The men looked up at me, and under different circumstances their identical startled expressions would have been funny. “You’re right,” Will said heavily. “We’ve got to get rid of it.”
“Her,” Jesse corrected. “We’ve got to get rid of her.” His voice was loaded with . . . something. Resentment? Anger? I didn’t have time to worry about it. It seemed to me like this was a personal, werewolf-to-werewolf kind of thing, but there was still the chance that the guy who’d done this would call a tip in to the police, planning to frame Will for murder. And Jesse definitely couldn’t be here if that happened. Will and I could probably get clear of something like that with Dashiell’s help, but Jesse’s career would be over.
I stumped over to the duffel bag, which Jesse had dropped inside the door, and pulled out one of my good body bags. Leah Rhodes had seemed like a twisted collection of gore by the time I’d gotten to her, but Kathryn Wong . . . She still seemed like a person. One who had suffered, and one who would now be shoved in a furnace and forgotten. She deserved every bit of respect I could give her.
I instructed Jesse and Will to lay the body bag out next to the body, unzip it, and sort of roll her in. Jesse had seen this done dozens of times on LAPD crime scenes, and Will had covered up more than one murder because of his wolves, so they were both pretty stoic about it—until they flipped her over. The woman’s legs and arms looked like her front, but her lower back was smooth and unbloodied. Instead of a hundred gashes, there was just a single knife wound, about five inches long and scabbed over. It was a loop and a quick slash—a number two.
Jesse paused, squatting down to peer closely at the mark. “This one was a knife, I think,” he said tightly. “It looks like it happened before the other marks.”
When he didn’t move, I gave him a little nudge. He looked up at me, startled, and there was anger in his eyes. “We need to move,” I reminded him gently. I was getting antsier by the minute.
Jesse nodded, and he and Will zipped the girl into the body bag. Will’s face was troubled and thoughtful. “You’re going to the Valley, right?” he asked. “I’ll ride with you. I might have a theory.”
Jesse’s eyes widened, but I just shrugged my acquiescence. We had to come back to Will’s anyway, so Jesse could get his car. Jesse carefully picked up the body bag and carried it outside, to the back of the van. He didn’t wait for me, and by the time I made it back to the Whale, he was closing the built-in refrigerator compartment and hopping down from the vehicle. He gave me a look as I approached, and that one expression was loaded with so many emotions that it seemed to weigh him down, his shoulders slumping forward under the load. I didn’t know if he was upset about the girl’s murder, or how she’d died, or the fact that we were going to destroy her remains, or the fact that he was helping. Maybe all of them. Now wasn’t the time to ask, though.
Jesse went for the driver’s door without a word, and I loped silently toward the passenger side, gesturing to Will to climb up in the back. There’s no seat belt back there, but if we got pulled over, a ticket would be the least of our problems.
Jesse started the van, driving carefully down the one-way road that led away from Will’s. I don’t usually like other people driving the Whale, but Jesse was a good driver, and he’d done it enough that the irritation at someone else behind the wheel had worn off for me. Will had climbed in the back of the van and was sitting on the floor in the middle, leaning his back against the rectangular freezer compartment and his feet on the long metal toolbox I have installed on the other side for less mobile cleaning stuff. “Hang on, guys,” he said distractedly, and proceeded to spend the next ten minutes on his phone, making arrangements for the bar that night. While he did that, I quietly filled Jesse in on what Eli had told me about werewolf packs.
Finally Will hung up, and Jesse glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “Explain the theory,” Jesse said shortly. I bit my lip, but didn’t speak. Not how I’d choose to talk to the alpha werewolf of Los Angeles, but I was willing to cut Jesse some slack right now. Hopefully, Will would be too.
“I think it’s a nova wolf,” Will said promptly. He was squinting at me in the dim light. “Have you heard about novas, Scarlett?” he asked.
I shook my head. “The term sounds a little familiar, but no.”
“What the hell is a nova wolf?” Jesse asked impatiently.
Will grimaced. “It comes from the term ‘Casanova wolf,’ which was a wild wolf in Yellowstone . . . long story.” He paused, choosing his words. “The important thing to remember is that werewolves aren’t magical creatures. We’re magical wolves. The magic makes us stronger, faster, and better able to heal—not to mention infectious—but otherwise we’re just wolves like any other. And in the wild, wolves need to be a part of a pack. You’ve probably heard the term ‘lone wolf,’ but that’s not really a thing. It’s just a wolf leaving one pack to find another.”
“And werewolves need packs too, we get it,” Jesse said impatiently. “What are you saying?”
“You have to understand that the pack dynamic calms our inner wolf,” he said, sounding like he was working at patience. “It’s kind of ironic, but the reassurance of the pack lets us act more human when we’re not with each other. The packs are essential to retaining what’s left of our humanity.”