Shifters: A Samantha Reece Mystery Book 1 by Jaime Johnesee (libby ebook reader txt) 📕

behavior is something I find important in my life, for obvious reasons. I sat across from the lions and thought about Grisly. He was going after supers. That much was sure. Why though? Why did anyone attack a particular group? Because he was hurt by a shifter? Maybe his mom was one of us and a hooker? Maybe he felt that his mother's job contributed in some way to her being a were or maybe her being a shifter contributed to her being a prostitute?

Maybe someone he loved was turned into a wereanimal, or killed by one? We knew he was a shifter himself; perhaps he didn't want to be turned and was taking it out on the whole were society. Whatever his motives we had to find him soon or more women would die. A lot more based on how violent he was getting.

I recalled that first scene in my mind and compared it to the last. In the first he had cut her arms, legs, and head off, but had kept the body parts in the tub with the torso. By his last kill he was tearing them into little tiny pieces and we were having to remove plumbing to get back bits that had slipped down the drain.

He was escalating and it wouldn't be long before he stopped hunting hookers and just went for the first shifter he could find. Considering the mayor of our fair city is married to a wolf we were told that we had to work this case faster. The last thing we needed was Grisly exploding in the media. We do try our best to stick to the shadows.

Grisly would change all that. If the news got hold of this story we supers would be front and center in everyone's living room. We'd be making more noise than we ever wanted. Maybe that was Grisly's goal, or maybe he didn't have a goal. Based on the crime scenes, I'm leaning towards him not having a goal or plan in mind.

Aside from killing them I don't believe he thinks out his attacks any further than who to grab. Since they are always a shifter he definitely had to do some digging into them to find out. As I said, we don't exactly broadcast ourselves. There is no coming out ball where young shifters dance and mingle and get to know each other.

New weres aren't listed in some Society page in a newspaper. We try to just fit into the human world and live with our duality as best we can. Sometimes one of us screws up. The Council (made up mostly of vampires) gets scared and the idea of rounding us all up for some sort of inoculation causes us fear enough to clean up the mess and pretend it was something other than what it was.

Luckily for us it never lasts long. Usually because some other super will mess up and do something ten times worse and they'll back off the shifter issue and glom onto the that one. If word about Grisly got out there were a few anti-shifter groups, AFWA being the top, in the paranormal underbelly that would love to use his crimes to create their own and cause people to think a mad were was killing humans for fun.

It would be exactly the sort of thing these groups would need to get that nudge to start broadcasting about supers and ruin our lives for good. I walked past Mac, a white tiger, and leaned my head against the glass. I was feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. I looked up to see Mac standing before me resting his own head against where mine had been. A show of solidarity for cat kind.

He was a sweet boy and I always enjoyed seeing him at the zoo. He rather enjoyed staring at the children's zoo and drooling. As much as I liked the guy I hoped he never got out. I couldn't tell if he wanted to be free and have fun like the kids or if he wanted to eat them. Better safe than sorry, methinks.

I pulled back from the glass and he chuffed at me. I returned the greeting and moved on. I was standing across from the sand cats when my phone rang. It was Quinn, Grisly had left us another body. I sighed, it was a heavy one rife with the melancholy which had clung to me tightly since this case began, and moved toward the zoo entrance.

"Have a great day, Gladys!" I hollered, waving to her as I left.

"You, too, Sam!" She smiled and waved before turning back to the little girl who had been asking her a question about the green wing macaws.

Sometimes sensitive hearing was a good thing, sometimes it could perk you up, especially when you heard a question like the little girl’s, "Why don't the parrots just fly away? Are they nailed down?"

I walked to my car with a smile on my face when I heard Gladys' response of, "No, they just really like it here."

I really liked it there, too. I opened my car door and left it open a moment to cool down a bit before getting in. It was still about a hundred degrees when I slid behind the wheel. I started up the car and rolled down the windows, putting the AC on full blast and turning up Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama.

When the air coming through the vents turned cooler than molten lava, I rolled up my windows and pulled out of the parking lot, swinging a right onto Park Lane. I was hoping to hit 280 East before traffic got too bad and a look at my watch told me I might just get lucky. I edited that thought as women were dead and nothing about that could ever be lucky.

Chapter 10

I PULLED UP TO THE SLEAZY MOTEL and turned into the parking lot. There were at