by A. D. Ryan
As a cop myself, I knew this. We wouldn’t be able to actively investigate on our own. The cops would close off the manor as an active crime scene. We’d all be taken in for questioning, and the bodies would be taken into the morgue…
Where extensive autopsies would be performed.
I wasn’t so new that I didn’t fully realize the problems that could bring. Our DNA was different from humans; would there be enough that it would show up right away, or would it only be traces of wolf DNA that showed up on a blood panel?
Several sets of footsteps thundered from the second floor, and then down the stairs before a stampede of bodies flew into the library. At the head of the group was Nick, eyes wide with panic.
“The cops are—”
I nodded once, cutting him off. “I know. I hear them.”
“We need to go,” he urged, gathering a few of the texts that were on the table and shoving them into a briefcase-like satchel. “They can’t find us here.”
The others all started to move, but I remained static, still trying to figure out the right course of action for this pack. Was it to flee?
The wolf in me was antsy, wondering why I wasn’t helping the others gather the things we would need to move our investigation elsewhere, but my cop instincts told me “no.” This only made us look guilty once the cops investigated the scene and found traces of us on every square inch of the manor.
“Stop,” I ordered, my voice even, calm. “We need to stay.”
“Are you nuts?” Roxanne demanded. “Humans can’t know about us.”
Sighing, I thrust my fingers through my wind-blown hair. “I know that, Rox—I do—but…if we leave, that’s only going to draw more attention to us. They’ll dig deeper to find out who lives here—what it is we do, who we are, where we’re all from. As a cop, I’m telling you it looks worse if we run.” I looked at Nick, who was fastening the case. “Toss it outside. As far as you can. We’ll come back for it as soon as they release us. We’ll need the dossiers for research.”
The room fell silent for a minute, considering the truth behind what I’d told them. It was Colby who spoke next, her voice thin. “The pit,” she rasped. “They’re going to find the pit.”
My stomach lurched, unable to find a way to explain the existence of the Pack’s prison.
“Find a way to block it off.”
“They won’t find it,” Nick said. “About three years ago, Marcus had a system installed—kind of like a reverse panic room. It’ll seal the wall off behind the door, make it look like the door is nothing more than decorative.”
I had trouble believing any cop would fall for that. “That’s going to look suspicious.”
“Well it’s all we have!” Nick barked, startling me. “It’s impenetrable—or, it should be. We haven’t actually tested it.”
“Do it,” I said, desperate. “Whatever it takes to hold them off—even for a little while.”
Nick looked at me apologetically before bolting from the room and taking care of the pit. I knew it was a long shot, and I suspected the cops would eventually find it when searching the manor, but I could only hope and pray to whoever was watching over us that it would remain a secret. Nothing could look worse at the scene of a murder than a secret torture chamber covered in the blood of past captives and victims.
There was a loud knock at the door before I forced everyone from the library, telling them to be honest when asked what happened. “We don’t know what happened. We came home and found them. That’s all we know.” I looked at Colby specifically. “Okay?”
She seemed hesitant, but she nodded. “Got it.”
Another knock echoed through the house, so I ran for the door and opened it. Five officers stood on the front step, all of them looking alert as they looked past me at what probably looked like an army to them.
“We got a call about a disturbance?” the officer in front said, his nerves making his voice spike toward the end, posing it as more a question than a statement of fact.
I opened the door and moved aside, inviting them in. “Come in,” I said. “I’ll take you to them.”
With a look, I ordered the Pack to stay put while I took the officers to the library. “We had just come back from our friend’s house—he lives just a couple miles down the road—and we came home to this.” I pushed open the door and let the officers have a look. Each and every one of their faces twisted in abject horror, and their fear permeated the air I breathed. What was normally a pleasant scent now left a foul taste in my mouth. I realized I only enjoyed someone’s fear when I was the cause of it.
“We aren’t sure what happened,” I continued, looking down on Marcus as my voice wavered.
“What’s your relationship to the victim?”
“He owns the house, and I live here with my…” I paused, unsure how to classify my relationship. “With my boyfriend, Nick.”
“And where is he?” another officer asked, walking carefully toward Marcus while one of the others called in for a CSU and backup.
“I’m here,” Nick announced from the doorway. “I’ve lived here for the last seven years. Marcus and his wife, Miranda, own the house, and their two teenage children, Colby and Corbin live here with us and several other people.”
“Seems like a lot of people under one roof. Tempers must run pretty hot,” the blond male beside Nick said in an almost accusatory tone, goading him.
Nick only grinned. “You’d be surprised just how well we all get along. We’re a family.”
“Dear God,” the one cop in the library gasped, forcing my attention to him. He was behind the staircase, looking down at Miranda’s body. “I need everybody out until the crime unit gets here,” he ordered, ushering me back out into the hall and closing the door. We led the cops back out to the main foyer and away from the library.
He pulled out a notepad and started asking me questions while the other officers asked the same questions of the Pack.
“Arizona, huh?” the cop asked. “Long way from home.”
“I recently reconnected with my boyfriend and I decided I needed to see where our relationship was headed before we decided to get serious.”
