Afterlife

by Dannika Dark

  Blue sipped her milkshake and then played with the straw. “Did she have any marks on her body?”

  Graham furrowed his brow before looking over his shoulder.

  “Only humans come here,” I said, reassuring him. “I think what Blue’s driving at is someone in the pack suggested that Andy and Alisa got into a fight earlier that evening. If this turns out to be a case of domestic abuse, her name comes off our list.”

  Graham nodded slowly. “I see, I see.” After another bite of cake, he wiped chocolate off his mouth. “I’ve known Andy a long time, and he’s definitely got a temper. If there was any foul play, I didn’t see signs of a struggle or marks on her neck. That’s not to say he couldn’t have put a pillow over her face. Perhaps that’s why they were so adamant against an autopsy.”

  “What about the others? Ren gave me a list.” I reached into my pocket.

  Graham waved it away and lowered his voice. “You shouldn’t carry that around with you. It’s dangerous. Slanderous. I can’t speak for all the names on their list, but there was nothing suspicious happening in the packs I work for. Natural causes. Alisa could be an exception.”

  “So you admit you could be wrong.” Blue finished eating her oatmeal cookies and pushed the empty plate out of the way.

  “About one,” Graham admitted. “Maybe two. But if I can’t properly determine a cause of death, I might as well quit right now.”

  “What about the lady in Ren’s pack?” I asked. “She was only two hundred. That’s not even middle age. When you start comparing all the deaths, doesn’t it look suspicious?”

  Graham shrugged while licking icing off his fork. “I don’t work for your friend’s pack, so I only know what they told me: she died in her sleep. That’s not what I chalk up to a suspicious death, and I’ve handled a lot of dead Shifters in my time. When they’re found in an alleyway or inside a trunk—that’s suspicious. My family’s been working with Shifters for eight hundred years. Eight hundred! Generation after generation. I’m the last of the generation, and all my knowledge stays right up top until the day I die.” He tapped his finger against his temple. “You see, I can’t have children. So I know all about getting dealt a bad hand. It happens, and it’s a terrible thing.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Blue said earnestly.

  When the waitress arrived, she set down more plates and twirled away. Not as chatty as Betty, but we didn’t have time for socializing.

  Blue squirted mustard onto her chili dog in a zigzag pattern. “I know about unexpected deaths, but usually it happens with children. They can’t shift to heal, and it’s almost impossible to keep them from jumping out of trees or falling off a horse. It’s rare to see people die in the prime of life—unless it was in battle or during a difficult pregnancy.” She turned to look at me. “Pregnant women can’t shift. Well, they can, but it’s too dangerous for the unborn baby. Our animal will refuse to come out. It’s the only time they sleep in peace.”

  When Graham leaned toward his soda a bit too quickly, the straw poked him in the nose. His cheeks bloomed red beneath the facial scruff, and he wiped his hands on a napkin instead of taking a drink. “You’re basing it on your personal experiences. Do you know how many Shifter groups reside in Cognito? I’m not talking about the packs, but all animal groups. Not to mention all the rogues. The names Ren threw at me were scattered across the board. A few of them were my clients, but most weren’t. I can’t afford to jeopardize my career in this fruitless investigation of his. Do you think it would be easy for me to find new clients? The only time that happens with a good Shifter group is when their Relics drop them or die. If they thought I was keeping secrets or this stirs up unfounded gossip, I’ll wind up working behind a gas station counter.”

  After biting into my juicy burger, I reached for an onion ring. Graham seemed levelheaded, and I needed an honest opinion. “Back to my earlier question: do you think we’re wasting our time?”

  He glanced at his watch. “As a Relic, my nature is to question everything. I only hope you’re being careful. People talk, and what you’re asking them will raise a few eyebrows.”

  “Our stories will match up,” Blue confirmed, oblivious to the dab of chili sauce on her cheek. “What can you tell us about the cases you personally oversaw? How did they die?”

  Graham scratched his scruffy jaw. “One was a boy of ten who drowned.”

