Outcast (Hunter: A Thieves Series Book 4)

by Lexi Blake

  He put the folder on the table in front of me. “In the last ten years there have only been five missing persons reported in the whole county. Two were kids found within days of the report. Two are still listed as missing. And this one.”

  I opened the folder and stopped at the sight of a familiar face. “Whoa. Is that who I think it is?”

  Lee opened the folder that contained the information surrounding the first homicide. It also contained a photograph found at the scene of the victim and her husband. “I think it’s Christopher Miller. Right? They look like the same guy only a little older, and the missing person guy was named Christopher Monroe.”

  He was right. The two pictures were obviously of the same guy. “I don’t understand. Why would he be missing from here? If he was Lupus Solum, he wouldn’t have a record. No one would have reported him missing. Do we think he ran?”

  “Monroe’s mother filed the report,” Lee explained. “She doesn’t live on the compound. She lives in town. Well, she used to live here. She died a couple of years ago. Cancer. I found her obituary. I think she always missed her son.”

  This brought up a whole bunch of problems with my working theories. “Is this Miller guy a wolf?”

  Casey grimaced. “I don’t think so. He grew up around here. His mother and father owned one of the ranches that bordered the Jensen ranch. Christopher went to college, but when he came home he started working for a company that offered hunting and fishing tours. He spent a lot of time in the woods.”

  “I would suspect everyone around here does that,” Meredith said.

  “Yes, but about a year into his job, he started talking about a woman he met there,” Lee said. “According to his mother, Christopher was seeing a woman named Hester MacIntosh, but they were doing it secretly because her parents didn’t approve.”

  “Hester? As in Hester Miller?” Things were starting to fall together but I didn’t understand all the pieces to this puzzle. “His wife is from here, too?” I’d noticed something off about the reports. “Why was this filed in another county?”

  “Mrs. Monroe didn’t think the sheriff here would take it seriously,” Lee explained. “She said Hester came from the commune and the sheriff is in their back pocket.”

  Ah, now that was something of interest and a few of the pieces were starting to make sense. “Christopher Monroe goes missing ten years ago. He was having an affair with a woman from Lupus Solum. We’ve got a wolf boy who could be roughly nine years old. You definitely have my attention.”

  Liv shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking. When they ran this by me this morning, I thought the same thing. I looked through records in the county they lived in. No birth certificates were there. As far as I can tell the Millers, or rather the Monroes, had no children at the time of Hester’s death.”

  “They didn’t find Christopher Miller’s body.” It was the whole reason the king had thought Miller/Monroe was the rabid wolf. Though another scenario played through my brain. “Lupus Solum doesn’t like it when females of good breeding stock run away. Meredith, you said some of those pathogens that can infect wolves are found in the area, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Meredith agreed. “The virus is carried in certain ticks that are native to that part of Colorado. It’s certainly not common, but they’re out there.”

  I had a new theory. “What if the pack found Hester and Christopher after all these years? They track her down, but the cabin they’re in is rural. They have to make sure it’s really her, and that means doing some surveillance. This guy hangs out in the woods around their place, gets infected, and instead of hauling her back, he kills her. Christopher probably ran. The Lupus Solum enforcer is making his way back home.”

  “But what about the kid Jensen saw?” Liv asked. “Gray told us he was certain it was a kid werewolf.”

  I shrugged, going back to my original thoughts. “He’s a kid who ran away or they tossed him out. When we talked to the police yesterday, I could have sworn they knew about the kid but not the rabid wolf. My stepfather is here to kill the kid so Lupus Solum has less blood on their hands.”

  “I don’t think so,” Lee said. “And let me show you why. This is the cool part. Look at this.”

  I turned the pages of the file he was gesturing to and was assaulted by photos no kid should see. “What the hell, Lee? You pulled crime scene photos? Your mother is going to murder me.”

  He shrugged. “I thought you would want to see. It’s pretty gross because he like tore her throat out. Come on, Kelsey. I’ve seen wolf attacks before.”

