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Keaton reared back. “What?”
“Bailey has been targeted twice recently,” Deke explained, his tone cutting as a blade. “There was an acid attack not long ago. And then today she ended up crashing her car after someone shot her tire.”
Jarrett gave a wild shake of the head. “We had nothing to do with that.”
Havana flicked up an unconvinced brow. “Really?”
“It wasn’t us, I swear,” Keaton asserted.
“You can speak for your brother?” Deke asked him. “You know for a fact that he didn’t act independently?”
“He wouldn’t do something like that,” Keaton insisted.
Deke looked at the other loner. “Is he right to have such faith in you?”
“It wasn’t me,” Jarrett swore, a tremor in his voice. “Even if we had solid proof that it was Bailey who hurt Jackson, no way could I toss acid at her. That kind of shit is fucked up. And I wouldn’t go shooting at her car either. I fight with tooth and claw, like any self-respecting shifter. My brother’s the same. No way could he have done it.”
“It wasn’t us,” Keaton vowed.
“And you didn’t hire anyone to act on your behalf?” asked Camden.
Both brothers shook their heads hard.
Tate straightened in his seat. “We’re going to check your cell phones. Particularly your texts and emails. Tell us in advance if there’s anything we’ll find that could … upset us.”
Keaton rubbed at his nape, averting his gaze. “We might have typed some, uh, unflattering things about Bailey a couple of months back when we heard all she’d done to Jackson. But you’ll see we changed our mind about her when you read the whole conversation.”
He and Jarrett handed over their phones without argument, though neither looked pleased to do so. Bailey skimmed through one cell while Havana went through the other. Both made the same claims—there were no recent messages from Ginny, no Bailey’s at fault conversations, and nothing whatsoever suspicious.
“Seems that you’re as innocent as you claim to be.” Tate returned their cell phones to them. “You’re free to go.”
Keaton and Jarrett exchanged a surprised look.
“If you’d like a ride, my pride mates will take you home.”
The brothers politely declined the offer as they stood. They moved slowly at first, as if expecting someone to pounce any moment. When no one did, they rushed outside.
Closing the door behind them, Deke rolled back his shoulders. “Unless they months ago decided to fake an entire text-conversation to mislead us into believing they don’t think Bailey’s guilty, they’re telling the truth.”
“Ginny didn’t feel the same way about Bailey, so I would have been very interested in talking to her,” said Camden, sliding an arm around his mate’s waist.
“Seems more than suspicious that she’s out of reach,” said Deke, as frustrated as his cat that they were unable to question her.
Tate nodded. “I think it’s safe to say at this point that she’s high on our suspect list.”
They discussed the matter for a few more minutes and then decided to head home. Once they reached their complex, Deke herded an uncharacteristically quiet Bailey to her apartment and followed her inside. “Shower,” he declared.
She blinked. “You’re coming with me?”
“The scent of your blood is making me crazy. I want it gone.”
“I can wash it off myself.”
“I want to do it.”
She shot him a quick look. “Careful. I’ll start to think you like me or something.”
His lips slightly kicked up. “That would be foolish.”
Pleased that she’d cracked his black mood—which was ironic, really, considering she usually liked putting him in such a mood—Bailey snorted in amusement. Her own was no less foul. Similarly, her mamba was just as incensed. The anger that had earlier invaded and stiffened every muscle in their body was no longer so wild, but it hadn’t left them either.
But when Bailey and Deke stood under the hot spray of her shower as he shampooed her hair so gently, careful not to tug on the bloody strands, she felt her tension begin to leach from her system. At the same time, though, she felt a little awkward. Which he must have noticed, because at one point he arched a questioning brow at her.
She shrugged. “I don’t know what to do when you’re so nice to me. It feels like there’s something wrong with the world.”
Again, his mouth quirked a little. “Maybe I just like to keep you on your toes.” The humor drained from his face as he looked down at the bloody water on the base of the shower.
“I wasn’t too badly hurt,” she reminded him.
“You could have been,” he clipped, not in the slightest bit placated. “And if Helena hadn’t healed you, you’d be in a shit load of pain right now.”
“Shame I’m not. You’d have made a hot nurse.”
“Who says I’d have tended your wounds for you?”
She pouted and put a hand over her heart. “You’d have let others get too close to me while I was vulnerable?”
