Page 22 of Patrick’s Seduction (Scanguards Vampires #19)

22

“ S o, you and Fallon,” Anita said into the silence.

Patrick cast her a quick sideways glance. They were in his car, driving on the 101 Freeway through Marin County just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was late morning, and traffic was light.

“What makes you think that?” he finally deflected.

“Everybody knows. Amaury isn’t the only one who smelled her on you. Besides, Lydia isn’t blind either.”

He wasn’t surprised about that. He and Fallon hadn’t exactly been very discreet. “So Lydia told her brother, and Cooper told you.”

She shrugged. “Cooper is concerned about you.”

“Cooper should mind his own business, no offense.”

“Actually, it is his business. It’s all of Scanguards’ business. You can’t just hook up with the girlfriend of a werewolf and think nothing bad’s gonna happen.”

“Ex-girlfriend,” he corrected, irritated. And he wouldn’t exactly call it a hookup either. What he and Fallon had was more than a fling. At least for him.

“Hey, I’m just saying. And occasionally you could thank me for having brought you this case. My gut feeling was right again. I told you there was more to it than an obsessed ex-boyfriend.”

Patrick inhaled a long breath, then turned his head to look at Anita. “Thank you for bringing me this case. Happy now?”

“I’ll be happy when the threat this werewolf represents is eliminated. Frankly, I had no idea werewolves existed.”

“Yeah, well, we knew, though nobody at Scanguards was aware that there’s a pack so close to San Francisco.”

“Cooper said werewolves are more dangerous than vampires. Is that true?”

“Yes and no. They are definitely more animal than vampires. I mean, fuck, they can shift into a wolf, and you wouldn’t know that they have a humanoid body. Whereas we still retain our bodies even in vampire form. They’re wild, living by different rules than ours. We blend in. They don’t.”

“How would you know that? I mean, look at it: there’s a pack in Marin County, and you didn’t know about them until a day ago. Doesn’t that mean that they can blend in too?”

Patrick shrugged and contemplated her words for a moment. “If they can blend in, it makes them even more dangerous. They are inherently violent creatures.”

Anita let out a chuckle. “Look who’s calling the kettle black!”

“Vampires aren’t violent!”

“Yeah, the ones working for Scanguards aren’t, because you all live by a code of ethics, but don’t pretend you don’t know that most other vampires continue to exhibit their violent nature unchecked.”

“Just because you’re blood-bonded to a vampire hybrid doesn’t make you an expert on vampires.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m just trying to make the point that anybody can be violent, werewolf, vampire, human. We all have it in us.”

At her last words, he realized that only a few days ago he’d mused about the same thing, about the fact that given the right motivation, anybody was capable of violence.

Slowly, he nodded. “I guess.” He stared through the windshield, reading the signs, before making a turn. “We’re almost there.”

Anita looked at the car’s navigation system. “Seems to be a pretty large property.” She pointed to the outline on the map. “About 10,000 acres, mostly forested, with a large house and several stables and other buildings on the side of a hill.”

“That’s about a third of the size of San Francisco,” Patrick commented. “Must be worth a shitload of money.”

“Not necessarily,” Anita said. “Most of that land can’t be built on. I checked the assessor’s records, and the zoning doesn’t allow for any additional homes. There are no water or sewer lines going to the property. Water comes from a well.”

“Sounds pretty… uhm, what do you call those people? Doomsday preppers?”

“Yeah, looks like they’re pretty self-sufficient.”

Patrick brought the car to a stop along a fence. “And not exactly welcoming.” He pointed to the barbed wire sitting on top of the nine-foot stone fence.

“Somebody likes their privacy,” Anita added.

A few hundred yards in the distance, Patrick could make out a large gate. Farther down, the stone fence turned into a wire mesh fence. The terrain there was more rugged, and it appeared that the access road stopped abruptly.

“Cameras?” Anita asked.

Patrick let his eyes roam, using his superior vampire vision to search for electronic surveillance. He found it. The cameras mounted on the gate were hard to miss, but there were more, and they were harder to make out. A human would miss them entirely.

“Cameras on the gate, and more in the trees just inside the property line,” he reported.

“You sure?” Anita squinted. “I can’t see any.”

“Trust me, they’re there.” He put his hand on the gearshift and turned the car around. “We’ll come back another time.” When they were more prepared. This was only a reconnaissance mission to get as much information on the Gallaghers as possible.

“Okay,” Anita agreed, nodding. “Let’s go see the sheriff then.”

The Sheriff’s Department was located a twenty-minute drive from the Gallagher property. Patrick parked the car in the parking lot adjacent to the building, and they got out.

“Like we discussed,” Anita reminded him, “I’ll take the lead. You’re a civilian.”

