Alpha Omega 03 - Fair Game

did work, even though some of the symbols are wrong?” It was Heuter who asked. Anna had been so focused on the witch and Brother Wolf that she had almost forgotten the others in the room.
    “I can feel that it did,” Caitlin said. “Not as well as if the symbols had been inscribed correctly, but yes.”
    “Which symbols are wrong? How would you have done this better?” Heuter’s voice was a little too eager.
    Caitlin gave him a cool gaze. She did psycho suburban housewifeabout as well as Anna had ever seen it done. “I am not here to instruct the FBI in witchcraft.”
    Leslie cleared her throat. “I’m Special Agent Fisher of the FBI. He’s Agent Heuter of Cantrip.”
    “Cantrip,” Caitlin snorted contemptuously. She took a card out of her purse and handed it to him. “If you have questions, you can call me at this number. But I’m not Sally Reilly, Agent Heuter. I don’t intend to disappear, so I probably won’t help you at all. And I’ll charge you a lot for not doing so.”
    Brother Wolf sneezed, but Anna wasn’t about to laugh because the witch was stepping toward the boy’s body again.
    “Is there anything else we should know about this?” asked Anna.
    Caitlin looked at the table. “The sex isn’t part of the ritual.” She pursed her lips. “I don’t know if that’s useful.”
    “The killer keeps the victims alive for a while,” Leslie said. “Seven days, usually. Sometimes a few more or less. Is that important?”
    Caitlin frowned. “That’s probably why the magic functioned, even though he screwed up. He cut the symbols in and left them to work—like a Crock-Pot, you know? Can’t cook very fast at a low temperature, but give it enough time and it gets the job done.” She huffed. “Maybe the sex is because he got bored waiting. If we’re done here, I’d like to go. I have an appointment in half an hour.”
    Leslie handed her a card. “If you think of anything more, please call me.”
    “Sure,” Caitlin said. Then she turned to Anna. “I’m going to tell Isaac what your wolf did to me.” She smiled archly. “He’s not going to be pleased with you.”
    “Tell him I’ll buy him dinner at The Irish Wolfhound to make up for the offense,” Anna suggested, holding the door open.
    Caitlin looked disappointed at Anna’s lack of reaction. “He’s the Alpha of the Olde Towne Pack, and he owes me. You’ll be sorry.”
    “You’regoing to be late for your appointment if you don’t hurry,” Anna told her.
    The witch scowled, turned on her heel, and marched out the door. Before she was out of sight, Dr. Fuller had the boy’s body back flat on the table and covered protectively. “That…” He sputtered a little, trying to keep his voice down.
    “There are reasons we don’t like witches much,” Anna told him, when she was sure Caitlin was well out of earshot. “I know it’s upsetting. But Jacob’s killer has another victim right now. She’s probably alive. And something the witch told us might help us find Lizzie Beauclaire.”
    She thinks the witches killed Sally Reilly.
    Anna looked at Brother Wolf. Their mate bond was still as frozen as a Popsicle in Antarctica, but it was his voice in her head.
    “You think differently,” she said.
    Shaman’s eyes looked at her, Charles’s eyes, then he closed them and shook himself, as if trying to shake off water after a dip in a lake.
I think that she gave a spell to a killer who didn’t want her to talk. The witches wouldn’t have been the only ones to want her dead.
    “Anna?” asked Leslie. “What’s he saying to you?”
    “Nothing we can prove just yet,” Anna told her. “Though it might be interesting to see if Sally Reilly disappeared in one of the years that all of the bodies weren’t found.”
    “We don’t know anything about Sally Reilly,” Leslie reminded her. “Let alone that she disappeared.”
    “Witchcraft and fae in the same case,” said Heuter, sounding fascinated and a little excited.
    In the small examination room with a dead little boy on the table, Anna found his excitement distasteful.

CHAPTER

7
    “I don’t think Fuller is going to let any more witches into his morgue in the near future,” said Heuter as he bit into the piece of half-raw steak on his fork.
    “That was the creepiest thing I ever saw,” said Leslie, who was eating her salad and not looking at Heuter. Anna couldn’t decide if she was a vegetarian or just didn’t like watching someone eat raw meat. Maybe the