Lunacy (Blood Trails Book 13), page 2
“She blames herself for Dustin,” I said quietly.
“She thinks it was her fault he was rejected as a counselor, and it was that rejection that drove him to attack Howard. Deep down she knows that he’d have been a horrible fit for a position at New Moon—he can’t counsel others if he’s so unwilling to look inward at his own problems. But it’s going to take her some time to be okay with that. And now he’s been murdered—on pack territory, and by all accounts less than an hour after asking to meet with her.”
“Just to be clear…” I put a hand on the file. “You don’t think Emma did this.”
Liam shook his head. “Emma has been working really hard to earn back my trust and to move up in the pack. She still struggles with the idea of a pack hierarchy, but I don’t think it’s malicious.”
“And Stephen?” I asked. “How about him?”
“I don’t know,” Liam said honestly. “He seems to be making a legitimate effort. After his attempt to leave following the debacle with Kristine, he seemed to have some sort of epiphany. He asked to be broken down to the bottom of the hierarchy—treated as if he’d just joined the pack. He said he wanted to experience what it was like for a new wolf—to remember what it was like to start from the bottom.”
“You think he’s trying to put himself in Emma’s shoes?” I asked.
Liam considered the question, staring down at his coffee mug as if the answer would materialize on the surface of the dark brown liquid. “I think he might have finally heard me about what it takes to be an alpha. I think he’s asking himself what a pack needs, and he’s figuring it out by putting himself in every position there is.”
“That sounds like a really good thing,” I said. “But you don’t sound happy.”
Liam rubbed a hand over his face. “I want to believe it’s sincere, but Stephen has cried wolf one too many times, if you’ll forgive the expression. I just… I can’t trust him yet.”
I pulled the file closer, flipping through a few of the pages. There were photographs of Dustin lying on the ground. He’d been shot in human form, so he was still fully clothed. He’d been a medium-sized man, with enough bulk to suggest he might have been a fervent gym-goer at one time. A layer of fat covered his muscles now, and I wondered if that was a decrease in physical activity, or depression. Possibly both.
I glanced up at Liam. “Can I ask you a question?”
Liam sighed. “You want to know why I’m bringing you in on the case.”
“I’m happy to help,” I assured him. “Goddess knows you’ve helped me enough times. But this is a murder right in New Moon’s backyard. This investigation is going to involve not just your pack, but your clients. I can’t help but think that having me involved might—”
“Ruffle someone’s fur?” Peasblossom suggested around a mouthful of honey.
I shot her a look, but let the question stand.
“I need your help for two reasons,” Liam said. “First, this case is going to involve not just my pack, but also a few lone wolves. Lone wolves are notoriously loath to speak to pack wolves, let alone provide information about one of their own. The fact that Dustin was a lone wolf and killed so close to pack territory is going to make everything…tricky. They’re more likely to talk to you.” He glanced down, toward where Scath lay under the table. “Or Scath.”
“And second?” I asked.
This time, Liam took a long minute to answer.
When he did, each word sounded as if it had taken a supreme effort to pull it from his mouth. “Apparently, part of Stephen’s quest to understand what it takes to be an alpha led him to ask my sister about our father. Specifically, our father’s relationship to me, and how he handled it when I left his pack to start my own.”
I shot Peasblossom a warning look not to interrupt. Liam rarely talked about his father, and it didn’t take a witch to know there was a lot of pain there. If Liam was in the mood to share, I didn’t want any interruptions.
“His questions prompted Brenna—in all her counselor-fueled goodwill—to attempt to…repair our connections with our father. She started calling him, trying to build bridges.” He leaned back in his seat, dragging his coffee mug across the table. “He’s coming to visit today.”
It sounded to me like a visit from his dad would be a tick in the “don’t involve Shade” column, but I held my tongue.
“My dad wasn’t happy when the Vanguard awarded the New Moon contract to me,” Liam said. “He… Well, let’s just say he and I differ a great deal on what constitutes a strong pack. In his eyes, giving me the New Moon contract has essentially created a warehouse where I produce weak wolves and send them out into the world where ‘strong’ packs like my father’s have to ‘re-educate’ them.”
“I don’t like anything about that last sentence,” I said before I could stop myself.
“You shouldn’t.” Liam leaned forward again. “Look, I’m sure my father is going to do everything he possibly can to cause trouble for me. And this case,” he gestured at the file, “is too important to risk letting something slip by me because I’m busy putting out my father’s fires. You worked the last case with Emma, you know her and Stephen’s history. The lone wolves will talk to you. And more than that…I trust you.”
I couldn’t help the smile that spread over my face. Liam and I hadn’t met under the most ideal circumstances, and our professional relationship got off to a rocky start. Rocky enough that the mutual attraction and romantic feelings that had grown between us had caught me off guard. As pleased as I was with how things were going, him asking for my help with this case felt like a huge step forward. He trusted me. Not just with his feelings. With his pack. His family. I reached out a hand to him, and he laid his larger hand over mine and squeezed.
