The Alpha Killer
You Must Reject

Two Days after Tania’s Rescue

Randall Meechum’s POV

I spent almost twelve hours at the scene that first night with Detective Carl Anders and his team from the Dallas Police Department, assisting them in making sense of the multiple murders. Once the crime scene technicians were done with their work, we returned to his precinct to start working on suspects.

My mate was good, not that her real name would ever pass my lips. The last thing I was going to do was to tell them that the Alpha Killer, the most wanted werewolf in the world for two years running, was behind this.

Instead, I worked things so I could focus on the woman who was in the room when the killer took out the man who was using her. The theory I had given them was that she was somehow important, and that a killer had been hired to get her back. The problem was, nobody knew who she was.

Her prints were all over the room, but there were no matches on the FBI databases. She had never been arrested or fingerprinted, and the only people who might know her real name were dead. I knew from scent that she had gone down a floor and stayed in the killer’s room, but nobody on that floor was suspected. The cop who canvassed that floor was hoping she’d call, mainly because he thought she was cute and wanted to ask her out.

I held back my growl at that thought. No one would know my mate but ME.

By the end of the second day, we had nothing. There was no surveillance that showed anyone but normal hotel guests, and that was from the hotel across the street and practically useless. The only eyewitness still alive was missing, and the initial forensics didn’t tell us anything. There were no fingerprints on the murder weapon except the victims.

Nobody could figure out why a killer would take out Dirk in such a close and brutal fashion but use his own gun to take out three more people. “We’re missing the point here,” I finally said as we sat around a bunch of pizza boxes on the table. “Who was the first victim?”

“Dirk,” one of the detectives named Stan said. “Peggy was shot and fell over him while he was already dead. The killer went to Star’s room and shot the john, then from the bullet paths he shot Peggy then the other john before exiting on the stairway.”

“Exactly,” I said. “If the person just wanted to rescue Star, why did he walk past the room where our two pimps were camped out with the cash? Wouldn’t he just shoot the two of them and move on?”

“Maybe Dirk was already in the hallway,” Carl said. “He’s right, it’s a completely different kind of kill. Close range, angry and bloody.”

“Almost like a different person,” I said.

“Oh fuck, don’t do this to me,” Carl said. “You think there was a team?”

“It might make sense. Three of the kills were surgical, a professional job. The fourth was personal. If it’s personal, it’s someone who knows him and hates him, and that person came here planning to kill him.” I grabbed another piece of Chicago-style sausage deep dish and started to eat it.

“Or it is someone who blames Dirk for turning a girl he cares for into a heroin-addicted sex slave, being whored out to dozens of men a day,” Carl said. “He might have taken that VERY personally.”

“And while this person is getting his revenge, his backup is getting the girl and making sure no one gets in their way,” Stan added.

“The person who killed Dirk would be covered with blood, I’m talking Carrie-movie-like levels. The autopsy showed both the internal and external carotid arteries were not just cut, they had chunks taken out of them. She told me his blood would be spraying like a garden hose for ten to twenty seconds until his heart stopped, and the bloodstains on the wall and floor back that up. The killer would be covered in blood, yet we don’t see a trail of blood down the stairs.” Carl leaned back in his chair and took a drink of his Diet Coke. “The Luminol showed the bloodstains ended in the stairwell, which means the killer took his shoes off, and had Star take her heels off, because both the boots and the high heels tracked the blood down the hall.” Luminol made bloodstains show up under black light.

“There’s no evidence of a third person in the bloodstains,” Stan said. “Not that the carpet gave us anything usable to identify the shoes, but it’s only the boots and the heels."

I tossed my empty Coke bottle into the trash. “It’s driving me nuts,” I said. “I’m hoping the FBI lab can give us the type and size of boot, because that would back up my theory on the shooter being about five-foot-six. How’s the hit man search going?”

“It’s not,” Stan said. “This was so clean, it’s not like a mob hit, it’s more of a military style. Fast, efficient and deadly. I’ve got no good leads.”

“We’re getting nowhere,” Carl said. “We’re tired and just tossing shit out. Go home, get some sleep and come back in the morning with some ideas on where to go next.”

“I have a commitment in the morning,” I said. “All right if I show up after lunch?”

“No problem. Thanks for your help, Randall. For a Fed, you’re a decent guy.” He and the boys laughed. It was amazing what springing for pizza could do for your rep.

“Why, thank you. For a bunch of ignorant backwoods hicks, you guys are surprisingly smart.” We all laughed as we got up and cleared the room.

I went down to my car and set the GPS for our Pack house by the Sulphur River. I needed answers, and I hoped my father had gathered what I had asked him for. With the evening traffic, it took almost four hours to drive there with one stop.

A few wolves came alongside my red Jeep Cherokee as I drove down the long gravel road towards the Pack House. I slowed down and let one wolf jump into my passenger seat, and he licked my neck before shifting back to his human form. “Sloppy welcome, Bobby,” I said as I clapped the shoulder of my younger brother. He and his twin sister Bonnie were the youngest of our family, and she had found her mate in a Maine pack two years ago. Bobby was still looking while going to college.

