AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Derrel was waiting for me as I got out of the van. “Murder?” I asked him as I walked to the back and pulled the doors open.
“Yeah,” he said, his tone oddly subdued.
I paused with my hand on the stretcher. Derrel didn’t get upset easily. Or rather, he didn’t show it very often. “Is it a kid?” I asked. “Please tell me it’s not a kid.”
“No.” Pain filled his eyes. “No, it’s Marianne.”
It took me a few seconds for my brain to click into gear and figure out who the heck Marianne was, but when the sound of the barking dog finally penetrated…
“Oh, god,” I breathed, all thoughts of the stupid newspaper article flying out of my head. Marianne, who ran the cadaver search dog whenever we needed help finding a body. Marianne, girlfriend of Ed Quinn. He’d used that dog’s ability to help him locate the zombies that he would later hunt down and kill. That’s why the address had seemed familiar. I knew this neighborhood because one of Ed’s victims had been found only a couple of streets away.
“How?” I breathed. “Do they think it was Ed?”
Grief had carved furrows into Derrel’s face, and I realized that he’d quite possibly been working with Marianne for as long as he’d been an investigator. “He’s the primary suspect,” he said, voice gravelly. “Though there aren’t any witnesses at this time.” He exhaled. “Anyway, I just wanted to prepare you. I know that you and Marcus and Ed had all been friends for a while before…”
I nodded, not feeling a need to finish his sentence, before Ed inexplicably disappeared during a hunting trip with his best friend, Marcus. It hadn’t been at all inexplicable to me, mostly because I’d been the one who’d told him that if he didn’t run I would kill him and eat him. Not necessarily in that order. To my credit, this had been after he’d shot me and Marcus with the intent of then chopping our heads off. I wasn’t that much of a meanie pants.>“Then what are you mad about? Because, you sure seem mad.”
I shook my head. “I’m not mad. I promise. But I want to be sure of one thing.”
“And that is?”
I met his eyes. “That you never pull that sort of ‘I know what’s best for you’ bullshit on me ever again.”
“All right,” he said.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think you get it. You do it a lot. I mean a lot.” His forehead puckered and I plowed on. “You didn’t tell me that your parents might be there because you didn’t want me to get upset. You didn’t tell Pietro about the body because you knew he’d dismiss it, but then you didn’t bother telling me that you hadn’t told him, which basically left me out in the wind.” His face was stony, and I clenched my hands together to keep them from shaking. “Marcus, I really like you, but I don’t need a babysitter. Or even if I do need one, I sure as hell don’t want my boyfriend to be one. Does that make sense?”
“It does. It won’t happen again,” he said, but there was a weird note to his voice.
“Okay, so…tell me what you’re thinking.”
He shut the engine off but didn’t make a move to get out of the car. “I…I’ve been trying to figure out a way to tell you this all night. Just haven’t been able to figure out how.”
The knot in my belly started to come back. “Tell me what?”
He lifted a hand and scrubbed it over his face. “Shit. I got called in to Major Hall’s office this afternoon. He asked me if you and I were dating.”
“Okay,” I said, frowning. “Why on earth would he care if you and I were dating?”
“Apparently it matters if we’re dating because…well, because you’re a convicted felon, and I’m an officer of the law.”
I could only stare at him for several seconds. “Wait,” I finally managed. “You mean, I’m not allowed to date you?”
He wouldn’t look at me. “Well…as long as you’re on probation, yes. It’s in our policy manual. I knew about the regulation, but it never occurred to me that it would apply…”
“So we have to break up,” I said, though my voice sounded strained in my ears. The knot in my belly was thick and hard, but at the same time I had a kernel of relief in there which made me feel instantly guilty. Did I want to break up with Marcus? I didn’t think that was true, but at the same time I’d been feeling like things were going awfully fast. But it pissed me right the hell off that it wasn’t my choice to make.
Marcus shook his head and finally met my eyes. “No, see, the Major didn’t say flat out that we had to break up. He just said ‘if the higher-ups find out.’” He gave my hand a comforting squeeze, while I did my best to keep my expression even. “Anyway, I’ve figured it all out.”
“You’ve figured it out?” I echoed. Had he listened to anything I’d said earlier?
“We simply need to tone it down in public. Be ‘just friends.’” He flashed me a warm smile that left me cold. “I figure we cool it off for a little while, and then when I stop being on their radar, we can pick it up again and…be discreet.” He leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine.”
I stared at him for several seconds. “Do I get a say in this?”
A puzzled look swept over his face. “Of course. But I figured you’d be less than okay with being told we had to break up.”
“You’re right, I am less than okay with it. But didn’t you hear anything I was saying before about not babying me?”
