With too many thoughts swirling around her mind Keegan went to the one place that always made sense. She went to her Mom’s house. The front porch light was on and Keegan could see the blue glow of the television playing so she didn’t feel so guilty coming over so late.
The door bell chimed and with in moments her mom was at the door with her reading glasses perched low on her nose. “Keegan? What happened?”
Keegan shook her head as she made her way into the warmth of the house. She passed a brightly lit Christmas tree and wondered if she should even bother getting one this year or just forget about it completely. Ignoring the stray thought she settled her self on a bar stool and watched listlessly as Maria put the kettle on and pulled two mugs out of the cabinet next to the sink.
“I, things are so, ugh,” Keegan rubbed a hand over her eyes. “It’s this case. Everywhere I go leads to another dead end. That’s not everything though. If it was just dead leads I could handle that but it’s the tension between homicide and SIU. They keep treating us so terribly and we’ve just come to accept that as the way we’re going to be treated but then Matt, he never treated us so horribly.”
“Matt?” Maria asked as if she already knew that Matt was someone more important than a fellow cop in a different department.
“Then he apologized. He knew he messed up and he tried to make it better. And he did, don’t get me wrong but he…” Keegan blew out a breath of air before she laid her head on the table in frustration.
“He shook you up didn’t he?” Maria smiled at her daughter.
“I mean, I know I’m all emotionally stunted and relationship retarded but guys like him don’t man up from the mistakes they made and then treat people like me so kindly.” Keegan rolled her head so she could look at her mother. “He found out I’m a necromancer. At first he didn’t take that so well either but he came around. Dear god I even think he started flirting with me. How stupid is it that I don’t know what a man flirting with me is like?”
“You are not stupid or emotionally stunted or any of those other things Keegan. You guard your heart so fiercely because you don’t want to get hurt but this Matt. He seems to be getting under your skin.”
“I don’t know what to do, Ma.” Keegan watched as her mother prepared a mug of hot chocolate and a cup of tea. She slid the hot chocolate over to Keegan. “We are the two people who keep the departments interconnected and we keep the peace between the two. I don’t want to put that at risk.”
“But do you want to live like me?” Maria cocked a brow and gestured to the empty house and the lonely kitchen. Not even a pet in sight. She did have a wonderfully decorated home for the holidays. It made the house seem infinitely cozier and lived in rather than cold and lonesome. Maybe that was why her mother bothered with the decorations.
“Sometimes listening to your heart isn’t always a bad thing.”
“How do I get it to shut the hell up?” Keegan moaned pitifully. “I mean I’ll listen to my heart about work. That usually works in my favor but now? Everything is nice and stable, back on solid ground. I’m not going to fu- mess that up.”
Maria glared at Keegan for the near slip up of foul language, “But sometimes letting someone in isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world Keegan. And who cares about what happens at work? I’m sure the departments would still work together even if you and this Matt fellow weren’t there to guide the way for them.”
Keegan huffed out a sigh. It wasn’t like SIU and Homicide were useless without them. They just made things run smoother because they actually got along. They didn’t fake smiles or grudgingly hand over information. Both she and Matt had a common goal in mind and that was the victims came first and all personal issues came last.
“So what do I do?” Keegan mumbled into her hot chocolate.
“This is usually the part that sisters get together and gossip about their love lives.” Maria pointed out cheekily. “Maybe you can call one of yours up and see what they have to say about it?”
Keegan glanced down at her watch and snorted, “Yeah, sure. Let me call Cy up at nine o’clock and tell her, ‘hey I’m having a crisis, care to help?’ Yeah that’ll go over real well Ma. If you recall her and her fiancé David told me I was an abomination. Why would they bother listening to me? I don’t see that happening.”
“What about Gordon?” Maria suggested, “You two still talk some.”
“Mom,” Keegan stood up. Her heart feeling heavier than it had before she had arrived. “I’m just going to go. Thank you for listening to me ramble on about stupid shit.”
“Keegs,” Maria reached out and grasped her daughter’s wrist. “Sometimes you have to be the better person and reach out to say you’re still my family.”
“Cy, Elsie and Joan, they all did the same thing when I told them. They looked at me like I was a monster. I tried for the longest time. It’s been ten years since I have seen any of them. Three if you count the time Gordon wound up on my doorstep drunk off his butt sobbing about Jaime. When I called her to pick him up she told me his drinking was my fault. The stress of having a freak for a sister was getting to him.” Keegan wrapped her mother in a tight hug. “I will love them to death Ma, but sometimes it is better like this.”