“Good to have you back home, Randall,” he said as he buckled the seatbelt. “It’s boring here without you.” He smirked as he saw Mom and Dad standing on the front porch of the sprawling ranch-style home under the wide overhang of the roof. The house was connected underground to the houses surrounding it, and those passages contained additional storage and other rooms. “You sure kicked up a hornet’s nest with your phone call.”

“It can’t be helped, I need Dad’s help.” Brent and Patricia had led the Sulphur River Pack, a strong and loving group of nearly a hundred people, for the past six decades and were still going strong. They were well respected among the American packs, bringing calm and reason to the discussions that could easily get out of hand. Each of us sons had been dragged to watch regional and national Alpha Council meetings, functioning as bodyguards for our sisters as the unmated searched for their other half. “Did you put together what I asked for?”

“Yeah, and it’s got Mom worried. She doesn’t want you anywhere near the Alpha Killer, even if it is for your job. She thinks she’s more dangerous than a cornered rogue.”

“Come on, let’s get this over with.” He grinned as he got out, unconcerned with his nudity like all wolves on their home territory. He walked past our parents with just a kiss to Mom, while Dad was glaring down at me and Mom was waiting nervously. I stopped on the steps below them, bowing my head slightly in deference to their rank. “Father, Mother, it is good to be home.”

“Welcome home, my son,” my Dad said as he opened his arms. I stepped forward, embracing him then being pulled into a hug by my mother. Both buried their noses in my neck, letting my scent comfort their wolves after my absence. “Did you have a good drive?”

“Once out of the cities, yes, but that is always the case.”

“I don’t know how you can live among all those people and all those smells,” Mom told me. “It would drive me batty.”

I just laughed as she pulled me inside. “It just makes coming home so much better.”

“We’re meeting in my office,” Dad said in a tone that made it a command. “Your call has me worried.”

I followed my parents to the conference room next to their shared office. Waiting at the table were my oldest two brothers, Dusty and Dallas, the heirs to the Alpha and Beta positions. My father’s Beta, “Bear” Baldwin, was sitting to the right of my father while my mother sat to the left. Bobby had put on jeans and a shirt and was sitting on the other side of my brothers, while I ended up at the position at the end opposite my father, with the Delta, Frank Madison, to my left.

“What I am about to discuss involves an ongoing FBI and Dallas Police Department investigation, and the information cannot leave this room,” I said ominously.

“It will not be spoken of to anyone else,” my father said, the Alpha order coming out. “Why are you asking about the Alpha Killer?”

“Because she killed four people two nights ago in a Fort Worth hotel,” I said. “I traced her scent from the crime scene to a room on the floor below, but she was gone by the time I got there.”

My Dad relaxed. “That’s good, isn’t it? I mean, the Alpha Council has been unable to bring her to justice, perhaps the human authorities can. Convicting her of multiple homicide in Texas, where they still have the death penalty, is better than having her threatening us all.”

“The people she killed for the most part won’t be missed.” I filled them in on the basics of the case. “The Alpha Killer walked into a temporary whorehouse, took out the two humans running it, and left again with one of the sex slaves in tow. The question is why?”

Bear shifted uncomfortably. “Does it matter?”

“The way she ripped out the throat of a human who ran the operation convinces me this was very personal. I’ve been away at school and training, I’ve not been following Council affairs and I’m only aware that she is wanted. I took the surveillance photo you sent me and pulled it up on my phone, and one of the officers made a positive identification that the woman in the room was her. With her was another young woman, also with blonde hair, who she said was her sister. She was human, and retrieving her was the focus, but who is she?”

My father sank back in his chair. “The Alpha Killer's real name is Talia Stillwater, but she doesn't use that name anymore. She was the elder female heir of the Tomah Pack Alphas in Wisconsin. In the course of a few hours, her younger sister Tania was kidnapped from her Pack and her parents were killed in a car crash while rushing back home. She was sixteen at the time, her sister fourteen.”

“Oh Luna… she found her sister in a whorehouse?” My mind was reeling; my wolf pushed forward, outraged that someone would do that to a werewolf, much less my mate’s sister. “No wonder she ripped his throat out with a shifted hand.”

“Her sister is still missing, there were no clues, no ransom, nothing. Her family searched for years, even now we get enquiries from her aunt and uncle, who are Alphas of the LaCrosse pack. Her Pack declared her dead a year after she disappeared.”

“Wait, she was the Alpha heir, why is it not her Pack?”

“That’s a longer story,” my mother said. “I can hear your heart racing, this is more than an investigation for you, isn’t it.”

I could never get anything past my Mom. Werewolf senses made it impossible to lie, especially to an Alpha. “When I got to the crime scene, I caught her scent in the parking lot. I must have missed her by minutes because it was still fresh.”

“She’s….” My mom’s hand went to her chest and tears started to fall.

“She’s my mate, Mom. I have to protect her, she’s MINE.”

My Dad leaned forward, his hands on the table. “There’s a multi-million-dollar reward, and she’s been sentenced to death by the Alpha Council. Now you tell us she’s responsible for the murder of four humans. You have to reject her, boy. She will destroy you if you let the bond form.”

“I can’t. I can't give her up.” I looked down at my hands as my Mom got up and rushed to my side.

What a shitshow my life had become.

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