Omega's Kiss: M/M Mpreg Alpha Male Romance

by Aiden Bates

  The ranger took off his hat. "Hi there, gentlemen. It's good to see you again. Wish it could be under better circumstances."

  Doug, of course, remembered the ranger's name. "Ranger Derry. You're looking well."

  Derry. That was his name. "Ranger Derry," Ray said, grateful to his omega for remembering the name. "Please let me introduce my colleague, Detective Tessaro."

  Tessaro shook the ranger's hand, and then looked over to the dump site. "So, forgive me for asking, but how did you get over here within an hour of the grave being dug?"

  Ray choked on his own breath. "Are you serious right now? That's incredible. Impossible, but incredible! Maybe you should start from the beginning!"

  Derry beamed with pride. "Well, gentlemen, after the last time we spoke, I got to thinking about this whole grisly little setup that your guy has here. And I thought to myself, this guy must be really sick. So I managed to talk the DCR into springing for a wildlife cam that was web-enabled. I told them I thought we had an endangered bird out here." He chuckled at his own cleverness. "And then I set that camera up to record, and to send me an alert when we got something. The alert went off, and I called in and got your boss."

  Ray huffed out a little laugh. "That's pretty goddamn impressive. I mean the vic hadn't even been reported missing yet."

  "Well, we can't confirm the ID until we have her hands, face, or DNA." Oliver scowled as he walked up to the little knot of people. "So far we don't have that. What I can tell you is that we have a Caucasian female who's given birth to at least one child, and didn't take great care of her feet. We'll have to wait until we can get to the lab, or the rest of the body. I'd hope we could get the head, too."

  Doug made a face. "That's never happened. Not in the entire history of these killings."

  "No. But we've also never gotten to the remains so quickly. We've even got tire tracks this time." Ray grabbed Doug's hand and gave him a little squeeze. "You know what this means, of course."

  "We're closer to getting the real killer." Doug's free hand clenched into a fist. He squeezed Ray's hand, and Ray knew that Doug understood what he really meant. "This is good. This is excellent."

  The crime scene techs were still working the scene, Oliver had them working in a spiral pattern, which made sense for this type of scene. They would walk it again in the light, although the mag-lites did great work and their workers were pretty darned professional about their job. Every once in a while someone would call out that they'd found something, but those cries were few and far between.

  The Lakeville Killer hadn't left much evidence behind him before. Why would he start now?

  Ray directed everything from the sidelines. The crime scene techs were the ones who knew best what they were doing. They marked each potential piece of evidence with a flag, and Ray went to check each of them out but didn't touch them. He'd look again as it got light out, and then the photographer would get a picture of each piece in situ. Only then would the collection process begin.

  Doug, for his part, stayed out of the way. He hunkered down in his jacket and didn't say much. He watched everything, though, and Ray knew that he would have comments and questions about everything that he saw.

  Once the sun came up, Ray walked the site again. There wasn't much evidence to see. There were a few tire tracks. There was a shoe print that had been left behind in some mud. A hand had been dropped in the killer's rush to leave, and a piece of women's clothing. A knit cap, like one that anyone would wear on a chilly November night, had fallen beside it. Ray thought it might have been the killer's, but he couldn't be sure.

  "All right," he sighed. "Might as well collect the evidence and clean this up, right? This is already more than our guy ever gave us before. Let's get to work."

  It wasn't that simple, of course. Uniformed troopers would have to stay on the scene to guard the crime scene techs as they took casts of the boot print and the tire track. Still, it was enough to get them to work clearing the scene of the actual body parts, and to get Doug and Ray back to the station.

  Doug sat perfectly still in the car. He asked if they could go back to Dunkin Donuts, which Ray was happy to oblige. Calls at all hours were part of the job description for him, but they weren't normal by any stretch of the imagination and he didn't have to like them.

  Ray pulled into the first Dunkies they saw, and Doug made a beeline for the restroom as soon as they set foot indoors. Ray followed. If his omega was sick, Ray should know about it.

  Doug didn't waste time complaining. He doubled over and was noisily sick into the toilet, even as Ray locked the door behind them. Ray rubbed circles into his back while Doug finished emptying his guts. "You okay?" he asked.

  Doug glared. "No. I am most definitely not okay. I'm a lawyer, Ray. My job has almost no direct contact with body parts." He wiped his mouth and stood up. "I'm sorry. It's not your fault. It's the killer's."

  Ray grimaced. "I dragged you out there, but come on. You've never seen a real, live body before?"

  Doug's glower turned murderous. "Okay. I've had to go claim two clients at the morgue after they got killed up at Shirley, but that's different. That's cleaned up and sanitized. That's not parts just dumped into a hole, okay? The smell in the morgue is different too. It's not quite so…" He turned green and put a hand over his mouth.

  Ray wrapped his arms around Doug and held tight. "It's okay, Doug. I know what you mean. I'm sorry. I should have asked you to wait in the car or something. These scenes are pretty gruesome, even for me, and I'm very used to bodies."

  Doug relaxed against him, supporting himself against Ray's body for just a minute. "I'd wondered if he left or went to ground," he whispered after a moment. "You know. Because he hadn't killed anyone in this half of the cycle."