He continued to jot my name and information down. “And what is it you do for a living, Miss Leighton?”
“I’m a detective, actually,” I told him. “Homicide.”
This got his undivided attention. “Is that so?”
I nodded. “I was promoted last year.”
“Interesting. And…what do you suspect happened here, detective?” The tone he used mocked me, and it made me angry. The wolf wanted to lash out, but I kept her on a short leash.
“I suspect someone broke in and killed my friends, officer,” I retorted with an edge of condescension to my voice.
He scoffed, shaking his head. “Until we find signs of forced entry, I don’t see how we can conclude that.”
Crossing my arms defensively, I eyed him confidently. “Then I suggest you do your job and find the monsters who did this.”
He met my challenge with a glare. “Have a seat,” he snarled. “I’m sure the detectives will have more questions when they get here. Perhaps they’ll even take you down to the station.”
“I have nothing to hide,” I snapped right back, turning for the stairs and sitting next to Nick.
“We’ll see about that,” the officer mumbled under his breath. I was certain he didn’t mean for me to hear it, and I had half a mind to let him know I did by throwing him through the nearest wall, but Nick clamped a hand down on my thigh while resting the other on the small of my back.
“You know that wouldn’t be wise,” he whispered in my ear before kissing my neck. The gesture had a calming effect over me, and I rested my head on his shoulder.
“This is ridiculous,” Roxanne murmured from the staircase across from us. “We should be out there, hunting the bastards who killed our alphas.”
One of the perks to this lifestyle was that we could carry on a conversation wi
thout humans eavesdropping.
“I know,” I replied. “And we will. But for now, we have to cooperate. If we don’t, it only makes us look suspicious and we’ll get tied up in this more than we want to be. We’re trying to avoid the authorities finding out about us.”
Behind Nick and me, Jackson flopped down with a groan. “She’s right, though. This is a load of shit, and I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” I inquired. “You can’t think this was your fault.”
“Wasn’t it? If you hadn’t all come to rescue me, maybe they’d still be alive.”
Nick exhaled heavily, running his hand up and down my back to relieve my tension. “Maybe,” he replied. “Or maybe we’d all be dead, too.”
It was a scenario I hadn’t really considered, and it seemed to sober the rest of the Pack in an instant. Ultimately, he was right. Even though I wanted to believe we’d have come out on top, it absolutely could have ended even more badly.
Within an hour, there were double the bodies in our home. We all remained in our place while they milled about, inspecting not only the library but the rest of the house as well. When I heard the basement door open, I grew nervous about the pit being discovered. My knee-jerk reaction was to follow them down there, but Nick continued to hold me in place, reminding me to stay put for the good of the Pack. I tried telling myself that everything would be fine, repeating it over and over again until the detectives came back upstairs.
There was no mention of a secret kill room, so I breathed a sigh of relief, and Nick relented his hold on my thigh.
“I told you,” he said under his breath. “Everything is going to be fine.”
“Miss Leighton?” one of the newly arrived detectives said, drawing my attention. “A word?”
My nerves returned, but Nick assured me with a look that everything would be fine. I was a little more skeptical as I descended the stairs and followed him into the dining room.
He was tall and wiry, his suit fitting him poorly, and his greying hair was combed to the side. The angles of his face were sharp, making him look more intimidating than he probably was.
“Please, have a seat,” he offered, and I accepted. “I’m Detective Matthews. My colleague informed me that you claimed to be a detective in Scottsdale, Arizona.”
“I am.”
He smiled in a way that was supposed to set me at ease, but I could tell it was obviously forced. “Yes, well the background check I called in confirmed this fact...as well as a few others that seem less then savory.”
Confused, but also a little nervous, I inquired further. “Like?”
This time when he smiled, I was left feeling uneasy. Soon, I would understand why. “You’re currently on a leave of absence from the Scottsdale PD?”
I swallowed thickly, clenching my hands in my lap. “I am.”
“Following the death of your partner.” He looked down at the notepad in his hand. “A David Samuels?” Tears burned my eyes, and all I could do was nod. “Who you were also in a relationship with.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” I tried to argue.
“He died a few weeks before your arrival here in Canada, correct?” My heart hammered in response, but I was paralyzed and couldn’t manage a response. “A horrific homicide in your home, if I read the report correctly.”
“It was a home invasion,” I managed to squeak. “We’d gotten into an argument and I left…”
“Was it heated?”
“Excuse me?” I demanded, growing defensive.
“The argument,” he clarified, his icy blue stare holding mine. “Was it heated?”
I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms. “Most are.”
Matthews paced in front of me like we were in an interrogation room. “Bad luck seems to follow you everywhere, doesn’t it, Miss Leighton. First your brother is murdered in an alley while out with your boyfriend, then Mr. Samuels is murdered—and, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t your current boyfriend in town both times?” I didn’t like the implications that were lying just below the surface of his interrogation technique. “And now this.”
“I wasn’t a suspect in Bobby or David’s murders. How dare you even impl—”
Matthews held up a hand, interrupting me. “Please, Miss Leighton. Let’s calm down.”
