The Alpha Killer
Crime Scene

Special Agent Randall Meechum’s POV

The scent trail led me to an entrance on the west end of the building, which was propped open. I had my FBI credentials on my belt, and I checked in with the locals and got a quick overview of what had happened. As I went in, the scent got much stronger. I pushed my wolf back as I went up the stairwell. I stopped at the third floor and took a deep breath; it was stronger on this floor, but I could follow it up to the fourth as well.

I had to replace her.

Opening the door to the third floor, I followed it down five doors on the right. The room was slightly opened, but empty. Her smell, and that of a human female, was strong. I closed the door behind me, drinking in her scent.

I put on gloves and started looking for clues. The room was clean, or at least as clean as could be expected for a shithole like this. The bed had been used, and I pulled and bagged some long blonde hairs from the two. I used dusting power to look for prints in the best places, the door handles and the bathroom faucets. I took pictures of the best prints, then wiped them off. I’d run them later if I couldn’t replace out who it was otherwise.

After ten minutes, I hadn’t found anything I could use. I got a text message, Agent Martinez was meeting with the local homicide detectives and wondering where the hell I was. I walked out of the room, pulling the latex gloves off and putting them in my jacket pocket.

Upstairs, the place was a hotbed of crime scene technicians and cops. “Over here, Meechum,” I heard. I walked into a room where the big shots were.

“Are we advising or running this, boss,” I asked as I saw my Rosalie talking to the Chief of Police.

“Advising and assisting,” she said. “The homicide is theirs, but we will be helping with the interrogations of the prostitutes and the money trail.”

“Four of the women we found on this floor have told us they were being held in sexual slavery,” a detective said. “Four more aren’t talking, and five are missing. The only one who wasn't seen after the shooting, her name was Star, not that it means anything.”

"Any surveillance tapes?"

"Hell no, the computer hard drive crashed a few days ago and they haven't gotten it fixed yet," he said with an eye roll. "We're working the front desk people, there's no way a prostitution ring rolls in without help from the hotel. The other four girls who are missing took off to avoid the cops, we're looking for them. We've got descriptions from the other girls but no real names."

It was true, most of the girls were given a first name, if even that. Whether recruited, abducted or sold, the girls who fell under the control of Dirk Carlson and his wife Peggy lost all control over their lives. They moved girls from town to town, using Craigslist and social media to reach their clientele. They were tough to track, because they would set up at sundown and be gone by morning. “Meechum, you assist Homicide on the deaths. Kent and I will run with the interviews of the girls.”

“On it, boss,” I said.

The lead homicide detective, Carl Anders, pulled me out of the room. “Let me walk you through the room and get your impressions,” he said. He pointed into the open room across the hall. “This is where Dirk and Peggy set up operations.”

I looked in, the cash box was still on the bed, nothing looked out of place. “Not a robbery,” I said.

“Nope, there was over five grand in the box.” We walked down the hall a little. There was a chalk outline of a gun. “Colt 1911, fired three times. Prints on the gun and the casings match Dirk. First victim here.”

The first body was a man dressed in boxer shorts, lying halfway into the hall. The bullet had passed through the Marlboro logo on his ballcap and his brains were splattered on the doorframe behind him. There were no powder burns on his forehead, so the shooter had to be at least three feet away. There was a stick poking into the doorframe, showing the path of the bullet. It was pointed at the center of the hallway, and down at about a ten-degree angle. Looking behind him, the bed was messed up and it smelled like stale beer and sex. “One of the Johns, maybe heard something and poked his head out?”

“Yeah, he was a real upstanding citizen with a penchant for underage pussy. The girl found in the room was thirteen.”

“Clean shot, better than he deserved,” I said. “Shooter is in the hall…” I moved until I was facing the victim, right hand up, moving along the line of the shot. I was six-foot-four, and if I raised the gun to sight it, I was shooting at a very shallow angle. I moved to the center of the hall and bent my knees until the gun lined up with the stick. “This can’t be right, unless the shooter is under five feet tall,” I said. Moving closer and to the right, my knees straightened slightly. Knowing it was at least a three-foot shop, I found myself on the right side of the hallway, at a height of five-two to five-seven. “Shooter is short and may have had someone to their left.”

