This doesn’t bode well for my extracurricular project or my sleep. If Meena wants me to look at the body, she’s planning to make some big changes.
I tune in to Meena’s words. “We won’t know for sure untilMarcus is done with the autopsy. But pretty much looks like the same MO right now,” she says.
“I’ll be there in twenty,” I tell her, already starting the engine.
“Perfect. I’ll join you and Camilla in half an hour,” she says and disconnects without so much as a goodbye.
From what I’d gathered over the years, the first suspicious werewolf body showed up at the hospital almost five years ago. Coincidentally, it was during Dr. Camilla Reyes’ shift. Cami, a fellow Bureau agent, didn’t make much of it at the time. She reported it as a natural death with the Bureau, because everything werewolf-related is reported.
But when three other heart attacks were reported in werewolves in a year, Cami quickly flagged it.
We’ve kept an eye out for heart attack cases in werewolves since then.
Someone was killing these people in cold blood. Even though I wasn’t actively working the case, it hurt my ego that a serial killer was roaming my city. But I didn’t feel too bad for the victims because we found the pattern with these killers pretty quickly.
All the victims were under investigation for one crime or another by the Bureau. So, someone was cleaning the streets for us. But when the eighth body shows up in five years, you have to wonder how long before the cleaning turns into plain destruction for sport.
I find a spot in the hospital’s parking lot. As soon as I step in, the air hits me with the layered smell of bleach and chemicals, and beneath it all, the faint scent of death that no disinfectant can fully hide. The sharp lights, too bright, make my skin itch with the need to run the other way. I make my way down to the morgue instead.
Cami meets me at the door. I draw her into a hug.
“Oh, look who has time to meet his friends again,” she comments.
You miss one Sunday brunch with the group, and they practically report you missing. Elliot was being particularlysketchy that day. He hadn’t left his house for theentire weekend.
“We met liketwo days ago.”
She lightly taps my head on our way in. “You came late, so it doesn’t count. Why weren’t you at brunch anyway? And don’t try to lie and say you had a shift. Sloan told me you didn’t,” she warns.
“Why is Sloan keeping tabs on me?”
“Sloan does what Sloan pleases,” Cami says absentmindedly as she scans her card and pushes the door open. “But I think Serena told her.”
“Why is Sloan talking to Serena?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“I don’t know?” She turns to look at me. “Maybe they’re friends?”
My LAPD partner, Serena, and Sloan, a crime scene photographer and fellow Bureau agent, are not friends. Serena wishes, though. “They aren’t,” I tell her.
“Is this you trying some weird distraction technique you use with criminals? Because it sucks. I’m frankly amazed you still have a job,” she says.
“It’s usually the criminals attempting the distraction and not the other way around,” I point out.
“Either way, it won’t work here,” she claims.
The smell is so much worse here. All the masks and menthols in the world can’t convince me to work here day after day. Cami is brave.
We stop in front of a bed with the body of the latest victim of my nemesis. Yep, I’m declaring the killer my nemesis because I’ll be the one to take him down. After Meena officially assigns me the case that I have absolutely no time for, that is.
“When did he come in?” I ask.
Cami instantly assumes her work mode, like the workaholic she is. “The paramedics brought him in around four am yesterday. There was no pulse when he came in. I’m sure he had been dead for a while,” she says as she uncovers the body.
“Are we sure it was murder?” I ask.
Cami nods. “You know werewolves aren’t prone to heart attacks with our active lifestyles and naturally good metabolism…” I tune out her lecture about the effects of constantly breaking and rearranging our bones and put on gloves to examine the body closely.
“…but we’ll know more once we have the reports. Oh my god, you’re not even listening to me?” she complains.
