The Hex Files Box Set: Books 1-3 (Mysteries from the Sixth Borough)

by Gina LaManna

  It was difficult to break the awkward silence, but saying something was better than sitting dumbly with my mouth hanging open. “By chance, was Grey around when she said that?”

  Liesel’s gaze turned to me, real worry showing. “Look, Detective, no—that’s not what I meant. Grey is a good guy. He would never have done a thing to hurt Lorraine. I see what you’re trying to do here, and no—I won’t let you. Grey loved her.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t need to! It’s irrelevant.” The wind deflated from Liesel’s sails, and finally, he gave in and sighed. “Grey was here. I don’t even know that Lorraine tried to hide her commentary—she’s one of those women who looks at a Wolverine Weekly magazine and comments on the ass of every one of them. It’s not my type of woman, but Grey didn’t seem to mind. He’s secure, you know? And Lorraine would never do anything about it. She’s just flighty like that.”

  “But that’s a magazine,” I said, “not a real, live human.”

  Liesel coughed as I described Matthew as a real, live human, but I held his gaze until he relented.

  “Sorry,” Liesel coughed and lied badly. “Wrong pipe.”

  “You know what I’m getting at,” I prompted. “Do you think Grey was jealous of Matthew? How did Grey react when Lorraine said all that?”

  “Grey doesn’t get jealous,” Liesel said. “You have to understand. He’s secure, and powerful, and young, and...well, you’ve seen him.” He nodded toward me. “You’re a woman. You understand probably better than me, right?”

  I froze him with a stare—pinning him to the wall with the icicles in my gaze. The problem was that I knew exactly what he meant: I’d stood next to Grey, watched him through my own eyes. Hadn’t I envied the sort of attention he gave to Lorraine, wanting something similar for myself? Hadn’t I found him attractive in that distant, mechanical sort of way?

  “If you had to guess,” Matthew interrupted, “where would you suggest we start looking for Lorraine? Assuming she left voluntarily.”

  I shifted my weight in the bar stool, annoyed I’d let Liesel’s words past my armor. I listened as Liesel stalled for a few more seconds, wondering what Matthew thought of it all.

  “I know sometimes she walks with Grey in The Depth,” Liesel said. “But they don’t go in very far, and she’d only go if Grey was with her—otherwise it’s not safe in there.”

  “When would they walk?” I asked. “During her breaks?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know her schedule outside of the bar. I just remember once or twice over the course of the last few months, she’d come back with this huge smile on her face and talk about them going into The Depth together. Probably during the day, but maybe it would be evening, not sure.”

  “The Depth is a big place,” Matthew said. “Hard to find anyone in there. Is there any chance—”

  “Don’t say it,” Liesel said, surveying the bar even as he cut off Matthew. “Don’t you dare ask if a wolf can track her. They’re not dogs, though they’ll tear you apart if you treat them like one.”

  “I was going to ask you for something of Lorraine’s,” Matthew said with a dry smile. “Turns out the wolves and I have something in common: excellent sensory abilities. Though it would probably be best to get something from her apartment.”

  Liesel breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry—I wish I could help you more, but really—we were coworkers at the end of the day. Friendly, but not friends, if you know what I mean.”

  “What about Grey?” I asked as Matthew prepared to leave. “Have you seen him since all of this happened?”

  Liesel opened his hands in question, then shifted with discomfort. “I don’t know what you mean—since all this happened. All I know is that Lorraine didn’t show up for work.”

  “Have you seen Grey after lunch today?” I asked pointedly. “Answer the question.”

  “No, I haven’t.” His gaze was downcast. “I think you should be going now.”

  We said a tense goodbye to Liesel and made our way out of the stuffy, dark bar. The tension in there had been simmering, frothing at the surface. It didn’t take an astronomer to tell that a full moon was headed our way, and fast. The amount of tension, even between friends in there, had been oppressive. I was glad to be free of the stink.

  “What do you make of it?” I asked Matthew once we were outside. “Do you believe Liesel?”

  “I do. Now, to the apartment. We’ll check it out for Residuals or signs of foul play. While we’re there, I’ll retrieve an article of clothing Lorraine has recently worn or touched, and I just might be able to catch her scent.” We strode in silence as Matthew Commed with the station for Lorraine’s most recent address. When he got off the line, he turned to me. “And Grey?”

  “What about him?”

  “You seemed interested in his involvement.”

  My eyes flashed to Matthew. “He’s dating Lorraine—the first place we look is the significant other. That’s Investigation 101.”

  “Do you think he might have...” Matthew trailed off before rephrasing. “Do you think Grey might be involved with her disappearance?”

  “I don’t think he hurt her, if that’s what you’re asking.” The afternoon sun had begun to sink beyond the edges of the world. Soon enough, the shimmer of dusk would arrive, and with it, a whole host of other problems. “Now, if she ran away, do I think he might have helped her?” I shrugged. “Love makes people blind.”

  “Danielle—”

  “Isn’t this Lorraine’s address?” I interrupted. “I think we have cause to go inside unauthorized, don’t you?”

  Matthew’s eyebrows pinched together, as if he was unhappy with how our conversation had ended. But duty called, and he was nothing if not loyal to the job. “We have authorized access.” He raised the Comm. “Just came through. There’s an official missing persons report filed on her. We’ll have about ten minutes before tech gets here to go through her things, so let’s make this quick.”