“You know Christmas is coming up. Am I going to have to suffer through another year without you?” Maria pushed trying to reconnect her children.
“You know that Halloween is my night with you.” Keegan shrugged. “I’m not going to steal theirs.”
“Fine, be a stubborn ass,” Maria huffed out as she followed Keegan towards the door. “Love you.”
“Love you too Ma.” Keegan waved over her shoulder good bye and headed towards her car in a worse mood than she was in before she arrived. Instead of focusing on Matt she couldn’t stop thinking about her family and how she hadn’t actually seen them in years.
Keegan had barely gotten a shower and fallen asleep before her cell phone was chirping obnoxiously at her. She glanced at the number and grimaced as she recognized it as dispatch. “Detective Morne.”
She listened before she reached over to her nightstand and began scribbling an address out. “Okay, let the uniforms and homicide know that I’m on my way.”
Pulling her hair back into a messy pony tail, Keegan changed from her pajamas and into a pair black slacks and she pulled a shirt on followed by her favorite jacket. She clipped her gun and badge to her belt before grabbing her cell phone and heading out.
The scene was awash in red and blue flashing lights when she arrived. There was nothing spectacular about the house except for the amount of people wrapped in robes and their feet sheathed in house slippers standing just outside of the yellow police tape on the sidewalk wanting to know what was going on at their neighbor’s home. Reporters hadn’t shown up yet so the murder had just been called in to the PD.
She flashed her badge at Officer Bayard, who seemed to always pull the short end of the straw to be set just outside the crime scene logging which officers and techs came onto the scene, what time they arrived and departed.
“Evening Detective Morne.” Bayard’s voice was rough and his eyes were blood shot and swollen.
“Who was the first officer on scene?” Keegan asked as she clipped her badge back in place.
He coughed trying to clear his throat or attempting to fight off the rush of guilt that surrounded him like a shroud. “Thibodeaux, he was escorted back to the precinct.”
“What happened?”
“The victim was still breathing when he arrived, other than that I’m not sure what had happened other than what Cassidy was screeching about him contaminating the crime scene or some crap like that while Detective Hollis tried to calm him down.”
Keegan rested a hand on his wrist. “Officer Thibodeaux did the right thing, trying to save that victim’s life. If Detective Cassidy can’t see that then he’s more of a jackass then I originally thought he was.”
Officer Bayard snorted. “Well you better head up there before he pulls a Queen of Hearts on you and lobs your head off for getting here after everyone else.”
“He wouldn’t dare try that with me.” Keegan patted him on the back as she trudge through soppy grass. She flashed her badge at another officer before she was admitted into the house.
Immediately she was struck by the scent of blood. It slammed into her far more quickly then her eyes and brain could process what she was seeing. Arterial spray across the beige walls of the living room. Spatters of blood soaked and dried in the sofa. She heard the tell tale click and whirr of a camera documenting every inch of space in the main room.
“Glad to see you could take the time out of your busy schedule to make it Detective Morne.”
Keegan brushed passed the balding detective growling out, “Can it Cassidy. I don’t have the time or patience to deal with your shit.”
“Well excuse me,” Cassidy did a mock bow. “I’ll just go escort the doc in and see if she has time to deal with my shit.”
“No one has time to deal with your shit.” Hollis grumbled as he approached the duo. “We think whatever or whoever did this might have some kind of involvement with the Barr case. That is why we called you in.”
Keegan nodded and ignored the dark rimmed eyes. She did not care if Matthew Hollis wasn’t getting enough sleep or if he was stressed out. No she didn’t care about him at all.
As Matt passed over a set of booties to cover her shoes with she paused. It couldn’t be that bad but looking down at the set he was exchanging for a fresh pair she knew wherever the body was, there was going to be a lot of blood surrounding it. She also took the proffered set of examination gloves and pulled them on as he led the way around a couch and through the tiny pathway only a pet could use between the sofa and recliner.
“Who was she?” Keegan asked as she squatted down next to the body. She leaned a bit closer to inspect the mangled flesh. She grimaced at the way bits and pieces of what should have been on the inside of this woman’s body were pulled to the outside.
“Her name was Elaine Phillips. Her driver’s license says she was twenty-nine and lived here. I had Cassidy run the background on her and we found out she was pulled in once for a misdemeanor of public intoxication. Other than that she was squeaky clean.”
