A Wolf's Heart (Harlequin Nocturne) Read online

  The constable didn’t answer his phone. Voice mail picked up after four rings. Gabriel disconnected and tried again, only to get voice mail once more.

  He slid his phone into his pants pocket and stormed back into the interview room.

  “Why were you at Elise’s cottage this morning?”

  Diego sneered, arms crossed over his chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Leaning on the table, Gabriel got into the vampire’s face. “Don’t mess with me. I know you were there. Why did you gut that wolf and leave it on her porch? Was it a death threat?”

  That startled him and he dropped his hands to his lap. “What wolf? There was no wolf.”

  “So you didn’t see a dead wolf when you came to the house?”

  “No.”

  “So, why were you at the house?”

  Diego sighed, realizing that Gabriel had maneuvered him into admitting he had been there. “I was just looking.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s no law against coming to call on a friend, is there?”

  “It’s called trespassing.”

  “I just wanted to make sure that she was okay.”

  “Why? I thought you hated her.”

  He flinched. “I don’t hate Elise. I still… I still have feelings for her. I was an idiot for cheating on her. She’s a remarkable woman.” He smirked. “But then I guess you already know that.”

  “Yeah, I do.” Gabriel leaned in closer, making sure Diego could see the anger in his gaze, and how hard it was to contain it. “And I think that pissed you off, and you went into the woods, killed a wolf and brought it back to gut it on her porch to teach her a lesson.”

  Diego shook his head. “That’s not how it happened.”

  “Then tell me how it happened.”

  “I drove out at about ten. I parked on the side of the road. I was too chicken to drive right into the yard. I came across the yard and approached the house. I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome, so I just walked around the house. And yes, I looked into one of the windows. And that’s when I saw the two of you. So, I decided to get the hell out of there.” He ran a shaky hand through his perfectly coifed hair. “I drove home, called Layla and asked her for a late lunch. I figured I should just move on.”

  “Layla would confirm all of this?”

  He nodded.

  Gabriel pushed away from the table. He believed him. “I’ll need Ms. Lee’s number to verify your statement.”

  “Fine. Got a pen and paper?”

  Gabriel handed a pen and pad of paper to Diego. The vampire wrote down a number and handed it back to him.

  “Jesus, you’re just as bad as her agent. He’s been in my face, too.”

  “About what?”

  “About leaving Elise alone. He’s a persuasive jerk, too. But that kind of crap doesn’t work on a vampire of my caliber. I’m much too powerful to be swayed.”

  “Well, you should’ve listened to him and you wouldn’t have been in this mess.” Gabriel ran a hand over his face. He was feeling the fatigue but his anger and fear for Elise’s safety drove him on. “You say you still have feelings for Elise. Have you been sending her love letters?”

  Diego shook his head. “No. That’s totally not my style.”

  Gabriel regarded him for a long moment, gauging him, taking his measure. However despicable he thought the vampire to be, his words rang true.

  Clutching the notepad, Gabriel went to leave the room. “I’ll need to check this out. You’ll have to wait here.”

  Diego threw up his hands in defeat. “Fine. Could you have someone bring me some tea then, since I missed my lunch?”

  That was when a tall woman in a three-piece suit barged into the room, her black leather briefcase swinging like a weapon. “This interview is over, Inspector. My client’s rights have been violated.”

  “No problem, Counselor. Your client is all yours.” Gabriel brushed past her and closed the door on her continuous stream of complaints and arguments.

  As he marched down the hallway to the garage, he ran into Sophie. “What’s going on?”

  “I picked up Diego. He’s not our guy.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “He was at the house but he didn’t gut the wolf. He didn’t send any notes, either.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. He’s pathetic, but he isn’t a sociopath.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Back to the cottage. I can’t reach Elise or Ron. My gut tells me something’s wrong.”

  “Okay, I’ll drive,” she said, turning around to join him.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m a faster driver than you anyway.”

  “True.” He tossed her the keys to the SUV.

  A record forty-five minutes later, they were pulling up the driveway to Elise’s cottage. The second Sophie put it in Park, Gabriel was out the door.

  There was still blood on the porch and the front door was wide open.

  Sophie withdrew her gun from her shoulder holster. “You take the back. I’ll go in through the front.”

