Skinwalker

By Kimberly Zant

From her first encounter with John Greywolf, Charlotte Boyer finds herself so enthralled by the passion he ignites in her that it unnerves her almost as much as his ability to pass unnoticed by security cameras and undeterred by locked doors—his shadow walk. Is it at all possible that two men with supernatural powers walk the reservation? Or has she been seduced by a serial killer, the ‘skin walker’—part human, part puma, who rapes and savagely kills?

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Concepts Publishing
• Release date: Sep 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9780463447369

Book preview

SKINWALKER

by

Kimberly Zant

© copyright January 2004 by Kimberly Zant

Cover Art by Jenny Dixon

Smashwords Edition

New Concepts Publishing

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

There was no word in the English language strong enough, in Special Agent, Charlotte Boyer’s, mind to adequately describe the carnage. She thought she’d prepared herself. She supposed, if it had been even a little more typical of the murders she’d studied at Quantico, she would’ve been braced for it. There was nothing ‘typical’ or even to be expected about this and her stomach heaved. She turned away from the scene, taking several deep breaths, fighting for her dignity.

Concentrating, at first, on a pretense of professionalism, she searched the ground with her gaze, as if looking for clues. Finally, to her relief, her training kicked in and her mind, in truth, slowly focused on the search for clues.

The soil was too rocky to yield up anything as conclusive, or useful, as footprints. There were drag marks, however, much of the way. The victim, sixteen-year-old Chastity Owl, appeared to have been sneaking back into her bedroom window, or maybe out of it, when she was attacked. She’d been dragged for several hundred yards into the desert and finished off almost within sight of her own home.

No one had heard her scream, even though the field they’d found her in bordered a fairly sizable neighborhood.

Looks like a puma, one of the men muttered. Turning, Charlie saw that it was the reservation police chief, George Brown, who’d spoken.

Like the other two? she asked.

He glanced at her. It looks the same as the other two attacks. He studied her a long moment, his eyes narrowing. I’m curious to know why they would’ve sent a field investigator out to look at an animal attack.

Charlie merely stared at him, trying to decide how much, or how little, to say. It was a Federal Reservation, but the reservation police had jurisdiction. She’d been invited, not very graciously, as a consultant because her boss had asked if she could drive out and have look.

She’d been sent because of the anonymous phone call the bureau had received. The caller had disguised his voice, had refused to leave a name, but he’d insisted the attacks weren’t animal attacks at all, but murder.

Maybe it had just been someone from the reservation that was afraid his daughter might be next on the menu?

She frowned. Weren’t the other two attacks on the Utah side of the reservation?

Brown gave her a look. Don’t give me that ‘across state lines’ crap. That only applies if there’s a crime. No human did this.

Charlie thought quickly. What’s the typical range of a puma? I mean, they’re territorial, aren’t they? Would one hunt this far?

Not typically. If they drove him off, though, he’d mark new territory.

Charlie nodded and, without offering up any explanation for her presence, returned her attention to examining the scene.

The girl was unidentifiable. If not for the fact that there had been a clear drag path from the girl’s home to the site where they found the body—if not for the fact that it was a small community and anyone who went missing was immediately noticed—

Her face was gone, nothing more than a bloody mess of ragged flesh. She’d been ripped open from neck to groin, her entrails spilled out all over the ground. Swallowing the bile that rose in her throat, Charlie examined the girl’s body, mentally tallying parts. As far as she could see, nothing was missing.

Wild animals attacked when hungry, or when threatened. It was a rare animal that merely attacked for sport. It was possible, of course, that something had spooked the animal off before it had had a chance to feed, or that it had eaten. The body was so damaged it was impossible to be certain if anything was missing until there’d been an autopsy—but it looked as if the animal had done nothing more than ripped her to shreds.

There was no reason that she could see that the animal might have felt threatened by the girl, unless it had been sniffing around the garbage and she’d happened up on it.

