Page 5

5

KAT

I t’s only when I’m parked outside the library on my old college campus, windows down, watching and listening to the cops standing on the stone steps near the library that it hits me how little I knew about Cristofer.

He was nice, but I was always careful to avoid getting too close to anyone so they didn’t learn what I was. Doug changed that. I never expected to fall in love.

Now Doug is dead, so is every single guy I dated.

The cops milling around are proof that Rachel was right. Cristofer is missing. They slowly search the ground with flashlights. Proof they don’t view this as someone going missing.

They’re looking for evidence he’s dead, killed by the same wild animal who they suspect has been killing all the men I’d paid more than a little bit of attention.

Aside from the fact that Cristofer worked as a library technician and suffered from terrible allergies, I didn’t know much about him. He was a couple of years older than me, twenty-four, I think. But if he told me that, it was so long ago that I forgot.

I didn’t know if he’d been a student at the school before he started working here, but I don’t think so. He didn’t have a lot of friends and seemed as much of a loner as I am. It’s why I always made time to speak to him.

I don’t even know if he had a girlfriend, though, given he’d asked me out a few days ago, the answer to that question is probably no.

And I didn’t know why someone had decided I liked him enough—or maybe he liked me?—for them to kill him.

What do you think? I ask my wolf as I relax in the leather seat of my car, hands on the steering wheel. They’re still a little greasy from the bucket of chicken I inhaled, but that doesn’t matter.

I know what my wolf is going to suggest before her growl fills my head.

Hunting .

It’s a good idea, but it comes with risks.

My gaze sweeps across the quad, picking out the police and campus security guards among the few students hurrying to get to class. There are more than ever before. More teachers are out as well, frowning as they traverse the quad. Everyone seems troubled, and they have a right to be. Regardless of what the police do, it won’t stop the murders.

The murders all come back to me. All of them.

The person killing is a shifter like me and the Wolf King.

He materializes at night, kills someone, and just… melts away again.

I haven’t caught the scent of a shifter on campus except me.

So, how are they doing it?

Who is doing it?

It can’t be the Wolf King who grabbed Cris. He was still in Burning Wood when the murders started, and even if he were the one to kill Cris, he had no reason to. We’re mates, he says. He wouldn’t view Cris as competition. He has a big enough head that he likely wouldn’t view anyone as competition.

Aren had stood in the parking lot outside my apartment for a long time. I’d caught him staring up at me, his handsome expression thoughtful.

I’d told myself to leave him to his stalker tendencies and shower, eat, and get the rest I’d needed after an exhausting day.

But I’d stood there, far longer than I should have, until the Wolf King’s face twisted in irritation, and he’d turned away from my window and climbed into his car—a matte black Jeep, a newer, fancier version of the khaki one I’d stolen and dumped on the side of the road.

A Jeep that Finan, his beta, said they hadn’t been able to recover. The Wolf King must not be hurting for money to go out and immediately buy a brand new jeep, since those things have to cost upward of thirty or even forty thousand dollars. So, how can he afford it?

He hadn’t said a word about me stealing his Jeep, and I’d been ready to laugh in his face if he tried to get me to replace his car.

But he hadn’t even brought it up.

Finan had been right. He doesn’t care about the vehicle.

I’ve seen no sign of him so far today, but a guy who breaks into the faculty building to find out where you live before letting himself into your apartment and getting into your bed doesn’t seem the type to give up easily.

A dark-haired man in his late thirties, wearing a navy suit and white shirt, with a gold badge clipped to the front of his black leather belt, strides this way. A detective. Someone in charge of the investigation rather than one of the uniformed cops hunting for clues.

Handsome, but, as much as I hate to admit it to myself, he has nothing on the Wolf King.

I climb out of my car before he reaches me.

“Miss…”

“Meadow,” I say, slamming my car door shut. “Kat Meadow.”

