Free Blood Love (God Wars Book 4) by Connie Suttle Page B

gloves from a pocket.
    "We have some," Charles and Gavin both produced gloves from pockets.
    Bill, Hank and Jayson stepped back while Gavin and Charles formed claws and carefully cut carpet away from the baseboards. Then, pulling on gloves, they ripped it back, revealing a trap door.
    Blood had soaked through the carpet, staining the wooden slats of the door and the boards surrounding it.
    "This doesn't look good," Opal muttered, pulling her shirt over her mouth. The stench rising from beneath the trap door was overwhelming.
    "Doesn't smell good, either." Hank pulled on a pair of gloves and reached for the metal ring recessed in the wood. "Stand back," he ordered. The others were happy to comply.

Chapter 5  
     
    Earth—past
    "What the bloody hell?" Charles had gone down the wooden steps first and stared about him. The room he found was much larger than the bedroom overhead, and extended past the perimeter of the house.
    "What is it?" Bill's voice floated down.
    "What does Vernon do—for a living? Besides what we see on the Internet?" Charles replied with a question of his own.
    "Has no visible means of support," Bill answered. "I always thought his fans and supporters on the Internet kept him in business, so to speak."
    "I think he was into other things," Charles muffled. He'd been forced to cover his nose as well. "Who do you suppose wants taxidermic werewolves and shapeshifters?"
    * * *
    "Now that the locals are watching the house, we can come back in the morning and take photographs before clearing out evidence," Bill sighed. A cup of coffee sat in front of him at a local, all-night diner, but it was untouched. All of them still had the stench of rotted meat in their nostrils and they'd only ordered to have an excuse to use the table.
    "I get the idea that some of them might not have been completely dead before Vernon started, well, carving," Opal grimaced.
    "Agreed. Blood spatter indicates that," Hank said.
    "Why else would he need thick shackles and chains?" Jayson muttered. "You don't need to restrain anything that's dead already."
    "They were silver, did you notice?" Trajan growled. "Silver won't completely debilitate a wolf, but it'll make him weaker for sure."
    "So you think Vernon's into torture? That would fall in line with the stuff we found in the basement of that church," Bill snorted.
    "And if somebody's paying for taxidermic wolves and rare shifters," Trajan added.
    "That's sick," Opal grumbled, dropping her head in her arms.
    "Opal, you okay?" Jayson rubbed her back gently.
    "Jayson, if they want rare shifters," Opal lifted her head and blinked dark eyes once at Jayson.
    "Yeah. I get it now," he nodded.
    "My worry is that Vernon is far away from here," Gavin said.
    "That's my worry, too," Bill observed.
    * * *
    "I want to pursue this," Ross Gideon shoved a folder across James Rome, Sr.'s desk.
    "What is it?" James opened the folder to study its contents.
    "Information on those websites—the ones claiming Breanne Hayworth was a product of our imagination," Ross growled. "I have a couple of names already; I just need your permission to go ahead with it."
    "And a little funding, no doubt," James nodded, lifting the top page to read the second. "You think you can track these guys? Looks like the government can't find 'em."
    "I found that sheriff in Pecos, didn't I? The feds had no idea on that one."
    "True. Look, find a bodyguard. Hell, find two. I'll fund this. If you can make a book out of it, even better. Just don't end up dead somewhere, all right?"
    "Any word on the kid?"
    James stood abruptly at Ross's question. "No," he snapped. "I got info from SFPD, saying Jayson was never a suspect in that journalist's murder, they just let the media run with it for a while so they could track the real killer. Kathleen still won't talk to me, and word has it she blames me completely for Jayson's disappearance. I guess it's true, since that reporter screwed him and I fired his ass afterward."
    "Any trace on credit