Her Lone Wolf Read online

  Danica sighed. “Some things never change, do they?” She shook her head and glanced at her watch. “We have a little bit of daylight left. I assume you’d like to see the most recent crime scene?”

  Ten minutes ago, Clayne wanted to be anywhere but in this building. Now he wasn’t sure he wanted to leave, not if it meant going with Danica and her partner.

  “Give me the address,” he said. “I’ll check it out myself.”

  Danica shook her head. “Uh-uh. You want to see it, you get an FBI escort. And thanks to my big mouth, Carhart’s decided that’s going to be Tony and me. So, let’s go.”

  She pressed the button for the elevator, then stood there with her eyes focused on the doors and her arms folded underneath her perfect breasts. Damn, he hated her with a vengeance right then.

  Clayne swore under his breath. He didn’t care what it took, he was going to find this killer in record time, then get his ass the hell out of California. Because there was no way he was spending one minute longer with his ex-partner-slash-lover than he had to.

  * * *

  If looks could kill, Danica knew she’d be dead right now. Clayne’s dark eyes had been boring a hole in her head from the backseat of the sedan since they’d gotten in the car. She refused to squirm. She’d almost lost her lunch when she’d seen him in the conference room at the FBI offices. She thought she’d been mistaken at first. But there was no mistaking the square jaw, sensuous mouth, and arching brows. Or those liquid brown eyes. And while his dark hair was longer than it had been, she’d known it was most definitely him.

  She’d come that close to saying the hell with the briefing and bolting, but then got a grip on herself. She couldn’t run away again. She’d already done that, and there wasn’t any place left in the continental United States that was farther away from Clayne than where she’d run to. So, she’d gritted her teeth and finished the briefing, only screwing up about every third or fourth word.

  She’d known she was going to regret calling John. She just hadn’t known how much. Why the hell had he sent Clayne? If there was one person from the DCO she hadn’t wanted to see, it was him.

  She’d thought Clayne was already long gone when she’d walked into the hallway. Instead, she’d found him in a pissing contest with Carhart. She’d thought he was going to bite the head off her new boss. It was like he hadn’t matured a day since she’d left him. He was still letting his inner animal handle every situation.

  But while there hadn’t been any growth in the maturity department, she couldn’t miss the fact that Clayne had definitely filled out in other areas. Her ex-partner looked like he’d put on fifteen or twenty pounds of muscle since she’d last seen him. He’d always been broad in the chest and shoulders, but he’d seriously bulked up. She had a thing for well-built guys and Clayne looked damn fine in his suit. She knew from experience how fine he looked underneath it, too. She wouldn’t go there. Right. Like that was going to help. The heat he was generating from the backseat was enough to make her feel hot all over.

  It wasn’t just memories of mind-blowing sex seeing him again had brought back. It was the little, everyday things she and Clayne had shared—things she’d convinced herself she could live without. Like running to the bakery on the corner for fresh bagels on a Sunday morning, then going back to his apartment and eating them naked in bed. Spending a lazy weekend cuddling up on the couch so they could catch up on all the TV shows they’d DVR’d. Getting out of the city and going for a drive in his mint-condition 1976 Dodge Charger to nowhere in particular.

  “Earth to Danica.”

  Crap. How long had Tony been talking to her?

  “What?”

  He glanced at her. “I asked if you wanted to come over for dinner after work.”

  Clayne let out a low growl from the backseat. It was a sound Danica was all too familiar with. That was his way of saying he was this close to sinking his claws into someone. Her gaze darted to her partner, hoping he hadn’t heard, but Tony was giving him a strange look in the rearview mirror. With the kind of mood Clayne was in, he’d yank Tony into the backseat—regardless of the fact that he was driving—so he could smash his face into the side window a few times.

  “Maybe,” she said to Tony. “If we’re not pulling an all-nighter.”

  Behind her, Clayne made what sounded suspiciously like another growl. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was jealous. But that was insane. It didn’t take a genius to know he wanted nothing to do with her. After what she’d done to him, why would he?

