📎A/N.  Hello to another midweek. I hope you are all well.  Still under the weather so chapter is a bit short.

I also have to thank you all for supporting Buried which is currently sitting at #9 in Paranormal.  You are all absolute legends and are making this such a wonderful experience for me!

Don't forget to vote - yes even you silent readers - its really simple... just click the star :)

Take care.

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The dulcet tones of an owl carried across the star laden sky as it set off on its night's hunting. 

Turning his head towards the forest, Murphy contemplated the current nightmare he had gotten himself into. He watched the movement in the trees as the nocturnal animals and birds scurried about their business before the dawn.  All the while, wondering how his life had gotten so complicated within a twenty-four hour period.

Sleep had eluded him.  Giving up on the ability to get any rest, Murphy had showered and then wandered outside to think.  The outdoors often helped clear his mind and allowed some clarity and perspective.

Taking a seat on the porch swing, he finished his third cup of coffee as he replayed the events from earlier that evening.  It had been so long since he had been affected by this many disparate emotions; he was unsure of how to process it, let alone understand what to do with it.

His wolf, part of the reason for his restlessness, had been chipping away at his conscience, adamant that he needed to help the loud and headstrong F.B.I Agent.

Why, was beyond him.

For some reason he was angry at his human half for the way in which he had treated Ryan's daughter.

Moving a throw out of the way, Murphy's detected the object of his frustration's scent.  It was still strong on the blanket and he was very aware of the feminine bouquet that was assailing his senses.  The aroma was an intoxicating mixture of honey and cinnamon with something else that he could not quite put his finger on. 

Annoyed at the direction in which his mind was taking him, O'Neill tossed the woolen covering over the railings to allow him to think straight.

You have no idea how to deal with this.

"Just shut up will you?" Murphy ground out to his Wolf.

The agitated man ran a hand through his hair.  He had been in denial since the moment she was partnered with him. Murphy knew what he needed to do. 

His Wolf knew. 

He just didn't want to do it.

Finally giving in to his better judgement he reached for his phone. "Bollocks," he grumbled as he scrolled through his contact list and pressed the number he was after.

Murphy did not need to wait long before a very agitated male answered. "It's four-thirty in the fucking morning.  This better be good!"

"Depends on your definition of good."

There was a slight pause as Murphy heard something being dropped in the background. "Murf? Is that you?" the other voice now very much awake, "How the hell are you?"

"This is not a social call."

"I heard," came the quiet and sober reply, "Elijah is back."

"We have a problem."

"Oh?"

"Ryan's daughter is on the case."

The Profiler heard a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the phone.

"And she knows about us," said Murphy as he waited for the uproar that undoubtedly would follow.

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Kaitlyn's mind was too wired to sleep.  The drive home seemed to take forever. With each mile covered, an extra twenty questions would crowd its way into her already long list.

Murphy could change back and forth from Wolf to human.  She had seen it with her own eyes.  He was a Wolf one minute and then a Man the next.

The moment she walked through her door Kaitlyn headed straight to her computer.  It was not possible for her to sit still with so many loose ends.  She needed to find out who she was dealing with.

An hour later, she was ready to throw her laptop across the room.  Apart from the photo used for his FBI ID and his Drivers License, there were no other images on the Profiler - anywhere. 

What was more disconcerting was the fact that, apart from the FBI records, Murphy O'Neill did not seem to exist.

How is that possible? Everyone knows of Murphy O'Neill? Kaitlyn reasoned with herself.

Try as she might, Kaitlyn could find nothing outside of the FBI to indicate that man was not a figment of her imagination.  No Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Nothing.

In this day and age how do you not have an online presence?

Scrunching her nose up at the lack of information, she decided on another avenue of attack.  Bringing up a Google search engine, she typed in 'Werewolves'.

Ten million results?

After trolling through hundreds of sites, she gave up any hope of getting accurate material from that form of inquiry.

Now that she had been exposed to the real thing, she could see how Murphy and his kind had remained hidden. 

There are millions of complete and utter lunatics with conspiracy theories up the Wazoo. 

Deciding the only way she was going to get answers was to question the man directly she turned off her computer.  Her mind, now with a purpose and a way forward, let go of the adrenaline that had continued to pump through her veins. Kaitlyn suddenly felt tired.  As dawn broke, her body gave into fatigue, falling asleep on the couch before she could make it to her bed.

The incessant beeping of her phone permeated through her dream state a couple of hours later. Tumbling off the couch as she reached for the offending device, she came fully awake as she glanced at the message. "Fuck, I'm late!"

Scrambling off the floor, Kaitlyn raced to the bathroom and flew into the shower. 

