at her heels.

  “He was right here.”

  She didn’t even allow herself to think about that. To think that she’d let him get away again. No. Those were thoughts that came in the shower, where she could pretend that the moisture on her face was just water. Not tears. She took a deep breath, and without touching the paper, let her Hound magick out. She scanned the sheet for fingerprints, for clues other than the obvious. The big, bloody handprint in one corner. The scent of rubber gloves burned her nose, and Ollie knew the handprint would belong to Claire. She’d be alive, though it wasn’t a full moon yet.

  Stomach clenching, Ollie forced herself to read the note. In a neat hand the Hunter had left her one line:

  The games we play.

  Bile rose in her throat, bitter, burning. That was exactly what he’d been doing. Playing with her. With all of them. She turned to see Caine leaning against a tree, his gaze locked on the paper, anger simmering in the near-black of his eyes. His breathing came slow, tempered, as if it took every ounce of his control to hold himself there, to keep himself from letting the boiling rage inside overflow.

  “I saw.” A deep shuddering breath rocked through him as he tilted his head up to stare at the spidery canopy above, the black crisscross of branches against the dusky sky. He’d looked away, but he wasn’t fast enough.

  She caught a glimpse of pain in his dark eyes, saw the full, hard brunt of reality hitting him for what was probably the first time. Ollie took a step towards him, and Caine flinched, his lips curling back to reveal blunt, white teeth in the darkness. Still human, but the growl that came out of him wasn’t.

  “That’s what it is. What he does. Everything is a game. It’s part of the hunt.”

  “But he already has her.”

  “It’s not—” But she broke the words off. It’s not about her, she wanted to say but she couldn’t, and the moment she stopped explaining his body jerked, the realization a physical hit. Then he fixed that bleak, black gaze back on her.

  “Another thing you’re not supposed to tell me?”

  Shifter Town Enforcement couldn’t release all the details on the deaths. It was evidence they could use later, hopefully to catch this man, but right now it seemed like a pretty paltry excuse. She pressed her lips together and looked away, flinching at his snort.

  “When she’s fucking dead, call me.”

  He jerked away from the tree, heading back towards the parking lot, and Ollie buried her face in her hands to keep from calling out.

  Keeping the details from Caine wouldn’t help ST
E catch the Hunter this time. Claire Rawson would be dead when they found her. Her only consolation was that telling Caine wouldn’t save Claire either. But something they kept quiet might eventually clue them in to the killer. Ollie closed her eyes, but the image of a girl with a fast smile and too much makeup haunted her.

  In the back of her mind, the girl wasn’t smiling, and dead, dead eyes stared up at her.

  You lose, the wind seemed to taunt, the Hunter’s scent a fading fragrance on the breeze. Again.

  Chapter Four

  Under a fat and heavy full moon, Ollie watched as her collie danced across the yard. Silver strokes of moonlight cast the dog’s long fur in a soft glow that faded and reappeared as she moved in and out between the trees. Ollie leaned back against the rail as Star darted around the yard, barking happily at one squirrel and then the next, oblivious. As happy as a dog could be.

  It should have been a perfect night. Beautiful, the crisp cooling air of autumn, a clear sky—it was the kind of evening to be cherished. Ollie leaned her head back, eyes closed against the soft breeze. It should have been perfect, but somewhere out there Claire Rawson was running for her life. Or already dead.

  “You can’t stand out here blaming yourself. You did everything you could.”

  Ollie turned to see Nana standing in the open sliding glass door, a cup of tea in each hand, steam rising from them in soft gray curls. She offered one to Ollie with a sympathetic smile on her face.

  “I know. Doesn’t change the fact that she’s still going to die. Just like everyone else.”

  But me.

  Nana snorted, a daggered look in her eye as she glanced at Ollie under silvered eyebrows. “When are you going to stop blame yourself for living? You knew that bastard, right? Knew what he wanted, what he needed to make that kill. You didn’t give it to him, they did.”

  Rosalie Myers flashed across her mind, a nightmare as much as a memory. The woman bleeding on the concrete floor of the shack, beaten, exhausted, raped... By the time the Hunter had dragged Ollie into the shack, the woman had already been through so much. Ollie would never forget the look in Rosalie’s eyes when she’d turned around in those last few seconds in the shack. The glance that had told Ollie she was going to run.

  Her grandmother caught her wrist. “You knew, Ollie. Don’t blame yourself for following your head. You tried to tell her. I don’t have to have been there to know that.”

  Star yipped from the field and Ollie turned to watch the collie go, diving gracefully over the heather and ferns, a blur of silver and shadow. It was the run the Hunter needed to trigger the kill switch. A fight or struggle would do it, too, but the Hunter craved a chase.

  “I still wish I could have saved her.”

  “I know, child. I wish it too.” Nana took a sip of her tea, her blue-gray eyes staring out at the field and the dog running wild in the night. Ollie’s heart tightened with longing. She wished she could save Claire Rawson. Hated herself for following orders, for going home. Standing here wouldn’t help anyone.

  Nana stepped forward and touched her elbow, a faint ghost of a touch, but it brought tears to Ollie’s eyes.

  “But blaming yourself won’t bring any of those women back.” She turned to fix Ollie a firm look. “Nor will it save anyone else. You survived that night. That’s a good thing. It puts you a step ahead, gives you an advantage. You’ve seen him, you have sketches circulating now. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Did it really put them ahead, though? How? He ran circles around Shifter Town Enforcement. Yeah, they’d finally gotten a concrete sketch done thanks to her, but beyond that, they had nothing. They still couldn’t catch him. No one recognized him—he looked too average, too normal.

  And now he was making it personal.

