The room fell silent as we took in what she said. She had been so terrified, so frantic that her emotions were palpable in the room.
“Well, that gives us a little more to go on,” Herne said after a moment. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I wouldn’t have asked you if I would have known it was going to be so traumatic. But I’m glad you did, to be honest.”
“I can tell you this,” Angel said. “No wild animal attacked her. She wasn’t killed by a bear or a wild dog or anything of that sort. This was a creature, some form of monster.” She set her lips, staring at the pendant on the table. “I want to find what killed her. That much fear, it’s not right.”
“I’m not sure we can bring them to justice if you’re talking about the cops. But we make our own justice.” Herne gave her a sad smile. “The truth is, a lot of people get away with very evil deeds. It’s something we have to accept. The universe isn’t fair, and not everything balances out. But we do what we can.” He looked over at me, then Viktor. “Is that everything?”
“Yeah,” Viktor said. “Ember, can you think of anything else? Anything we left out?”
I shook my head. “I think that’s all.”
“Then I guess it’s our turn,” Herne said. He glanced at the clock. “Everybody good for staying another hour? We can order pizza.”
I looked over at Angel, who shrugged. “Neither one of us have any hot dates going on.”
Herne caught my gaze and again, the slow smile spread across his face. “More’s the pity.”
“I have to agree.” I held his gaze for a moment, then dragged my eyes away. Angel was right. It was dangerous to flirt with the boss, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. There was something about him that pulled me, something that told me he wouldn’t meet with the end that my other boyfriends had.
“Well,” he said, straightening. “We visited all the families, all that we could find. Four of the victims were so mangled they still don’t have an ID on them. And two didn’t have any family in the area. So we’re going to have to call them later on. But of the six we do have information for, we managed to visit four of their families. We got all the information we could, although I’ll tell you—one of the victims has a family that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy from hell.”
“Before we get into that, I haven’t had enough time to look over the dossier,” I said. “If I remember right, you said eight of the victims were human and four were shifters?”
He nodded. “Right. And the shifters were all Wulfine, but that’s not uncommon, given how many wolf shifters are around the area. All the local packs are from Mount Rainier and the Cascades, you know. We also have a fair number of cougar shifters and bear shifters too. There are a smattering of others, including a number of Selkie, but mostly the first three.”
“So the families you talked to today, were they human or shifter families?”
“Two shifters, two humans. The family from hell was human. We might as well start with them because they were the shortest visit.” He looked over to Yutani. “You want to take over?”
The lanky coyote shifter let out a short laugh and pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “Gee thanks, boss. Leave the dirty work to me, why don’t you?”
“Somebody’s got to do it.” Herne arched his eyebrows.
Yutani leaned forward, consulting his tablet. “Okay, here’s the rundown. We talked to the mother and father of Marilyn Reginald. She was one of the first victims to be found—down by the docks. Marilyn was an office worker for Psitech Corp. She was a low-level office worker, basically went to her job and home again. She wasn’t dating anybody, but was active in several amateur ghost hunter organizations. She was active in a couple local groups that take trips out to haunted houses to check them out.”
“Her family, however, basically can be summed up as trailer trash to the max,” Herne said. “According to her father, Marilyn thought she was better than the rest of them and had moved out about three years ago, never talking to them after that. They wouldn’t tell us anything about her—or couldn’t—and all her mother said was, ‘Who’s going to get her money?’ Which pretty much sums up our visit.”
I grimaced. Greedy next of kin were on my list of lowlifes.
“So you got no useful information out of them?” Talia was taking notes on her laptop.
“Nada. As I said, we learned more about her in our background check than anything else. Basically, Marilyn was a good-hearted person who was interested in ghosts and the paranormal. She had an uneventful career, and was saving for a trip to England. I sincerely hope that her family doesn’t get their hands on what little she had.” Herne shook his head, looking disgruntled.
“So who’s next?” Viktor was also taking notes and it occurred to me that maybe I should be as well.
I glanced over at Angel who was scribbling things down on her notepad. I mimed writing to her, trying to get her to give me some paper. She looked perplexed, tilting her head.
“If you want something, just ask for it.” Herne looked like he was restraining a laugh. At that moment I wanted to smack him.
“Fine, thank you. I need a notebook and pen, please.”
Flashbacks of my high school years flooded my mind. I hadn’t been the best student, although I had been near the top of the class in terms of my test scores. Angel was always bailing me out because I forgot my notes, forgot my books, and I would have forgotten my head if it hadn’t been attached to my shoulders. I just couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm for school, given how much the other students teased and picked on me. Luckily, once I started training in the gym, they shut up.
Angel jumped up. “I’ve got extras in my desk.”
“Why don’t you show Ember where the storeroom closet is. Any time you need something, just go ahead and get it, but make sure you mark it down on the inventory sheet. And no stocking your home office from our supplies.” Herne leaned back, crossing his arms as he waited for Angel and me to return.
The stockroom was a small closet packed to the gills with office supplies. As Angel and I rummaged for steno books—which made wonderful notepads—I glanced at her.
“Are you doing okay? I know that took a lot out of you to read that pendant.”
“I’m all right. But I can tell you right now, I’d like to put a stop to whoever or whatever killed that poor girl. I’m still terrified. If the Fae are able to rustle up creatures that can do this much damage, I’m grateful that DJ’s out of harm’s way.”
I gave her a nod. “I understand. We’d better get back.” Clutching my notepad and a pen, I returned to the break room, Angel following me.
“Our second victim, René Johnson, was also human. She also led a solitary life, although she did belong to—and you’ll notice a similarity here—a paranormal investigations group. This one wasn’t just a ghost hunting group, though. They study a number of things, including UFOs and Bigfoot.”
“Did René and Marilyn ever cross paths?” Talia looked up from her laptop.
“We’re not sure about that. To cut to the chase, all four of our victims were involved in various groups studying the paranormal or ghosts or things of that nature.”
“All of the victims identified were, actually. I discovered that today,” Talia said.
“Do we know if they were involved in the same organizations?” Herne asked.
She shook her head. “There are dozens of groups around like that, and the information isn’t required for your work resume or anything of the sort.”
“Well, it’s something to go on, at least. Talia, tomorrow would you do your best to cross-reference the names of all the paranormal groups with our victims and see if any of them overlap in the same group?” Herne checked something off his list. “The other families didn’t give us much to go on, either, though they weren’t nearly so objectionable.”
“I can do that,” she said.