Savage Nature - Christine Feehan [98]
“I picked up Saria’s scent, but nothing else,” Drake confirmed. “There was a strong scent of blood in the ground in several other places. I don’t think Saria found all the bodies. If I had to guess, maybe six.”
Remy shook his head, his teeth snapping together as if he wanted to bite down hard on something. “This makes no sense. The wounds are almost exactly alike every time. The stab wound is very precise. It enables the killer to take the fight out of his victim fast and yet keep them alive to spend as much time as he wants terrorizing him—or her.”
“This is the work of a leopard—a shifter,” Drake said heavily.
Remy scrubbed his hand down his face as if removing something oily and thick. “I was so certain it was someone who couldn’t shift tryin’ to put blame on us.”
“You didn’t want it to be a friend or neighbor.”
Remy shook his head. “No, I didn’t, although I checked up on everyone. My brothers first.” He shot Saria a small smile. “You can stop feelin’ guilty for thinkin’ it might be one of us. I will admit, I doubted it, but I checked all the same.”
“Great, bro,” Lojos said. “You didn’ tell me that.”
“I didn’t think it was necessary. I’m a detective, Lojos, and I take my job seriously. The first thing I do is clear my family and then move on to a pool of suspects. Because I thought the women were killed by someone with shifter blood that couldn’t actually shift, the suspect pool was large. This narrows it down.”
“Off the top of your head, Remy,” Drake said, “who would be your first suspect?”
Remy’s gaze shifted just for a moment to Joshua and then he shook his head. “You know it doesn’ work that way.”
“Sure it does,” Joshua said. “My grandfather was a monster. Why your leader didn’t take him down years ago, I have no idea, but he beat my grandmother continually and then started on his sons. You know why my mother left, right?” He dared Remy to state the reasons out loud.
Remy frowned and shook his head. “I was gone for years. Most of us were. We only started hearing rumors about a daughter recently, and Saria met her in the swamp a time or two. Her name is Evangeline. We thought her mother had died in childbirth, not committed suicide. No one goes on the Tregre land. It borders Mercier land and even Charisse and Armande don’t go there.”
“And no one thought to check? Teachers? Anyone?” Joshua demanded.
“Check what?” Remy snapped back. “The boys went to school and no one thought they had any oer children. They kept to themselves and had a reputation for scaring off trespassers. They had the right to live the way they wanted.”
“Not like that,” Joshua snapped. “He abused those women.”
“And the men,” Remy said. “Yes, he should have been stopped, but no one knew it was goin’ on until after he was dead. Your father’s death was reported as a huntin’ accident. Here in the swamp, accidents happen all the time. No one liked the old man, and we made up stories about him, but he rarely came out of the swamp and none of his sons did. All pere ever said was to stay away from them. Mercier told his children the same thing.”
“So when Saria came home telling you there was a female child, a young woman no one knew about, you didn’t think it was worth investigating?” Joshua demanded.
Remy’s gaze was steady. “I did go see her. She’s twenty, and she told me she was homeschooled and that her brothers, father and uncle have watched over her. Yes, at times she’s lonely, but she said she had Charisse as a friend and that more and more they’re takin’ her out of the swamp. She’s nervous, but after meetin’ Saria, she thinks she’ll be fine. What more could I do? She claims no one has ever laid a hand on her. She saw the old Buford a time or two, but he never saw her. It was drilled in her to stay hidden from him.”
“And you believed her?” Drake asked quietly when Joshua made a derisive noise. “Old man Tregre was leopard. How the hell would they hide the scent of