AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hmm.” Keystrokes resumed, and a snapshot of computer gibberish appeared onscreen. “Also odd, this trace on the IP address you gave me for the warlock. It’s bouncing all over the place. There’s something else going on there, but I’m not sure what yet. I’m digging into it.”
“Not a surprise. Atlas is all smoke and mirrors.” He threw off the comforter and sat up, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Speaking of smoke, anything on the Talahalusi fire?” Another bunch of documents came through. Police and hospital records. “Summary, please,” he said. “Recall, I lack blood and a shower. Not awake enough yet.”
She laughed. “When you get right, start with the Tal Gen Hospital records. There was a John Doe admitted to the ER there on the day of the fire. I think it’s your guy. Third degree burns all over his body per the admitting report, but then he was discharged the next day, no treatment indicated.”
“No burns on him that I could see.” He stood, tiptoed around the sun dappling the floor, and grabbed his robe off the back of the bedroom door. “And the police reports?”
“As thin as the news article on details. The officer from the scene died. The case was assigned to Officer Cormac Kelley, who closed it after a respectable time of doing absolutely nothing.”
“Is Officer Kelley still alive?”
“Detective Kelley now, and yes, he works the cold cases for the Talahalusi Sheriff’s Office.”
Had he been shuttled there because he was good at his job or bad at it? “Anything else on him?” Icarus asked as he snagged the phone off the pillow and went in search of food.
“He’s local. Good cop by all accounts. No complaint charges filed against him. Asked for the cold case gig. Kind of a loner. Unmarried, no kids, lives on an outparcel of the family vineyard outside of Talahalusi proper.”
“Which vineyard?”
“Monte Corvo.”
Icarus almost dropped the vial in his hand. “No fucking way.”
“That mean something to you?”
Crow Mountain?That couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Maybe. You got a picture?”
He gulped down the meal and waited for the picture to load. Once opened, he spread his fingers across the screen, examining the man in uniform. Light tan skin, black eyes, black hair. Maybe it was the raven shifter from the other night. It had been dark, and Icarus had only seen him from behind, had only gotten a glimpse of a dark eye turning violet before he’d shifted. The man in the picture could be him or just as easily someone else with tan skin, black eyes, and black hair. But still... Crow Mountain, plus the case, plus a cop... Adam’s partner, maybe?
“His what?”
Shit, he hadn’t meant to muse that last part out loud.
“Former partner.” He tossed the vial in the bin and left his phone on the far end of the counter, farther out of earshot as he prepared for the worst. “Adam used to be a cop,” he confessed with a preemptory wince.
“Icarus!”
He winced more as the banshee was unleashed on the other end of the line. He pretended not to notice. “What was that?”
She saw right through the facade. “Don’t play dumb with me. That was important info.”
“Which would make you panic, hence—”
“Hence you should have fucking told me.” She muttered a few curses, then the keystrokes started again, fast and furious. “What else didn’t you tell me?”
Feeling like his eardrums were relatively safe from further damage, he retrieved his phone and ambled to the couch. “He drives a vintage Camaro and orders whiskey like it’s tap water.”
The typing stopped again, followed by a muttered, “Holy shit.”
“Babe—”
“Don’t fucking ‘babe’ me.” She growled at him some more, and Icarus imagined she’d run her hands through her hair a dozen times by now, flattening the lovely curls. “I love you, you know that, but you are way out of your fucking league here.”
“I’m starting to get that.” He stretched out and clutched a pillow to his chest, ignoring the Adam-shaped hole that lingered there, that piqued his curiosity and hadn’t dampened his desire for the man one bit, despite all the red flags.
Same as before, she saw right through his silence—saw right through him, period—and offered a tempting, impossible alternative. “Come home.”
