Last Chance - Sample Only!!!

4 - No Time to Waste

Trey

Maise is so damn small. It makes my heart hurt to see her. Her tiny body lies deep in the brush, under a few immature saplings and a bunch of weeds. If not for the absolute limpness and the faint scent of decomposition, Maise Pérez would look asleep.

She's fucking dead, though, and with no visible wounds. Time of death is recent. Judging by the scent, she died no more than five hours ago. Nude, lying on her back with her head tilted to one side, there's not a single mark on her. The sight makes my stomach twist. My wolf is on edge, his head slowly swiveling around, eyeing every soul nearby as he hopes to catch the hint of guilt from one of them.

There's no one here but my investigators and the crime scene techs. Not that it's outside the realm of possibility that one of them did something, but I can't sense anything outside of the ordinary sorrow, anger, and the sick feeling of nausea.

"This isn't where she died," Mack tells me. "No blood spatter anywhere. No drag marks, either."

Not that it means much. Maise can only weigh sixty or seventy pounds. She was easily carried here and dumped.

"Gamma, we're ready to collect the body," Kade murmurs.

"Alright," I nod. "Get Jaden. We'll lift her into the bag. Roll her and take photos of her back, then zip. Disturb as little as possible around her."

We kneel, two on each side of the slight little female, and very gently, with gloved hands, pick Maise's body up. We barely touch her. fingertips and palms only, so we shift as little evidence as possible. "All right, lay her down," I say. We carefully place her body in the sealed bag, then roll her to her front.

Kade moves in and starts to take photos. Her hair is braided, the dark brown curls matted with dirt and leaves, but no blood. Her hair ties have little unicorns on the ends. There are some signs of blood pooling but no perimortem bruising that I can see.

"Fuck, this is disturbing. Poison?" Jaden asks quietly.

"Possibly," I say, "but there isn't any discoloration of her nails, and she looks like she was healthy prior to this fucking sicko getting their hands on her. No signs of sexual trauma that I can see. No cuts. No manual strangulation. She could have been suffocated." At my signal, we roll her back over. "No contusions or signs of hemorraging. Drowning, maybe?" I gently pick up one hand, then the other, and check under her fingernails. Her hands are clean, besides some chipped blue nail polish and a little dirt. "No defensive wounds. Fuck."

The next part is something I loathe, but I bend my head close and inhale. The scent of a dead pup swirls through the air. My wolf peels his lips back in a silent snarl. Even he knows the importance of not interrupting me. I move down her body, my eyes closed, hating every second of the process. Pups should smell of crayons and dirt and baby shampoo.

"Clinical. She's been cleaned with something to hide the scents." I lean back and look up at the sky. "Pooch-Away," I name the pet de-odorizing cleaner from memory, and it rankles more than I expected. Pooch-Away, my fucking ass.

"So... do they know she's a wolf?" Mack asks me quietly. "Or is our perp a wolf?"

"If it's one, then it's the other." I spare a moment to mourn this lost little life. "Zip her up," I murmur hoarsely.

Mack and Jaden bring her to the van while Kade and I start the slow, methodical catalog of the dump site. I look at the ground carefully. Only a few of the leaves and grass under her were crushed. I may have to amend my estimate of Maise's weight down a few pounds. "Definitely not killed here," Kade says.