Page 46 of Fake It ’Til You Mate It

Returning to the crime scene is a terrible idea, which is how I know it’s mine.

Even more amazing, Max agrees that we should go.

Okay. That’s making it our… discussion… sound a lot smoother than it really was. I suggested we go back to the bakery. Now. Not tomorrow, but since we were awake and I’m not going to be able to sleep again with the memory of those gold eyes watching me through the window, we go now.

Max said it was a good idea, but he was going to call Riordan and have him stay with me and Gus while he went with a few of his trusted wolves over to Dough You Believe in Magic.

I said that it’s my bakery,

He reminded me my grandmother actually owns the store.

I told him to bite me’.

He showed me his fangs and said, “With pleasure, Killer.”

There was plenty of snarling from the Alpha after that. I let my opossum side out and chittered in a perfect imitation of Gus that had Max looking at me in surprise. I glared at him. He called me cute.

I decided to shift gears. Softening my features, going as innocent as possible, I fiddled with one of my messy braids, peering up at him with a sheen over my purple eyes.

I said, “Please, Max,” and even though we both know very well that I just manipulated the hell out of him, he sighed and said, “Let’s go.”

We took the cruiser. Because it was close to one in the morning when I had my brilliant idea, he kept the lights and sirens off. There’s no parking in the back alley—there’s barely enough space for the garbage truck to pick up the dumpster—so he leaves his car in front of the bakery.

I hop out of the cruiser before he can come around and open my door for me. Max frowns—he did that the whole ride so I’m used to it—and follows me to the front door.

When he returned to the Alpha cabin for his car keys, I snagged my set so we could get into the bakery. We do, and I keep going until I’m unlocking the back door, leading Max out into the alley.

It still stinks of peppermint. While wolfsbane is essential in covering up a scent and dulling the connection between a shifter and their beast, whoever killed Declan wasn’t taking any chances. They wanted him to suffer, and for anyone who came to investigate his death to not be able to use their shifter senses to do so.

But I’m not trying to use my nose. Now that we have an idea of what we’re looking for, I want to see if the killer was as reckless by my bakery as he was on Max’s territory. Too many shifters rely on their nose.

What about our eyes?

Our night vision is excellent. I don’t even need to use a flashlight to see what I’m doing, though it’s nice to have an alpha wolf shifter with me. The lingering peppermint might have him blowing air through his nose before he jerks up his t-shirt to cover his nose, but it doesn’t do a damn thing for his impressive shifter strength.

I know instinctively where Declan died. Not because of any supernatural ability or anything. I’ve just relived the moment I noticed his legs sticking out, peeked around the side of the dumpster, and found his corpse so many times that it’s been etched into my brain.

“Here,” I say.

Max nods in agreement.

When I first proposed taking the ride from the heart of pack land over to downtown Moonburrow, Max asked me why. I laid out my theory: that the same person who smashed a vial while we were searching for them in the woods might’ve been the same person who was peeking at me. With the nightroot, wolfsbane, and silver concoction left behind, odds are they had a connection to Abigail’s tea and Declan’s poisoned cupcake.

It all began at Dough You Believe in Magic. I still don’t have any idea why anyone had to die, but one thing was for sure: Declan was found here. Whether he was killed here or moved was yet to be determined. I don’t know if we’ll ever know until we find the murderer. Still, I’ve been avoiding coming out here if I didn’t have to—letting the trash pile up so that I was taking multiple bags out to the dumpster instead of going out whenever I needed to—because I can’t forget Declan’s dead silver eyes and his blue lips.

No more avoiding. The body is gone; the pack burial over with. All that’s left is the scent of spoiled Christmas in the air—and the four-inch gap beneath the dumpster from where it’s lifted up on caster wheels.

We didn’t come all this way to stare at the alley, then stare at each other. If the killer dropped one vial, what if he dropped another? What if it didn’t smash?

Hey. I’m an amateur sleuth. He’s the bigshot detective. Fingerprints can come in handy when it comes to solving murders.

Now, do I really think I’m going to have Max heft up the dumpster, peek under it into the shadows, and find a vial of poison like a smoking gun?

This is real life. It’s not like one of those cozy mysteries with the strapping dark-haired cop hero and the cat sidekick. For one, Max is a sheriff whose hair has a tinge of red to it. On the other, my sidekick is a kickass opossum, thank you very much. And while I don’t have a hope for a HEA until I find the words to tell Max that he’s my mate, I’ll be happy if we can solve the crime. Too bad real life doesn’t work that way.

Only sometimes it does.

“Max!” Excitement colors my tone. “Holy shit… Max! I see something. It’s glittering.”