Hobbs chuffed and trotted off with Calvin close behind. Sloane tapped his earpiece.
“Sarge, area’s secure. We have Reynolds.”
“Good work. Hudson and Nina are going in.”
“Copy that.” Sloane turned to his team. “Let’s secure Reynolds in the truck. Letty, bring the stretcher.”
Letty nodded and ran off. It took Sloane, Ash, and Dex to lift an unconscious Reynolds onto the Therian-sized stretcher. Letty stayed behind securing the crime scene while Sloane, Ash, and Dex carried Reynolds out to the BearCat and secured him in the cage. Hobbs was already in his Human form, sitting on the bench and receiving PSTC from his partner. When Sloane turned, Hudson and Nina were approaching.
“Hey, guys. Ready?”
The two medical examiners nodded, and Hudson walked beside Sloane.
“How bad is it?”
“From what I could see, really bad.” Sloane shook his head sadly as he led them back into the house. He looked over his shoulder at Ash and motioned to the door. His best friend knew the drill. Ash took position in front of the front door after Sloane, Hudson, Nina, and Dex went in. No one was getting past Ash without the right credentials. These days the press would climb over you to get footage or pictures of the crime scene. The last thing they needed was another media frenzy. Cases with Human-Therian couples always brought out the bigots and zealots. Any excuse to condemn the couple or spout hate in an attempt to justify why the two should have never been together in the first place. Mrs. Reynolds deserved better than that. Whatever Dylan Reynolds’s reason for performing such a heinous act, the fact one was a Human and the other a Therian played no part in it.
Sloane showed Hudson and Nina to the body, or what was left of it. While they performed their preliminary assessment, Sloane joined Dex in the living room, where his partner was standing in front of the fireplace. Dex stood staring down at the framed photo in his gloved hand. It was a wedding photo of Dylan Reynolds and his blushing bride. They were embracing and laughing.
“They look so happy,” Dex said quietly. “I don’t get it. I mean, I get it. I’ve been a cop long enough to have heard it all, but a part of me still doesn’t understand.” He returned the picture to the mantle and motioned to the dozens of other captured moments displayed with pride. “Look at them. They clearly loved each other. He loved her. You can see it in his eyes. How could he tear her to shreds like that?”
Dex turned to Sloane, his visor up, making it so Sloane could see Dex’s pale blue eyes and the pain in them. They grew glassy, and Sloane put a hand to Dex’s shoulder. It wasn’t like Dex to get emotional at a crime scene.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I, uh….” Dex blinked the tears from his eyes and laughed. “Don’t know what the hell’s gotten into me.”
“It’s okay. Not exactly a great first day back on the job. Why don’t you head back to the truck?”
Dex looked like he wanted to protest, but looking around the house, he nodded instead.
“Thanks.”
Sloane watched him walk off. Usually Dex was cheerful, cracking jokes, teasing Ash, bugging his brother. He never got emotional unless it was anger. There had been times Dex was furious when faced with injustice, but emotional like this? Never. There were occasions where a case had hit them hard, and one or more of their teammates had shed tears, but it was never out in the field. Everyone lost their shit back at HQ, in private, surrounded by their brethren. They all had their way of dealing with death, of coping with the unspeakable things they came across while o
n the job. Sloane walked to the front door and spoke quietly to Ash.
“Hey, can you keep an eye on Dex?”
Ash nodded. “Yeah, of course. Everything okay?”
“I don’t know. I’m worried about him. He’s not been himself since you know what.”
“Sure. No problem.”
“Thanks, man.”
Sloane gave him a pat on the chest before heading back inside. Hudson called him from the dining room, and Sloane approached.
“What have you got?”
“Obviously we’ll have to return the body to the lab for further analysis and confirmation, but the victim is most certainly female, early thirties. The tears and bite marks are consistent with that of a tiger Therian. We’ve found tiger fur, along with foreign fibers, on the victim. We’ll need blood samples from Mr. Reynolds and to run a DNA comparison against what we find on Mrs. Reynolds. I’ll let you know as soon as we get a hit.”
“Thanks, Hudson.”
Sloane thanked Nina as he walked by, greeting the CSAs and Recon agents who’d arrived to process the crime scene and begin the investigation. Two Recon agents took over for Ash, and he and his best friend headed back to the BearCat. It was time to return to HQ and get some answers from Dylan Reynolds.
While Reynolds was processed, examined, and administered PSTC, Sloane got to work on the case file. He used his security clearance to create a new case file on Themis, adding his notes and descriptions of the incident, along with digital maps of the area, including location of the incident. Across from him, Dex sat at his desk, a deep frown on his face as he typed away at his report. At one point he stopped typing, but he was still staring down at his desk.