He retrieved the plaster and mixed it to the consistency of half-melted ice cream. Then he poured it into the track. Once he was finished and it had solidified, he put it in her vehicle.

  They kept crimes like this secret from the regular police as much as possible. No reporters. They had to take any evidence and the injured shifters or the bodies away. If the shifters had died, they had to examine them in their own doctor's office. They had to pretend none of this existed because they couldn't have human law enforcement searching for a shifter murderer or other shifter criminals who could land themselves in jail. That was their job and incarcerating or eliminating them was the shifters' job also. The shifter couldn't end up in a human jail. Not when the humans didn't know their kind existed and they had to keep it that way.

  “None of the men were wearing hunter’s spray, right?” He’d run into that a lot when trying to track down rogue shifters. Not always, but when they planned a criminal activity, they would often wear hunter’s concealment to keep from being identified. Unless it was a crime of passion. Not that he could smell anything like the shifter agents could.

  “No. I think this was something that was done on the spur of the moment. Let’s split up and look for their clothes or a vehicle nearby.” Justine got a call. “David? My new partner is here. Yeah, we’re going to look for articles of clothing and a vehicle they might have driven here in. All right. Thanks. We’ll keep you in mind. We appreciate it. Bye.” She ended the call. “David said that everyone was working on cases of their own, but if we needed help, something like this took priority and they’d do whatever they could to assist us. But I think we have it covered for now.”

  “It’s good that David and the others are living in the area and found the wounded men instead of someone else—human type—and reported this to the police.”

  “Right.”

  The ground was covered in a half a foot of snow, so they easily could follow the wolves’ footprints. He didn’t need the shifters’ sense of smell for that. They found the men’s clothes hidden in a pile of snow, though it was Justine who knew just where to look for them that time. And she had to be the one who told him they smelled the same as the men had who had been injured.

  Then she put the clothes in an evidence bag, and he was glad she had her car equipped with all that.

  They began to follow a hikers’ boot prints back to a trail that cut off from the main road and he suspected they’d find a vehicle there, but they didn’t.

  “When were the men injured?” Rowdy asked, continuing to walk along the trail, but he figured it was futile. That the men wouldn’t have parked that far away from where they hiked into the woods. In fact, there were no tire tracks this way. “No tire tracks. They parked back there.”

  Snowflakes were falling from the cloudy sky, and he breathed in the forest. He might not have the wolves’ heightened sense of smell, but he loved smelling winter and pine trees and firs.

  Seemingly ignoring him, Justine was headed for the road. He sighed. She probably thought he was an idiot, but it was his process. He would be thinking of things and people always mistook that as meaning he was a little absentminded, but it wasn’t that. He was just mulling over different scenarios.

  “Did David have any idea when the men might have been injured?” Rowdy asked again.

  “Last night some time. They were in their wolf coats still, or they would have frozen to death.”

  He frowned at her. “Did you want me to carry all those clothes?”

  She turned to look at him.

  “You’re in charge. I can—”

  She frowned at him. “Yes, I’m in charge, but just like Everett calls the shots at the branch in Houston, he still helps with everything, including carrying evidence bags, doesn’t he?”

  Rowdy smiled. “Yeah. He’s one of us in every way, listens to what we all think and half the time someone else comes up with a plan, and he goes along with it. If we’re undecided, he’ll wing it.”

  “What about you?” She continued to hike toward the road.

  “Me?”

  “Do you come up with plans to handle an investigation?”

  “Yeah. I might not have your sense of smell, but I worked in homicide long enough that I’ve usually got a plan.” He hoped he hadn’t offended her, making her think she shouldn’t have to carry the evidence bags because she was a woman. He was just thinking she was in charge, and he was perfectly fine being her gopher for the time-being.

  “Good. That’s just what I wanted to hear,” she said.

  They reached the road and looked both ways. “If there was one jaguar and he stole the wolves’ car, he must have had his own vehicle too and had to move it,” Rowdy said.

  “That’s just what I was thinking. Or he had someone else with him. Were they injured by one or two jaguars? Motivation? Why would he or they even fight the wolves? One jaguar came into the woods that I can smell,” Justine said. “But you’re right. Someone else had to be involved.”

  4

  Justine hadn't believed she'd be so glad to have a human partner, but Rowdy thought just like her while investigating a crime scene and two heads were better than one. Not to mention how impressed she was when he had responded so quickly and saved Kenny from drowning.

  Then she got a call, looked at her phone and sighed. Her mom. Both her mom and dad were eager to meet the temporarily loaned special agent and she knew they thought she might fall for the guy and mate him. Which might have been a possibility if he had been a wolf!

  "Yeah, uhm, Mom, we're investigating a case of a jaguar chewing up two wolf shifters."

  "Oh, no. But the new guy is there to help you, right?" her mother asked, sounding a little worried.

  "Yes, Rowdy and I are combing the woods for more clues, and then we’ll be checking in with the injured men. We'll have to question them and discover exactly what had happened."

  "Okay, well as soon as you have time, we want you both to come and have dinner with us. Or lunch. Whichever works best on your schedule."

