“Oh thank God,” I said as Gabriel came through my front door. Cassie gave me a strange look. I tried to ignore it. I had spent an entire day doing arts and crafts with her and my mother. Elle had come home and finished dinner, telling us to enjoy what we were doing. This meant I was stuck with the arts and crafts thing. We seemed to be making bracelets that melted in the oven. I wasn’t entirely sure I had grasped the concept despite being on my fifth bracelet. I also wasn’t sure why Cassie seemed to be enjoying it so much. At fifteen, I would have thought she was too old for such things.
“Conference at my house,” he said, also giving me a strange look.
“Okay,” I stood up. “Be back in a bit.”
My front door shut a little harder than I intended. The dark was blissfully hot without any humidity. A few very daring stars could be seen in the night sky, brave enough to burn brighter than the light pollution associated with large cities. I had expected everyone and was surprised to find just Gabriel.
He whistled and motioned me forward. I crossed my desolate yard and onto his nicely manicured lawn. I was sure that if this place had property values, mine was much lower than his. My lawn care extended to hiring the local kids to mow it when it needed it and water it when it was turning brown. Gabriel had raised flower beds and his yard was much greener than mine. Even in the semi-darkness, his lawn looked healthier than mine.
He let me in the front door of his house. Like Gabriel, it was understated and manly. There were no dead animals on the walls, but they wouldn’t have looked out of place. Trevor had done a wonderful job with the place. It always smelled like musky manliness as well. I could definitely see why Nyleena was slowly developing a thing for Gabriel. He didn’t have to be an alpha to be dominate or male. It was one of his best traits in my opinion.
“What’s up, Boss?” I asked.
“Keeping up on current events?” Gabriel asked.
“I don’t have cable hooked up and I don’t know how to use the TV without some sort of contraption. My sister-in-law has banned newspapers because it might stress me out. My internet is being monitored by Michael and I know because every time I attempt to log in to work or surf the internet for serial killer information, my browser crashes. So, no, I’m a little out of the loop.”
“You were told to recover,” Gabriel grinned. Obviously, he had put Michael on the monitoring duty. “Besides, Michael had a run in with a dog and needs a hobby at the moment. Monitoring your internet usage entertains him.”
“A dog?”
“Well, sort of a dog, more like a hairless rat, but he ended up falling backwards down a flight of stairs at our hotel in Shelbina and breaking his leg.”
“I guess it’s a good thing his job mostly requires his fingers.”
“Something like that,” Gabriel grinned again. “You really missed it.”
“Well then tell me,” I groaned.
“We were headed up a flight of stairs, because the elevator was packed. We are only on the second floor, not a big deal. So this woman comes down the stairs carrying a Chinese Crested dog in a handbag. Lucas freaks out, thinking it’s a rat. He runs into Michael and they both plummet down the stairs, with Michael ending up on the bottom.”
“Damn,” I shook my head. “I miss all the good stuff.”
“It was pretty funny,” Gabriel laughed quietly. “Well, the good news, there wasn’t an explosion over the weekend. No county fairs or carnivals were bombed at all. The bad news is that the Fair Queen of Shelby County got to be a guest of Xavier.”
“Same killer?” I asked.
“One to the skull, in the back, out the front, while she was giving a speech on the grandstand. Police had the place locked down in a matter of minutes, but the killer escaped.”
“And you came to me because Lucas thinks it is weird.”
“Yep.”
“I agree,” I said. “Why go from explosions to sniping the fair queen?”
“Those weren’t quite his words, but close.” Gabriel said.
“Ok, Cassie said something to me earlier today. She was asking about her dad. I may not get mass murderers, but they have a mission. Killing a fair queen is more serial killer than mass murderer.”
“Michael’s searched the database, there’s never been a mass murderer/serial killer coupling.”
“The two are incompatible.” I told him. “If I am making a point by blowing up county fairs, I do not want some serial killer with a happy trigger finger getting the attention that I deserve. And honestly, vice versa. If I get my rocks off by shooting fair queens in the head, I certainly do not want some bomb toting looney getting all the headlines just because he blew up a fair and killed a bunch of people. Both require skills, but different skills and my vanity would not like my skill set being ignored because someone else was involved.”
“But there are serial killers that work in teams and mass murderers that work in teams,” Gabriel said.
“You have already had this conversation with Lucas?” I asked.
“Yes, but he isn’t you,” Gabriel answered. “I want to hear your opinion, as a sociopath.”
“Serial killing teams are like voyeurs and get pleasure from watching the other work. Mass murdering teams are working towards the same goal. The two would be like pairing up Malachi and me and expecting that we will not slit each other’s throats. We have very different goals, we would not work well together.”
The two hunting on the same ground was trouble. Not just for us, but for them. One was going to discover the other and it would be a fight to the death. The two really were incompatible. Considering our mass murderer liked bombs and our serial killer liked guns, my money was on the serial killer.
“What’re your thoughts there?”
“What?” I looked at him blankly.
“You went sort of dark and creepy, not your usual dark and creepy either.”
“Well,” I sighed and told him my theory.
“That’s new,” Gabriel said. “Lucas didn’t think they’d cross paths.”
“Oh, I think they will. Apex predators hunting in the same territory is always a recipe for disaster. It might be why there was not an explosion this weekend. Our serial killer may have already found our mass murderer.”
“Or?” He asked.
“Or our mass murderer may have figured out that there is a serial killer at work too. He knows he did not put a bullet in the skull of the queen in Marion County. Maybe this weekend was a set-up. He did not blow anything up because he was waiting to see if there would be another queen killing.”
“And there was.”
“Yep,” I agreed.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged.
“You know everything,” Gabriel smirked.
“Not everything,” I corrected. “For example, I know that when a lion fights a bear, the bear wins 99% of the time because the lion has a very fragile skull in comparison to other predators. A good hard whack with a big enough stick will kill a lion, he has almost no chance against a grizzly bear or a polar bear or even a black bear. However, I have no idea what happens when a tiger and a bear fight. The tiger does not have the weaknesses that the bear can exploit.”
“Where did you learn that?”
“Bear versus lion used to be a popular past time in California during the Gold Rush era. I have never heard of the lion winning,” I shrugged. “In my mind, this is Clash of the Titans. There could be fall-out. However, we can take over the case now.”
“How do you figure?” Gabriel asked.
“Homeland Security has no jurisdiction over serial killers.”
“We still have a bomber.”
“Maybe, maybe not, it depends on how the report gets filed. With the right wording, our mass murderer becomes a conspiracy case. The bombings were just to cover his tracks killing fair queens, which makes him a serial killer.”
“You just don’t like Adams.”
“I do not like anybody, Gabriel, let’s be honest.”
“I don’t think I can kick Homeland out without several weeks of no bombs.”
“Great, then we are stuck with Adams, because I would guess that our mass murderer will go back to work this weekend, with a watchful eye and a surprise in case he encounters an unwanted guest.”
“Who wins?” Gabriel asked.
“We do,” I said. “If our serial killer kills our mass murderer, we catch the serial killer. If it goes the other way, we catch a mass murderer.”
“That’s disturbing.”
“I almost agree with you.” I said.
“That is even more disturbing,” Gabriel said.
“To me, it is neither here nor there which one wins. As long as one dies and one gets caught, the killings end.”
“You have a point.”