Moon Sworn (Riley Jenson Guardian 9)

I grinned. "You're learning, little brother."

"I certainly am," he muttered, and handed me the computer. "Promise me you'll drop the matter if you don't find anything."

"If I don't find anything, I will."

"And if you do find something, talk to Harris. Let him handle it."

"I'll talk to Harris." Whether I let him handle it without sticking my nose in it was another thing entirely.

Evin grunted and half turned away, then paused. "Why is this so important to you?"

"I don't know," I said, honestly enough. "It just feels like unfinished business, for some reason."

He shook his head. "Hanna, we work security for the pack. We roam boundaries and keep rabble off pack lands. Murder, in any way, shape, or form, does not enter our realm of experience."

I worked for the pack? That seemed so damn unlikely that laughter bubbled up inside of me. It didn't escape, but only because of an extreme effort of will.

"Look, I may have simply read about it in the newspaper. If that's the case, then Harris will be more than aware of the connection, and I can let it slide."

"Then that's what I'm hoping for. We're here to relax and recuperate, not chase after ghosts and get caught up in murder investigations."

"So tomorrow I'll relax."

He snorted again - but this time it was a sound of disbelief. "I'm beginning to think that's not in your nature."

I had a vague suspicion he was right. "Night, little brother."

He half waved as he headed back to his bedroom. I fired up the laptop as I walked across to the sofa and sat down, then waited for it to pick up the Internet connection. When Google finally appeared on the screen, I typed in "murder" and "red-horned devil" in the search area.

And discovered there were apparently hundreds of murders committed by red-horned devils the world over. I refined the search area, hitting the Australia-only button, and reduced the number of murders down to only a couple. One in Brisbane and two in Sydney.

I clicked the links and checked out the newspaper articles related to both murders. Of the two Sydney murders, one was a woman who'd been found hanged in the closet of her home, and the other a man who been woodchipped. Apparently, both methods of murders reflected crimes they'd spent time in prison for. The Brisbane murder was a little different, in that the woman never spent time behind bars. She was the victim of a hit-andrun - the very crime she'd been acquitted of several months previously.

None of the murders was the one that sat like a bad smell at the back of my mind. I leaned back against the sofa and frowned at the computer.

There were definitely similarities in all three crimes, and I had no doubt that there was a connection between them all. But what about my crime? Why wasn't that in the news?

Maybe I needed to refine the search more. By state, for instance - only my memory failed to come up with where I lived. I shoved the laptop on the sofa beside me, then jumped up and walked to the bedroom. I grabbed my wallet and dragged out my license, this time actually taking the time to look at the address.

Cona Creek, Queensland.

Not a place that sounded or felt right.

I tucked the license back into the wallet then headed back to the laptop. A search for Cona Creek revealed very little about the place - even Google maps didn't show a whole lot, with the satellite pics revealing little more than dirt and trees. Although I supposed if it was pack land, then there may not be a town, as such. Many packs preferred the scattered approached to communal living rather than the clustered development favored by humans and packs like the one that owned Dunedan.

None of which helped me get any closer to uncovering the who and what behind the murder that was lurking in the recesses of memory.

I tried variations of the search but still came up empty-handed. Maybe a kill order had been placed on the story - but why would they do that when the other stories were already out there?

Once again, I just didn't know.

It was a fucking frustrating sensation.

I gave up and turned off the computer. Maybe what I needed was sleep. With any sort of luck, tomorrow would bring new ideas and fresh memories.

S omeone was knocking heavily. Bam, bam, bam it went, relentless and loud. It took me a few minutes to realize the noise was outside my head rather than inside, and I opened a bleary eye.

I was still in that small, uninspiring villa bedroom. The nightmare gremlins hadn't decided to transport me back to my real life, wherever and whatever that was.