  “The two victims he took when coming back from his break were rogues.”

  Her grandmother nodded. “And?”

  She thought of telling her. Telling Nana that the first one had been killed in the exact spot she’d fought him and won. The second, in the spot Rosalie Myers had died. Both had had notes for Ollie. The games we play. The words ate at her. Haunted her. Watching you. Coming for you. She wouldn’t forget a single one of those notes.

  But telling Nana that would only make her worry, stress. Ollie stressed enough for both of them. She shook her head and lifted her cup. “Just trying to think.”

  Ollie took a sip before she was tempted to say more.

  Nana seemed to sense the reason for silence and looked away, sadness leaving her face soft, worried as grandmothers often were when family was hurting. “You should come inside. Get some sleep. Lord knows you won’t get any for a while after tomorrow. They haunt you.” She touched Ollie’s arm gently. “I love you.”

  She leaned over to kiss her grandmother’s dry, wrinkled cheek, and all Ollie wanted to do was hold her tight. Instead, she pulled away. “I’ll be in soon.”

  But they both knew that was a lie. She wouldn’t sleep tonight any more than she’d sleep tomorrow night, or the night after that. Holly didn’t sleep much at all anymore.

  Star darted towards a fast moving blur on the ground, running full out when a howl shattered the night’s silence. Nana paused, one hand on the door as she turned to look out over the yard. Star skidded to a stop, head craned around, but Ollie was already running.

  Woof! The dog took a step forward, a warning growl rumbling through her sleek body. Every protective instinct the canine had was in overdrive, the fur down her spine was lifted, as she stalked towards the howl.

  “No! Star, come.” Her hands clenched air, wishing she had her gun on her, as Ollie ran for the big dog now standing quivering at the edge of the yard. Star let out another snarl as a second howl sounded in the distance. Triumphant, taunting.

  He was here.

  Star took another step, muscles bunching to run when Ollie skidded to a halt next to her, grabbing Star’s thick ruff. The collie whined, twisting her head around as Ollie fumbled for the dog’s collar, wrapping her hand around the thick nylon. The dog strained against her, eyes focused on the line of trees and the wolf hiding amongst them. Another growl rumbled through her as Star shivered, ears pricked forward. “No. Leave it.” Her voice came out sharper than she’d meant it to be, harsh. Star barely flicked an ear in her direction. “Let’s go, Star. Now.”

  Finally, the dog’s brain switched on, and she turned to move with Ollie, trotting easily at her side as they loped back to the house, only pausing occasionally to glance back and snarl. Ollie ushered her up onto the porch, wrenched open the sliding screen glass door and shoved the dog inside. She glanced at her grandmother.

  “Get inside,” Ollie said over her shoulder as she snatched her gun and cell phone off the kitchen table. Her hands trembled, the sick knot of fear making her want to vomit. That had been too close, way too close. One shot and Star could have been dead. Nana could have been dead. Fresh chills left her cold as she moved for the back door, a new thought burrowing into her brain.

  The full moon. There was a chance he’d brought Claire here, killed her here. Under her freaking nose. A chance the woman might still be alive.

  The memory of Star spinning towards the sound, strung tight with the sudden urge to keep her yard safe, and Ollie felt her heart clamp down tight. “Please, please stay inside. No matter what you hear. And don’t let her out.” Ollie slid the door shut between them, her eyes meeting her grandmother’s through the glass. “Lock the door.”

  Nana nodded. “I will.”

  Ollie dialed Lennox’s number as she headed off the deck, the dim light of the touch screen bobbing as she moved. Her boss picked up on the first ring as Ollie sprinted across the yard, making her way towards the trees.

  “Ollie? What happened?”

  “He’s at my house. I think he has Claire Rawson here. Probably killed her or is going to, I don’t know. I haven’t found the body yet. But he’s close. I heard him howl.”

  She slowed to a walk as the trees closed in around
her and she had to strain to see.

  “Are you sure it was him?” A branch snapped and Ollie jerked to a stop, spinning. The phone dropped to the ground as she lifted her gun. Her breathing came heavy, in short, sharp blasts of air. She could barely hear Lennox on the other end of the phone, the grumpy growls of her lion lovers in the background. “And please don’t tell me you were stupid enough to go running after him. Wait for backup.”

  Ollie waited a second, listening. Nothing.

  She knelt, and picked up the phone, cradling it against her shoulder as she stood. “What if she’s not dead, Lennox?”

  Her boss growled. She knew Lennox wanted to order her to stand down, to wait, but there was no way Ollie would listen. They both knew that. Not if there was a chance she could save this woman. “You at least have your gun?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m on my way and I’m calling the pack. Don’t let him get you again. Be safe.” The phone went dead, and Ollie stuffed it in her back pocket, still moving across the back yard. The full moon made it brighter than normal, but the dense shadows made it difficult to see. Ollie’s gaze swept over the trees and down into the meadow, looking for anything that might tell her where he was.

  One shot from him and she could be dead. Just like the rest. The only difference was...she wasn’t running from him, but towards him. That knowledge calmed her, eased the shake in her hands. Ollie dredged up her inner dog, using the canine’s added night vision to scan the forest to her left. Blowing out a steadying breath, she called up her Hound magick.

  The familiar magick coursed through her veins and Ollie turned her attention to the forest around her, letting the magick stretch out, searching for any sign of the Hunter. Wolf. Male. It was a silent mantra in her head as she scoured the area around her.

  Scrying with her magick was tedious, draining, but Ollie didn’t see a way to avoid it. It was one of the few advantages she had against him. In the dark woods around her house, it might also be the only thing that let her see him before he found her. “I know you’re out here,” she called out, voice steady.