“She’s also another supernatural.” Keegan murmured. Her gloved finger tips pulled up Elaine’s lip to get a view of some vicious looking incisors. Keegan exposed the eyes and bit her tongue. They were diamond shaped pupils, eyes just like a cat’s. “Can I inspect her hands?”
“Go for it.” Hollis gave a wild gesture before he disappeared to his crew of men documenting the scene.
Elaine’s fingernails indicated she was trying to shift before she was attacked. The muscles in her hands froze in a gnarled and painful contortion. The tips of her fingers had changed into claws. Always the first part of a shifter to change was the teeth, eyes and hands. They were best and quickest weapons available to use in order to protect her self with.
“How much have you moved the body?” Dr. Biggerson had set her bag down behind her in a clear spot of carpet and squatted next to Keegan.
“I needed to see her hands,” Keegan gestured to their claw like appearance. “I would advise you to wear the thicker gloves while working on her Sarah. She was beginning to change and if you happen to cut your self and get any of her blood or fluids in your cut, you run the risk of changing.”
“Have you advised the rest of the investigators of this?” Sarah whispered as she dug through her bag for the right set of examination gloves.
“No,” Keegan whispered back as she looked across the room. Almost every detective had protective gear on but there was blood everywhere. There was so much potential for harm. “They know how to conduct themselves in a crime scene. If they feel they have been exposed to anything they report to get tested.”
The sound of gunfire snapped everyone from what they were doing and sent several officers racing towards the sound. Keegan could hear the shrieks coming from the people who had been waiting for a glimpse of the grisly horrors of a crime scene. She heard the shouts from detectives and officers who were already outside directing people away from the scene.
Keegan looked down at Dr. Biggerson whose eyes were filled with terror. “Find the bathroom. Lock the door and stay low. If there is a bathtub get in it. We’ll get you when it is safe.”
She didn’t wait to see if the doctor had listened to her instructions. Loud snarling pulled her into action. She pulled her gun from her holster and darted towards the door. It was only a second but she froze in her steps. A leopard lunging towards the closest thing he considered a threat and that was Detective Cassidy who was crouched with his gun drawn. Her instincts kicked in as she moved from the relative safety the house offered and out into the yard.
The need to reach out and stop whoever was hiding beneath the skin of their beast sluiced through her veins. Energy crackled around her and pulled deep from within her core. She saw the reactions of everyone around her as it reached across the space separating them. There were quick glances over the shoulder before refocusing on the main threat. The reaction that stirred her most was from the leopard. It stopped in its tracks with a loud hiss and a spitting snarl in response to the threat she posed. The leopard dodged around Detective Cassidy. Grass and mud spitting up behind the leopard as it charged at Keegan.
Keegan began chanting in her head commanding the leopard to stop and soon the words were pouring from her lips. She held her ground and she repeated the command for it to stop, to change back over and over in her head. For the briefest of moments she saw what the leopard was seeing. She felt was it was feeling. It was so full of rage and it wasn’t going to stop until it killed everyone in its way.
She didn’t hear the gunfire sailing through the air after the leopard. She needed to stop what was happening. But she couldn’t. The human was trapped beneath their beast. The animal had taken over and was intent on getting inside the house.
“Stop,” Keegan whispered furiously underneath her breath, “Leave this place.”
Keegan felt the air rush pass her as the leopard dodged around her and around the house towards the woods. Blood roared in her ears while her heart pounded frantically in her chest. Her knees crumbled beneath her.
“Keegan!” Matt’s voice was barely a whisper in her ears as his hands grasped her cheeks. “Keegan! Are you alright? Keegan answer me!”
The echoes of gun shots through the woods broke Keegan from the blinding fear tearing through her body. She looked frantically around the yard before focusing on Matt in front of her. Her fingers dug into his arms painfully. “I’m fine. I’m okay.”
Matt wound his arms around Keegan as he looked over her shoulder to see cops tramping out of the woods with their guns holstered. He looked up to his partner, Detective Cassidy to see him shaking his head that they didn’t get the shifter.
“We need,” Keegan swallowed down a gulp of air as she pulled back from Matt, “Dr. Biggerson is locked up in the bathroom. We need to tell her it’s okay to come out.”
“You heard her Cassidy,” Matt spoke over her shoulder and helped her to her feet. “Make sure Doc Biggerson knows she and her team can continue documenting the inside. Then let her know we also need her techs for out here. We’ll start the preliminaries.”
