Page 14

Running low on stories, I tried a different tactic in the last thrift store. Rows of clothes were displayed on ancient racks with wire hangers. The old, rotund woman behind the counter was the only person in the shop.

“Good afternoon,” I said, approaching the counter and pulling my wallet out.

She smiled at me. “Hello there, how can I help you?”

Taking a chance, I flipped open my wallet, giving her a very brief look at my ID. My fake PI badge and my old military ID side by side looked like real police identification. I snapped it closed quickly, preventing her from giving it more than a cursory glance.

That was enough. Her shoulders tensed, and a look of worry crossed her face. “Is there a problem, Officer?”

Forcing myself not to grin, I placed my palms on the counter. “Ma’am, I’m looking for someone, and I wanted to find out if you may have seen him.”

“Oh, goodness,” she muttered, placing her hand on her chest. “I can help if I can.”

I gave her the same description I’d given everyone else. This time, rather than shrugging and shaking her head, she frowned and put a hand on her hip. “Hmph, I knew that guy was up to no good.”

My good-natured grin vanished, and I leaned forward, hungry for information. “You’ve seen him. You know who I’m talking about?”

“Couldn’t miss him. He’s a sneaky little asshole. Chased him out of here about three days ago. Stole a pair of pants and a couple of T-shirts. He’s got to be the one you’re looking for. I filed a report, but you all didn’t act like it was a big deal.”

“ We ?”

“The cops,” she said, exasperated. “ You all .”

“Oh, right.” In my excitement, my cover had slipped my mind. “Well, it’s a big deal now. You said three days ago. Does your store keep surveillance footage that far back?”

She nodded and smiled proudly. “Yup. Got our system hooked up to the cloud a while back. It’s all there.”

I wasn’t entirely sure this woman really knew what the cloud was, but I was happy to hear I might actually get a look at this guy.

“Ma’am, would you mind if I saw that footage?”

“Sure, sure, hang on.”

She walked away and called for someone to come watch the front, then she led me to the store room in the back. In the far corner, a small desk and chair made up the shop’s office. A few scattered papers and two empty cans of diet soda sat beside a desktop computer.

She sat down and logged in. “Let me pull the security tape up.”

A few minutes later, she had the program up, and a live shot of the store appeared on screen.

The footage was broken up into four windows showing different camera angles.

One showed the sales counter and register, another with a shot of the sales floor, a third at the front entrance, and a final shot of what appeared to be a rear delivery door.

“This is it,” she said, turning in her chair.

“Do you happen to remember exactly what day he came in?” I asked hopefully.

She grimaced. “I don’t. It was three days ago, though. I know that for sure.”

“Do you mind if I scan through the past video?”

“Sure, Officer,” she said.

She showed me the control buttons and left me to work. Sitting on the vacant chair, I proceeded to rewind the feed. I didn’t wholly trust the woman’s memory. Just to be sure, I went back five days, played the recording back at three times normal speed, and sat back to watch.

The days went by in jerky, fast-forward movements.

Shoppers milling about the store, the woman I’d spoken to, and a few other employees milling about adjusting merchandise, sweeping, dusting, and talking to customers.

After an hour, I finally found what I’d been searching for, paused the tape, rewound it, and played it back at normal speed.

I’d been right about her memory. It had been four days ago, late afternoon, when the man came in.

I noted his disheveled appearance, ratty hair, his head twitching back and forth, jumping at the slightest sound.

He flitted from rack to rack, browsing in a spastic and twitchy way.

He looked like a meth-head in need of a fix.

The sales lady appeared in the frame and tried speaking to him.

Since there was no audio, all I could go off was the physical interaction.

She approached hesitantly and said something.

The man snapped his head around and snarled at her, baring his teeth as he spoke.

The grizzled, overgrown beard obscured his mouth, making it impossible for me to read his lips.

As he grabbed a few hanging items from a rack, the woman again tried to say something.

She pointed a commanding finger toward the door.

Moving with the speed of a shifter, the man lunged past her, almost knocking her aside, and ran out the door with his stolen goods.

Within a second, he was gone. He’d only been in the store for about seven minutes.

Rewinding the tape, I tried to find the best shot of his face. I paused the screen at the moment he turned and growled at the woman, then zoomed in. His eyes were wild with madness and the rage that accompanied going feral.

As I stared into those eyes, I wondered if that would ever be me. Would I one day become some slavering, bestial monster? More beast than man? As much as I didn’t want to believe it would happen to me, it was the fate of most lone wolves. Suppressing a shudder, I looked away from the screen.

Beneath the desk, I found a color printer and printed out a picture of the guy.

