“Neither,” I said. “That’s the bad news.”
“Let me guess.” Asher reached for a second slice of pizza, shoveling in a mouthful before he’d even finished his sentence. “Dude reported his van stolen months ago, didn’t see anything, doesn’t know anything, doesn’t want any trouble, and we’re right back to square fucking one.”
“Not even close.” I leaned back in my chair and looked up at the vaulted ceiling, wishing it were that simple. Square one would’ve been a hell of a lot better thanmurderone. “I put in a call to the RCPD as soon as I had an address. They sent a cop out to sniff around the property, get some more details from Landes.”
“And?” Gray asked. “Did he cooperate?”
I lifted my glass, gesturing for Ronan to pour me another drink, which I promptly chugged. The photos the department sent over were still burned into my retinas, making me queasy every time I closed my eyes.
No matter how long I’d done this job, it never got any easier.
“The officer found Mr. Landes in a shed behind the house,” I said, “bound and gagged. His eyes had been crudely removed, along with several of his fingers and toes. His throat was slit, though he likely passed out long before that happened.” I swallowed hard. “They’re estimating he’d been there at least a week, probably longer. Neighbors thought he was in Oregon visiting his mother.”
“Shit,” Ronan whispered, and I closed my eyes, not wanting to see Gray’s face when I said the next part.
“The victim was naked aside from a single piece of jewelry,” I said, and by her sharp intake of breath, I could tell she understood. “A silver crescent moon with an eye made of opal, black onyx, and topaz.”
No one spoke after that—not even Gray. When I finally found the courage to open my eyes and look at her, she was staring into her whiskey, her brows pinched together, her thoughts veiled.
“I asked them to send me the amulet,querida,” I said softly. “After they finish with the forensics.”
She nodded, but didn’t say a word, still fixated on her drink.
Since her big blowout with Asher last week, I hadn’t seen her shed a single tear. Not when she was shuffling Sophie’s tarot cards, or after a particularly grueling sparring session, or when I’d catch her staring out the window, her mind a million miles away. Not even when she’d dropped a can of soup on her bare toe last night.
But even without the tears, anyone looking at her now could sense the weight of her grief. It washed over me in waves, pulling my heart down like an undertow, pressing in on me from all sides. I could only imagine what it was like for her.
More than anything I wanted to take her into my arms, hold her to my chest, and promise her that this was going to get better. That even though it was my job, it didn’t have to be hers. That we wouldn’t always be sitting at this table rehashing the most gruesome details of the most heinous crimes, forcing her to relive the traumas of her past in the hopes that we might help someone else avoid the same pain.
I wanted to promise her that one day—maybe soon—we’d be able to eat an entire pan of brownies under a nearly-full moon for no other reason than because we damn well felt like it.
But I couldn’t make that kind of promise today. Not until we solved this case. And the only way to do that was to wade right into the thick of it, ugly parts and all.
“I take it you’ve got someone on point at RCPD?” Asher asked. “Someone you trust?”
I shot a quick glance to Ronan—the only other living soul who knew about my situation with the RCPD. He offered a nod of support, but he wasn’t saying a word.
I didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried.
Raven’s Cove.Just speaking the name again sent a crack right down the middle of my heart.
I used to think a hundred and twenty-odd miles was plenty enough distance to put between that part of my life and this one. That with that kind of distance—and enough time—I might be lucky enough to wake up one morning andnotfeel the hollow ache in my chest. To stare at my eyes in the mirror andnotsee all the old ghosts staring right back at me.
But I’d fled Argentina years earlier with the same stupid assumptions. If moving to a new damn continent hadn’t helped, what on earth had made me think a new town would be any better? A million miles, a million years, and I’d still be carrying the same pain, like a well-worn suitcase I just couldn’t seem to part with. And now it seemed the past I’d been trying for so damn long to outrun was on a collision course with a future I wasn’t sure I deserved, and this time, running wasn’t an option.
Not when the people sitting around this table were counting on me to stay. To deal with this. To make things right.
“The situation with the local police is complicated,” I said, settling on the easiest and most palatable explanation for all of us. “They’ve got quite a few shifters on the force—lone wolves who made their own pack some years ago. They’re excellent cops, but they’re territorial and don’t like outsiders. The chief is the toughest of the bunch.”
“You know the guy?” Asher asked.
I cut my gaze to Ronan again, then looked down, rolling the edge of my glass over the condensation rings on the table. “Yeah, I know the guy. The woman, actually.”
The RCPD chief and I had more history between us than I cared to recount, starting with our shared last name.
But if anyone at this table thought blood was thicker than water—or whiskey, for that matter—they obviously didn’t know my sister.
“From the little bit she was willing to share,” I continued, my wording much more diplomatic than it’d been on the phone with her earlier, “I learned that no witches have been reported missing or dead in their jurisdiction, and there haven’t been any other supernatural crimes outside the norms of what they usually see. If our man is holing up out there, he’s keeping a low profile.”
