“Are you going to shut down the fight club?” Jamie asked.
He walked beside Bowman with his restless Feline energy, pissed off because he’d missed the excitement in the woods early this morning. Around them, Shifters were starting the day, sweeping snow from porches and driveways, the cubs playing in the winter wonderland.
Bowman pondered Jamie’s question. “We might have to move it. The human cops are all over the place up there now, investigating Serena’s murder. Poor woman.” Death was a waste. Serena had annoyed and worried him, but she’d not deserved to be murdered.
“Yeah.” Jamie whispered a brief prayer to the Goddess to look after Serena’s soul. “So you think the sniper shooting at you and whoever got her are two different people?”
“Two different guns,” Bowman said. “She was shot close range with a pistol. The sniper had a high-powered rifle that could pick us off from a long way away. Though it might have been the same person using a different weapon.”
“Great. A killer is out there who could shoot us before he’s in scent range, and he has no qualm pulling the trigger point-blank.” Jamie glanced around, as though the sniper could be lurking behind any tree. “We should keep the cubs inside.”
“Agree. That’s why we’re going to give the cops as much cooperation as they want.”
“I hear you. How much will you bet that the cops try to accuse one of us?”
“Nothing,” Bowman said dryly. “I don’t want to lose.” He looked around, but not for the same reason as Jamie. “I haven’t seen Marcus for a while,” he said, naming his third tracker, from Jamie’s pride. “What’s with him?”
Jamie made a derisive noise, his tatts rippling as he stretched his hands. “Sex. Frenzy. Scent of a female. He’s relieving his stress with Kenzie’s cousin.”
Bowman envied the man. He wanted nothing more right now than to be holed up with Kenzie, the two of them naked, not leaving the house for days. “Well, maybe he’s better off than the rest of us.” He let out a breath, suddenly tired, wanting to be done with this. He was coming to understand why Shifter leaders often welcomed the challenge by a younger member of their pack, knowing it was time to lay down the burden.
“If you can pry the two of them apart, tell Marcus I need him,” Bowman said. “I’m going out to talk to that Turner guy again. I want you and Cade with me for that, and Marcus needs to guard the fort. And my mate and cub.” Who were not coming with him.
The only way to make sure of that was to sneak off with Cade and Jamie, and so he did.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Before Bowman made for Turner’s cabin, he led Cade and Jamie up into the woods toward where he was sure the sniper had been sitting.
They found indentations in the earth where someone had set up a camp stool or chair to wait. Near a rock, which would have made a good blind, they picked up shell casings. Bowman plucked them from the mud with the end of a twig and put them into a bag Cade had brought with him. With any luck, the casings might carry fingerprints—then again, would the shooter have left them around if they did?
“Why was he shooting at you?” Cade asked as they wandered the area, looking for more evidence. “Or was he just shooting anything that moved, for fun?”
There was nothing to tell them which.
They did at last find prints of thick-soled men’s boots leading up a trail toward a road. Not much of a road—rough dirt and only wide enough for one vehicle. Tread marks showed that a pickup had sat here for a time last night. Snow had piled into its tracks, but the truck had left deep enough ruts in the mud that they were easy to read.
“Looks like it was a pickup about the size of mine,” Cade said, a regretful note entering his big voice.
There was nothing sadder than a bear mourning the loss of his truck. “You sacrificed it for a good cause,” Bowman said. “You know I’ll make it up to you.”
“You sacrificed it,” Cade answered darkly. “But I’ll hold you to the making-it-up part.”
Jamie let out a laugh. “Are you going to build a funeral pyre to send it to the Goddess?”
“Maybe.” Cade didn’t smile. “I love that truck.”
“You’ll have as much fun fixing it up the second time.” Bowman followed the tire tracks down the road a few yards before he stopped. This road, if he remembered from studying a map of the area this morning, led to a paved one that fed into an east-west highway. But so what? The shooter could have driven here from anywhere.
“Let’s visit the strange professor in the trailer,” Bowman said, coming back to them.
“Goody,” Cade answered. “Just what I wanted to do today.”