"You're late," Doug called out as Kaitlyn walked out of the elevator an hour later, "I've been trying to reach you all morning."

Not making any excuses she handed her boss one of the cups she was holding.

Taking the peace offering he rolled his eyes changing the subject. "Any leads yet?"

"Still early days, but we think that his MO has evolved.  We are hoping to find out more from the ME sometime today."

"Okay, just keep me in the loop.  Remember, all eyes are on this one."  With that he handed her two temporary ID badges and disappeared through the lift door.

Briskly walking the length of the corridor, her pace slowed as she reached the conference room which had been turned into the task forces new home for the duration of the case.

After her late night escapade, and the discovery about her new partner, she suddenly became anxious.  It dawned on her that she needed to be careful around the others.  Under no circumstances could she let on there was anything out of the ordinary going on. 

But there is! her mind screamed back at her.

Calming her erratic nerves, she took a calming breath before walking in the room.

When she entered, Kaitlyn was relieved to discover only Tony and Daisy were present.  Nodding towards Daisy she wandered across to her desk and turned her monitor on.

Tony waived from across the room, phone to his ear, deep in conversation.

"Has O'Neill been in?" she asked Daisy, hoping she didn't appear too interested in the Profiler's whereabouts.

"A little while ago," the younger woman answered, "he said he needed to run an errand and he would catch up with you later."

Kaitlyn frowned.  "Did he say where he was going?"

Daisy nervously adjusted her glasses. "No, and I was too afraid to ask."

Before Kaitlyn could respond, the Detective, now off the phone, stood up and grabbed his coat. "That was the ME's office.  She is ready to see us."

"We didn't get a chance to talk yesterday," Tony began as they made the short drive to the City Morgue, "I just wanted to say thank you for not kicking up a stink about the joint task force."

"I wasn't really given a choice," admitted Kaitlyn.

"Even so," he replied, "you could have made it more difficult for me.  And I am looking forward to working with both you and O'Neill."

Kaitlyn brought the car to a halt at a set of traffic lights as the Detective continued speaking.  "I look at it this way.  There's only so much that you can learn from studying books.  I don't want to be a Homicide Detective for the rest of my life," he admitted, "I've sorta won the lottery with this case.  You both have the reputation of getting  things done. I think I could really learn something from you both."

Not quite knowing how to respond to this, Kaitlyn moved the conversation back to the case and what they hoped to find from the ME's office.

"Hey Annabelle, how's the grandkids?" Kaitlyn said to the Morgues On-Duty officer as they were signing in a short while later.

The security guard checked their ID and chuckled. "Good, there seems to be more and more each time I look around."

Once the older woman had registered the two law enforcement officers she handed them back their identification. "Gown up in there," she said indicating the nearest door, "and then go straight through.  She will be with you shortly."

Kaitlyn and Antonio, having gone through this before on a number of occasions, proceeded into the small changing room.  Quickly donning a mask around their heads, slipping their shoed feet into overshoes, and then putting on a blue protective gown over their clothes and securely tying the green ribbons, they made their way through the second door into the morgue.

Kaitlyn shivered as her body adjusted to the colder temperature of the room.  The modern steel tables and swill area was all too familiar.

A couple of ME's assistants were huddled around one of the tables.  They were cutting away at the filthy and torn layers of clothing from the corpse.  From the state of the clothing and the pure volume of layers, Kaitlyn guessed that the person was one of the many homeless that wandered the streets of Boston.

The far table was currently being washed down by another assistant with a high-powered hose.  Blood, mixed with the water ran off the table and down through the numerous drainage outlets on the floor.

Kaitlyn, noticing the third slab had a green plastic sheet covering whatever was beneath, guessed that this was what they were here for, and headed to stand by the table awaiting the ME's arrival.

They did not need to wait long.

"Special Agent, Detective" said Dr Swanson acknowledging them as she entered the morgue a short time later.

Walking over to where Kaitlyn and Antonio were waiting, she pulled the covering off the table to reveal a number of body parts stacked together like a completed jig saw puzzle.

"We managed to get a hit on the tattoo," began the ME, "the NGI database identified our vic as Terrance Potter.  I had the dental records from his last prison stint emailed to me and it looks like it's a match."

"What about the DNA?"

"Sent it off. But it's going to take at least two weeks before we get anything back."

"Do we have a cause of death?" Kaitlyn asked as she looked over the broken body.

The ME shook her head.  "With the state of the parts we really can't tell and I would hate to hazard a guess."

"Did you find anything out of the ordinary or strange with the body?"