I could keep that for reference, but I needed more to go off.

Tugging my phone out of my jacket pocket, I snapped a picture of the face on the screen, then pulled up my contacts.

The final contact in my phone had no name attached, just a long list of numbers, longer than a typical phone number.

An untraceable VoIP designation number. I opened a text thread, then sent the picture.

As I waited, I stared at the screen, and my thoughts drifted to the woman I’d met a couple of days ago.

Cameron Torres. The wound on the back of her neck flashed through my mind.

I was almost positive it was more than a cut or scrap.

I’d seen the fading teeth marks. If my hunch was correct, things were going to get much worse very soon for Ms. Torres.

I made a mental note to try to contact her again.

My phone rang five minutes after sending the picture.

“Nate, here,” I answered.

“Good afternoon, Nathan,” the modulated and distorted voice said.

I had no clue who the person on the other end was.

Years ago, a mutual acquaintance had helped me make contact with this computer expert.

I didn’t even have a name to go off of. Every interaction with them was through text or with this strange robotic voice distorter they used.

Though, from the way they spoke and the inflection of their voice, I had a hunch they were female.

“I assume you got my picture?” I said.

“Indeed. Your friend looks like he could use a shower and a barber in the worst way possible.”

“Not my friend, but I do need to know who he is. Can you help?”

“The CCTV footage isn’t very clear. The cameras were probably operating at 720p.

Factoring in the distortion you created by magnifying it, it makes things more difficult.

I’ll need to clean that up first. The hair and beard will interfere with any facial recognition software I have, but I can work on deconstructing that with a few other tricks I have.

It may take some time, but I should be able to get you identification in a few days. ”

“The sooner, the better,” I said.

“Art takes time, dear Nathan. One cannot rush perfection.”

“Always modest, aren’t you?”

The line went dead.

“Yeah. Nice speaking to you, too, buddy,” I said ruefully, then called Ollie.

Ollie’s voice was strained. “Nate? Have you found anything yet?”

“Still working on it. I might have found a picture, though.” I cleared my throat. “Have you had a chance to talk to your alpha? I want to see if some surrounding packs may have any missing members. Could be someone went feral and left the pack.”

“I talked to the alpha yesterday. We discussed that very thing when I presented him with the evidence. He made some calls, but no one’s missing a pack member. This lone wolf had to have been outside pack life for quite a while.

“JC’s getting stressed about this,” Ollie continued.

“He’s riding me hard to come up with a solution.

He’d have his hands all over it personally, but it’s become a human police matter now.

It’s up to you and me, and a couple other guys on the force to get this sorted out.

Having you poke around is pushing it enough.

A second random dude getting involved will only raise more human eyebrows. ”

“I get it,” I replied. “No alpha wants this kind of shitstorm on their turf. None of this makes sense, though, Ollie. Why would a feral come into another alpha’s territory? It goes against everything his survival instincts would tell him to do.”

When a shifter went feral, they succumbed to their animal side. They became more skittish and tended to stick to the wilderness. Entering the territory of a strong alpha should have been nearly impossible for this feral. The fear of retribution should have kept him out.

I’d hoped our suspect would be someone from the area.

I hunted ferals for a living, and I’d never seen anything like this.

A typical feral was almost always an exiled pack member who’d lost their mind.

This was the first time I’d hunted one in a large city.

Too many people and too much noise should have scared him off, too. This entire thing was fucked up.

“That’s part of what makes this really weird,” Ollie said. “Did you say you had a picture?”

“Yeah. Security-cam footage. Kinda fuzzy, but I’ve got someone trying to clean it up.”

“Send it to me. I’ll take it to the witness and see if she recognizes him. It could tell us for sure whether her attack was connected or not.”

“The witness? The Torres woman, you mean?”

“Yeah. As far as we know, she’s the only person who may have seen this guy in action.”

Again, that pretty face filled my mind. That fire she showed when I spoke to her and the way she’d resisted my charm intrigued me.

“I’ll go with you. We can both question her,” I said, the words tumbling from my mouth before I could stop myself.

“You don’t need to do that, Nate. I do this for a living.”

“No, it’s fine. Besides, she knows me. I told you yesterday that I talked to her. It’ll be okay.”

“Why do you want to bother?” Ollie said with a sigh. “From what you told me, she wasn’t very, uh, receptive to your questions.”

I ignored that. “Let me know when you’re going. Perhaps I’ll pick up on something you don’t, okay?”

Plus, it would give me a reason to see her again. Now that I thought about it, I’d been wanting to do that exact thing since the night I met her.