  Tony mumbled something in agreement as he pulled up outside the warehouse where they’d found the body that morning, but Danica barely heard him. She got out of the car and breathed in some much-needed air. Maybe it’d clear her head because it was spinning right now. It helped, at least until Clayne stepped out. Man, she’d forgotten how tall he was. She wasn’t short by any means, but he towered over her. She stepped back to put some distance between them.

  “I’m going to check-in with the local PD. Let ’em know we’ll be looking around,” Tony said, jerking his head toward the two cops leaning against a parked patrol car a few yards away.

  Clayne’s eyes were hard as they followed her partner. “Are you screwing him?”

  Danica stared at him, her mouth open. She knew better than most that Clayne Buchanan could be ruthless and brutal when he wanted to be, but having it directed at her hurt.

  His lip curled. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? Screw your partner, then screw him over.”

  The fact that his voice was cold and flat only made the things he said worse. If he was furious, that would be one thing. It was as if he wanted his words to hurt her as much as possible.

  Well, it worked. But she wasn’t going to let him see that. She wasn’t going to slap his face, either, even though her hand was itching to. Because while Clayne’s barbs stung, they were no more than she deserved. She couldn’t simply walk away from a confrontation with him, though. The best way to deal with Clayne’s in-your-face attitude was to get right back in his. He’d see anything else as weakness. Her old boss at the DCO had told her that the day he’d hired her.

  “Tony is a happily married man, and his wife is one of my closest friends.”

  Clayne growled. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  He never did know when to quit. “No, I’m not screwing Tony,” she said, somehow managing to keep her voice even. And if she left it at that, maybe it would have been enough to soothe the savage beast inside Clayne. But he might think that was her way of trying to reconcile, and she couldn’t risk that. So she lifted her chin and fixed him with a frosty look. “Not that it would be any of your damn business if I was.”

  The pain on his face brought tears to her eyes, and Danica quickly turned and hurried toward the warehouse before he could see them. Dammit, she hadn’t wanted to hurt him again. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him two years ago, either, but she had.

  Danica tried to focus on the crime scene, but it was worthless. There could have been a forty-foot monster outside the warehouse and she would have walked right past it. Two years was a long time to remember something. Or maybe it wasn’t. Not when the thing you remembered was the night that changed your life and that of the man you loved forever.

  She and Clayne had just gotten back to his apartment. They’d been at the training complex all day and were both exhausted. Not too exhausted to make love, though—they’d never been too exhausted for that. When Clayne had tossed his duffel bag of gear on the floor and wrapped his arms around her, it had taken everything in her to push him away. She knew if he kissed her, she’d never be able to walk away from him. The confusion on his face had broken her heart.

  “I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Do what?” he asked.

  “This.” She gestured with her arm, sweeping the apartment. “Us.”

  He’d wanted to talk it out, figure out what was wrong. What he’d done wrong. But she’d just kept shaking her head.
She couldn’t give him a reason, not the real one anyway. Clayne wouldn’t let her go until she did, though. So she’d said something she knew would completely sever their partnership, both professionally and personally.

  “What did you think, Clayne? That I’d spend the rest of my life with a freak like you and bear your pups?”

  The words had been beyond cruel, but they’d done their job. Clayne hadn’t tried to stop her from leaving after that.

  He brushed past her now and strode into the warehouse without saying a word. He didn’t have to. The hatred coming off him in waves said more than enough. Danica stopped and leaned against the metal siding of the building to compose herself. This case was going to be tough enough, but working with her former partner was going to make it ten times worse.

  She had seriously screwed Clayne over when she’d left. She may have done it for his own good, but she’d still hurt him worse than he’d ever been hurt by anyone. Clayne had spent the years before they’d met building a fortress around himself. The only reason she’d been able to damage him as badly as she had was because he’d let those walls down for her. And she’d used that precious gift to cause him pain. It had been the only way to get him to let go.