He stops feet away, giving a probing, indecipherable look through light brown eyes. Wolf eyes. If I wasn’t smelling a human, that sharp gaze would have me believe I was looking at a shifter. “But that wasn’t it before, was it? Rylie Cooper.”

It’s a battle to hide my hatred of that name.

I haven’t been Rylie since foster care and high school, where an old ex made my senior year hell by stabbing me in the back when I refused to sleep with him.

All the men I’ve had interactions with have turned up dead. The cops would have eventually figured out the connection, even if it looks like an animal did the killing.

“You’ve been digging into my past,” I say calmly.

“I’m a cop. We don’t like coincidences,” he says, his tone amiable. “You were in foster care.”

His expression doesn’t change, but if he knows my old name, he knows what happened to my parents, and maybe even about Robert, my foster dad.

A trail of dead bodies litters my past, more than I would like, and probably enough to be suspicious. I sure as hell would be looking into me if I were this cop.

“If you looked into me, you’d know why I’d want to change my name and start over. Are you here to arrest me?” I’m not worried. They have no evidence. The thought of being locked up alarms my wolf and me, but it won’t happen.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Robert, it’s the value of silence.

The more you say, the more rope you give someone to hang you with. If this cop wants to accuse me of something, I don’t intend to do his job for him by incriminating myself.

“I’m not interested in locking you up, Miss Meadow. I’m curious if this name change was a result of some other problems you might have had.”

“What kind of problems?”

He’s worked out that the Gregson Campus Killer is not a wild animal escaped from the zoo. Maybe it’s someone from my past, and I changed my name to escape them. That’s what he’s thinking. Whether he has the evidence to prove any of this is another thing entirely.

“The kind that might necessitate you changing your name and moving cities. The kind that you might go to the cops for help for.” There’s no judgment in his voice, but I hear it all the same.

“I had no problems like that. Just wanted a fresh start is all.”

His expression sharpens. “You knew Cristofer Schuyler?”

This cop knows even more about him than I did. His last name is something I definitely didn’t know. “He was a friend.”

“ Just a friend?”

“Look. I don’t know what is happening here. I just know that now any time a guy tries to talk to me, I instinctively want to run away from them because I don’t want to wake up the next morning and find out that something killed them.”

His stare is probing, and I withstand it calmly.

Then he slowly nods and I guess I must have passed some test. “Do you know if anyone would want him dead?”

Everything I know about Cristofer might not amount to much. He helped me find some books I needed for class in my sophomore year. And we chatted for a bit until his herbal remedies chased me away.

I shake my head.

He gives me a longer look as he stuffs his hands in his pockets. “So you don’t know anyone who would want to harm those close to you?”

“No.”

“And it has no connection to you disappearing for nearly a week before graduation?”

Smart. It’s clear why this guy is a detective.

I smile at him, but inside, I’m tense. “You’ve been keeping a close eye on me, I see.”

His lips quirk into a half-smile. “Just doing my job. That’s all.”

“Michael?” a uniformed cop calls out from behind him.

He twists around, lifting his hand. “I’ll be right there.” He turns back to me and fishes a white card from his pocket, which he hands to me. “My number, Miss Meadow, in case you notice anything suspicious.”

“Thanks.” I don’t want to take the card, but if I don’t, he might wonder why.

He starts walking away and then stops and twists back, looking me in the eye.

“It sounds like you have a stalker. I would be very careful about going out at night in case whoever it is decides to stop targeting your lovers and targets you, Miss Meadow.”

A shiver goes down my spine.

Not fear.

Excitement.

My wolf has been craving a hunt for months, if not years. But not one that involves chasing the odd squirrel or bunny. An actual hunt, like when I tracked the two robbers who killed my old foster dad, Robert. I wouldn’t mind the same thing.

Killing isn’t the right thing to do. I know that. But sometimes a person needs to die so others can live.

I climb into my car and pull out of the campus parking lot, tossing the cop’s card in the trash on my way to my new apartment.

Cops are good for dispensing human justice. Someone is out there targeting people I care about. Jail is way too good for them.