I watch him for another half-second before twisting around to Reyes. “Can we find someone to take him home? I honestly don’t even fucking know why they brought him in.” I turn back to Emrys and hand him my card. “Should you need anything, you give me a call, alright?” I wait until he nods before heading to my desk.
Officer Miles plops his ass on the corner of my desk, my gaze narrowing in his direction as he slips a disk into my computer. “Seeing as you’re the only one who believes Kade Rourke’s story, I thought you should see this.”
“Are you saying that because you believe it too or think I’m crazy?”
Miles snorts. “I’m saying it because the chief has already branded Rourke as an abusive Alpha but I know love when I see it and those two? They’re seconds away from falling into each other’s arms.” Miles leans a little closer. “And you’re bothered by it. It’s not all that noticeable but us Betas see things.”
Great. Wonderful.
The disk loads, a folder popping up with three files. “Okay, what am I looking at?”
“The landlord sent us the camera footage pretty fucking fast. The problem is that it doesn’t answer many questions.”
I click the first file and immediately close it. That’s an hour before the incident. I find the second file starting nearly fifteen minutes before the officers showed up, confused when I see nothing. The footage moves, Emrys coming into view before he pauses and then keeps moving, the attacker moving out of the shadows.
“Wait, what the fuck?”
I scroll back to the beginning and then reopen the first file. Miles fast forwards and then pauses twenty minutes in, nearly two hours before Emrys showed up. “See? Weird as fuck, right? That’s no fucking accident.”
“Then why is Kade still here? Like...”
Miles cuts me off, tapping a few keys to continue playing the second file. It cuts off just as Emrys screams and is pushed into the wall. Then it resumes where Kade’s arms are wrapped around Emrys, the officers bursting in a few moments later. It can’t be more than a few minutes cut, but it feels deliberate.
“You see,” Miles drawls. “The footage skipped, or at least that’s what the landlord says. The rest of the tapes are shaky as fuck but the guy is nearly the same build as Rourke, just a bit smaller. And as grainy as the videos are... it’s not great.”
Someone really wanted to fuck with Kade Rourke today.
I huff and lean back in my chair, reaching for the cold coffee when Miles pulls up another folder. “But check this out. There was another camera in the corridor.” He presses play on a file, showing Rourke step out of his apartment and rush down the stairs. “The problem is that there’s no timestamp on that camera.”
A growl vibrates up from my chest, replaying the video a few times. There are two minutes between Kade’s descent and the sound of sirens, but without a timestamp, it’s impossible to prove that those overlap.
Though it does feed into the idea that someone called the police before Emrys was even attacked.
“Anything else, Miles? I think I need to see all of the upstairs camera footage. Kade was wearing the same thing in the video as he is now. Also, are there any other cameras through the area?”
Miles nods. “Already on it, but it’s kind of late, so it’ll be a minute before we get anything. I’ll let you know if we see thehooded guy on any of them.” He grabs the disk and yanks it from my computer before letting out a small sigh. “Chief’s adamant about cleaning up the trash on the streets or some bullshit. She’s putting in a temporary protective order against Kade until the investigation is complete.”
“What the fuck? If anyone had just talked to these guys for two seconds, they would know—”
Reyes pops up on my right. “Sky, deep breaths. I did talk to the chief. Miles too and a few other officers but she’s adamant that she’s right and that Rourke’s previous track record isn’t enough to clear him.”
I shake my head. “It’s the lawyer thing, isn’t it? She always fucking thinks someone’s guilty when they call their lawyer.” The chief is amazing at her job, well,mostof it but she has a weird way of going about it.
“I figure this means that no one’s really going to be looking into the truth except for us, will they?” No one answers but that’s answer enough.
Kade
The door swings open, my lawyer, Baxter, steps inside and closes the door behind him. A small sigh of relief filters through my lips as I sit back in my seat, already braced for the worst. The fact that the detective isn’t in here releasing me means I’m not free to go, at least not yet.
Baxter’s gaze drops to my wrists first, the Beta just shaking his head as they find the marks around my wrists. “I had most of the drive to prepare a speech,” he says as he takes the chair across from me and sets his briefcase down with more care thanthe room deserves. “You can imagine my disappointment when I arrived and learned they’d already taken the cuffs off and you hadn’t made anyone regret their career choices.”
“It didn’t seem useful.” I shrug. I could have made a scene but that would put Emrys in more danger. Then the detective showed up and some part of me just wanted to please him.
“That has never stopped some of my clients from making terrible decisions, but I appreciate you choosing to be inconvenient in a quieter direction.” Baxter opens his briefcase and removes a folder, and I watch the way his attention shifts with it. His anger is controlled, which is why he’s good at what he does. It shows only in the precise way he lays the folder between us. “I spoke with Chief Morrison. You aren’t being charged tonight, and you aren’t being booked. The investigation remains open while they pursue the other suspect, although I use the word pursue with optimism rather than confidence.”
“There was another man,” I say, though he already knows it. “He attacked Emrys.”
“I know, and based on the pieces I’ve been given, Detective Grayson knows too. The chief is being slower about arriving at that conclusion, but she does seem aware there are enough problems with the scene to keep from walking you straight into a charge tonight.” Baxter rests two fingers on the folder before opening it, the simple gesture tightening the room more than shouting would have. “That doesn’t mean she’s letting this go cleanly.”