Patrick gave her a sideways glance. “And you’re making it blatantly obvious that you like being the one with the badge. I don’t know how Cooper can stand it.”

She smirked, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “He totally loves me in a badge.”

Cooper rolled his eyes, instantly catching on to her meaning: just the badge, and nothing else. “Of course, he does. He probably enjoys the handcuffs too.”

A giggle was Anita’s reply, before she opened the door to the building, and they entered.

All business now, she approached the reception area, flashed her badge, and asked to see the sheriff.

“He’s expecting you,” the young officer replied, and pointed to a door to her left. “Right through here.”

Anita headed for the door, and Patrick followed.

“Excuse me, sir,” the officer addressed him. “May I help you?”

Patrick looked over his shoulder, while pointing to Anita. “I’m with her.”

Anita stopped and pivoted. “A consultant working with the SFPD.”

The officer smiled. “Alright, go ahead.”

With a nod, they continued down the short hallway, until they reached the door with Sheriff Berry’s name on it.

Anita knocked, and something sounding like a growl came from the other side of the door. She opened the door, and together they entered.

Behind a massive oak desk, a heavy-set man in his sixties rose to his feet, while placing the receiver of his phone onto the cradle.

“Officer Diaz-Montgomery?” he asked, his hand extended in greeting.

“Sheriff Berry, nice to make your acquaintance,” Anita said and shook his hand.

When his gaze fell on Patrick, Anita stepped aside to introduce him. “This is Patrick Woodford, a consultant with the SFPD. We’re working on this case together.”

As they exchanged greetings, Patrick quickly assessed the man. He was human, and appeared to be an open, friendly man with a pleasant demeanor.

“So, what can I help the SFPD with?” he finally asked, after Anita and Patrick sat down in the chairs in front of his desk.

“It’s about the mountain lion attacks in the past four months, where two hikers were killed in separate incidents.”

A frown line formed on the sheriff’s forehead. “Hmm. Those cases are closed. Tragic, but there wasn’t much to it. I’m surprised San Francisco is interested in them.”

Patrick cleared his throat. “Well, it looks like we’re dealing with the same kind of attack in the Presidio that left a jogger dead a few days ago.”

“Oh? Are you saying you’re dealing with mountain lions in the city? That’s unusual,” he claimed. “Golden Gate Bridge is kind of a natural border, stopping them from migrating south.” He shrugged.

“We’re aware of that,” Anita said quickly, smiling sweetly. “That’s why we’re here. We’re wondering if it’s possible that the two attacks you had here, specifically the ones where the victims’ hearts were missing, could have been perpetrated by a human.”

Instantly, Sheriff Berry became defensive, his smile wiped from his face. “You think we don’t know how to do our job here in the country? I know in the eyes of a big city cop we probably look like country bumpkins to you, but—”

“No, that’s not what we meant, Sheriff,” Anita interrupted quickly. “I worked in the sheriff’s office of Elko County in Nevada for most of my career, and I know first-hand how hard and how diligently the staff at sheriff’s departments are working. We’re not here to criticize your work but rather to ask you for help.” She cast him a gentle smile, and the sheriff’s anger seemed to dissipate. “You see, we’re stumped.”

Patrick suppressed a grin. Anita really knew how to butter up a guy with her innocent-looking smile and her gorgeous eyes. The guy didn’t stand a chance.

“Oh, I see.”

“Sheriff,” Patrick added, “we’ve been having trouble wrapping our heads around who or what could have killed the man we found in the Presidio. We’d love to close this case as fast as we can, but our boss just doesn’t buy that it was a mountain lion. I mean, only the victim’s heart was missing. Nothing else. It’s just strange.”

Sheriff Berry grunted. “Yeah, we had the same issue: two of the three victims had their heart missing too. But when forensics found animal hair in the victims’ wounds, our hands were tied, and we had to rule those cases were animal attacks. Sorry, but we couldn’t find any evidence of human involvement. Sure, it was odd that only the hearts were missing, but the bite wounds and claw wounds were definitely from an animal.”

“Hmm.” Patrick nodded slowly, getting ready for the questions he really wanted to ask, but which would have sounded out of place earlier.

“Were there no witnesses to the attacks?” Patrick asked. “I mean, my understanding is that two of the three attacks took place on land owned by the Gallagher family. Were they questioned?”

“What are you insinuating?” Sheriff Berry pinned him with his brown eyes. “The Gallaghers are upstanding citizens. Yes, they own a lot of land around here, but that doesn’t mean that they know what’s happening in the woods they own. Besides, they’ve been more than cooperative during the investigations, giving us access to their land and their security footage. That was more than we expected, particularly after the tragedy with their oldest son.”

“Tragedy?” Patrick echoed.

Sheriff Berry nodded. “Yeah, real shame what happened.”