Bear's Claim (Bear Heat Book 3) (5 page)

It never bothered him. His
eyes worked fine. So did all his other senses.

He ignored the whispers
behind him and walked up the front steps of the neat single-story
house.

A stocky man with
salt-and-pepper hair came forward to meet them. “I'm Senior
Detective John Allen. I'm the officer in charge of this case.”
He nodded curtly as Thor and Baxter flashed their Black Bears
identification badges and introduced themselves. “The body is
in the bedroom.”

As Detective Allen led them
down the corridor, he fired off information about the victim rapidly
and succinctly. “Walter lived in this house alone. He's
divorced, no kids. His ex-wife has remarried and moved to another
state. With the police presence, the neighbors know that something's
happened to Walter. But...we haven't released any information about
the state of the body.”

“You've spoken to the
neighbors?” Thor said.

“Yeah. His neighbor
across the street said he last saw Walter at around eight last night.
He was taking out the trash and saw Walter driving up to his garage.
He said Walter waved to him. Walter was alone in the car. The
neighbor didn't see anybody in the car with him.”

“So his neighbors
didn't hear or see anything,” Baxter surmised.

“No witnesses,”
Detective Allen confirmed. “No one heard any screams or cries
for help.”

The detective stopped in
front of the open bedroom door and jerked his head. There were two
uniforms stationed on either side of the door. “In there.”

The smell of blood was thick
in the air. The body, or what was left of it, was strewn all over
the bed. Skin, chunks of flesh, pieces of internal organs were left
messily around the ripped and shredded torso. The man's throat had
been torn out and half his face had been clawed away.

Baxter sucked in a breath.
“Shit.”

Detective Allen stood at the
door, his arms folded, his face expressionless. Thor wondered if the
man had seen many crime scenes that were more grisly than this.

Baxter squinted at the
bloody, mangled body and reported his observations out loud. “His
heart, kidneys and liver have been ripped out. His stomach is half
eaten. The contents of his stomach has been spilled all over the
mattress and floor. It looks like he had pizza for dinner. His
intestines...God, what in the world...! They've been chewed and spat
out. Looks like his killer tried to slurp his innards up like soup
noodles but found them too tough and unpalatable.”

Thor shot Baxter a look.
Baxter's observations were spot on but he could have been more
delicate in his choice of words. Detective John Allen and the other
officers might appear professional and stoic, but still, they were
dealing with the savage, gruesome slaying of a fellow cop.

“Was he attacked by a
wild animal? In his own bedroom?” the detective said. There
was a note of suspicion and anger in his voice.

Thor knew what the man was
thinking. He was thinking the same thing. And he didn't like the
thought one bit.

A shifter did this.

“His skin has been
clawed and ripped apart. The bite marks show that the killer's teeth
were serrated, sharp and pointed. Not straight and blunt like human
teeth,” Thor said, laying out the facts.

“An animal,”
Detective Allen snapped. “What kind of animal?”

Thor exchanged a look with
Baxter.

“It looks like...a
bear,” he answered. “But...”

“It's not a bear
shifter,” Baxter interjected. He wasn't being defensive, just
honest. “The scent is...different. There's a chemical
component to the scent. It's not natural.”

“Natural?”
Detective Allen's lips curled in a mirthless smile. “You're
telling me that shifters are...
natural
?”

Thor laid a hand warningly on
Baxter's arm. From the look on Baxter's face, he knew that a barrage
of insults was just waiting to spew out of Baxter's big mouth.

Thor shook his head at Bax.
They were here to investigate a heinous crime. They weren't here to
trade barbs and engage in trash-talk with a senior police officer,
who just happened to be a bigot.

“Walter Nguyen was just
appointed the head of C-18.” Thor turned to address the
detective. “Has his appointment been announced publicly?”

“Not yet. The Police
Commissioner was going to...” The detective stopped and shot
Thor a disbelieving, incredulous look. “You think this is the
work of the Mob? You think the Mob has turned to cannibalism?”
He snorted a derisive laugh. “My boss told me the Black Bears
would be sending two of their best agents to help us. I think maybe
my boss exaggerated your capabilities, eh?”

Thor didn't answer.

There was no need to quarrel
with a petty, small-minded cop. He'd learned to play his cards close
to his chest in his undercover work. You never knew who was
listening and watching, and who would do you in.

Thor went to examine the body
again, and signaled for Bax to do the same. They weren't here to
stir up shit. They had to gather as much information and clues as
they could.

Thor looked around the room
and saw that the windows were intact. The killer didn't climb in
through the bedroom window.

The bedroom door and front
door of the house weren't broken either. Everything was untouched
and undisturbed. Thor was pretty sure that no prints would be found
anywhere in the house.

The bed was a mess, with the
victim's body parts strewn messily on it. But there was a method to
the madness.

The bloody, grisly mess was
just a distraction. It took everyone's attention away from the rest
of the house. The house, even the bedroom, was utterly untouched.
Nothing had been broken. Nothing had been taken. Except Walter's
life.

The killing was savage, but
cold and precise.

Walter hadn't been able to
scream because his throat had been torn out. The attack was sudden,
swift and methodical.

Attack the victim in his bed
and silence him by ripping out his voice box. Disembowel him, and
make a big mess by dragging out his organs and chewing through them.

But Thor had to wonder if the
beast had really wanted to eat the man. Half-eaten organs had been
spat out, in revulsion, it seemed.

Thor stepped back.

He had gotten what he needed.

He didn't look at Detective
Allen but he did turn to take one last look at Walter Nguyen before
he left the room.