  * * *

  Clayne knew he was dealing with a shifter the moment he walked into the warehouse, but he prowled around the interior anyway, both to confirm what his nose told him and to make sure there was only one killer. He didn’t know exactly what kind of shifter it was yet because he couldn’t pick up enough scent molecules from a few footsteps. The killer had walked in, dumped the body, then walked out. No big surprise there. The victim Danica and Moretti found this morning had been the shifter’s fifth kill—that they knew about anyway. He’d moved past the tentative and careful stage a while ago. Now he was simply cold, confident, and calculating.

  He saw Danica and her partner watching him. Danica knew what he was doing, but Moretti had an irritated look on his face. He probably thought Clayne was wasting his time. Maybe he’d rather be at his place with Danica—having dinner.

  Clayne bit back a growl and deliberately took his time walking back to the spot on the floor where the body had been just because he knew it’d piss off Moretti some more. It was juvenile, especially since he’d grudgingly accepted Danica probably wasn’t sleeping with the man. She’d sounded sincere when she said his wife was her best friend.

  Then again, she’d said a lot of things to him before she’d dumped him that had sounded sincere too, so maybe he just had a shitty lie detector.

  He stopped screwing around and went down on one knee beside the big bloodstain on the concrete floor.

  “It’s hard to believe the murder didn’t happen here with all that blood,” Moretti said.

  “This isn’t a lot of blood,” Clayne said.

  The fed snorted. “Looks like a lot of blood to me.”

  “That’s only because you haven’t spilled enough of it to know better.”

  “Clayne,” Danica warned.

  Clayne ignored her. She’d given up the right to be in charge of his attitude a long time ago.

  He leaned in close to the stain, trying to separate the scent of the victim from the scent of the killer. It was tough. There’d been so many cops and crime scene investigators around the body he was having a hard time picking up the shifter’s scent. He finally got down on his hands and knees and put his nose close to the floor.

  “What, Homeland Security can’t afford a bloodhound?” Moretti said.

  Clayne looked up at Moretti with a growl. Not a serious growl that would make the guy’s hair stand on end. Just a soft I-don’t-like-you growl. While Moretti might not be sleeping with his ex-partner, it would still be satisfying to punch him. Fortunately for Moretti, there wasn’t time for fun and games like that.

  Moretti shook his head. “I’m going to go call the coroner’s office and tell them we’ll be swinging by in a few,” he said to Danica. “Maybe we’ll learn something worthwhile there.”

  Clayne waited until Moretti left the building before leaning closer to the bloodstain. Now that he didn’t have to worry about the fed, he could really get his nose into the mishmash of scents. This close, he could finally separate them and find the one that belonged to the shifter. It smelled a little like Ivy—without all the good parts. Which meant the killer was a cat shifter of some kind. Good. After seeing the photos of the victims, he’d been worried it was a hybrid.

  As he stood up, Danica caught his eye, a question on her face. Since she’d called the DCO in on this, she already knew it was a shifter attack, but she wanted confirmation. He considered keeping the answer to himself, just to be a prick, but that would be beyond stupid. People were dying here. He threw a glance toward the door. Moretti was out by the car on his cell phone.

  “It’s a shifter. Probably a cat of some kind. A seriously messed-up one at that.”

  “Dammit.” She sighed. “Guess that means we’re stuck with each other.”

  “I’m not thrilled with that any more than you are, believe me.” He checked on Moretti again. The fed was still on the phone. “Want to tell me what clued you in to the shifter angle before your partner comes back?”

  Danica told him she’d first suspected when she saw the wounds, but wasn’t sure until the guy she’d chased on the roof had leaped across thirty feet of empty space to the neighboring building.

  “Show me the catwalk,” he said. “And the roof.”

