The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

Two Days after Tania’s Rescue

Randall Meechum’s POV

I spent almost twelve hours at the scene that first night with Detective Carl Anders and his team from the Dallas Police Department, assisting them in making sense of the multiple murders. Once the crime scene technicians were done with their work, we returned to his precinct to start working on suspects.

My mate was good, not that her real name would ever pass my lips. The last thing I was going to do was to tell them that the Alpha Killer, the most wanted werewolf in the world for two years running, was behind this.

Instead, I worked things so I could focus on the woman who was in the room when the killer took out the man who was using her. The theory I had given them was that she was somehow important, and that a killer had been hired to get her back. The problem was, nobody knew who she was.

Her prints were all over the room, but there were no matches on the FBI databases. She had never been arrested or fingerprinted, and the only people who might know her real name were dead. I knew from scent that she had gone down a floor and stayed in the killer’s room, but nobody on that floor was suspected. The cop who canvassed that floor was hoping she’d call, mainly because he thought she was cute and wanted to ask her out.

I held back my growl at that thought. No one would know my mate but ME.

By the end of the second day, we had nothing. There was no surveillance that showed anyone but normal hotel guests, and that was from the hotel across the street and practically useless. The only eyewitness still alive was missing, and the initial forensics didn’t tell us anything. There were no fingerprints on the murder weapon except the victims.

Nobody could figure out why a killer would take out Dirk in such a close and brutal fashion but use his own gun to take out three more people. “We’re missing the point here,” I finally said as we sat around a bunch of pizza boxes on the table. “Who was the first victim?”

“Dirk,” one of the detectives named Stan said. “Peggy was shot and fell over him while he was already dead. The killer went to Star’s room and shot the john, then from the bullet paths he shot Peggy then the other john before exiting on the stairway.”

“Exactly,” I said. “If the person just wanted to rescue Star, why did he walk past the room where our two pimps were camped out with the cash? Wouldn’t he just shoot the two of them and move on?”

“Maybe Dirk was already in the hallway,” Carl said. “He’s right, it’s a completely different kind of kill. Close range, angry and bloody.”

“Almost like a different person,” I said.

“Oh fuck, don’t do this to me,” Carl said. “You think there was a team?”

“It might make sense. Three of the kills were surgical, a professional job. The fourth was personal. If it’s personal, it’s someone who knows him and hates him, and that person came here planning to kill him.” I grabbed another piece of Chicago-style sausage deep dish and started to eat it.

“Or it is someone who blames Dirk for turning a girl he cares for into a heroin-addicted sex slave, being whored out to dozens of men a day,” Carl said. “He might have taken that VERY personally.”

“And while this person is getting his revenge, his backup is getting the girl and making sure no one gets in their way,” Stan added.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

“The person who killed Dirk would be covered with blood, I’m talking Carrie-movie-like levels. The autopsy showed both the internal and external carotid arteries were not just cut, they had chunks taken out of them. She told me his blood would be spraying like a garden hose for ten to twenty seconds until his heart stopped, and the bloodstains on the wall and floor back that up. The killer would be covered in blood, yet we don’t see a trail of blood down the stairs.” Carl leaned back in his chair and took a drink of his Diet Coke. “The Luminol showed the bloodstains ended in the stairwell, which means the killer took his shoes off, and had Star take her heels off, because both the boots and the high heels tracked the blood down the hall.” Luminol made bloodstains show up under black light.

“There’s no evidence of a third person in the bloodstains,” Stan said. “Not that the carpet gave us anything usable to identify the shoes, but it’s only the boots and the heels.”

I tossed my empty Coke bottle into the trash. “It’s driving me nuts,” I said. “I’m hoping the FBI lab can give us the type and size of boot, because that would back up my theory on the shooter being about five-foot-six. How’s the hit man search going?”

“It’s not,” Stan said. “This was so clean, it’s not like a mob hit, it’s more of a military style. Fast, efficient and deadly. I’ve got no good leads.”

“We’re getting nowhere,” Carl said. “We’re tired and just tossing shit out. Go home, get some sleep and come back in the morning with some ideas on where to go next.”

“I have a commitment in the morning,” I said. “All right if I show up after lunch?”

“No problem. Thanks for your help, Randall. For a Fed, you’re a decent guy.” He and the boys laughed. It was amazing what springing for pizza could do for your rep.

“Why, thank you. For a bunch of ignorant backwoods hicks, you guys are surprisingly smart.” We all laughed as we got up and cleared the room.

I went down to my car and set the GPS for our Pack house by the Sulphur River. I needed answers, and I hoped my father had gathered what I had asked him for. With the evening traffic, it took almost four hours to drive there with one stop.

A few wolves came alongside my red Jeep Cherokee as I drove down the long gravel road towards the Pack House. I slowed down and let one wolf jump into my passenger seat, and he licked my neck before shifting back to his human form. “Sloppy welcome, Bobby,” I said as I clapped the shoulder of my younger brother. He and his twin sister Bonnie were the youngest of our family, and she had found her mate in a Maine pack two years ago. Bobby was still looking while going to college.