Kissing the Werewolf - An Izzy Cooper Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

off.”
    That stopped me in my tracks. “Did they ever find out who did it?”
    “I don’t know … I kind of got killed that day?”
    There it was again, the rolling of the eyes, as if she were talking to a particularly dense child.
    “But there have always been stories. People go missing, or end up dead whenever the captain makes an appearance,” she reminded me.
    “Hmm … interesting.” I continued through the parking lot. Muriel was still with me.
    “Do you see the connection now?” she asked.
    “I do, but I’m not sure how helpful it is. The dead rarely commit murder,” I told her, as I stepped onto the little sidewalk near the lighthouse and took a right. The entrance to our office was in back. The location did help keep tourist curiosity at bay, but hadn’t really provided the kind of secrecy the FBI was hoping for.
    “He’s really scary.” Muriel repeated her earlier assessment.
    “I’ll look into it,” I promised, and I would.
    She was right. There was an obvious connection, though I couldn’t quite see what it was yet.
    Muriel disappeared, which was just as well. It had a tendency to get on the boss man’s nerves when Muriel and I held conversations in the office. I think it just bothered him that he could only eavesdrop on one side of the conversation.
     
    * * *
     
    ACMU headquarters was simple, at least by FBI standards. We had our computers, tablets, projectors and whatnot, but it was simple. Just two large rooms tucked away in the basement of the lighthouse. Our desks and computers were in one of the rooms, while the second housed a small lab that Tim could use to get a quick look at something, if we couldn’t wait for an analysis report from DC.
    I really would have preferred the top floor. The view from the lighthouse was awe-inspiring, but not so much from the basement.
    When I entered, Ayden was scrawling notes on the whiteboard. Next to his notes there was a photo of Dale Simmons.
    “Tim back yet?” I asked.
    “No,” he replied without bothering to turn around. “I sent him to interview the Simmons family. We do have the preliminary results on the hair analysis though. What Tim found was animal hair, but it doesn’t belong to Dale.”
    “Why would you think otherwise?” I asked, openly skeptical of his judgment, which I was sure wouldn’t sit well.
    I was wrong.
    Instead of his usual scowl, he actually smiled. “I guess this is one of those, need to know, situations.”
    Hot damn! He was cute when he smiled.
    I admit, thinking about my boss in that way was going way over the top. My only excuse being that it had been months since I’d broken it off with Jasper, and a girl can only go so long before the crazy started to set in.
    Doing my best to keep things in perspective, I banished all thoughts of seeing Ayden naked, but then I started thinking about Elias, and that was even worse.
    “I would say so, especially if it has to do with my job,” I came back, making sure to add a touch of sarcasm to my voice.
    Sighing, Ayden took a seat at his desk. “Well with your mother being a member of the Osborne family, I’m sure you must know that a lot of the people in Storm Cove aren’t exactly average.”
    Was he trying to say the Osborns were weird?
    “Yeah, I know,” I shrugged.
    Of course I knew the people in Storm Cove were not exactly normal. In fact, the abnormalities extended to the entire island.
    I did resent his reference to my maternal family. Witches weren’t odd … at least not too odd.
    On the other hand, it was true that Mystique Island had its share of strange individuals. Everyone knew about the werewolf packs, and other high strangeness on the island. Nearly all of it could be traced back to the original settlers.
    Annabelle was definitely convinced, but then again, my sister had always embraced the strange and unusual.
    “There are two packs of wolves on the island.”
    “You mean werewolf packs?” I interrupted, feigning shock. It was best I appeared