It had gone for her throat. Again, only a medical examination would tell for certain, but she suspected nobody had heard the girl scream because the animal had ripped out her vocal chords first thing.

Again, that seemed fairly typical of an animal. Most predators went for the quick kill, but the drag marks seemed to indicate that the girl had struggled at least part of the way. She’d lost her shoes, one in the yard of her home, the other on the road below.

The one thing about the scene that really unnerved her though—which absolutely no one had commented on—was the fact that the girl looked almost as if she’d been posed.

When she’d arrived, the girl had been lying in the ‘submissive’ posture of a rape victim, her arms lying, palm up, on either side of her head, her knees bent and her thighs spread.

The sound of an arriving vehicle drew her attention and Charlie turned to look.

A small crowd had gathered at the edge of the road below them, held in check by two police officers. The vehicle just pulling up was an ambulance from the clinic/ hospital/ medical examiner’s office.

To her surprise, a blond man dressed in a lab coat got out of the passenger’s door. At this distance, he looked more like an intern than a doctor—it seemed doubtful he was more than thirty—His build suggested as much, for he was tall and slender. The man with him was a local, and pretty much a direct opposite—dark, short, either stout or chunky muscular.

It was he who went to the back, opened the doors and pulled the gurney out. Lifting it, he locked the folding structure upright and began dragging it up the hill. The blond man trailed behind him, making no attempt to help the driver with the unwieldy thing.

He, in fact, stopped to chat with a man that was leaning against one of the police cars.

A jolt went through Charlie as she focused on the man that had stopped him. He was wearing nothing beyond a pair of ragged, cut off jeans and he had the body of a male stripper, leanly muscular, each muscle lovingly defined, from his washboard stomach to his well shaped legs. His arms were folded across his chest, displaying, whether intentional or not, very nice pecs, and bulging arm muscles.

He was American Indian, she was certain, although his dark skin gleamed more golden than red in the bright sunlight.

Silvery highlights shown in the black hair that hung down well past his shoulders. For a moment, Charlie thought it was streaks of gray, but as he turned and almost seemed to look directly at her, she saw that he was probably no older than the doctor, for the ‘streaks’ disappeared as he moved his head.

With an effort, she dragged her gaze from the Native American to the white man beside him, wondering if either man could actually tell from this distance what had captured her gaze.

After several moments, she turned away, unwilling to make it too obvious that she was disconcerted that she’d been caught staring. The EMT came to an abrupt stop when he was level with her. She heard him suck in his breath. Jesus Christ almighty, he muttered.

Charlie felt a swell of sympathy. Did you know her?

The man glanced sharply at her. Charlie saw then that he was wearing a name tag on his uniform that said ‘Bear’. How the hell would I recognize her if I did? he said roughly.

Charlie blushed, feeling more than a little foolish. In the world of investigation, the question was almost as pat as ‘how do you do’ in society, and in this case, at least, almost as inane. Sorry. That was thoughtless. I’m special agent, Charlotte Boyer.

He nodded, but brushed past her as he saw the chief’s impatient glare and lined the gurney up next to the body. Pressing the lever that collapsed it, he stared down at the body for several moments. We need a body bag. No way am I going to let those people down there watch me scoop her up onto the gurney.

Chief Brown nodded and the EMT stalked past her once more.

As she turned to watch him, she discovered that the coroner had finally decided to grace them with his presence. He favored her with a once over that was blatantly sexist and a slow smile that might have charmed her under other circumstances. Up close, she saw that he was nice looking in the manner of meticulously groomed rather than raw nature, although he was far from ugly, or even plain. He stuck his hand out. I’m Doctor Robert Morris. Most people around here just call me Dr. Bob.

Charlotte held out her hand and shook his firmly, then tugged her hand from his grip. Special Agent Charlotte Boyer. Most people just call me Agent Boyer.

His brows rose. His smile widened to a grin. Well, Ms. FBI, what brings you out to our neck of the woods?

Charlotte supposed it