  "You're right, he hadn't. As near as we could tell, anyway." Ray kissed the top of Doug's head and stood back. "I mean we can't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure you're right. For now, let's get you back to Framingham so that you can help us brainstorm the possibilities."

  "Yeah. Can we do that away from the morgue?" Doug looked up at him with soulful eyes, and Ray couldn't say no.

  They headed back up to Framingham, and Ray got Doug settled into a comfortable chair before the other guys could come in and try to get involved. Tessaro was already there, of course, and he sat down next to Doug to try and build a sense of normalcy. Tessaro did stuff like that, whether the person involved needed it or not.

  Devlin was already there, of course. Robles and Nenci came in next, followed by Morris. Oliver joined them last, still struggling with his lab coat. Nenci stepped forward to help him to get it on, making them both blush and look away.

  Ray cleared his throat. "Okay. So, as of this morning, we have a twenty-fifth victim of the Lakeville Killer. He has to still be in the area. He's still active. This time, he left us a gift in the form of foot prints and tire tracks. What do you think that's going to do for us?"

  "Well, we have to find a vehicle to match it to." Robles tossed a pen up into the air. "Oliver can do all of the preliminary work he wants, but he's wasting his time without something to compare it to."

  "I wouldn't go that far." Morris tilted his head to the side. "We can see the different possibilities associated with that tire. We can see which suspect has boots like the print we found. That's pretty good circumstantial evidence right there; enough for a warrant, anyway."

  Doug roused himself from his nausea. "Nope. If I'm defending one of those guys—and I won't be, but someone else will and they'll probably be competent—my first challenge is going to come from the dubious basis for those warrants. The tire won't be specific enough, and the whole problem with the shoe is that the real killer has enough traits in common with at least two other men that one of them is paying for his crimes."

  Morris slumped. "So what are we supposed to do?"

  Doug shook his head. "I'm not saying to exclude that evidence. It's probably going to become important later on. I'm just saying that it's a lot ha
rder to say, 'Well, lots of guys have Jeep Wranglers or Toyota Tacomas,' when we've also got a hat with his hair in it, and who can't supply an alibi for a good number of the murder times, who's had significant disputes with some of the victims…" Doug grinned. "You see where this is going."

  Nenci rolled his eyes. "Yeah. But we saw where it was going the last time, and look where it got us. I mean it even got us eyewitness accounts."

  "Inaccurate ones, as it turned out." Doug shrugged. Ray knew that he wouldn't be intimidated by Nenci. He had faced down worse. "That's why you need more. That's why you need physical evidence, and stronger circumstantial evidence, to back it up."

  Ray nodded. "So. Who wants to come and interview Dick Tolbert with me? We'll see if he volunteers anything. Someone else can have the fun of going out to interview Dan Gagne."

  Robles offered to go with Tessaro to check out Gagne, which left Morris with Ray. "Awesome. I guess that Nenci, you're going to be here working on alibis and bringing information as it comes in."

  Devlin shook his head. "How about if Nenci and Morris go out, and you stay here and manage things, Langer? You're the lead on this one. You'll be more valuable from here."

  Ray tried to hide his disappointment as he turned to his boss. "Of course, sir. Good thinking. I'm going to give Doug a ride back to his place, though. He'll be able to get back to work and we can call him with any questions."

  Doug nodded. "I don't have court at all today, so I'll be available whenever you need me."

  Devlin nodded, and the detectives were dismissed.

  Ray drove Doug back to his place so he could pick up his car. "You going to be okay?" he asked his mate.

  "I'll collapse like a wall tonight, but I'll be fine." Doug kissed his cheek. "I love you. Hopefully this will all be over soon."

  Ray couldn't have agreed more.

  Chapter Eleven

  Doug rubbed at his temples and tried to fight off a headache. That headache had been right on the edges of his consciousness ever since he'd gone with the detectives to look at the body in all of its gruesome glory. That had been two days ago, and Doug was still not over it. He couldn't exactly take anything for it, either, not with the baby on the way.

  Fortunately, he didn't have to be out and in public today. He didn't have any client meetings and he didn't have any court dates. His job today was simply to get down and dirty with the law, to research and come up with arguments for the cases on his load. Next week would be intense. Next week they would hopefully close on a house, all while Doug had a trial starting for one case and preliminary motions for another.

  Weren't stress hormones bad for babies? Well, there wasn't anything to be done for it. He was going to have to make sure that he got a great night's sleep every night over the weekend, and spent as much time resting as he could. With any luck that would chase that headache away. Fortunately, good planning had gotten as much of their houses packed up as they could, so he wouldn't be losing time.

  Someone knocked on his door. He looked up through the frosted glass to see Mike Torres, one of the partners he worked with here at the firm. He stood up, and Mike walked into the room. Mike had been something of a mentor to him through the years, and there were few people that Doug respected more.

  "Doug, good to see you, Have a seat." Mike smiled and sat down in one of the visitor chairs.