“If this is such a bad time for your father to visit, then why not reschedule?” I asked.
“My father is a control freak. When he announced he was coming to visit, he did so after telling me that a member of his pack needed to check in to New Moon. Her name is Danielle, and apparently she’s developed an addiction to pain medication—an addiction serious enough that she’s almost killed herself twice with too much wolfsbane. I can’t turn her away, or I’d risk losing the Vanguard’s contract.”
“So he’s using her as an excuse to get in the door.” I frowned. “The way you talk about your father… He doesn’t sound like the sort to build bridges. If he’s that bad, then I’m not sure why Brenna would risk bringing him here?”
Liam shifted in his seat. “My father was softer toward Brenna than anyone else. Partly because she’s a woman, which makes her automatically less of a threat in his eyes. And Bren was always a good, obedient daughter, which pleased him. He looks at us as extensions of himself, and when Brenna showed an interest in counseling—caretaking, if you will—my father considered it a perfectly acceptable route for his daughter. Between you and me, I think he viewed psychology as another means to control people, but that’s not how Brenna interpreted his support. I know for a fact the reason he let her leave with me without making a fuss was because he saw her as loyal to him. A sort of wolf in the hen house, so to speak.” He lifted his coffee mug. “I’ll admit, I did my best to protect her from the worst of him. Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe I should have let her see who he really was.”
“It can be hard for children to see their parents’ shortcomings,” I said gently.
“Well, she’s older now,” Liam said, straightening his spine. “I’m not going to protect her from the truth of him anymore. It won’t take long for her to see his true colors. Even without her training. It’s just unfortunate that the path to that enlightenment gave Dad the opening he needed to shove his nose into my business.”
I kept my thoughts from my face. I hoped Liam was right. I hoped Brenna would see their father for who he really was. But part of me knew better. Denial could be a much more powerful force than most people realized. And there were few truths harder to face than admitting someone you love is a monster.
“Does your father know about the murder?” I asked, steering the conversation in a new direction.
“As an alpha, he has access to police reports involving shifters. If he doesn’t already know, he will soon.” He leaned forward. “Shade, I need this murder solved quickly. My father isn’t someone who misses an opportunity. Emma killed once before, and she got away with it on a technicality. If he can pin this on Emma, prove she killed again, this time while under my watch, he could file an official complaint with the Vanguard to have my contract revoked.”
“And that would be the end of New Moon,” I said quietly.
Liam gritted his teeth. “That’s the best case scenario if I lose the contract. The worst case is my father manages to make an argument for taking over New Moon himself. He could turn my rehab center into a factory for turning out more wolves just like him.”
Peasblossom’s wings twitched. “You make that sound like a very bad thing.”
“Wait till you meet him,” Liam said, his voice going cold. “Then you tell me.”
Chapter 2
“This file is worthless,” Peasblossom complained.
I flicked on my turn signal as I stopped at yet another red light. “It’s still early, Peasblossom, we’ll get more information later.”
My familiar flung out an arm at the open file on the passenger seat. “According to this, the shooter could have been as close as twenty feet, or as far as one hundred and fifty yards. How is that helpful?”
“They weren’t a hundred and fifty yards. It’s a forest, there’s no way they could have gotten a clear line of sight from that far away. Even if we assume the shooter wasn’t human and had perfect night-vision.”
“Emma and Stephen’s DNA was all over the scene,” Peasblossom continued, her tone accusing as if I’d personally contaminated the area.
“They both admitted they were there.”
“How convenient.”
The light turned green and I eased into the intersection with the caution of someone who’d nearly been T-boned by someone racing a yellow light one too many times. “You think Emma did it?”
“I’m not saying she did it,” Peasblossom said, throwing herself down on the first page of the autopsy report. “I’m just saying, it all seems a little too coincidental. Emma blows the whistle on Dustin’s past mistakes, costing him his job. He takes it out on someone weaker, Emma feels responsible. Then Dustin just happens to decide it’s a good idea to lure Emma outside so he can—”
“You think it’s a coincidence that this is the second time in the span of a year that a violent man Emma feels responsible for has found themselves dead in a forest where Emma maintains a presence?”
Peasblossom crossed her arms. “Don’t you?”
“I would like to talk to her right now,” I admitted. “But Liam said Ruth asked to talk to her first. And Ruth has a relationship with her, she might be in a better position to get her to open up.”
“And you don’t want to step on her toes.” Peasblossom slanted a glance at me out of the corner of her eye. “Don’t want to anger the other woman in Liam’s life.”
“Don’t make it sound like he’s dating both of us,” I muttered. “He and Ruth went out a few times, nothing came of it.”
“She’d clearly like another shot,” Peasblossom observed. “It’s okay if you don’t like her.”
“I respect Ruth,” I said firmly. “I respect her as a professional, and as someone who acts with the best interest of her pack at heart. It would be better for everyone if she and I got along, and if putting off my interview with Emma is a step in that direction, then I have plenty of things to do in the interim. Besides, I’d like to have some background information before I talk to her. It would be fantastic if I could go into that interview with a valid alternative suspect.”