  Gabriel nodded and took out his own weapon. Senses on alert to every sound and smell, he skirted around the cottage and into the backyard. The first thing he noticed was the back glass sliding door had been shattered.

  He mounted the steps to the patio. “Elise!” he yelled, as he crossed the deck to the broken windows. Gingerly, he stepped over the shards and into the kitchen. “Elise!”

  There was no return call.

  The kitchen was a mess. There were overturned chairs, and broken bowls and glasses. Tomatoes were strewn all over the tile floor. The scent of basil and vinegar laced the air.

  Along with something else. Anger. Fear. And blood. Elise’s blood.

  There were droplets of it on the counter in the kitchen.

  The sight of it nearly took Gabriel to his knees. He was faint enough that he had to steady himself with a hand on the table.

  Sophie came into the room. “The front is clear. No sign of Elise or Constable Sharpe.”

  He nodded and walked briskly down the hallway to the bedrooms. Sophie followed him. He checked her room and the guest bedroom, where he’d put his stuff. He didn’t expect to find anything. By the mess in the kitchen it was obvious someone had come in and taken Elise and she had fought back.

  But now she was gone. And he didn’t have a lead to who’d taken her or where.

  They regrouped in the kitchen. “Call in the rest of the team. We need to go over this place with a fine-tooth comb. There has to be something here. There just has to be.”

  Sophie set her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find her, Gabe.”

  “How can you be so sure?” He had to catch his voice before it shook.

  “Because I know you. You’re a dogged son of a gun and you won’t give up until you track her down and punish the bastard who took her.”

  She left him to make the call to the lab. As he stood there in the kitchen, looking over the broken glass and the blood, his heart thumped hard, painfully so, and he could hardly regain his breath. He hadn’t been able to keep her safe. He’d promised her and then failed her.

  Again. Fifteen years ago he failed to stop one of his best friends from assaulting Elise. He’d been late meeting her for a date and because his friend knew where they always went, he’d shown up instead, with malice on his mind.

  He’d been late again. Too late in calling her, too late in realizing something was wrong. Too late to stop her attacker from taking her.

  If she died, it would be his fault.

  And if that happened, he was unsure he could continue on without her.

  Chapter 24

  Elise tried to regain her feet, but every time she moved, her head would pound and her stomach would roil. Her body didn’t even feel like her own. When she tried to move her leg, her head would twitch. It was as if all her brain messages were going to the wrong places.

  She�
��d been drugged. That much she figured out. But by whom? That she couldn’t nail down.

  The last thing she could truly remember was making a salad and calling for…

  She couldn’t remember who she’d been calling for lunch. Had it been Gabriel? Surely, if he’d been with her, she wouldn’t be here. No, wait, Gabriel had left to go back to the city. So who had been on her porch?

  She rolled over onto her side and tried to scramble onto her hands and knees. Maybe she could crawl to find a door to get out. At first her arms wouldn’t agree with her legs. She tried and fell on her face twice before she was finally able to push up onto her elbows.

  From this vantage point, she surveyed the room again, taking in everything she could. Trying to find any clue that could help her escape. She still couldn’t believe she was on the set of one of her movies. Why would someone bring her here? Who had access like this? It had to have been someone she knew and worked with. Diego? She still didn’t know.

  Constable Sharpe. That’s who she’d been looking for. The young constable Ron whom Gabriel had entrusted to look after her and to clean up the mess that had been on her front porch.

  And that’s when she saw the blood.

  She was surrounded by it. Lying in it. It was all over her hands and her arms. It was everywhere. She was drowning in a sea of crimson. It was coming out of her nose and mouth.

  Frantic, she clawed at her face trying to stem the flow. It was coming out her eyes and everything was bathed in a dark scarlet hue.

  She screamed until her throat ripped from the pain.

  Chapter 25

  “The rest of the team will be here as soon as they can.”

  Gabriel flinched a little as Sophie came up behind him. His mind had been elsewhere and he hadn’t heard her approach. He nodded and ran a hand through his already messy hair. “Okay. Let’s get the scene contained and mapped out.”

  “I’ll get our kits.” Careful to follow the same path she’d taken in, Sophie went back out the front to the vehicle.

  Gabriel returned to surveying the scene.