“Calm down?” I said, standing up and placing my hands on the tabletop and leaning over it to stare at this weaselly-looking man. “You’re implying I’m capable of murdering my brother, my lover, and now two people who were kind enough to open their door to me in my time of need.”
“Miss Leighton, it’s my job to make sure I cover all the bases.”
“Well, you’re sniffing around the wrong damn field,” I informed him. “Meanwhile, the bastards responsible just hit a grand slam.” His eyebrows pulled together, likely at my abuse of his cliché baseball analogy.
There was a knock on the doorframe, causing both of us to look toward it. It was one of the detectives.
“We’ve got the bodies loaded, and CSU is still working the scene.”
Matthews looked at me. “I believe you’re free to go, Miss Leighton. Obviously you can’t stay here…”
I nodded. “Yeah. We can stay down the road at our friends’ house. You have all of our contact information in case you need to accuse any of us of more crimes we didn’t commit,” I snapped, standing up so quickly, the legs of my chair scraped the floor. “Will one of your officers be escorting each of us to our rooms to watch as we pack a few things to take with us? I’d hate for you to think we’re removing evidence from a crime scene when it’s really just a couple changes of clothes.”
With a nod toward his officer, Matthews released me. The officer followed me out to the stairs where I informed the Pack that we’d been given permission to leave the house after grabbing a few items.
Nick and I headed to our room first with the officer. The cop stood in the doorway watching as Nick grabbed a duffle bag from the closet and started stuffing his clothes in it haphazardly. I had just grabbed a few pairs of jeans and several shirts from the closet and was about to set them on the bench at the foot of our bed when I noticed an envelope on it.
My name was scrawled on the white piece of paper, and I recognized the writing as Miranda’s immediately. With everything that had happened this afternoon and evening, I’d completely forgotten about the blood draw we’d done earlier. Something told me this envelope held the results.
Butterflies flapped wildly in my belly, making me feel nauseous. I couldn’t handle the results right now. I wasn’t ready. I would open it once things died down.
When I heard Nick step up behind me, I shoved the envelope in my front pocket and turned around to face him, a smile plastered on my face.
“You have everything?” he asked, running his hands up and down my arms. He sensed something was up, eyebrows pulling together. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I replied. “I just need a few more things from my dresser.” I moved around him and grabbed a handful of bras and underwear, adding them to my pile before I placed them in the messy duffle bag in a way that made the bag seem less untidy.
Once all of our things were packed, we headed back down to the foyer, and the rest of the Pack followed the officer, one or two individuals at a time. It took about thirty minutes, but soon we were on our way over to Vince and Layla’s, with a police escort to make sure that was where we were headed.
“What about the dossiers?” I asked in Nick’s truck.
“I’ll head back for them in a bit. I’ll shift. No one will think twice about a wolf sniffing around out here.”
Worried, I looked at him. “I’ll go with you,” I volunteered.
Nick shook his head. “No. I’ll take someone else. We can’t risk losing another Alpha.”
There was that stomach roll again.
“Okay.”
When we arrived at Vince and Layla’s house, it was late, closing in on one in the morning. Everybody was exhausted an
d emotionally drained. Nick and I helped Jackson up to the bedroom my parents had used only a couple of weeks ago. Their scent still hung in the air, my mother’s perfume wafting up from the pillow as Jackson leaned back against it.
“You okay?” I asked him.
Nick looked between the two of us and then walked toward where I stood in the doorway. “I’ll give the two of you a moment to talk. I’m going to go and grab the dossiers from the manor,” he said, kissing the side of my head before disappearing back downstairs.
As expected, Jackson’s recovery was slow-moving, but definitely quicker than my own. He had regained some of his color, but his skin was still a bit ashen, and his strength waxed and waned. Through it all, he’d maintained a firm grasp on his trademark stoicism.
“I’m fine, Brooke,” he assured me for the hundredth time. “There wasn’t much silver in my system to begin with, and the wounds from the collar are already healing.” His eyes travelled over my own neck. “Not exactly the most comfortable contraption in the world, is it?” he joked.
I laughed—barely. “Effective, though.”
“Which, I suppose, is all that matters.” He paused, staring at me as I stood in the doorway. “How are you doing, though?”
“Me? I’m fine.”
Jackson wasn’t buying it. “I don’t just mean after the escape.” Another awkward silence fell between us before he clarified his meaning. “You know the truth now…about the night you were bitten?”
It was something I still hadn’t really acknowledged since my return. Sure, Nick and I had touched on the subject, and I told him I was okay with it, but there were times I still struggled. While I understood how it happened and that it was an accident on Nick’s behalf, having been tricked and manipulated by Bobby and Gianna, it still upset me that Nick had allowed Jackson to take the heat for it all this time.
Jackson sighed, patting the mattress for me to have a seat. “He finally told you.” My silence was all the confirmation he needed. “You should know, I wanted him to tell you sooner.”
Jackson looked genuinely upset about all of this, and that made me even angrier.
