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told you about me. She did tell you all about me. It was exactly what I was trying to prevent. And yet I never killed her. Because I don’t kill the innocent. Only the terrible. Only the truly bad.
“I said no!”
Just the bad people, she wheedles. Just the truly wicked. The murderers. The ones who deserve death. In exchange your Agent Storm gets to live. It’s a fantastic bargain. You get to see him again. You get to talk with him. You get to see him laugh. You get to see him live. I swear I’ll only kill the bad people.
I close my eyes. The thought of never seeing Storm again is awful. The thought of him being dead incomprehensible. And yet how can I agree to this?
Tell you what, she says. I won’t kill them if you get to them first. If you find the bad people first, you get to lock them away in prison. But if I get to them first, I get to exact my retribution in any way that I see fit. How about that?
I feel an inkling of hope. And yet whatever I am thinking I make sure to not think it in full, because I am afraid that she will hear my thoughts. Maybe there is a way for me to outwit her yet.
“Yes,” I say. “I can live with that. If I get to them first, then you can’t touch them.”
But if I get to them first, she says smugly, then I get to exact my retribution. Say it.
“If you get to them first, you get to exact your retribution,” I repeat grudgingly. “Now please, help me save Storm.”
Chapter 27
STORM
Monroe finds out Sergeant Lowry’s address and Storm calls Leo to dispatch him to Lowry’s apartment. Leo calls back fifty minutes later.
“Wherever he is, he’s not home sick,” says Leo.
He reports that Lowry’s apartment in Whitechapel is small and cheap and does not have a basement with a cage in it. Lowry’s fridge is fully stocked with food. His clothes are still in his wardrobe, and yet there is a suitcase under his bed packed with men’s clothing. It appears that Lowry has not gone to ground, though he may have had future plans to do so. This morning’s mail is lying on his doormat untouched, so it looks like he has not been here since early this morning at the very least.
Perhaps he hadn’t even been there the night before. It begins to look more likely that Lowry is the guy who abducted India. How she managed to escape him a second time Storm cannot imagine.
Storm asks Leo to continue searching Lowry’s apartment for any leads that indicate where he might be. Storm goes to see Monroe at his desk. “Find out where Lowry keeps his cage,” he says. “And do a property search to see if he owns any properties.”
Every werewolf in London is legally required to lease or own a cage for their monthly transformations, whether or not they deem themselves safe enough to not use them. The city has several large vault facilities where werewolves can rent cage-rooms for this purpose, and numerous unofficial ones. Some werewolf packs even prefer to keep their own vault facilities. It is unlikely that Lowry, a lone wolf, would want to share communal vault facilities. He will have his own somewhere. If he has one at all.
Clearly Lowry has not been living his life as legitimately as appears on the outside.
Storm takes a seat beside Monroe as Monroe searches. The kid’s fingers fly over the keyboard. He does not hesitate in his decisions about which websites and databases to consult. He is good at this. Monroe finds that Lowry is renting a cage in a cheaper end vault facility, the kind where owners don’t ask questions and don’t monitor usage. Werewolves usually keep their cages equipped with basic supplies and water. Perfect for a bolt hole. Storm calls Leo, and asks him to check it out. Remi had better stay on Gibbon just in case.
Monroe also finds that Lowry’s grandfather used to own a property in Shoreditch, one that Lowry had inherited many years ago when the old man died. It is an old commercial property, abandoned now. Monroe says that as a private property it had not been on the list during the original search for India.
“Good work,” Storm says.
Storm grabs his jacket and weapons belt from his office. When he comes back out Monroe is looking at him hopefully. “Need back up?” he asks.
Storm shakes his head. The kid is untested and Storm does not want to test him right now. “I’ll check it out and call for backup if I need it.”
As Storm drives across the city he calls DI Zael. Zael is going to kick up a stink if Storm goes much longer without keeping him in the loop on this one. When DI Zael answers Storm fills him in on DI Zael’s possible involvement on the Rachel Garrett murder, but does not expand on saying that he suspects Lowry may be the Wolf-Claw Killer.
He can almost hear DI Zael puffing up in anger on the other end of the phone. “You’re accusing my sergeant of this crime? Without proof?” Zael blusters.
“Not accusing,” Storm says calmly. “We just want him to answer some questions.”
“Do you think I don’t know my own sergeant?” DI Zael hisses, clearly not wanting anyone else on his end overhearing this conversation. “You think I wouldn't know if my own guy was a suspect? You’re trying to make us look bad. You’ve got no leads so you thought you’d gun for the only werewolf on my staff, is that it?”
Storm refuses to be baited. “Do you know anything about Sergeant Lowry’s whereabouts late on Friday night? Was he on shift during that time?”
“No, he was not!” Zael says. “He had a couple of weeks holiday leave. He came back a day early when we found that Garrett girl’s body on Sunday because I asked him to come in. We were shorthanded.”
Storm feels a jolt of satisfaction. His gut is telling him this is the one. Lowry was on two weeks leave. This means he was on leave during both of the previous Wolf-Claw attacks as well as during Rachel’s murder.
