LustUndone Read Online Free Page A

pointed out. “We’ve brought
all this information with us to share.”
    “Let me ask you a question.” He studied her face. “The other
killings we were told about took place in Texas. Why would an animal migrate
all the way to Maine and start killing again?”
    Sophia chewed her bottom lip. She’d been wondering if
someone would ask that. How to answer it without giving away the real theory,
the stuff science fiction nightmares were made of.
    “We’ve only recently come to the conclusion there might be
more than one of them. Twice in the last few months we thought we’d killed it
only to have it turn up again in another state. It’s possible,” she said
slowly, “that it’s a hybrid of some type that over time has spread out to
different areas of the country.”
    “You really believe that?”
    “It killed my nephews two years ago. And two other people.”
She swallowed back the rising anger.
    “You don’t know that. Nothing was ever proved. We never
found whatever animal it was. If it even was an animal.”
    “You never found a human either. One who had a reason to
kill those people, including two little boys. And we just worked cases in Texas
that were exactly the same. So our theory isn’t any more farfetched than
yours.”
    “Maybe it’s just some mutated strain of coyote,” Greg
suggested. “They’re everywhere.”
    “We’ve brought things to distribute to everyone, too, on the
cases we’ve worked on. Photographic proof the creature exists.” She pulled a
thick folder from her briefcase. “And believe me, it looks nothing like a
coyote.”
    He stared hard at her for a long time. “All right. I won’t
make waves. For now. But there were no tracks around the body, no indication
that any animal had been there. A human being could figure out how to erase his
tracks but not an animal. So we’re still looking for who might want to kill
Darrell. And we haven’t given up on the illegal alien angle, either. Someone
who snuck over the border and was desperate for food and shelter. Maybe Darrell
caught him and the illegal killed him.”
    “Greg,” Sophia began.
    He cut her off. “That’s how it is, Sophia. We’re going to
continue conducting this as a normal murder investigation.”
    Of course they were. She wouldn’t have expected anything
less. She and Logan were there only to offer a possibility they couldn’t afford
not to explore.
    “As requested,” Greg went on, “I made folders for each of
you with crime scene reports and the autopsy.” He gave one to Sophia and to
Logan then turned to Bobby. “Your show.”
    Sophia dropped into a vacant chair and noticed that Logan
had managed to seat himself next to Rebecca. In the midst of such despair she
actually swallowed a smile. The big Montana native and her petite sister would
make an interesting couple.
    “Why don’t you let us take a look at the pictures from the
recent killing?” Logan asked, his voice calm and steady. He and Sophia had
already seen them, thanks to the strings Craig had pulled but Sophia knew he
was trying to set a tone for this meeting. “I understood you’d have copies for
us.”
    Bobby stared from Logan to Sophia then back again. Finally
he sighed. “All right. Take a look.”
    He picked up a stack of eight-by-ten prints and dealt them
out in a row like cards. The two Night Seekers were prepared for the shock of
them, but still, one never quite got used to this kind of horror. A man who
appeared to be in his sixties was lying on his back on the wide porch of a
long, low house set in a sea of snow. He was dressed in thermal underwear and
jeans, barefoot, a rifle still clutched in one hand. His face was set in a
rictus of horror and his body had been ripped open from throat to waist, the
entrails pulled out and draped over him.
    Like all the other scenes the Night Seekers had seen, there
was no evidence of blood.
    Sophia looked at Logan. “You know it’s our devil beast.”
    He nodded.
    “Tell me what makes