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“Perhaps being seen that one time was enough to make her more careful in the future.”
“And perhaps this is all hooey,” Kris muttered.
“Perhaps,” Mandenauer agreed.
“If she’s been drowning people for centuries without anyone the wiser, why is everything falling apart now?”
“Yes, why?”
Kris’s eye began to throb, and she lifted her hand to rub at the ache. “Just tell me what you think.”
“Either someone’s been protecting her—”
Kris dropped her arm. “While she murders people?”
“You would not believe what some will do because of a tradition, a vow, or for money.”
Actually, she would.
“Perhaps she has killed someone recently,” Mandenauer continued, “or done something else, that has made someone very angry. And while he, or she, cannot throw Nessie to the wolves—us—outright for reasons we do not know yet, this person plans to make sure she is blamed for whatever is rotten in Loch Ness.”
“She,” Kris repeated. “When we talk about Nessie, we automatically use the feminine pronoun. But when we’re talking about the killer, we slip into ‘he.’”
“And?”
“Are we looking for a woman or a man?”
“Traditionally serial killers are men.”
“Middle-aged white men who are the best damn neighbors in the whole world,” Kris muttered, and caught the twitch of Mandenauer’s mouth once more before he controlled it.
“In the realm of the supernatural most beings kill without compunction. Male. Female. Something in between.”
“In between?” Kris’s lip curled.
“We are talking monsters, beasts, things that go bump in the night and the day. Many are not bound by gender. Some have none; some have both.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Shape-shifters shift shape.” Mandenauer spread his hands. “They could be anything.”
“Fabulous,” Kris muttered. “How is it that you’ve been coming here for years and you still haven’t caught the culprit?”
“It is not a ‘culprit.’” Mandenauer’s voice had gone soft, but his gaze bored into hers. “The word hints at choice, and a monster has none. It kills. Period. If the beast we are searching for is not in the loch, it is wandering these hills or those streets. You will need to end it before it ends you.”
“This is crazy.” Kris’s voice wavered. “I can’t just shoot someone because I think they’re a supernatural serial killer.”
Mandenauer shrugged. “So prove they are, then shoot them.”
“And how do I do that?”
“If silver will kill them, it will also burn them.”
“I should prick anyone I suspect with a knife just to see if they fry?” Kris shoved her hair out of her face. “I am so gonna wind up behind bars.”
“Not if you touch them with the Celtic cross instead of a knife.”
“Celtic cross?” she repeated.