  From the look of the tomatoes and other ingredients still on the counter, he surmised that Elise had been making something for her and Ron to eat. The constable had probably been out cleaning the porch, as Gabriel had instructed him to do. There had been a green garbage bag on the porch, he’d noted.

  Their lunch had obviously been interrupted.

  Sophie came back in carrying both their crime-scene kits. She set them down in the living room, away from the scene in the kitchen. Most of the mess was in there, so it was assumed that was where Elise and/or Ron had been disabled.

  Gabriel snapped on a pair of latex gloves and wandered back to look into the kitchen again. “The intruder must’ve come in through the patio door. Elise was probably in the kitchen, maybe had her back to the door.” He glanced over his shoulder at the open front door. “Maybe she’d just finished making something and was going to tell Ron.”

  “The porch is partially cleaned. Ron must’ve been there then when the perp came at Elise,” Sophie added as she glanced out the door to the porch.

  “I can’t see how one man could’ve snuck up on two people, both with lycan genes.”

  “Maybe Ron was taken out first.”

  Gabriel joined her at the door. “I don’t see evidence of a struggle. Ron would’ve struggled. He’s a strong lycan.”

  “Then something must’ve gotten his attention and pulled him away. Because he would’ve definitely come running if Elise had been attacked.”

  “I’m going to do a perimeter search for him.”

  “Okay, boss. I’ll start taking pics and marking evidence.”

  Gabriel went back to his kit, shoved some plastic evidence bags, disposable camera and plastic markers into his jacket pockets, and went through the front door. On the porch he looked around for anything amiss. It was hard to tell though since there was still wolf’s blood splattered on the wood. He did notice three sets of footprints, though, in the blood.

  One had to be his, one belonging to Sophie and the last to Ron. He crouched down to examine the constable’s print. Then he followed them off the porch and around the side of the cottage. They stopped near the water tap and hose.

  Ron must’ve been preparing to turn on the tap and hose off the blood on the porch. But he never got the chance.

  Crouching, Gabriel inspected the ground near the tap. At first he saw nothing but fine, packed soil and a few weeds sticking out from the earth. But then he saw a darker spot in the ground. Squinting, he peered at it and recognized it for what it was. A drop of blood staining the dirt black.

  He set an evidence marker down beside it and took a picture of it. Then he leaned down even farther and inhaled the rich, tangy odor. Everyone’s blood smelled different. If he knew the person, Gabriel could distinguish their blood from another’s. He took in three good whiffs and got Ron’s scent.

  Standing, he lifted his nose to the air and smelled, trying to pinpoint in what direction Ron had been dragged or carried or walked off on his own—which Gabriel highly doubted. The only way Ron had abandoned his post was if he was forced to do so.

  After a few more whiffs of the air, Gabriel got a scent trail. He followed it across the field and toward the woods. Almost in the exact location that he’d encountered the paparazzi vampire’s scent. The trail turned then, and continued down the tree line until it came to the road hidden by more trees and a fence.

  Gabriel jumped the fence and that’s where he found Constable Ron Sharpe. Dead. His throat slit ear to ear.

  He cursed under his breath then crouched down to close the dead lycan’s eyes. “I’ll find him, Ron. I’ll find him.”

  An hour later, Gabriel was back in the cottage with his team busy around him examining and collecting the evidence. He had Ron’s body bagged and tagged, and it was now in the back of the SUV ready to be driven back to the city and to the morgue to have an autopsy done. It was obvious what had killed him—he was bled out—but what Gabriel wanted to know was how he’d been incapacitated to begin with.

  “Gabe,” Sophie said from near the smashed glass doors. “Check this out.”

  Gabriel neared where she was kneeling down. Her flashlight illuminated a clear liquid on the floor.

  “What is it?”

  She shook her head. “It’s some kind of chemical. The smell is noxious.”

  “Chloroform?”

  “No. It’s something else.” She took out a Q-tip and dabbed it into the substance. She then slid the Q-tip into a small plastic tube and capped it. She labeled it and handed it to Gabriel.

  He set it into her crime-scene kit along with everything else they’d collected, bagged and labeled.

  Looking at it all, he didn’t know if it would help. He’d always believed in the evidence before. Always knew it would lead them to solving the case and getting justice for the wronged.