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Anger surges through me, bringing my wolf so close to the surface that I bet my eyes gleam golden. “That guy was about to kill a kid. I took him out so he wouldn’t shoot the boy.”
“A boy who was a shifter. You killed a human. The interspecies authorities aren’t happy.”
I want to tear apart the desk, to chuck it at the stupid council who dares question an emergency situation from the safety of their secure chambers. “I’ll bet the boy and his family weren’t happy about him being kidnapped and kept as some sicko’s pet either.”
She jabs a finger at me. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. Just that you need out of the spotlight. Since you won’t take a two-week vacation and no one else can work this case, go to Syn City and find the damn killer that’s been terrorizing our kind for years. Solve it, and all this will go away. You’ll be promoted and then you can deal with the politics.”
“Politics are their own nightmare.”
“Can be.” Captain Zaleski, the woman who can outtalk anyone in our station, goes silent—so quiet that the ringing of phones, squeak of shoes, and slamming of doors boom loud in my shifter hearing. “Look, go to Syn City. The affiliate agency pass will get you access to whatever resources they can provide. Solve the case, come back, and enjoy your promotion. Just don’t shoot anyone while you’re there and, for the love of gods, don’t screw any of their deity daughter darlings. Or the interspecies council and this use of force investigation will be the least of your problems. Got it?”
I nod because there’s no other acceptable answer, and she leaves, closing the door behind her.
Syn City. I’m so screwed.
Following her to the door, I twist the lock as soon as she’s gone—the lock that I never used until now to keep the rest of the station out.
I can’t have anyone else seeing this.
Papers rattle and wheels scrape as I turn the murder board to reveal evidence collected from the Tucker home—a big farmhouse just outside of town, the white clapboards framing the blue door and welcoming porch. I climbed those front steps often enough to know exactly which creaked.
The memory of stepping around the squeaks when I was the first to find the murder scene? It makes me nauseous. A young marshal, I’d rushed inside with my gun drawn in hopes of finding Lowell’s killer. Or anyone alive.
Hope. It’s such a silly, fragile thing.
On the murder board, a sketch of the house’s floorplan covers half the space with drawings of where each victim went down. I trace my fingers over the green lines and circles meant to depict a garden. I can almost push past the station’s stink of ink, stale coffee, and shifter sweat to imagine the clean scents of herbs, flowers, and freshly tilled soil.
The garden had been Sadie’s favorite place. A green witch, she’d constantly had dirt under her nails and grass stains on her clothes.
I found Lowell’s body first, next to trampled rows of her beloved mint, rosemary, and lemon balm. My brother had been naked with scraps of his clothes scattered through the wreckage of vegetables and ripped-up herbs. Which meant he died as a shifter and transformed after death. Running my fingers along the sketch, I force myself to remember each awful detail with as much objectivity as possible.
With the brutality of the attack, I almost didn’t recognize Hazel, his fiancé. She went down halfway between my brother and the porch while running for the safety of the house. I figure Lowell had been protecting her as he always did.
When I’d climbed the steps, avoiding the creaky boards, I’d prayed to whatever gods might listen that Hazel’s parents and her two sisters had survived. I found everyone but Sadie dead in the kitchen. Two larger X’s and a small one in red marker on the sketch seem so inadequate to memorialize a family that’d been vibrant and cheerful. The Tuckers were humans who practiced healing arts and kitchen witchcraft that’d gained them the respect of humans, shifters, and magic slingers alike. When the magic-blooded retreated to their sanctuaries during the Witching Wars, people like the Tuckers were the only ones left who could heal hurts that needed spellwork and white magic rituals.
When I’d followed a blood trail to the attic, I had fully anticipated that I would find Sadie’s body next to the altar where the family kept their grimoire. Hell, I have no idea how she made it up the stairs with the amount of blood she’d lost other than sheer stubbornness. But she’d been gone.
The tides of grief drowned out the jealousy, regret, bitterness, and shame that had darkened every time I’d ignored her instead of risking real feelings for her. Resentment came so much easier than exploring why the Fates matched me with the awkward but beautiful girl who was too shy and innocent to have a liar like me as a destined mate. I’d done everything I could to drive her away rather than chance dragging her into my mess.
Switching from the floorplan sketch to the photo of Sadie posted on the board, I study her gorgeous perfection that had been completely out of reach when I lived one exposed secret away from losing everything. My hungry gaze devours the curve of her jawline that I longed to stroke, the dip above full lips made for kissing, her wide-set green eyes that seemed to see through me to the not-a-wolf beast no one can ever know about, and the straight blonde hair that my fingers itched to find out whether it was as silky as it looked. The love I could never deserve but who I mourned as the impossible who I could at least watch over and protect from a distance.
I failed her in even that.
Before her murder. Before she made a deal with whatever immortal Fury brought her back to life. Before she went from Nashville’s most sympathetic murder victim to her family’s suspected killer, depending on what source the reporters cited.
Now, Sadie’s a roller derby megastar in Syn City who inspires kid’s costumes and is the face of a cosmetics brand. While Sadie’s new hometown celebrates the kind of superficial star power she has, popularity won’t help me track a serial killer.
I shove the board back into its hiding space, only pausing long enough to rip off the evidentiary envelope full of crime scene photos. Our unfulfilled mating bond couldn’t have survived Sadie’s death, and my past’s too complicated to let it muck up the present murder investigations.
Except, if I’m right and whoever tore apart Lowell has killed again and again, then Sadie’s the only witness who lived—sort of. Which makes her the key to solving my case, getting her out of my head permanently, and letting everyone know that my brother was innocent.
She’s timid enough that getting her help won’t be a problem, and if she decides to make this even more difficult than the memories I’ll already be dealing with, I have the ultimate bribe to force cooperation. Even if it means letting go of the last link I have to the woman who haunts my dreams.
2
SADIE
When I roller skate at my meanest, everything else disappears—my grief, my inadequacy, my inability to do the one thing I was created to do.
