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Leaping down to the floor, I tested out my healed paw before hopping onto the couch. She cringed, but I didn’t very well plan to clean myself on the uncomfortable surface of the kitchen counter. I had hours of licking to do. Hours.“I was. He paid a visit to Bloodshed Brewing last night.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No.”
“He must work for Kylan, which is just my fucking luck.”
“Or he has a source inside the organization. That’s what he told Caspian. He didn’t see Kylan, and the bouncer didn’t recognize him. Some guy named Jude is the one he met with.”
Freya always jumped to the worst possible conclusion. While I didn’t trust Shan (why else would I follow him around town?), I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. She wouldn’t, unless I convinced her to. And I needed to, because these men were her best bet at staying alive through her next heat.
“Why would I think the best of him? The first time those men came into Club Chaos, they hid their professions. What else are they hiding?” She’d been pacing, but groaned and collapsed down onto the plush couch beside me.
“What areyouhiding?”I countered.
She glared at me, as if I didn’t have a point. People with secrets were the best option for her at this point. They couldn’t be mad when they found out what she was hiding, because they were hiding the purpose behind their mission to find the murderer, and gods knew how many other things. Being angry would be hypocritical. Then again, Freya getting pissed off about their secrets was also hypocritical.
“If I knew what was good for me, I’d kill them before they can kill me.”
“Or you ask them what they’re doing for the Next Life Company like a civil person. Not everything to do with you has to be bad.”
Turning to look at me, she rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Why would an angel want to find a murderer if not to put them in prison?”
“Remember that Shan and Cas did, in fact, kill people.”
“And I bet they had to run and cry to their Director about it, begging not to be fired or imprisoned. Or they didn’t report on it at all.”
She was impossible. Unreasonable. Flat out irritating. At this rate, she would kill herself purely out of stubbornness.“Why don’t you give me a list of your other options, huh?”I asked.“I’m not seeing many. Are you going to pull some Alpha off the street for your next heat so you don’t die of heart failure?”
Pushing herself up from the couch, she glared at me and paced again. Back and forth across the sparsely decorated living room. “I will not let my nest become my prison. Not like Maisie,” she said under her breath.
I didn’t think she was intending for me to hear. I answered anyway.“It already is. A different kind of prison, but a prison nonetheless.”
Her pacing picked up in speed until she growled and glared at me with fiery purple eyes. “Fine. Gods, I hate when you make good points. I’ll ask Caspian out on a date to test the waters. Plus, he’s more likely to give me information. Speaking with Shan about anything important is like talking to a brick fucking wall.”
More rage than I’d been hoping for, but a step in the right direction. She would have fun with Caspian, maybe even forget about her intention to assess him. I nodded in her direction and went back to cleaning my disgusting fur, not willing to risk pissing her off and changing her mind with my words.
Chapter 12
Caspian
Floatingbesidearockyoutcrop an hour north of the city was a waterlogged body, swollen and puffy. Cuts and scratches marred the pale skin, some pieces missing and exposing muscle and bone beneath. The largest missing piece being his entire head. With luck, the head had washed up down the shoreline. The forensic team was checking right now. Our coroner had informed us as soon as we walked up that with the extensive mutilation, sorting the antemortem from the postmortem damage would be difficult, if not impossible.
Even so, we had a gruesome picture.
“Are those… screws?” I asked, leaning forward.
The body was in the water, waiting for us before it was taken out or moved. This wasn’t the crime scene, but it was likely the closest to one we’d ever find.
“Yes,” the coroner said from behind us. “I believe a drill was used to embed them in his hands. It’s also my belief that the injury was caused before death.”
“Obviously,” Shan muttered under his breath, too quiet for the woman behind us to hear.
He was tense, his shoulders drawn up and his hands clenched into fists. Another body may be the break in the case we needed, but he wasn’t happy about it. I had a feeling he was worried we would catch the killer before we figured everything out with Freya. “Do you think he was wearing clothes when he was dumped?” I asked.
“Unlikely. He’s only been dead about… two weeks, maybe three. Not long enough for the clothes to decompose. The ocean is rough, but not rough enough to pull off clothing unless it was a simple, untied robe.”
He’d been killed approximately the same time as we’d started the case. Well, started the case for the second time. Emmett had lost his memories at Club Chaos about two months ago and we’d taken a step back to reassess. “Less evidence if they stripped him and dumped his clothes somewhere else,” came unexpectedly from behind me.