“You got it.” Cassidy nodded and head back towards the house.
Keegan felt the way Matt was studying her as if he were afraid she was going to pass out. Instead she ran shaking hands through her hair and dug in her jacket pockets for an elastic band to tie her hair back with. “I’m going to call the rest of my guys in. Maybe Melinda or Gary can pick up the scent where the shifter went. Leeroy might pick up on something. I’ll be on the porch making the calls and then I’ll head back inside to see what I can figure out.”
Matt wisely left Keegan to herself as he headed back inside to continue the work they had started before the evening was disrupted. The calls to get her guys out of bed or wherever they were only took a few minutes and then she was on her way back inside to try and understand what happened here tonight.
Sarah was being led out of the back hallway where she had taken refuge. She stared at Keegan for a moment before side stepping blood spatters and standing in front of Keegan. “If the guys wouldn’t make fun of me for it I’d hug you until you couldn’t breathe but for now I’ll settle with what the f*ck were you thinking and thank jesus you’re okay.”
“I was doing my job Biggerson.” Keegan swatted her on the shoulder. “You okay?”
“I was hiding in a bathtub listening to people shoot at shit.” Sarah shrugged, “I think I’ll be fine.”
“Good now go tell me what killed Elaine. We have got work to do.” Keegan turned away from the work Sarah was doing.
Detective Cassidy whistled catching her attention. “Your guys are here. Go work your magic.”
Keegan felt relief pour across her shoulders as she spotted Melinda, Gary and Leeroy standing outside the police line with their badges out. She jogged across the yard and grinned at the scrunched up face Melinda was making. Gary had taken to brushing his nose against his shoulder every few seconds and Leeroy stood stoic between the two.
As soon as they were allowed into the crime scene Keegan led them over towards where the shifter had been. “There was a leopard here. It charged and tried to attack of few of the officers linger about in the yard. I intervened and got the shifter away from people but it darted towards the woods. I’m hoping that maybe one of you can help pinpoint where it headed. I also thought maybe Leeroy might see something I missed in the last crime scene.”
“Just because I’m a werewolf doesn’t mean I’m a bloodhound.” Melinda rolled her eyes. “But I already smell the cat and I know Gary does if all his sniffling is anything to go by.”
“I’ll just head inside.” Leeroy cut away from them while both Melinda and Gary led Keegan towards the woods where the leopard had made its escape.
“So,” Melinda drawled the word out, “Everyone must have been pretty damn scared earlier.”
“Yeah,” Keegan nodded as Melinda led her through a tangle of branches, dead leaves and roots.
“Mostly that Matt dude,” Garry added without any problem. “I could smell him from the tape. What was up with that?”
“The leopard charged me.” Keegan whispered and grimaced as she lost her balance and had to reach out at the nearest tree trunk to steady herself. “He probably thought I was going to be ripped to shreds or something.”
“Nah,” Gary shook his head. “That kind of fear smells one way. The scent he left behind was something else.”
Keegan waved them off. “Okay whatever. I’m just hoping that we can get to whoever this leopard is and bring them in and hopefully wrap the case up.”
Melinda looked over at Keegan dubiously as the woods cleared out to roadway. “Well I hate to break it to you but when you mix the amount of cars that travel down this highway and one specific scent that has been covered over by said traveling cars, I lose my helpfulness. You got anything Gary?”
“He headed left.” Gary answered without missing a beat. He shrugged at the incredulous look Melinda gave him as he started walking in that direction. It felt like as soon as he started walking he stopped. “And this is as good as it gets. Sorry Keegan. Not much help.”
“It’s fine.” Keegan took a deep breath to calm herself. “I was hoping for a miracle.”
“Yeah, not a tough order or anything.” Gary chuckled to himself and he turned back towards the woods. “I’m going to see if I can help direct that tech crew who is now bumbling through the woods and possibly destroying evidence as we speak.”
“Right well, Melinda,” Keegan didn’t even have to finish the thought out loud. Melinda was already side by side with Gary leaving Keegan to fend for her self to get back to the main scene.
Keegan had taken an unlucky trip through a briar patch but other than that she emerged from the copse of trees just fine. Matt was walking with Doctor Biggerson along the side of the gurney carrying the white body bag towards the medical examiner’s van. As soon as Matt spotted her he waved Dr. Biggerson off and headed over. His eyes full of concern and a little bit of hope that her guys might have found something.