  I dusted crumbs off my fingers. “Why the hell would he end up on our list?”

  “I asked the same thing.” Graham resumed eating his cake, not leaving a single crumb to waste. “I suppose the Packmaster thought it was suspicious since the kid was the best swimmer in the pack. His mother revealed that he wasn’t feeling well earlier but still wanted to play. The boy had just eaten, and everyone knows you shouldn’t swim after eating. It’s not science-based, but people sometimes cramp up. I knew one lady who had food regurgitate into the esophagus, and she choked, which caused her to drown in a panic.”

  Just as he said that, Graham inhaled cake and went into a coughing fit. While he gulped down his soda and tried to regain his composure, I devoured my burger and wondered if I should have taken this case. Ren had assured me that none of the names were accidents or sickness, so why was a drowned kid on the list? There were only three kids he marked as a true accident, and none were by drowning.

  Graham cleared his throat. “Another was a twenty-one-year-old male, motorcycle accident.”

  I got up from the table and stormed into the bathroom. After scrolling through my contact list, I called Ren.

  “Got anything?” he asked.

  “A growing bout of indigestion. Am I wasting my time? Tell me now, Ren.”

  “What happened?”

  “A drowning? A motorcycle accident? One of them looks like domestic violence. You convinced me the deaths were suspicious, like they dropped dead out of thin air. You said there weren’t any accidents.”

  “Dig deeper, Raven. You’re better than that.” Ren hung up.

  As tempting as it was to quit the case, I knew Ren wouldn’t risk his reputation if he didn’t think something was fishy. It probably wouldn’t amount to anything, but maybe all he needed was someone to tell him that.

  I sighed and stared at my reflection. My ruby necklace was tucked beneath my shirt so it wouldn’t draw attention from the packs. They wouldn’t expect someone from the higher authority to show up wearing fancy jewelry. I clutched it and stared at myself. “From killer to private investigator. Don’t fuck this up.”

  When I returned to my seat, some of my onion rings were missing. “Sorry, I had to freshen up.”

  “We heard,” Blue quipped.

  “All right,” I said, getting back to business. “So we have a drowned boy, a motorcycle accident—what else?”

  Graham stared at his empty plate. “This past winter, a man in his fifties passed away. Another one of my clients was a twelve-year-old girl.” Graham raised his head and met eyes with me. “Be very careful. These people are grieving, and you’re going to be poking at a fresh wound. Don’t put any wild ideas in their heads. Shifters are paranoid—more than other Breeds. They always think someone’s conspiring against them. People die every day, and not always from trauma. Some just have faulty genes. I’ve looked at the names, and I just don’t see any plausible connection. If there is, I want to be the first to know about it. That means I overlooked something I shouldn’t have. If only they’d let me perform autopsies… I’d be able to confirm with absolute certainty, and there wouldn’t be all this tiptoeing around.”

  After finishing my burger, I pushed my onion rings toward Graham, who had been eyeing them like a hawk. “We have another stop today with a group of bears.”

  “They call themselves a sleuth,” Blue interjected.

  I nodded, not really knowing all the proper terminology. “Are the Franklins one of yours?”

  Graham shook his head. “Nope. But watch yourself around bears. They can be quite temperamental.”

&
nbsp; I gave the Relic a murderous grin that made him freeze. “So can I.”

  Chapter 8

  The Franklin residence took us far out of the city. I loved driving my truck around—the windows down, wind in my hair, classic rock on the radio. It still carried the same smell as when I was a kid and brought back memories of Crush taking me to get a snow cone on a hot summer day.

  When I turned onto the dirt road, Blue pivoted in her seat and looked out the back window.

  Alarmed, I slowed down. “What’s up?”

  “I thought I saw something.” She faced forward and took off her sunglasses. “My falcon is itching to scope out the area.”

  “Why don’t you do that? I can handle this.”

  “That’s not what I’m here for.” She rolled up her window and sat back with a hard jerk. “Surveillance is instinctual—I can’t see a damn thing in human form.”