  Yeah, he had because he snuck out of his bed and watched fights in the Council arena. “You are going to see Felix when we get home.” Still, he was right about the wounds on her neck. They’d been made by teeth. I flipped through the file and worried more for Lee’s mental health. I also praised his investigative abilities because that was one neatly done file. “I don’t see how this changes anything. It kind of holds up my theory.”

  “But I found something else. Something everyone else ignored,” Lee said with a light in his eyes. “There’s something weird with the crime scene, and that’s why I hacked in and found the autopsy. I would have stolen it from Meredith, but this was way more fun.”

  I looked to Casey. “You taught him that?”

  He winced. “Like I said, I was trying to distract us all. And he’s good. He was halfway there himself. The kid’s a genius.”

  “Try telling my teachers that,” Lee said with a sigh. “Anyway, according to the autopsy report, Hester had given birth at least once. And some of the neighbors said they’d seen her with a kid. The police couldn’t find him and they couldn’t find any evidence of a child in the house.”

  That was weird. I happened to know kids required an enormous amount of crap. I glanced through the article. Hester and Christopher had been renting a cabin in the mountains. Their nearest neighbors had been more than a half a mile away. “Livie, can you call a couple of these people listed? You might have to track them down. I want to know if they remember anything about wolves being around at the time of the murder. Ask them if they remember anything odd, howling maybe.”

  “The murder occurred during a full moon,” Lee pointed out.

  “And what are the chances that the kid would be a wolf?” I knew it happened from time to time. For the most part, wolves are only attracted to other wolves, so the question doesn’t come up. Here, I had to ask it since her husband had been human.

  “There would be a chance depending on what the father had in his genetic makeup. But we also have to think about the fact that perhaps she ran away while she was pregnant. She was of age to be in the group’s breeding program.” Meredith shook her head. “Are we sure the queen is okay with her son being involved in this? It’s weird.”

  The queen would forgive me. Lee had been through things that would have killed a lesser kid. I suspected that given the choice between working a case that potentially included a murder/suicide and letting Myrddin figure out whose soul was in his body, she would choose the nasty crime scene photos. “He’s mature for his age. And honestly, he’s been around some pretty crazy crap.”

  Meredith placed her napkin on the table, having finished her very small breakfast. As far as I could tell, she’d taken three bites of scrambled eggs and a half a piece of toast. She scooted her chair back. “Well, I think it’s odd, but I didn’t grow up in this world. I’ll leave it to the rest of you. I’m going to work. I’m doing a study of the Fae creatures while I’m here. I’ll be in my lab if anyone needs something.”

  She nodded my way and walked out.

  “Could you be nicer to her?” Casey groused Liv’s way. “She’s been through a lot.”

  Liv’s coffee cup clattered as she set it down. “She’s also snobby and thinks she knows everything.”

  They could fight all they liked. I was studying the case file Lee had made for me. Casey was complaining about bananas and Sorcha had come in to clear Meredith’s plate.
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  Hester Miller had been tortured. Someone had hated her. The crime scene photos told the tale. Blood was splattered across the walls of what otherwise looked to be a neatly kept home. The police had carefully photographed every room of the small house.

  “This one is empty.” Lee had gotten up and was standing next to me. He pointed to the single photo of an empty room. “All the other rooms had stuff in them. Why would this one be different?”

  It was the second smallest of the bedrooms, from what I could tell. It would be a guest room, perhaps or an office for a couple who shared the master.

  Or a child’s room.

  “You think she had a kid and someone’s trying to cover it up,” I murmured over the argument Liv and Casey were having.

  “Look at the inventory list.” Lee found the piece of paper he wanted and dragged it out. “The police wrote down everything they found at the crime scene. Especially the stuff that got covered in blood. I think this is a clue.”

  Line ten on the inventory list was an embroidered blanket in purple and blue. According to the neatly written notes, the blanket had been embroidered with white thread. Fenrir.