“Interesting. All right, moving on to the lucky couple.” We walked a few more doors down, and the smell of blood was overpowering. Dirk was slumped against the wall, his throat torn open, and Peggy was sprawled across his legs. I moved around them carefully; Peggy had been hit between the eye, the back of her head blown across the wall. The stick was just above the baseboard.

“She was over him when she was hit,” I said. When the back of the head is hit, all motor function ceases and the victim drops like a sack of potatoes. I did the same exercise with firing heights. “It makes sense for them to be on the right side of the hallway, and that confirms a height of about five-six. I think anyone over six foot can be excluded, there just isn’t enough room to fire at that angle.”

“What do you think killed him?”

I put on gloves and leaned over to get a good look. As soon as I got close, I could smell her scent on him, and I froze.

My mate search had just gotten a lot more interesting and dangerous. My mate was a killer and a hell of a shot, with blonde hair and going about five foot six. There was no way I was going to let on to them they were looking for a she-wolf.

I looked closely at the wound, knowing from experience in the Packs what it was. She had shifted her hand, grabbing him with her claws and slicing through his neck like soft cheese. “Looks like multiple sharp points, like one of those bear claw things that you see kung fu guys with? What a mess.” His throat had been laid open, and blood was everywhere.

“Where is the last victim?”

“A few more doors down.” I could have led him there just by following her scent, and the scent of the human female she was with. It was another prostitution room, reeking of sex and sweat. The victim was nude, lying on his back on the far side of the bed. The bullet had struck him in the left temple and exited the back of his head.

“Nice fucking shooting,” I said. “Three for three on head shots with someone else’s gun?”

“Yeah, our killer is good.”

“A pro,” I said. “I don’t care how close you are, that’s amazing shooting.” I looked at him again. “So, we have our two ringleaders dead in brutal fashion, and two dead johns. The one in the hall looked out in the hall when he shouldn’t have, but this guy was banging a chick when someone kicks the door in.”

“Yeah, and it’s not easy to kick open one of these doors,” he said. I looked at the frame, it had been splintered. A werewolf could do it in one kick, taking out the multiple latches would be more difficult for a human.

“What do we know about this guy?”

“Local guy, deacon in his church, suburban home and blue-collar job. No priors.”

I smelled the bed and pillow and the human’s scent was strong in it. Whoever she was, my mate had come here to get her out, then had taken her down to her room. She was either stupid or smart, and I wasn’t betting on stupid. “So, based on what I’ve seen, we should be looking for a professional killer who is about five-foot-six and came to get this woman. She’s the one who is missing, right?”

He nodded. “How did you know?”

“Because the killer ignored the girls in the other rooms and came right to this one. If the dead guy wasn’t the target, the woman was.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah. They took the wrong person, because hiring someone with that skill level isn’t cheap. Whoever she is, her parents are rich or connected, and I’m betting on connected.”

“Come on, we need to talk to my boss.”

I followed behind him, trying to figure out what to do next. I needed to talk to my father; there were things I knew about the shooter that only he could know about.

I spent another three hours on-scene, working with Detective Anders as the bodies were moved and the scene was processed. I talked to the officers who had done the canvassing and got a description of the women in the room on the third floor. “She was a hottie,” he told me. “About this high,” he held his hand at my shoulder height, “Looked like a gymnast or dancer, even in the middle of the night she had a perkiness to her. Blonde hair past the shoulders. Her sister I didn’t get a good look at, but she was blonde too.”

I had an idea and pulled out my phone. Going to the messages from my father, I scrolled up until I got to the picture that had been sent out with the reward from the Council. It was a surveillance photograph taken on Alpha Kenyon’s land before he was killed. I made it full screen. “Was this her?”

He looked at it and his eyes got wide. “Yeah, definitely her. Such an innocent face, you just don’t forget a girl who looks like that.”

“Thanks.” I walked outside, I really needed to talk to my Dad, and I needed to do this in person.

My mate was the Alpha Killer, and the Council wanted her dead.