  “You probably just saw one of their lookouts running around.”

  “I know. You’re right.” She pulled at the collar of her turtleneck. Her feather earrings were probably a strategic move to make Shifters feel more comfortable talking to her even if they weren’t the same animal. I was the interloper, so I paid close attention to Blue, hoping to glean some of that knowledge. The only way to excel at my job was to learn everything about the Breeds. What to say, what not to say, the best way to get information. Shifters were still a mystery to me, and learning that each animal type had their own customs and hang-ups made me dizzy.

  When we reached a tiny cabin, I parked in front, noticing there weren’t any vehicles or people. “I must have taken a wrong turn.”

  “No, this is it.”

  I reached in my back pocket and pulled out the paper. “It says here that there are thirty-three people in this group. There’s no way in hell they all fit inside that matchbox cabin. Where are the cars? It looks abandoned.”

  Blue set her sunglasses on the dash. “Some bears live underground or in modified caves. I’ve heard they have a really nice setup, but they don’t like strangers seeing where exactly they live.”

  “So they build these tiny shacks to deal with outsiders?”

  “Exactly.”

  I admired the tiger lilies surrounding the cabin. When we got out, a breeze rustled the leaves in the tall trees surrounding us. Aside from that, it was eerily quiet.

  “They know we’re here,” she said, cocking her head when a bird screeched.

  I swatted a mosquito buzzing around my thigh. “I picked the wrong day to wear shorts.”

  We approached the little shanty and knocked. When no one answered, I stepped off the rickety porch and rounded the building. I passed a pile of bones, flies buzzing all around them.

  When I reached the back, cold dread washed over me.

  A brown bear paced toward us, a chain locked around its neck. I backed up, almost stumbling and falling on my ass. The beast let out a weak roar before sitting on its haunches.

  “That’s a female,” Blue said quietly as she eased up beside me.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Intuition. She’s weak. I don’t like the looks of this.”

  “Why is she chained up?”

  Blue scanned the woods around us. “When the lower-class groups have trouble getting fresh blood for mating, they sometimes trade women. If the women give them trouble, they break them.”

  I clenched my fist. “Should we free her?”

  Blue shook her head. “That’s not what we’re here for.”

  My gaze darted back to the bear. “We can’t just leave her like that.”

  “She would probably maul you to death. I can fly to safety, but you—”

  “I can flash.”

  Blue pivoted toward me and folded her arms. “Then what? We’ll lose our chance of getting information, and on top of that, we’ll have bears hunting us down. This goes on more than you think. Freeing her won’t stop them from doing it again, and they’ll just find some other woman to replace her.”

  “So you can just… walk away?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the bear. “Let’s get what we came here for. The leader isn’t the one meeting us, is he?”

  “No. Some guy named Ferro. Father of one of the victims on our list. He died eleven months ago. Age twenty-one.”

  We both turned at the sound of footsteps approaching from the left. Breaching a thicket of trees, a rugged-looking man approached us. His hair was black and shorn close to his head, his eyes dark and mysterious, and his chest hair covered him like a thin vest.

  “Which one of you is Raven?” he asked, coming to an eventual stop.

  I squared my shoulders, putting on an air of authority. “That would be me.”

  “I’m Ferro. Frank said you wanted to talk about my son. We don’t have to report deaths to you. We’re out of territory limits.”

  “I know. That’s not why we’re here.” I waved my hand at a mosquito whirring in front of my face. “The higher authority is looking to see what they can do for Shifters in the area. They want to make amends after that fiasco with the fighting rings.”

  “I heard about that,” he said flatly, as if the idea of cage fights didn’t bother him.

  “They’re looking at recent deaths in the past year—anything that falls out of the norm of old age.”

  His brows furrowed. “Why?”

  “In case there’s something they can do to help.”

