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Marcel
Saturday, 23 January, 9:47 p.m.
––––––––
Aidan and Rowan both turned when I stepped into Aidan's office. The smile on Aidan's face, I knew all too well. Not his post-coital smile, but the one he wears when hunting human prey. Perhaps our conversation earlier, before I had left his office to check on Ainsley, reminded him we are, and always will be, stronger when we hunt together.
Rowan held up his hand, and I slapped mine against it. "Told you you'd know what to say to him."
I wrapped my arms around Aidan's waist and pressed my cheek to his chest, his heartbeat strong against my ear. "Perhaps I did some showing and not telling."
My brother-in-law dragged a hand down his face. "I don't need to know that about my brother. Sure, thinking about you like that, now that's – hot."
Aidan cleared his throat. "You showed my wife your penis?"
Despite no longer practising medicine, Aidan preferred to use the correct terms for body parts and never resorted to the crude words his brothers used. Or me.
"Rowan's is so small, I wouldn't have seen it even if he had pulled his pants down all the way. Come on, Mr Walker, if you've seen one you've seen them all."
Aidan had seen countless female sex organs the years he practised as an obstetrician and gynaecologist. It never bothered me. This was Aidan's attempt to lighten the mood. When he would much rather lock me in a tower, and commission a dragon to guard me, than allow me out to hunt the person responsible for at least four deaths. Perhaps more.
"I can dismantle a bomb with one hand tied behind my back while blindfolded. I assure you, I showed your wife my tattoo without even giving her a glimpse of what she's missing out on." Rowan winked at me and I couldn't help but snort a laugh.
"Before we sit down to discuss murder, and I'm not talking about yours, Rowan, do you want to tell me what the hell happened between you and Quinn?" I took Aidan's hand and led him to the couch we almost broke hours before. Twice.
I waited for Rowan to answer, knowing he would evade my question. Quinn had done the same when I cornered her before she had left and returned to her undercover assignment.
"My murder?" Rowan took a seat across from the couch. Aidan glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, the exact moment I looked at him. We both grinned. Rowan shot to his feet. "Where's a safe place to sit, on which you didn't have sex since the last time this room was cleaned?"
I rolled my eyes. "The balcony, but we need to discuss our plan of action, so let's say the other chair is safe." I lied, but at least four people had been murdered. This was not the time to remind Rowan that he was all big talk for a man who could count his sexual partners on one hand. The things I know about my brother-in-laws no woman ever should. Then again, our relationship isn't what any other family would term normal. Death and destruction surrounded all of us, every single day. Our bond reminded me of the one I had with the members of my squad. When you face war daily, and your own mortality, you form a different connection with those around you.
"You haven't answered my wife, Ro. What happened between you and Quinn?"
Rowan leaned back in the chair and retied his long, dark brown hair at the back of his head. Most women would give anything for hair with a natural curl like his, myself included. The reason he always wore it tied up, or in a despicable man bun, only he knew. I had asked him once, and he mumbled something about 'damn Rob Granger'.
With his hair in place, Rowan looked straight at me. A devilish grin on his face. Mischief played in his dark eyes. "I will answer any and all questions, if you rub beeswax on my tattoo."
I took a deep breath and sighed. "Youngest Mr Walker, eldest Mr Walker will skin you alive if you don't stop teasing. Let's be honest, Ro, you won't know what to do if I got down on my knees in front of you, and rubbed that close to your, uhm ... thingy."
Once more Aidan's laughter filled the room. He pressed his mouth to mine and grinned. "Woman, I love your wit."
I grabbed the back of his neck and returned his mouth to mine, forgetting we weren't alone. It wasn't often we could be Aidan and Finley, instead of Daddy and Mommy. Like all parents, we made the most of the time we could steal. When we weren't too tired because the saying 'sleep like a baby' is the biggest lie ever. Whoever said that never had a child. They don't sleep through the night when they cut teeth or go through a growth spurt. I had loved breastfeeding. But doing it every two hours, for an hour because Ainsley used me as a dummy and not just as a walking, talking, breathing constant supply of milk, left me more exhausted than I've ever been. Perhaps the birthday party, and having the entire family over for the day, was getting to me.
I forgot the reason we were in Aidan's office. I called it his office even though command centre would've been a more adequate description. At that moment, it didn't look like it did when Aidan ran an operation. Why are we here and not in bed? Oh yes – murder.
"I'll make you a deal. Once I've put a bullet between this killer's eyes, you'll answer all of my questions. Don't you dare come with some spiel about the two of you having a history. You've both moved on since your short-lived relationship when you were eighteen. What ever happened, it was recent. Sometime between Christmas and today." I closed my eyes, rubbing my temples.