Kaitlyn swung around to face the deep velvet tones from the newcomer as he addressed the ME. Her heart jumped in her chest at the shock at his sudden arrival.  Murphy had somehow managed to enter the room and was standing beside the table before anyone had registered his presence.

"Nice look," she murmured as she took in the ill-fitting protective garment.  Kaitlyn became slightly flushed when she remembered what was under the clothing and attempted to hide her errant thoughts. 

Throwing her a dirty look Murphy readdressed the ME.

"I was just about to get to that," said Dr Swanson.

The ME reached over the top of the body and pried the dead man's jaw open.  She turned to O'Neill and grabbed a spatula from a nearby table to point inside the mouth.

"Jesus," declared Antonio as he leaned forward for a better view, "it looks like its being chewed off."

"If he did it himself, well find it in his stomach.  Otherwise ..." the ME trailed off.

Kaitlyn looked just as shocked as Antonio.  The Profiler's expression however, did not change. "Do we at least have a time of death?" her partner asked as he glanced towards the ME.

"By the time the body had been found rigor-mortis had already set in.  Which means death occurred at least thirty-six to forty-eight hours before the body was found.  We did find some insects on the body. We have sent them to an Entomologist to give us a more accurate time of death."

"What about the latest body?" asked Kaitlyn quickly jotting the information into her small notepad.

The ME again, shook her head. "Once I have finished the autopsy on this one, I will make a start on yesterday's corpse."

"Personal effects?" Murphy asked scanning the room.

"We are just cataloging them now."

O'Neill turned to the Detective, "Tony, you wait here for them."

Turning and walking to the exit he glanced at Kaitlyn, "You're with me."

"But I drove here," she argued.

"Then leave Detective Garcia your keys.  I'm pretty sure you are in no danger of having him steal your roller skate."

"Who died and made you king?" she muttered angrily as she trailed after him.

His lack of response escalated her temper to the extent that she slammed the door to his Escalade a short while later.  His resulting glare giving her the satisfaction that something finally had penetrated his armour.

"I'm starting to have doubts that we are dealing with the same killer," admitted Kaitlyn after they had been driving in silence for a while.

"Why?"

"Evolving MO is one thing, but this just feels too different.  There was no links between the original victims twenty-years ago.  I bet my pension that we will find one between our two Vics." she said.

Then as an afterthought, "Are you sure it's not a different... you know... Werewolf?" she finished in a whisper.

"No it's him," Murphy replied emphatically.

"How do you know?"

"I just do. But I agree," he admitted, "there has been a change.  He is up to something."

It suddenly occurred to Kaitlyn that she had no idea where they were headed. "Where are we going by the way?"

"To find that link between our two victims."

"How do you know who he is?" Kaitlyn persisted with her original line of questioning.  Hoping he would relent and give her the information she was after.

"Because I just do."

Kaitlyn was ready to scream.  The man was more than frustrating.  He knew what was going on. Yet he refused to let her in on it.

"Why are you so sure?  You promised me answers."

"You will get your answers."

"When?"

"Soon."

"And exactly when is soon?"

"Tonight, you'll get your answers tonight," he snapped in frustration.  

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The rest of the day passed in a blur.  They had unsuccessfully found any connection between the two men.  But in interviewing some of their known associates, the F.B.I. Agent had felt a distinct nervousness from those being questioned. 

This was normal when dealing with these type of individuals. But Kaitlyn couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else going on that they did not want to talk about.

Still pent up when she arrived home, Kaitlyn changed and immediately headed out for a five-mile run. Loosing track of the time she raced back to her apartment in a panic, needing to shower and change before her visitor arrived with the answers she was so desperate for.

Murphy had dropped her back at work late in the afternoon.  As Quinn got out of the car and headed to retrieve her keys, the Profiler slowed down as he passed her, his window open.

"I'll be at your place tonight with some answers."

Before a stunned Kaitlyn could respond, Murphy had driven away without a backwards glance.

"When tonight would have been nice," she yelled out to his retreating car.

Pacing her living room a few hours later, she had almost given up hope of him actually keeping his word when her doorbell rang. 

Storming over to the door and yanking it open. "It's about bloody ti..." Kaitlyn's voice caught as she took in the man standing larger than life at her doorstep.  Her eyes widened in shock as she brought her hand up to her mouth to stop a stunned cry being emitted.

Taking a step back from the door, Kaitlyn began shaking her head in denial.

"No, it's not possible. It can't be."

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📎A/N. 

... So who do you think is at the door that has Kaitlyn in complete shock?

... And I think that she is definitely rattling Murphy's cage... What do you think?

Don't forget to vote.

Next chapter out Sunday :-)

Till then, take care.

  ❤ ℳ