Thor jogged down the front
steps and took a walk around the house. No footprints, no blood, no
trampled grass and flowers.

The killer had walked in
through the front door. The lock had been picked, either by the
killer or an accomplice.

Baxter joined him in a while
and went through the premises a couple of times before he was
satisfied.

Thor didn't know if Bax was
really examining every corner of the house, leaving no stone
unturned, or if he was just taking his own sweet time to annoy
Detective John Allen, who had made no effort to conceal his prejudice
against shifters. Some people hid their insecurities by choosing to
hate what they did not understand. Maybe the senior detective was
not just distrustful but afraid of shifters.

Thor gave a small shrug.
Everyone had their own unfounded, irrational little fears. Thor just
hoped that the detective wouldn't let his own personal opinion about
shifters cloud his judgment and affect the discharge of his duties.

Thor knew that there were
some shifter cops on the force, and he had worked with quite a number
of them. They were good officers, just like Walter Nguyen.

Thor stared at Walter
Nguyen's peaceful little house. The cop had come home every night to
this humble, unassuming house after a long, hard day. Walter had
gained a reputation as a tough, no-nonsense cop who had solved many
cases in the violent crimes unit. He was the best choice to head
C-18. With Walter at the helm, C-18 would have been a formidable
force that the lawless, vicious gangsters would have to reckon with.

Walter had been about to
unleash a war on organized crime. The capture of Ray Shapez had sent
a shock wave through the underground world. The other Mob bosses
were seething and shaking in their bespoke designer shoes. Who would
be next? The Mayor was serious this time when he promised to rid the
city of organized crime. The setting up of C-18 was a big step
forward in the right direction.

Thor had heard that Walter
Nguyen had already appointed his deputies, and was actively
recruiting the best men and women from the city's law enforcement
agencies into his team. He was a man on a mission, a difficult,
deadly mission.

And he had paid for his
vision and dedication with his life.

Thor swore under his breath
as he walked to his car with Baxter.

A brutal, cold-blooded killer
was at large. He would hunt the monster down and avenge the slain
cop.

CHAPTER
TEN

Aubrey was sitting in a
corner of the staff canteen staring into her cup of coffee when she
spied Vanessa rushing towards her.

“Aubrey! I...oh,
Aubrey!” Vanessa cried breathlessly as she ran up to the table.
“You were right! How…?”

Aubrey frowned and gestured
to the empty seat in front of her. “What are you talking
about, Vanessa? What am I right about...” Aubrey trailed off,
the color draining from her face. “No. No...”

“Luke...”
Vanessa's voice shook and she had to take a deep breath to compose
herself. “Luke Keller has just...passed away.”

Aubrey jumped up. “No...I
don't believe this! What...”

“There was no warning
at all, no signs that he was having difficulty breathing,”
Vanessa babbled, her eyes wide with shock. “After you left, I
went to check on him. He was snoring steadily when I took his
temperature. Everything was normal. I went back to the counter and
about fifteen minutes later, Dr. Faizel rushed into the ward with two
attendants. They went straight to Luke's room and I followed them.
And...” Vanessa pressed a hand to her mouth. “Luke was
dead in his bed! Dr. Faizel checked his vital signs. Luke wasn't
breathing. There was no heartbeat. He was...dead. Dr. Faizel said
that Luke could have been affected by a new strain of virus that was
nearly impossible to detect but which could kill the host suddenly
and swiftly. He said the body would have to be incinerated as soon
as possible to contain the spread of the virus. Oh, Aubrey!”
Vanessa clasped her hands tightly. “His family wouldn't even
have a body to bury!”

Aubrey scrambled out of the
canteen, ignoring Vanessa's baffled cry and ran to the lift lobby.
She had to get back to the ward before…

She skidded to a sudden stop.

Vanessa's words echoed in her
mind.

Luke's body wouldn't be lying
in his bed back in the ward. They would have moved his virus-riddled
body to the morgue right away.

Gulping, she turned and
slipped into the dim stairwell. She raced down the stairs and
reached the deserted basement of the hospital. The morgue attendant
would admit or discharge bodies from the morgue, but unless a body
was due to be delivered or discharged, the attendant was usually in
her office a few doors down from the morgue.

Making her way down the
narrow corridor, she was about to turn the corner when she heard the
squeak of wheels.

A gurney was being pushed
along by two masked orderlies. Aubrey flattened herself against the
wall and held her breath. A tall steel shelf hid her from view but
she could see the covered body as the gurney trundled past. The face
was covered but one foot stuck out from under the white sheet. The
third toe stuck straight out as the longest toe on the dead man's
foot.

Aubrey pressed her fist to
her mouth to stifle her cry. It was indeed Luke Keller under that
white sheet. Luke's third toe was unusually long on his left foot,
and he'd flaunted it in front of the younger nurses with some very
naughty comments.

Aubrey watched the orderlies
push the gurney through the double doors of the morgue. After what
felt like an eternity, the two orderlies walked out of the morgue and
stepped back into the lift.

Aubrey tiptoed to the
morgue's metal doors and peeked in through the glass window. A white
coat was bending over Luke's body. Aubrey's eyes widened. That
wasn't the morgue attendant or the pathologist.

It was Dr. Faizel.

Dr. Faizel was into research,
not autopsies. What the hell was he doing in the morgue? Was he
here to take another sample?

Aubrey held her breath and
watched as Dr. Faizel bent over Luke's body and unbuttoned the shirt
of his striped hospital pajamas. The doctor produced a filled
syringe and plunged the needle into Luke's bare chest, just above his
heart.

Luke's body jerked and
convulsed violently. Then she saw the dead man open his eyes.