  “What does that mean? Fenrir? Is that another language?” I didn’t get it.

  Sorcha gasped. “No, mistress. I mean yes, it is another language, but it’s a name.”

  Lee shook his head Sorcha’s way. “She’s not big on mythology. You would think she would at least remember it from Harry Potter or something.”

  Liv looked up from her argument. “Like the werewolf?”

  Everyone knew but me. “All right, someone tell me about Fenrir and how it has anything to do with my case.”

  “Fenrir was a wolf from Norse mythology,” Casey said.

  “He wasn’t mythological.” Sorcha wrung her hands together, the plates she’d been clearing forgotten now. “He was real. At least he was according to my mother. He was the king of the great wolves who used to rule Scandinavia. The humans made stories about him, but the Huldrefolk knew the truth.”

  “My godmother would tell me and Rhys stories when we were younger,” Lee said. “It’s how I knew what the name meant. The way Ingrid tells it, Fenrir came from another plane. He came from a plane where the werewolves evolved as the dominant species. He left his home, found his way here, and took over the great packs of Norway.”

  “In Norse mythology, Fenrir is the god killer,” Casey said, frowning as he looked down at the inventory list. “It was prophesized that Fenrir the wolf would be the one to kill Odin during Ragnarok. He was the son of Loki, the trickster.”

  Sorcha shook her head. “No, it is like Master Lee says. He came from another plane, a plane where the wolves ruled. He was brought over by a demon. A planeswalker. He sold his soul to the demon to gain passage. When he got to this plane, he realized he could rule the wolves here. Many years were spent under his claw. He allowed the wolves to hunt Fae creatures. He sent us fleeing our homelands. Finally the council of alphas bound him and they slew the monster. Why would any wolf want to worship a monster like Fenrir?”

  Because sometimes it took a monster to take one down. I didn’t know but I was pretty sure a blanket that had trains on it probably wasn’t for the adults.

  There had been a child in that home and someone had erased his or her existence. Why would they do that?

  “You did good, buddy.” He was the single best assistant I’d ever had.

  Lee practically glowed. “Cool. I thought we could take a look around the woods today and maybe see if Fenrir is trying to find his way home. I think Hester came from here, from the wolf cult. What if Lupus Solum found them and Fenrir ran?”

  Casey was looking at his tablet. “He could be right. But why would the kid come here? And how the hell would he get here? It’s not like someone’s picking up a nine-year-old hitchhiker. Any decent person would hand him off to the police and someone indecent wouldn’t simply drop him off where he wanted to go.”

  I had no idea, but I was going to find out. And I did have a thought about his other question. “No idea. And then I have to ask how Lupus Solum would know about him if their assassin lost his shit because he caught a bad tick. Maybe the kid could be following a scent or instinct.”

  I’d heard stories of the incredible feats my bio dad could perform. He’d been a mutant wolf—a loner. Maybe that’s what we were dealing with. They followed their instincts. They tended to be a check on powerful alphas.

  What if Hester had run because she’d been abused here? What if she’d named her son in the hopes that he would be powerful enough to kill the gods in her life—the old wolves who’d pimped her out and forced themselves on her in the name of the pack.

  Maybe she would want to name her son after a god killer.

  “I want to find this kid,” Lee was saying. “I think he needs a friend.”

  Liv shot me a grim look.

  I knew exactly what she was thinking. Our friend Fenrir might have been the wolf who killed Hester. I might be wrong about all of it.

  I might be looking for a kid who’d already killed.

  I might be as bad as my stepdad if I had to put him down.

  I wished Lee didn’t have to see this.

  Chapter Twelve

  Two hours later—and a pound of bacon consumed—I studied the woods around our domicile, as Eddie put it.