“Anything?” Matt asked as he placed a hand to the small of her back.
“Just a general direction before too much grime and exhaust got in the way of things.” Keegan pointed west, “He headed that way when he darted off but otherwise we’ve got nothing. Perhaps we’ll get something more conclusive, like some DNA, from a briar or something.”
“Speaking from experience?” Matt grabbed her arm and inspected it. “You have to be more careful Keegan.”
Keegan stared into deep brown eyes and knew Matt was talking about more than just stumbling through a briar patch in the middle of the night. He was talking about facing down an enraged shifter.
“I know,” Keegan nodded and pulled her arm out of his hands. “Sometimes I forget to think about myself though and focus on the other people who could be getting hurt if I didn’t step in.”
“I think we’re all trained enough to handle ourselves if the situation calls for it.” Matt glared at her. “What you did could have gotten you killed if whatever you pulled didn’t work. Despite what you may think, no one would be glad to see you hurting or dead. Not even Detective Cassidy. Just promise me something okay?”
“Depends on what it is.” Keegan narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Matt when his voice grew soft.
“Be careful. Losing you,” Matt shook his head to stop the trail of thoughts that were making it past his brain to mouth filter. “Just promise me that you’ll be careful.”
Keegan nodded slowly, “Yeah, okay. I promise to be more careful out here.”
“Good,” Matt ran a hand through his hair. “I’m going to head in and see what the Doc finds.”
“I need to re-walk the scene.” Keegan mumbled more to her self then to Matt as he jogged down the driveway and slipped into his police cruiser. Things were getting far too complicated between the two of them.
Keegan ignored the fatigue that blanketed her as she walked into the victim’s house to see Leeroy standing as still as a statue and staring at the window. The window she had so obviously missed the first time. It was the eastern most window in the room and it was shattered from the outside in. Glass trailed a few steps before it was no longer visible to her eye. “This is the same person who killed the Barrs.”
The words were raw out of Leeroy’s lips and Keegan nodded grimly. It looked to be that way. A lot of the second scene mimicked the first crime scene and the similarities were too eerie to just be a coincidence. “It looks to be the case.”
“And it’s one of their own.” Leeroy shook his head and looked up at Keegan and pointed from the window and along the outer edges of the furniture. “He came in through the window and made a beeline for her. He wanted to kill her and he accomplished his goal. I also seriously doubt that he came back to the crime scene after all the cops and CSU’s were here. Whoever that other leopard was knew Elaine.”
“More than likely,” Keegan muttered. “He knew that she was in trouble. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come in his shifted form. He wanted to find her alive.”
“And when he saw what was going on he knew she was gone. The beast probably took over and wanted to protect the body or see for itself.” Leeroy licked his lips and shook his head at what he was seeing. “Why are they killing these people?”
“It doesn’t make sense.” Keegan finished his thought of out loud. “We’re going to get whoever is doing this though. This is going to be stopped.”
Leeroy checked his watch, “It’s only eight.”
Keegan shook her head already knowing what he was going to ask. “Homicide already has officers canvassing the area and speaking with neighbors. I need you guys to help me here.”
“There isn’t much I can do Keegan.” Leeroy let out a frustrated groan. “I’m good with the living victims but with this? All I can do is be a second pair of eyes on the scene.”
“And you’re eyes tend to be a little better than mine after I come close to being kitty chow for the night.” Keegan squeezed his arm. “If you want to head back to the office and start running background on Elaine that would be great. Finding out the basics of who she was then you are more than welcome to do so but I figure you might actually pick a few things up from here.”
Keegan wasn’t so sure about the sudden lack of confidence from the djinn or the waves of concern that was wafting off of him but she needed her team here trying to gather as much evidence and information about Elise as they could before the crime scene was turned over to the family.
The chirping of her phone tore her away from her inspection of Leeroy as he moved around the main room of Elise’s home. Pulling the phone from its holster she dusted off the bits of grass off it before answering, “Morne.”
It was Matt. Dr. Biggerson hadn’t started the autopsy yet but one of his own men had learned that Elaine had filed a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend a little over a week ago. He was going to head over to the last known location of the boyfriend if she wanted in.
“Give me the address and I’ll meet you there.” Keegan pulled her pen from the collar of her shirt and scrawled out the address on the top of her hand. “Ten minutes and I’ll be there.”