"You're profiling the wrong thing, Mrs Walker. Focus on the murders. We need to get to bed before Ainsley wakes up at 0500 hours tomorrow morning. Do you accept the terms of the deal, Rowan?"
"There's nothing I won't give Fin, if I can see her pull the trigger on whoever buried two people alive, hacked off a young women's hands, and killed the last victim in a way the medical examiner is unable to determine."
The darkness festering inside me once again flapped her majestic wings. She rose out of slumber as goose bumps rippled across my skin. Without her, I can't hunt those who indulge in their darkest desires. The darkness and I thrive on hunting them – human predators. I rubbed the orca tattoo on my left wrist, a predatory sneer on my face. A groove formed between Rowan's eyes as he stared at me.
Aidan placed a hand on my knee and squeezed. "Fortius welcomes you, Mrs Walker. Are you ready to hunt a non-territorial serial killer?"
I turned to Aidan. The sound of flapping wings seized, the goose bumps remained. "This will be our first time hunting together. Are you ready to stand back and let me be who I am? Are you ready to make any and all of your resources available to me? I need to stop him before he kills again." Seventeen faces.
The ringing of Rowan's mobile phone broke the rising tension as Aidan and I stared at each other with raw, unbridled lust. We've never been oblivious to who the other is at our core. Two vigilantes. Although, now we hunted with military precision and more fire power than most of the militaries in the world. Fortius lurks in the grey, waiting, ready to strike in either the black or the white. Our hands not bound by red tape, only the simple laws of what's wrong and what's right. When we can't agree, we put it to a vote. A family. A unit. A warship which will be mine and Aidan's to command once his parents retire at the end of the year.
"Eli, what do you have for us?" Rowan said and turned on his mobile phone's speaker.
"Your hunch paid off. He placed another call ten minutes ago." Eli's words sucked the air out of my lungs.
"Where?" Aidan asked.
"Vienna." The familiar sound of Eli's fingers pounding away at a keyboard in the background.
Rowan lifted his eyes to mine and swallowed hard. "How?"
"He said the bodies will still smoulder by the time the police got there."
I pushed to my feet and paced the length of the coffee table. Aidan lifted his bare feet onto the couch to save his toes. "Bodies? Two victims. This time he killed by burning them. The only reason we know these murders are committed by the same person is because of the phone calls he makes to the police in each city."
A man and a woman were buried alive inside a coffin in Majorca. In Malta he hacked off a woman's hands. The death of the young woman in Budapest remained undetermined. It appeared as if she had died in her sleep. As if any person would willingly go to sleep in the dead of winter in Normafa Park.
My pacing stopped, and I turned to Aidan. "Do you have contacts in the Bundespolizei?"
"Your pronunciation needs work, but I give you ten out of ten for knowing the name of Austria's National Police." Aidan's palm connected with my bum. "Yes, I do. What do you need me to do?"
"I want to see the bodies, and where they were found." I shook my head. "Ainsley, I can't leave her. No way I'm taking her with to hunt down a serial killer. Not until she's at least sixteen and can handle a SIG better than any of us. Eli, is it too early to teach her Krav Maga?"
Eli laughed before Aidan did. "Finley, you're losing focus. Ainsley can stay with us; I can assist with the investigation from anywhere in the world."
Aidan got to his feet and cupped my face in his hands. "My parents are already here, and Mom agreed to take care of Ainsley. This is her home, she's safe here. Not that she won't be with you, Eli, it's just my mother needs to be around Ainsley right now."
"I get it. I saw what Heather did in Columbia, just not in real life. With the matter of Ainsley's care resolved, what do you need from me? I can be there in five minutes."
"For now, keep monitoring any calls made to the police across Europe." Aidan's eyes narrowed. "What is it, Fin?"
I started pacing again and did something which used to freak out my sister. "You killed before Majorca. How many people have you murdered? Why call the police to inform them, especially the couple you buried in Majorca? Each murder is different, why? What are you trying to tell us?" The killer didn't answer.
"Eli, can you send out one of your worm thingies? We need to know whether he has killed before Majorca." I stopped pacing. "Don't limit your search to Europe, include any country that keeps electronic case files of homicides. He may have started on a different continent."
"What are you thinking, Fin?" Rowan asked.
I'm not sure why I asked Eli to expand the search beyond Europe. Something about this killer struck me as odd. To be so brazen to call the police after each murder, he may have started somewhere he thought the police wouldn't catch him. With each murder, his confidence grew.
The couch cushion made no sound as I slumped down and asked Rowan, "Your tattoo artist in Budapest said the guy had sixteen female faces tattooed on his back. Your guy added number seventeen. Why not include the men?"