The last time Tean had seen the man, it had been in a hospital room.Tean and Jem were being treated for relatively minor injuries after their fight with the wolves.Orsino had come because two SBI agents had been injured as well.One of the agents had died, and the other, as far as Tean knew, was still recovering.
Jem came around the table to stand near Tean, and Orsino dropped into a seat opposite them.A gray smear on one shoulder of his windbreaker was, Tean suspected, ash, and the smell of the fire still clung to him.
“You know why I’m here?”Orsino asked.
“You’re trying to find Kai Butler and the others,” Tean said.“Two of them tried to kill us earlier today.”
“Why don’t you tell me about that?”
Tean went through the story as clearly as he could, beginning with Amy approaching them for help, through their investigation, and ending with escaping from Direwolf Ranch in the Subaru.Orsino asked clarifying questions from time to time, but mostly he listened, rubbing his head every so often.
“We did call the detectives handling the case to let them know about the ranch,” Tean said.
“And they did what they’ve done the whole time with this case,” Jem said.“They shoved their heads up their asses and waited for it to go away again.”
“Believe it or not, Mr.Berger, the real world doesn’t sit down and wait for us to wrap everything up.And twelve hours isn’t exactly a big window of time—did you expect them to drop everything and drive out there as soon as you made that call?”
“I expect them not to act like we’re a couple of tin-hats who won’t stop bothering them.They haven’t believed us from the beginning.”
“I understand that they have other investigations,” Tean said, “but it also seemed like time might be of the essence.Kai has already killed at least three people.Four, if you count his stepfather, which I think is likely, and if he’s trying to get Amy—”
“This man, or his friends, or however it’s happening,” Orsino said over him, “has already killed twelve people.And that’s not counting his stepdad.”When neither Tean nor Jem said anything, Orsino continued, “After the fire department got things under control, we had a look around.We found where they’ve been staying on the property.There’s a system of caves, and one of them opens up a few hundred yards from the barn.One of our guys almost fell down there, that’s how he found it.”
That explained why Tean and Jem hadn’t seen any evidence of the wolves living at the ranch—they’d been hiding.
“It was about what you’d expect,” Orsino continued.“Sleeping bags, lanterns, MREs.Weird shit, too.”He paused.“Antlers.Wolf skins.Marks on the walls.Like they were painting, I guess.It looks like blood.Does the phrase ‘I have walked through fire’ mean anything to you?”
Tean shook his head.Jem followed suit a moment later.
Orsino said, “You wouldn’t believe the smell.We also found property belonging to several people who have been reported missing or who can’t currently be located.”
“Holy shit,” Jem said.
“Who are they?”Tean said.
“We’re not releasing the identities of the victims.”Orsino rubbed his head again.
“They’ve been reported missing,” Tean said, “but these weren’t people who made the news.I haven’t seen any stories about missing people lately.What does that mean?”
“It means no one was looking for them,” Jem said.
“We’re still trying to figure out who these people are and why they were targeted.The fact is, we’re not going to be sure these items belong to the victims until we can identify the remains—”
Orsino cut off.
Tean saw her face again.The burns stippled across her cheeks.“No one cared that they disappeared,” he made himself say.Made himself think.“They weren’t even all reported missing.Who were they?Young men?Young gay men who ran away from home?Were they transient?”
“Dr.Leon, I understand that you and Mr.Berger had a horrific experience today.I’m going to ask you to go home and try to forget about this and move on with your lives.Someone from the bureau will be in contact with Ms.Graham, and we’ll make sure that she has police protection until we can figure out what’s going on.”His expression softened, but his voice was hard.“Understand?”
“No,” Tean said, but he was answering himself.“They weren’t young gay men.That was Rydel.And Kai killed Rydel.Then it was someone else.But no one too established in the community.No one important enough to raise an outcry if they went missing.”
“I think we’re done.”
But it was like Tean could see it, like it was a report on predation rates, and the numbers could tell you what was going on—if prey populations were increasing, or if different predators were competing, or if one subset of prey was unusually vulnerable.“They’re killing people they think are gay.They’re not targeting a…a type, necessarily.Not like Rydel, acting out his own abuse.But they’re killing anyone queer, anyone they think they can hurt and get away with it.”
Orsino sat back.“A trans woman.A man with an intellectual disability.A man accused by neighbors of being a pedophile.An unmarried older woman.”After a moment, he said, “This is all preliminary.And there’s no evidence that any of these people, aside from the trans woman, identified as LGBTQ.”
“But they don’t have to,” Tean said.“That’s not the point.The point is that this is how Kai got them to go along with it.It started with Rydel.He told them they were going to kill someone who had molested a child.Who had lied to them.Who was secretly gay.And they went along with him.”
