Book 1 - Page 43 (1/2)

Devlyn parked the SUV in Nicol’s driveway and considered the house. “No lights on, unless he’s sleeping. Wonder if any of the rest of the pack live in the vicinity. Next-door neighbors, even.”

He climbed out of the SUV and Bella joined him. “Gray-haired lady peeking through her blinds across the street is watching every move we make,” she said.

At a leisurely pace, Devlyn checked the mailbox and pulled out a flyer. Then he headed straight for the front door as if he were a regular visitor. “No sounds inside the house. Won’t take long for us to check out the place, sense any signs of blood, see if either the murdering red or the girl were here before. We’ll be gone long before anyone can get here.”

“Unless someone calls the police.”

Devlyn picked up the newspaper lying on the front step, shoved it under his arm, and brought out his lock picks. Within seconds, he had the door open and they were in.

Both listened for any sounds that would indicate that Nicol or anyone else was in the house, but they heard nothing. The place was silent, vacant, unless Nicol was cowering somewhere or sleeping.

“The neighbors will see us drop off his paper and mail for him, stay a few minutes, and then leave without taking anything, and figure we have to be friends of his.”

“Is that how you and your cousins got away with snooping through people’s homes when you were younger?”

“Works like a charm. It’s the sneaky ones that get caught. And, thankfully, it’s cold enough here that no one will be suspicious of us for wearing gloves either. Although it won’t matter at the reds’ places. They’ll smell that we’ve been there, and catching a trace of your scent will drive them crazy to know you were there and all they can enjoy of you is the delicious fragrance you left behind.” He lifted his chin and took a deep breath. “Smells like Nicol and the strong odor of dead animals.”

Bella pointed at the stag heads mounted over the mantle as she made her way across the jungle of a living room. The couch covered in zebra and the chairs in leopard skins caught her eye, and she wondered if Nicol killed one of the women and took a trophy from her, too. When she walked into the cluttered kitchen, she found dirty dishes stacked in the sink, and the kitchen counter was buried in papers and half-eaten sandwiches, dried out and spotted with spreading black mold.

“A woman’s been here,” Devlyn called out from down the hall. “Well, make that a few.”

But was one of them the murdered woman?

Bella peeked into the fridge. Half-soured milk and green fuzzy cheese. She wrinkled her nose and shut the door. Ransacking the drawers, she found nothing.

“Computer back here. You want to hack into his email?” Devlyn shouted.

Bella bolted for the sound of his voice and found him hunched over the keyboard, Windows starting up on the screen. He moved out of the chair to let her sit down.

“AOL. He’s got it set up where he can just log in automatically.” She clicked enter and the page took forever to upload. “Direct dial-up.” She studied the email message subjects and chose one that said, “Looking forward to Sunday!” dated three weeks earlier. Here’s a newer picture of me, and, yes, Nicol, my hair is really red! Not a Clairol-bottle red! I’ve told all my friends how we’ve met on the dating service. They’re going to try it next, too. Got any brothers?

“OmiG.o.d, Devlyn, he was looking for redheads on an online dating service. Look.” As if Devlyn already wasn’t. His heated breath caressed her neck while he looked over her shoulder.

Bella’s breathing slowed as she clicked on the attachment. After several excruciatingly slow seconds, the picture appeared. “It’s her,” Bella said. “I recognize it from the police photos in the papers — the murdered girl, Linn McGowan.”

She hurriedly looked through several more emails, finding pictures of four more redheads from the online dating service.

“Where’s Linn’s residence?” Devlyn asked, his voice hard.

Bella pulled the papers out of her jacket pocket and fumbled through them. “South side of Portland.”

“What about the other redheads he’d contacted?”

“The other girls listed in this dating service live in other parts of Oregon. They’re not among those found dead here in Portland. He may never have met them once he found Linn.”

“Or if he did and they met bad ends, he might have killed them in other locations of the state, and the police may not have connected them with the killings here.”

Bella’s stomach clenched while she sifted through the emails and then she shut the computer down. “What about his bedroom? Find anything there?”

“He’s been with a few women in there. I thought he might not have brought the woman who was murdered here. But maybe so. We’ll have to check out her place to pick up her scent and compare.”

Bella headed into the bedroom and took a deep breath. “l.u.s.ty little red wolf. Ready to go to Linn’s place?”

Devlyn pulled out a date book from his pocket and flipped it open.

“Nicol’s?”

“Yep. Found it on his desk. When was the girl murdered?”

“A week before the mystery red’s murder.”