AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hung behind Iris as we left the car, allowing her to direct me on which boxes to grab from the trunk and where to go. I was still worried since she’d had a nosebleed earlier, even if she insisted it was nothing. It made me uncomfortable that I even wanted to ask, that my wolf was so damninterestedeven though we hardly knew this woman. I wanted to know, but it wasn’t any of my damn business.
At least the boxes gave me something else to think about.
She led me over to a broken window, and I raised a brow at her. “Seriously?”
Iris gave me a raised brow over her shoulder that put mine to shame. She looked imperious at that moment, like she was the alpha, not me. “Seriously,” she replied, nodding at the door. “It was already falling out. I just gave it a nudge.”
Without another word, she pushed her boxes through the window before she climbed up and popped herself inside. A moment later, her head reappeared. She offered me a cheeky grin. “You need help, alpha boy?”
I grunted and stepped up to hand her my boxes. “Thank you for your concern,” I replied dryly, grabbing the window frame to haul myself up and inside. I wasn’t as graceful as Iris, but I made it with only a little scrabbling. If she smirked, I ignored it, picking my boxes up to start exploring the building.
It had been abandoned for some time; dust settled over everything. There were cobwebs and some mouse droppings; the entire bottom floor smelledstale.
“How many businesses are in this building?” I asked Iris quietly, not wanting to disturb the place. She had said there was no actual murder in this so-called ‘Murder Building,’ but the entire place still feltoffto me. Even my wolf had stopped acting so distracted by Iris’ presence, he was now on high alert – but for what, neither of us knew.
Iris sighed. “I didn’t count the last time. I was trying to be as efficient as I could.”
I nodded. It made sense. She was just one person, after all. “Well, let’s collect as much as we can from each, yes?” I suggested, stepping towards the first door. It wasn’t even closed.
She hesitated before following after me. “Are you sure? Some of these are basically empty, but others look like they left behind entire filing cabinets.”
That made me frown as I walked into the first abandoned office. It seemed somewhere in the middle, with scattered papers and a few open files. The rest was junk – a turned-over desk and scattered pens. There was evidence that rodents had been here before, but they’d moved on. Stooping down next to the papers, I began to shove them all into a box. “The only alternative would be reading through everything. I can’t imagine how long that would take, and we still might miss things if we’re hurrying.”
Iris looked thoughtful for a few moments before she nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Good point. I’d rather not get caught here because I’m trying to weed through things. Divide and conquer?”
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Cool.” She nodded to herself. “I’ll go to the next room and send your boys down the hall. That’s the one that looked like entire filing cabinets were abandoned.”
I snorted, trying not to smirk.I knew she just wanted to boss them around.
I hadno idea how long it took us to gather the papers, but I stopped looking at my phone. We picked up some pizza on the way back to Iris’ motel room at a Gas n’ Grub; Clay and Jaxon helped us bring the boxes inside and I offered them one of the pizzas before they departed to their truck.
Iliked them and certainly didn’t mind their company, but it wasn’t my motel room to invite them to. Iris seemed perfectly content amongst what felt like a mountain of boxes, carving out a space at the table to put the pizza box and dig in. It wasn’t anything special – it was late enough that most pizza places weren’t open, even the chains – but pepperoni seemed to hit the spot.
Iris groaned happily as she wound up a piece of stringy cheese on her finger and popped it into her mouth, and I couldn’t resist the smell any longer. I sat in the rickety chair across from her, content in the silence as we ate.
She didn’t seem content for long, however. Once she’d devoured her first slice, Iris used her foot to drag the closest box over and pulled out a file, opening it in her lap to leaf through while she worked on the second slice. Her dark hair was pulled in a messy bun, a few strands hanging loose as she read.
In the dim light, she looked radiant. Most people would be exhausted by this point, rundown and dirty after rooting around through the abandoned office, but Iris? She looked like a vision, like she’d been woken up and caught a second wind.How different our lives are.
I tipped my head to one side as I finished my first slice, using a napkin to wipe some of the grease from my hands. I must have been quiet for too long because Iris finally looked up as she finished off her second piece of pizza. “What?” she asked, brows furrowing together.
I shook my head, reaching back into the pizza box. “How long have you been a private detective?” I asked.
“Oh.” She shrugged. “Four or five years, give or take.”
“Give or take?”
Iris gave me a wry look. “It’s not something you go to college for and get a degree. Do you call yourself a private detective when you start solving mysteries, when you get your first client, or when you have to file for your LLC?”
I paused long enough that she chuckled. “I see your point,” I conceded, careful not to talk with my mouth full. “Why did you decide to become a private detective? It seems like it would have been easier to go through the police academy.” Admittedly, I had no idea how much that cost or the qualifications to get into such a thing, but at least they’d likely help you get a job after. More benefits. Steady pay.
Iris made a face. “Because I never wanted to be a cop,” she rumbled, a hint of animosity in her voice. “Maybe if the cops gave a shit about anyone other than rich girls with rich parents, I’d have felt different, but they didn’t, so.” She shrugged, clearly not wanting to elaborate any further.
I sidestepped that topic carefully. “So you decided to strike out on your own?”
“More or less. I went to a trade school when I was in high school so I could take some forensic classes. I also paid for some online courses to boost my credentials.” Iris looked back at her file, clearly sorting the papers into three different piles as she went. “But I figured I wasn’t the only person in the world who the official police force had let down – and more than that, I knew I wasn’t the only wolf. Most shifters don’t like dealing with human authority if they can avoid it.”