  The dream I’d had the night before was still riding me hard. When I’d had a chance, I’d found my journal. Felix has me keep one. I’m supposed to write at least one line a day about my feelings. Most of the entries are I am feeling hungry or I feel like I don’t want to journal. But I also use that sucker to write down the dreams I have from time to time. I’d been told they might go away after a while or I could have them off and on for the rest of my life given how I close I am to the dark prophet. It made sense I’d had one the night before. We’d connected on a deep level. It brought me great peace and apparently shitty dreams.

  But these weren’t the same woods from my dream. The trees weren’t the same at all. I was happy about that because I had Lee with me. I’d promised to scout around the place with him for an hour or so while we waited for Gray and Trent to return.

  Casey was working on the background of our possible wolf mommy. Liv was planning a locator spell for lost wolves. Meredith was probably working up an even stronger cocktail of sleepytime drugs in case I went fuck-all crazy again. Eddie was the most important part of the team because he was focused on lunch, and that left me and Lee hanging around the forest.

  I closed my eyes and tried to open my senses. I’d been practicing with Trent when he wasn’t on top of me. My senses will never be as good as his, but I was getting closer. It’s all about letting my she-wolf take control. When that part of me is in charge, I’m stronger, faster, more willing to think about eating weird shit that tried to run from me.

  Now I let the woods wash over me. I could smell Lee. He needed a bath and he’d snuck a Dr Pepper in sometime after breakfast. He had something in the pocket of his jeans. Something metallic. The river wasn’t far from here. I could hear the rushing waters. There was something big close to us. Big and hairy and in need of serious grooming. In the distance I heard a hurmph. Moose? Elk?

  I couldn’t sense the wolves at all.

  Someone was humming. A couple of the brownies were trying to clean up around the tent. They’d recently had their daily payment in cream and one of them had a couple of drops on her clothes.

  “I know there’s something wrong with me.”

  The she-wolf fled the minute she realized something emotional was about to go down. Bitch.

  Damn. Now I wished I’d talked him into playing some Xbox. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re perfect just the way you are.”

  He stared at the ground beneath his feet and started walking. “I hear Mama and Papa talking. Dad doesn’t talk about it much, but Mama and Papa are always worried about me. Papa doesn’t want to take me to Faery anymore. Is that where everyone else went?�
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  So we hadn’t fooled him at all. “No, they really are camping with Mia’s mom and dad. They went to Lake Texoma. I didn’t lie to you about that. I thought you went to Faery a lot.”

  He had a whole side of his family in Faery. His grandmother ruled over the Seelie sithein. His uncle would take the throne one day. Declan Quinn and his “wife” kept a place on this plane so their son could know his cousins. Sean Quinn spent much of his time on this plane due to the fact that time worked differently in the Fae planes. A few weeks there could mean months gone here. The Quinns wanted the boys to be close.

  And hey, Sean Quinn was fully Fae. Immortality was his. He had all the time in the world to learn how to rule.

  I walked with Lee, unconcerned that we would get lost. I could find my way back despite the fact that Eddie had placed a small dead zone around the tent that would fool were senses. The fact that I’d been able to smell the brownies at all proved I had come a long way.

  “I used to go twice a year, but the last time I went there was a whole meeting where a bunch of the nobles said I was bad luck. They liked Rhys though. And Evan. But I’m human and they don’t like humans. That’s why Merlin didn’t like me.” Lee’s voice was a monotone, like he was giving a school report he couldn’t care less about but was forced to do.

  “Hey, who said that?” I could go to Faery. I bet Gladys worked just fine on the Faery plane.

  He stared ahead and kept walking toward the river. “It doesn’t matter. Papa says they said all the same things about him before he ascended. I like the Unseelie sithein better, but I got beat up and Mama won’t let me go anymore.”

  What the fuck? “Who did that?”

  He stopped and turned to me. “It wasn’t like that. I started it. Some asshole goblin said I was weak and I showed him how strong I was. I hit him with a rock. I got him good before he…well, he was pretty strong.”

  I dropped to one knee. “You can’t do that, Lee. You can’t start fights like that.”