I watch my dog, my son,my flesh and blood, trot behind Sam like he’s made out of his favorite treats. “Tell me Sam has treats in his pockets?” I rest my head on Elliot’s shoulder, burying my face in his neck.
He ruffles my hair. “Don’t worry. He still loves you.” Sam comes back with his laptop, Mickey happily following him. “I think?”
I bury deeper into him.
Sam flops down in the chair. “Ugh, no PDA in the common area, remember? Don’t be rude.”
I groan but let Elliot go. His hand slides off my head, and I reach up to hold it.
Sam looks at our joined hands. “I’ll allow that. So, Elliot said there was another murder?”
My mood plummets again. I sigh. “Yes. Last Saturday. The day of your fair, in fact.”
Sam nods. Elliot squeezes my hand. “No evidence again?”
I shake my head. “Everything was the same except this killer is using a higher dose of the drugs to finish them offquicker.”
“We tried that. The smell was too obvious.” Sam clicks on his laptop. “See, any variation in the combination clued in the werewolves right away.” He turns his laptop so I can see a graph plotting the ratios of Valmeron and Myocardiner against their Odor Units.
Impressive.
“The Bureau was going to arrest both the victims too. Our theory was that the killer wants to get our attention this time. This is not someone killing for noble reasons.”
“Or maybe they don’t like the Bureau’s style of justice,” Sam offers.
“We have a fair system which sees them serving for their crimes. I don’t know why anyone would have a problem with that.”
Sam tilts his head. “That’s still a lot of resources and time wasted on someone who we already know is guilty. And is not against committing crimes again.”
“Do we? Most of our evidence is circumstantial. If we don’t give them any chance to defend themselves, we’re no different than another cold-blooded killer.” I realize my mistake the second the words leave my mouth.
I feel Elliot’s hand go slack. He tilts his head. “You mean like me?”
“Get off your fucking high horse.” Sam snaps. “Your organization thinks too highly of itself for someone who makes arbitrary rules for a population that didn’t choose them.”
I glare at him. “And what will you have us do then? Let the human authorities deal with werewolves? Or you know what, we could just go on a killing rampage.”Fuck, why am I letting this man goad me?
Elliot’s jaw drops, and he snatches his hand away. “We’ve protected more people than your entire organization while we were active.”
I blow out a breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry. We slacked off, and people paid the price. But you have to admit, rulesare the only thing keeping people from murdering others at the slightest annoyance.”
Elliot looks at me, his eyes blank. I hate it when he becomes like this, completely unreachable.
“Why are we even discussing this? You’re not killing anymore. You know I don’t blame you for what you did,” I try.
“Right,” Elliot says after a while. I stare at him, trying to understand what’s going on in his head. He’s sitting straight. The distance between us suddenly seems wider than the barely there space on the couch.
“Okay, so let’s talk about these cases. What else do we have?” Sam interrupts our intense eye contact.
Elliot and I are clearly overdue for a talk. I’ve delayed bringing up his past for as long as I could, afraid he’ll shut me out again. I clearly wasn’t wrong.
I focus on Sam instead. “We think the killer could be someone from the Bureau or someone is leaking confidential information to the killer.”
“Who found the body?” Elliot asks.
“Bureau agents who were going to arrest the victim, same as the last time.”
Sam types something on his laptop. “The morning after he died? Is it the norm for agents to make arrests early in the morning?”