  "We're in the middle of an investigation." Justine had really thought she’d made that clear.

  "I know dear, but you can't work it all night long. You have to eat. Dinner it is then. See you at six, if you can make it by then."

  "All right. We’ll make it for six." Justine ended the call with her mom and said to Rowdy, "We have a dinner date with my parents at six."

  Rowdy raised his brows. "You're a gray wolf, right? I suspect they are too. I'm human. What will they think of that? Unless you've already told them."

  "We are gray wolves. Sorry. I keep thinking you can smell me. And no, I haven’t told them about you." She smiled brightly at him. "And I'm not going to tell them. They've been on my case about finding a nice wolf to settle down with. This is a great way to show them you're not available and they won't be pushing me to make something more of this than just working together on cases." This was a good way to assure Rowdy that she had no intention of turning him—to mate him or not. Though she wished he was a wolf and things might have been a whole lot different between them.

  "You don't think they will have a fit when they see I'm human?" Rowdy sounded a little uncomfortable with the idea.

  "Nah, believe me, they'll be shocked—like I was, but they'll be on their best behavior. They've been pushing me to check out a white wolf—pilot type—who flies passengers sightseeing over the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, also dropping some off to go paddling. I intend to, I just haven't had time." Or the inclination. She could imagination some hotshot pilot interested in all kinds of women, even if she was thinking of him in a cliched way. "Anyway, they won't say a word about dating a wolf in front of you and my mom won't be making wedding plans for us either."

  "Of course you want to see a wolf who lives and works here. It sounds perfect." Rowdy didn't sound happy about it. "What will you say about me working for the USF as a special agent? Maybe your parents will suspect you requested me to work with you and have a thing for me already, more than you're willing to let on to them."

  For a minute, she pondered the notion. Then she shook her head. "No. They know me better than that. Besides, when I asked Martin for help until he could hire someone, I didn't have any idea who he was sending, and I’d told my parents that."

  "All right, but for the sake of argument, why not just tell your mom I'm human and it wouldn't work out between us. Wouldn’t they suspect something is up because you’re hiding the fact that I’m human from them?"

  She arched a brow.

  He smiled. Charming and disarming in the flesh, just like in his photos.

  “No, they’ll know I’m trying to prove a point and you wouldn’t be an eligible bachelor for me, just a partner trying to solve crimes or aid shifters in trouble. Besides, you don’t have anything else better to do with your time for dinner. Unless you really don’t want to meet my parents because you might feel uncomfortable about being around them.”

  “Not at all. I’m more worried your parents might feel uncomfortable when they learn what I am. We can take separate vehicles in case they are upset.”

  Justine shook her head. “They would be mortified if you left early because of them. No, I’ll drive us there.” If her parents acted badly, she wouldn’t want to stay any longer either.

  When they didn’t find anything further in their search for evidence in the woods, she motioned in the direction of her silver-blue Honda Civic Sport. “Let’s go.”

  On the way over to the doctor’s office, Rowdy was wearing forensic gloves and went through the wolves’ clothes. “No ID in any of their clothes.”

  “I didn’t figure there would be any. Hopefully, we can ask them soon who they are and what happened. I just wish we knew what the jaguar looked like. There aren’t any cameras in the area that would have captured images of them or their vehicles.”

  “Once we learn who the wolves are, we might be able to discover if they owned a vehicle that’s been abandoned somewhere,” Rowdy said.

  “Right.” She liked that Rowdy was always coming up with ideas of what they could check into further.

  Then they finally arrived at the doctor’s one-story, brick building and parked. It had been set up for emergency shifter cases and humans had no idea what it was really for. Just a sign out front that said, “Wolff, Inc.”

  Woods surrounded the property and mirrored glass windows allowed the viewer to look out, but anyone approaching the building couldn’t see in. Anyone who had legitimate reasons to enter the building had to call ahead so they could be let inside. She had called already and when they arrived, the door automatically opened for them. As soon as they were inside with the wolves’ clothes in hand, the door closed and locked.

  The dark-haired receptionist smiled at them and said, “The doctor is in operating room, number three and you can go right in.” But then she frowned at Rowdy, as if realizing he was human and he shouldn’t be in there.

  “Thanks,” Justine said, and she and Rowdy headed down the hall.

  “Have you been here before?” Rowdy asked as they walked past a couple of offices.

  “No, but David told me how to make my way in here if I had any need. I was hoping I wouldn’t have any cases like this until I had more staff to assist me. I can’t tell you enough how glad I am that you’re here.”

  Rowdy smiled. “I’m glad to be here.”

  She probably would have had to get the private investigators’ help with this if Rowdy hadn’t come to aid her.

  They entered the operating room where a redheaded doctor was sewing the first of the men up, a dark-haired nurse assisting.

  “Dr. Roberts, this is Rowdy Sanderson. He works with the branch of USF down in Houston and is on loan to me for the time being,” Justine said. “I’m Justine Winters.”

  Dr. Malcom Roberts glanced back at Rowdy, took a deep breath, and said, “He’s human.”