  Blue stepped forward. “That might mean making Relics available to everyone and not just those who can afford them. Or ensuring packs have basic medical supplies. Possibly offering advice on territorial disputes, but that’s not one I can promise anything on. They want to look over the data first and then decide where to extend their resources. I’m sure your leader does the best he can, but we both know how some groups are favored over others.”

  Ferro’s mouth twisted, and his eyebrows arched in a manner that suggested he agreed with her statement.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your son,” I began. “Twenty-one is just a baby.”

  Ferro rubbed the side of his nose, and I wondered if he might break down crying. But he didn’t. He held it together as best a grieving father could.

  Losing a kid at any age must be tough, so I tried to be as sensitive as possible. “What can you tell us about him?”

  Ferro heaved a sigh. “Rain was my firstborn. Strong like me but kind like his mother. He had the right temperament.”

  “For what?” I asked, uncertain of the implied meaning.

  “Rain was an alpha bear. He could have led this group or started his own.”

  “Can I ask about his death? I know it’s hard, but it might help.”

  “Bike accident five miles up the road.” He glanced toward the front of the cabin.

  “But you don’t believe that,” Blue suggested. “Parents have a sixth sense. What’s yours telling you?”

  Ferro folded his arms, his dark eyebrows drawing together. “Rain’s been riding a bike since he could walk. If it wasn’t a dirt bike around the property, it was on the back of my ride. Well, the front. He always wanted to steer,” Ferro said with a wistful smile. “It was perfect riding weather that day. They found him in the middle of the road.”

  I let the scenario play out in my head of what could have happened. I’d grown up around bikers and heard all the accident stories, so I knew what some of the most obvious dangers were. “Maybe he made a quick stop because of an animal or car.”

  “No skid marks. His tires were fine. No head-on impact to the bike. If he was swerving, he would have gone off the road. But he was dead center, still wearing his helmet. He was scraped up, and Frank said he died of internal injuries.”

  “But then why didn’t he shift?” Blue said under her breath, talking to herself. Then she snapped her attention up. “Did he have any suspicious wounds or puncture marks that didn’t look like they were from the accident?”

  Ferro slowly shook his head. “Frank said he didn’t find any. I would
have looked, but I couldn’t.”

  The pain on Ferro’s face was as palpable as the bulging vein on his forehead. I pitied the guy and suddenly found myself relating his pain to what my father must have gone through years ago.

  Yet I had to ask the obvious, given Rain’s age. “Was he drinking?”

  Ferro’s lip curled. “Rain didn’t drink in the daytime. He didn’t drink much at all, but he knew better than to drink and drive.”

  Blue lowered her voice and drew closer to him. “Do you think Frank felt threatened by your son?”

  “I don’t know. My boy was young with ideas of his own about how to run a sleuth. I heard a few of his friends cut ties when they found out he was seeing a wolf.”

  I jerked my head back. “Was it serious?”

  Ferro shook his head, dismissing the notion. “Young boys need to sow their wild oats. I don’t know who he fucked or what their names were—I just heard about the wolf thing a few weeks before he died. Rain was talking about leaving.”

  I swatted another mosquito that was feasting on my thigh. “Do you think maybe her pack found out and chased your son on the road, causing the accident? Maybe she had a jealous mate.”

  Ferro’s dark eyes locked on mine. “I thought I put this to rest, but you’re putting ideas in my head. Everyone in this territory knew Rain. Everyone. He rode that bike all over the place. Hell, he even did wheelies at speeds that scared the fuck out of me. Rain got along with wolves, lions, eagles—you name it. It wasn’t in his nature to be deceptive and take a mated woman. If you want to know if my Packmaster or some overprotective father came after him, I don’t know.” Ferro rubbed his face. “I don’t know.”

  I pulled out a fake business card from my back pocket. It had a temporary email and number we’d set up for this case. “If you think of anything else, call me. It goes to voicemail, but just leave a message and we can talk or meet somewhere.”

  Ferro took my card between his index and middle finger, giving it a cursory glance before sliding it in his back pocket. “Anything else?”

  “No, that’s all we—”