“I think we should talk to Howard first,” Peasblossom announced. “He’s the one with motive. Plus, it makes sense that the human would be the one shooting a silver bullet at the werewolf.”
“Or the weaker werewolf,” I pointed out. “You can tell from the picture that Dustin wasn’t a small man. And he was a cop, he’d have training in hand to hand and firearms.”
“Emma’s a cop,” Peasblossom pointed out.
“True, but Emma’s been a shifter for less than a year, she wouldn’t stand a chance against Dustin in a physical altercation.”
Scath snorted from the backseat. I thought she was agreeing with me, but it was hard to tell.
“And we can’t talk to Howard yet,” I reminded Peasblossom. “I called the center and they said he’s got sessions scheduled for the next two hours. So in the meantime, we’re going to talk to this other lone wolf Dustin hung out with. What’s his name?”
Peasblossom tugged a paper free of the file. It was a sheet from a legal pad where Liam had scribbled a bunch of notes he’d made during his initial interview with Emma after the body was found. “His name is Tom Morton. He was a cop too, and Emma says he left the force the same way Dustin did.”
“So he was ‘encouraged’ to leave after excessive force complaints,” I said, remembering the notation Liam had made by Tom’s name. Apparently, as part of her background check on Dustin, Emma had included details on his associate, Tom. She was thorough, I’d give her that. “Is he a new werewolf, or just one that never quite got a handle on his aggression?”
“It doesn’t say.”
“Well, Liam’s notes mention that Tom often came to the woods with Dustin to…mark territory. Maybe he was there the night of the murder. He could be a witness.”
“I think we should review our priorities.” Peasblossom eyed the notes in front of her. “In the future, I think we should focus more on not involving ourselves with lone wolves.”
“Lone wolves aren’t all aggressive.” I squinted at one of the street signs, then immediately had to look back at my GPS to remember what street I was looking for. “That’s a negative stereotype.”
“This lone wolf has a history of violence that cost him his job.”
I frowned. “Point taken. But being a police officer means dealing with real criminals and victims. It’s not like the cozy mystery shows, where the criminal is always caught and punished. Imagine what it must be like to see violent people getting away because you couldn’t get enough evidence to prove they did it? The psychological toll that would take. For humans, let alone shifters. Wolves have a very strong protective streak, watching a criminal—especially a violent criminal—walk away wouldn’t be easy to accept. Even a shifter with a strong support system, access to mental health services, and a peaceful disposition would find that hard to process.”
Something large and black pushed its way between the seats, and I jumped as I found myself looking into Scath’s poison-green eyes. In her feline form, Scath looked like a panther’s prehistoric relative, with ears too pointed to be a true panther, and fur so dark it seemed to suck the light out of the space around her. She put one of her enormous paws on the armrest between the two front seats and leaned forward, making a soft chuffing sound at something she saw out the windshield.
“That’s Tom Morton,” Peasblossom said, gesturing excitedly as if I weren’t already looking at him. “I recognize him from the picture!”
“He’s a big guy, isn’t he?” I murmured.
Tom Morton was six foot two at least, but it wasn’t his height that made him seem big. He had a square head that made me think of Frankenstein movies, and hands that could palm a basketball and squeeze it until it popped. I stared at him as he entered the front door of the bar, directly under a sign that read The Rusty Cuffs. Part of me expected he’d have to turn sideways to fit through the doorway, but he managed.
A car honked behind me, letting me know the light I’d been stopped at on the street in front of the bar had turned green. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting at a green light staring at Morton, so I refrained from shooting my usual witchy look into the rearview mirror and pulled ahead until I could turn into the small parking lot next to the bar.
Scath shook herself as I took the keys out of the ignition, covering her entire body simultaneously with a personal glamour that made her look like a German Shepherd wearing a navy blue vest with “Service” printed in bold white lettering. Tom wouldn’t be fooled by the glamour—her scent would give her away—but there was nothing about The Rusty Cuffs that made me think there were no humans inside, so better safe than sorry.
“Bizbee?” I said, unzipping my waist pouch. “Could I have my shield ring, please?”
“Oh, ye mean ye want it now when it’s fully charged? Sure ye don’t want to wait for it to fade till there’s barely a spark of magic left to save ye from yer poor choices?”
I narrowed my eyes at the grig as he emerged from the pouch, ring in the uppermost pair of his three sets of cricket “arms,” look of judgment set firmly on his tiny features, the middle set of his insect limbs crossed in disapproval. I had no idea how he managed to give such hard looks with those fuzzy antennae of his bobbing back and forth over his head, but he did.
“I said I was sorry about the Post-its,” I said evenly. “I will pick up some more today.”
Bizbee glowered at me, beady black eyes unforgiving. “That’s what you said yesterday.”
“And I did.”
“You got me 4x4 Post-its in yellow. In yellow. I specifically asked for 2x2 Post-its in pink.”
I snapped my mouth shut before I could argue further. Now was not the time to goad Bizbee into a tirade on the finer points of his color-coded organization system.