  “He sure is. And he’s a homicide detective and he knows how to work an investigation,” Justine said, defending Rowdy. She’d never expected to have to do that for the agent, or that she’d feel obligated to do so.

  “And he’s working for a shifter organization, why?” Doc continued to sew up the man’s wounds.

  Rowdy was looking over the man too, examining the teeth marks at the wolf shifter’s throat. If the jaguar hadn’t held back, the man would have been dead. “I might not have your enhanced senses or the ability to grow wolf or jaguar teeth, but I have helped the shifter force in Houston solve any number of cases.” He explained about the naked men that wolves had killed and how he had grown suspicious.

  “If you want to bite him so he can officially be a wolf, be my guest,” Justine said, motioning to Rowdy. “He wants to be one of us.”

  Doc glanced at Rowdy again and this time gave him a small smile.

  “Yeah, anytime you want to, I’m game,” Rowdy said, serious as could be.

  Doc chuckled. The nurse was smiling too.

  Justine was certain that wasn’t going to be anything the doc would really consider doing. Someone who was newly turned needed to be watched to make sure he didn’t have any shifting issues and give their kind all away.

  She was beginning to feel badly that Rowdy wanted to be turned but no one would do that for him. Not that she had any intention of doing it to him, but still, she could see the dilemma he faced in having to explain why he was working with shifters all the time, trying to be accepted by them, even wanting to be accepted by her.

  She decided that she was going to be super nice to him from now on. Not that she’d been mean to him so far, but she’d been feeling out of sorts that he was human, and she thought he wouldn’t be all that helpful in an investigation.

  “One jaguar bit into each of the men,” Rowdy said, checking the other injured man, bandaged up already, and still out cold.

  Both men were on IVs and were getting blood transfusions. They appeared to be heavily sedated.

  “We need to know who all the players are,” Justine said. “We need to notify the wolves’ families too. So what was the motivation for attacking the two men?”

  “They’re vicious attacks,” Rowdy said. “He was angry when he fought the men.”

  Doc nodded. “Yeah, that’s my finding too. But the wolves tore into him too. They have plenty of his blood and fur in their mouths.”

  Rowdy was checking the second man’s mouth. “I see. We need to learn who the instigator was. Can you get DNA from the blood?”

  “Yeah, I sure will try. Even if I get anything off them, we might not be able to find the jaguars or these wolves in the database.”

  “When do you think they’ll be ready to talk?” Justine asked.

  “Their wounds are severe enough, that I had to heavily sedate them and they also lost a lot of blood. They’ll live, but they won’t be able to answer your questions for a while.”

  “Thanks, Doc. Let us know when they can talk. We brought their clothes so they can wear them once they’re able to leave.” Justine looked at Rowdy to see if he was ready to go.

  He nodded, thanked the doctor, and then they headed out.

  “So what do you think about motive?” she asked.

  “Had the jaguar known the guys were hiking together and—no, their clothes weren’t in the same location,” Rowdy said. “There’s no other disturbance of snow where the wolves’ clothes were. If the jaguar and the wolves had gone together, they probably would have buried their clothes in the same location.”

  “Good point.”

  “So the jaguar had run into them and got into a fight? Randomly? He followed them there and fought them over an earlier beef? Or vice versa.”

  “Hmm, so we need to ask if anyone saw three men get into a confrontation somewhere. Like at a bar or something before they went into the woods. Maybe they planned to air their grievances as shifters, only the jaguars have a much stronger bite than the wolves and can leap into and out of trees. They are heavier too. I mean, a jaguar fighting a couple of wolves isn’t a whole lot of competition for him. The wolves could have arrogantly believed they had a good chance at beating the jaguar.”

  “Except the jaguar took it too far. Neither side backing down,” Rowdy said, as she drove them back to the office. “Or the jaguar didn’t make it.”

  “Not a good scenario. Okay, so there’s one place I know of where bear shifters go. I’m not sure about wolves or jaguar shifters, but we can check out the pub and see if anyone recognizes either of the wolves,” she said.

  “That sounds like a good idea.”

  When they got back to the office, Rowdy was checking out the Christmas decorations.

  She’d set up a Christmas tree and decorated it with a mixture of animals—wolves primarily, bears, cougars, foxes, and jaguars.

  “I tried to find some animals to decorate the tree to represent the different shifters we might encounter. I don’t know for sure if there are fox shifters, but I love them. I’ve run into a cougar shifter once. And I’ve heard that a caraco exists.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if there are,” Rowdy said.

  The tree was situated in front of the window so that it could be enjoyed both inside the building and outside. Christmas lights were strung up around the outside of the building and on the inside. She’d even got him some poinsettias for his office.

  “I love the decorations,” he said. “They’re nice and festive.”

  “Thanks. I love Christmas. So decorating the offices makes me feel like I’m celebrating the season at my home away from home when I’m here.”

  “I agree. I feel like that too when we decorated the offices back in Houston. We even have door-decorating contests.”

  She glanced at their office doors, then smiled at him.

  He thought it was kind of late to do one here before Christmas. “We decorate the tree together, hang lights. It’s all part of being a team. And of course, we’re playing Christmas music and drinking eggnog when we do it.”