No, but this was a strange place. The rough gravel road, style of the buildings and broken asphalt reminded her more of Florida than Georgia.
Luke didn’t speak as he got out. As usual, Helly climbed over the back and followed him.
With a peculiar feeling in her stomach, she left the car and rushed to catch up to them as they entered the unassuming building.
“Well, hello, Mr. Luke,” an enthusiastic female voice called out to them instantly. The receptionist couldn’t be any older than her early twenties and the light in her eyes and breathless quality in her voice said that she wanted to wear Luke like a coat. “What can I do to help you today?”
“Looking for Kyle. Is he in his office?”
“Yes, sir.” Her smile was wide and flirtatious. Until she saw Sorcha. That smile died instantly.
If looks could kill, Sorcha’s head would have exploded and she’d be a pile of ash on the floor. Which made her wonder if Luke could do that to others. Was it one of the powers he refused to talk about?
Personally, she’d love to have that ability. Especially in five o’clock traffic.
Or in the grocery store whenever someone parked their buggy sideways in an aisle.
No wonder the captain didn’t give me a gun. She totally understood now. With her temper, it was a definite liability.
At any rate, she stepped forward and offered the girl her hand. “I’m Luke’s new partner, Detective Sorcha O’Malley.”
“Oh.” That did away with most of the vicious glare, however ice remained in her demeanor. “Taylor Gaines. I’m the receptionist here. Nice to meet you.”
“You, too.” Sorcha headed down the hall, after Luke and Helly.
By the time she caught up, they were entering a small office where an adorable man sat, looking very boyish. Probably in his mid-thirties, Kyle had a mop of dark curly hair on top of his head. His dark brown eyes showed immense intelligence as his gaze darted all over the place as if he had a hard time focusing on any one thing.
“Glad you got here so fast.” Kyle started pulling papers and files out. “You’re not going to believe what I found…it was a canine attack.” He froze as he finally saw Sorcha behind the mountain that was Luke. “Who are you?”
“Luke’s new partner. Sorcha O’Malley.” She held her hand out toward him.
He stared at her hand with a frown. “Did you wash your hands?”
She hesitated as she suddenly felt awkward. “Not since I’ve been here.”
His frown deepened. “Have you any idea how many germs there are? And those are just the regular ones. You could have easily picked up some bio-engineered something. Those are fatal. Horribly fatal.” He grabbed a mask and put it on, then handed her a massively large container of hand sanitizer.
“Thank you?” She wasn’t sure what to make of this. Especially when he made her do it twice.
By the way he was acting, she half-expected him to raise both hands, form a cross with his forefingers, and hiss at her as if she were a vampire after his blood.
Luke grimaced at her. “Thanks,” he grumbled under his breath, letting her know he was rather peeved she’d reminded Kyle they were “unclean, disease-ridden parasites.”
After Luke also sanitized his hands twice, Kyle finally removed his mask and let out a relieved breath. “That was close. Y’all could have killed me. You need to be more careful, spreading germs without any thought.”
Okay, sure…
As he turned away from them to face his monitor, Sorcha caught Luke’s gaze and mouthed the words “wow.”
“So… Con… Kyle,” Luke cleared his throat as if he just caught himself from calling the man Conspiracy. “You were saying it was a canine attack?”
“Oh yeah. Definitely a canine, but not a dog or wolf. In fact, it’s really weird.” He pulled a file from under a stack of them. “I’m thinking something bio-engineered.” His eyes widened, and then he spoke louder, as if speaking to someone only he could see. “Not that I’m speculating, or anything. Don’t want to do that. Just that it’s not what we normally see. But…” He lowered his voice to barely above a whisper. “Unofficially thinking they might be doing some kind of super soldier testing at Fort Stewart. I mean, it could be something else. Maybe not. What do you think?”
He spoke so fast that Sorcha could barely follow his words.
Luke handed the file to her. She opened it and had to bite back a gasp as she saw the cleaned-up jagged marks on the student’s body. Kyle was right. This was from something much bigger than a dog, wolf, coyote or any canine she’d ever seen. The only canine that size that came to mind was the Dire Wolf they’d investigated in Peachtree City.
Could it be the same person?
