Free Into the Light (The Admiral's Elite Book 2) by HK Savage

one of them as they wandered about the quiet yard.
     
    Susan Borchert had been a forty-two year old mother of three coming home from working the second shift when the windigo struck. Her husband found her upon waking to strange screams around one o’clock and finding her not in their bed.
     
    It had been two and a half weeks since the murder and fresh snow covered all traces of what had transpired there. The detective had called ahead to ask permission of the grieving widower to view the scene. He took the kids out to dinner and the site was theirs for an hour.
     
    Nothing unusual jumped out at Becca. She would have noticed too. Her senses were so hyper alert her skin was tingling. Snow covered everything, changes in its elevation marking where the body had lain and where she assumed someone had shoveled the soiled snow away before more of the white stuff came to take its place. A path had been shoveled from the detached brown garage leading to the back porch of the matching house. Burlap wrapped shrubs and straw covered gardens stood on either side of the walkway. Susan had been an avid gardener by the number of such spots on the property. Becca thought of her father, Ed.
     
    Ed Sauter and Susan Borchert would have had much to talk about. Ed’s years in the Marines had given him a need for routine and precision. After retiring he’d been able to fill that need with cultivating an enviable garden.  It was hard not to imagine what it would have done to her mother to find her husband butchered in their yard, feet from the safety of their home. Her stomach turned and her eyes stung.
     
    Sensing her upset, Michael crossed the yard to stand beside her, offering her what comfort he could. Detective Salvo caught the gesture and glanced up so he limited his contact to a hand on her shoulder. It wouldn’t do them any good to be seen as intimate in front of the hostile allies. It would only give them cause to question their professionalism.
     
    “The detective says the husband asked the police to keep the sirens quiet while he got the kids handed off to his sister through the front door. He’s the only one who saw her,” he told her in a low voice.
     
    “I know, but it’s just so pointless.” When she forced her eyes from the depression visible in the snow where the evidence had all been dug up, tears glittered on her long brown lashes. “This thing is pure evil.” She sniffed. Her mind’s eye painted the sterile white with the puddles and splashes of red in the file.
     
    Hard expression softening at her distress, Michael rubbed a thumb over her shoulder and appeared torn between keeping their relationship quiet and giving her the consolation she so desperately needed.
     
    “I’m fine.” She sniffed again, blinking away the offending wetness behind her lids and wiping the few strays away with the sleeve of her black coat. Seeing that he wasn’t convinced, she forced her lips into a quick grin and took a step away.
     
    “Hey, you guys see what you needed?” Salvo’s impatient voice cut across the quiet of the late afternoon.
     
    “I think so.” Becca watched Michael close himself off before he turned to face the interloper. 
     
    The sound of an engine brought all three heads around to see a late model silver Impala charging up the drive to stop in front of the garage. Detective Salvo muttered something that sounded tired and unhappy before striding past them to head off the gray-haired man stalking angrily toward them. Michael and Becca looked on curiously.
     
    “Mr. Nowak, we were just leaving.” Salvo waved a hand in a friendly gesture.
     
    “What the hell are you people doing here? You’ve been here enough already.” The large man was not so easily appeased. “You shouldn’t be wasting your time here, you should be out catching the animal that killed my daughter.”
     
    “We are, Mr. Nowak,” Salvo held up both palms in a peaceful gesture. “These two are from a special task force