  Doug sat back down in his own chair. His heart thundered in his ears. Was the office too messy? He didn't think so, but he was used to it by now. Had they finally come to fire him for getting involved with a cop? Had Mike come to tell him he was no longer on track to make partner, because he'd gone and gotten pregnant? Was he not performing fast enough now that he was tired and sluggish and sick?

  Mike crossed his legs. "How are things going, Doug? I know you've got a lot going on."

  "Couldn't be better, sir." Doug forced a bright smile.

  "Really? Because you look like you haven't slept in days. I thought that part was supposed to come after the baby, not before it." He chuckled. "Doug, you're carrying more cases than anyone else at this firm, and you're moving at the same time. I'd be a little scared if you weren't exhausted, to be quite honest."

  Doug knew that he was blushing. He could feel it in his face. "I might take the weekend off," he admitted. "I'd be okay if it weren't for that whole thing this Wednesday, with the crime scene."

  Mike made a face. "That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. Sometimes a defense attorney does become involved with a case. It happens. We have to find the actual culprit in order to prove our client innocent, and that's what you're doing now. I'm a little concerned that they're dragging you to crime scenes in the middle of the night."

  Doug sighed and looked away. "I'm honestly torn." He looked back at his mentor. "You know, on the one hand it's annoying to get dragged out of bed to go look at body parts in the woods. I'm worried about how that will affect my performance on other cases. Those guys, they don't have any other cases right now. Because they're dealing with an active serial killer, they became a task force dedicated to taking this guy down." He picked up a pen from his desk and used it to beat out a rhythm on top of the battered wife's case file.

  "So they don't get your issue, where you've got five more cases that you're working on." Torres nodded and leaned forward. "Got it."

  "That entire squad are alphas, so they're more sympathetic to the fact that I'm pregnant. They're less sympathetic to my having other cases, because that's not how things work for them." He closed his eyes. "We'll just leave out the fact that law school doesn't prepare you for parts."

  Torres recoiled. "No. No, it does not." He turned his face away for a moment. "Yuck."

  "Right?" Doug laughed a little, and he knew that he sounded hysterical. "Can I admit something to you?"

  Torres' eyebrows drew together. "Of course. I'm here for you, Doug."

  Doug swallowed. His hand stilled. "I feel a little bit weird about helping them find the killer. I mean yes, part of helping them find the killer will mean setting my father free. And there's the whole thing where there's an active serial killer terrorizing women in the community where I grew up. But I'm a defense lawyer. Helping the police catch someone feels a little weird to me."

  "It should." Torres shrugged. "That doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it in this case. You'd obviously have to recuse yourself from defending the person caught."

  Doug shuddered. "I can't even consider it. The guy deliberately let my father twist. I just can't."

  Torres put a dark hand over Doug's. "No one here would expect you to. And, to be honest, no one here would take the case. We stand by our own, Doug."

  Doug relaxed. They hadn't sent Mike to fire him. Mike was just here to check up on him. "Thanks, sir. I really appreciate that."

  "How are those cases going, by the way? I know your father's case is dragging out a lot longer than expected." Torres folded his hands on his knee.

  Doug winced. "The judge seems to have a personal grudge against me. I'm not usually a big believer in that kind of thing, but I was warned from the outset that Judge Murphy sees criminal activity in a 'where there's smoke, there's fire' kind of light. And of course my whole reputation is based on disproving that notion, so I guess I can see where that's coming from. He dismisses cases that we can prove wrong, but he won't just dismiss the charges altogether and he won't let Dad out of jail.

  "As to the other cases, they're moving along at their own pace. The omega who killed in self-defense will see jury selection in two weeks. That should be exciting. I'm a little nervous about that one. I know the law. The law itself is very much on our side, but the jury might not be. My client isn't doing well in prison. The trial for the battered wife is starting next week. I'm ninety percent sure that the judge in the child pornography case is going to throw out the charges. He can see that this is a clear, if rare, case of someone trying to smear our client's name.

  "The SIDS case has turned around and become a malicious prosecutio
n case, which is fantastic because we can hopefully bring in some more money on that. The town should have seen that the grandmother had an angle. The guy being prosecuted for assaulting a police officer is just starting to wind its way through the justice system. Prosecutors are insisting on no bail for him, because he's 'dangerous,' but the video clearly shows that he's innocent and he's not able to defend himself anyway. Not at this point. And I just took the case of the mother defending her child. I've gotten her released from jail, and she's been reunited with her daughter. I'm feeling confident about that one, but it'll be a while before we know for sure."

  "That's a lot on your plate, Doug." Mike shook his head with a grin. "Do you have help—paralegals and such?"

  Doug squirmed. "Er…"

  "That's what they're for, Doug." Mike chuckled. "They can do a lot of this work for you. Also, I'm going to assign one of the first year attorneys to help you out. Not because you're not pulling your own weight—far from it." He held up a hand. "You've got a lot on your plate, and I want people to see how it's done. Especially that first year guy." He winked. "I also want people to see that you get the support you need. You're doing partner-type work. You should be getting partner-type backup." Mike stood up. "Go ahead and take the rest of the day off, Doug. You look like you could use it."