  Danica led Clayne up the stairs, detailing the chase and how it ended. All he could think about was how stupid she’d been to go after the guy while her partner played babysitter for a couple of rookie beat cops. But that’d always been the way Danica operated. Damn the torpedoes, full-speed ahead. That’s what came from growing up with three older brothers and a determination to do everything they did, he supposed. And while it was something that infuriated him, it was one of the things that had drawn him to her.

  Following the shifter’s trail, Clayne jumped to the other roof while Danica waited on the roof of the warehouse. It was one hell of a jump. The shifter he was after was ballsy, that was for sure.

  He followed the trail down to the street, but the killer’s scent disappeared within a block. He growled in frustration. What the hell good was his keen sense of smell if he couldn’t track someone when they got in a car?

  Swearing under his breath, he took the stairs two at a time to get back up to the roof, then leaped across to the warehouse where Danica was waiting impatiently.

  “He must have gotten into a car,” Clayne told her. “Not surprising. The only thing I can’t understand is why the killer came back after he dumped the body.”

  “What do you mean, came back?”

  “The scent up on the catwalk is six or eight hours fresher than the scent down by the body.”

  Danica frowned. “Maybe he was the one who called 9-1-1. Maybe he was watching to make sure someone found the body.”

  “Maybe,” Clayne agreed.

  It seemed risky, though. Hopefully, it meant they were dealing with an idiot who’d make a mistake. But Clayne didn’t think so. Whoever this shifter was, he was smart enough not to have slipped up yet. Then again, he hadn’t had his own kind hunting him.

  Moretti was waiting for them downstairs with an impatient look on his face. “Where’d you two go?”

  “Clayne wanted to check out the roof,” Danica told him.

  Her partner frowned, but then shook his head. “Forget it. I don’t even want to know. If you’re done wandering around, Agent Buchanan, we can head over to the coroner’s office. He’s waiting for us.”

  So let him wait. Considering this was the same coroner who’d said the first three victims were attacked by an animal, they weren’t likely to learn anything from him anyway. But there was a hell of a lot Clayne could learn from taking a look at the body of the most recent victim, so he nodded.

  The coroner was a short, heavyset man with a bushy mustache and a stutter that became more pronounced
when he set eyes on Clayne.

  “This ain’t a damn p-petting zoo, you know,” he said after Danica told him they were there to see the body that had been brought in that morning.

  Muttering something even Clayne’s ears couldn’t make sense of, he waddled over to the wall of refrigerator units, opened the one marked Robbins, then pulled out the stainless-steel table and yanked back the sheet covering the body.

  Danica said Robbins had been at the gym when the killer grabbed him, but Clayne hadn’t expected him to be in such seriously good shape. Why the hell would a shifter go after a guy who could fight back?

  “Can you give us a minute?” Danica asked the coroner.

  The man waved his hand. “Take all the time you need. I got paperwork to finish up anyway.”

  She waited until he was out of earshot, then reached down and lifted the victim’s upper lip with a gloved finger. The right canine tooth was gone.

  “We kept this out of all the briefings and reports, but the killer likes to take a trophy. The same tooth is missing on every victim.”

  Weird, but it wasn’t unheard of for a serial killer to take a trophy. Beyond the slashes and gouge marks that could be contributed directly to shifter claws, there were dozens of shallow scratches all over the victim. Clayne turned the man on his side so he could take a look at the back of the body. There was a horizontal slash behind the left knee. It was deep, too—damn near to the bone. The guy had been freaking hamstrung.

  “He was hunted,” Clayne said.

  Moretti frowned. “What do you mean, hunted?”

  “These scratches are the kind you get from thorns and branches when you’re running for your life through the underbrush.” Clayne pointed to the jagged claw marks. “These are from the killer. See how he struck different places on the victim’s body? Chest, upper back, lower back, arms, thighs, stomach? They would have hurt like hell, but they aren’t nearly deep enough to be fatal. The killer was playing with the victim, hitting him fast and hard, then slipping away to come back from another direction. He wanted the victim to run so it’d make the hunt more interesting.”