  Chapter 21

  Ten minutes spent in Lorraine’s gaudy apartment was more than enough for Matthew. His senses were overwhelmed in every way: The pink walls hurt his eyes, the scent of perfumes and oils and lotions rested heavily in the air, and the sight of jewelry and picture frames and makeup on every spare surface bothered his very being.

  It was a cluttered, feminine apartment, and Matthew wondered how every werewolf in the borough hadn’t been alerted to Lorraine’s trail by now—her scent was distinct, and it carried. Unfortunately, Matthew hadn’t picked it up anywhere between the Howler and her apartment. It was as if she’d never made the journey to and from the place, and Matthew wondered if his sense of smell was failing him, or if she’d never set out to return to the bar.

  He’d expected to find some indication of where Lorraine had gone from her apartment, but everything appeared to be very much in place. Despite the chaotic nature of the apartment, Matthew had the feeling that in an odd way, everything was exactly where it should be: it just wasn’t the place it belonged in theory. Dishes were stacked on the counter instead of the sink, makeup sat on her bed instead of in the bathroom, and clothes had been thrown on the chair instead of in the hamper.

  “I don’t think she packed anything.” Detective DeMarco lightly perused over a vanity—Matthew had just learned the word for the little desk, thanks to Dani—and studied the contents there. “This face cream is worth a lot of money. Is it sick that I want to take it?”

  Matthew flicked a smile at her. “Lorraine would have your head.”

  “You sound so old sometimes,” Dani said, looking up at him. “I really wish you’d just tell me your age.”

  Matthew had never told Dani his age for two reasons. One, he really was old. Ancient, compared to her, and when they’d been dating, he had worried it would bother her. So, he’d kept it to himself. Now that they weren’t dating, it wasn’t her business, so he still didn’t tell her.

  That didn’t stop her from latc
hing onto each of his phrases and trying to pin his year of transformation and birth down. She had figured one of his phrases to be from the early eighteen hundreds, but so far, she hadn’t uncovered anything beyond that. If only she knew.

  “She didn’t pack anything,” Dani continued. “I hate to say it, but I am starting to lean toward the second option.”

  “That someone took her?”

  “Yes. If Lorraine ran and left all this stuff behind, well, that would be really smart. She didn’t pack a single item of clothing or face cream or whatever. I just don’t see Lorraine as being that smart. Or having that level of self-control,” Dani said, and wistfully looked at the face cream. “Hell, I’d take the face cream with me, and I’m a detective.”

  Matthew smiled. He enjoyed working with Dani—even on the toughest cases, she could bring a smile to his face. That was important in this industry, or one began to lose their soul. If, of course, they had one to begin with—and Matthew knew all too well that many people debated the very existence of his.

  “Unless she’s working with Grey,” Dani said. “If she’s working with Grey, he would’ve pried the face cream from her sticky little fingers and made her leave it behind.”

  “You’re painting such a picture,” he said dryly.

  He thumbed through Lorraine’s explosion of things, carefully selecting a gauzy white scarf that smelled strongly of her. She must have worn it yesterday. He would hold onto it in case he needed to track Lorraine.

  “Would Grey go through all that to help Lorraine?”

  Dani seemed offended at the question. “Of course! He loves her. I don’t know what to think about Grey, and I don’t even like Lorraine much, but I believe more than anything else in this case that they love each other.”

  “Grey might not have wanted to get involved.”

  “I don’t know that him helping her disappear constitutes getting involved. He might just want to keep her safe until this case wraps up. Do I believe he’d do that for someone he loved?” She leveled her gaze on Matthew. “I believe most people would.”

  “We don’t know if Grey is involved with the rest of the case. What if he knows about the new drug?” Matthew pressed. “What if Lorraine’s refusal to talk was her protecting him, and he realized she wasn’t good enough, wasn’t worth the hassle. What if he killed her—”

  “No.” She was shaking her head, adamant. “I don’t see it. I think—”

  “Detective.” Matthew’s voice snaked through the room, calm, secure, dangerous. “You said yourself that love blinds a person. Isn’t it possible that the two loved each other despite one of their past times being illegal?”

  Dani’s eyes landed on Matthew’s, a gentle brokenness in them. At once, Matthew regretted his words, though he knew it to be imperative to the case. Dani had suffered enough—he should have left it alone, but he hadn’t.

  “I think we’re done here,” Dani said quietly. “We need to look in The Depth. Do you think you can pick up her scent?”

  “DeMarco, I’m sorry—” Matthew reached for her, but she yanked her arm away quickly. “Danielle, please.”

  She turned smoothly at the door, her gaze hollow. “You’re right. I was allowing myself to get distracted by an emotional response.”

  “You have a point about them being in love; I was just playing devil’s advocate. I didn’t mean your situation was anything like theirs.”

  “Didn’t you?” she asked flatly. “Regardless, I think we need to pursue all options. You’re right. The most likely scenario is that Grey is involved somehow.”

  “Danielle, please. Don’t close down.”

  “I’m not closing down, Captain, I’m doing my job.” She cocked her head, listening. It was a sure sign of Matthew’s distraction that Dani heard the techs arriving downstairs before him. “I have revised my opinion, and I believe it’s likely that Grey played one of two roles in the matter: Either he helped Lorraine to vanish, or he took her himself and is holding her captive or worse.”

  “It’s not the same,” Matthew warned. “Stop it, Dani. It’s not the same at all—you can’t keep comparing your own situation on the job. It’s not healthy.”

  “I know, dammit.” She leaned forward, hissing in a low voice as the techs climbed the stairs. “Why the hell do you think I quit? Now come on before we have a dead body on our hands. We’ve got to find Grey.”

  Chapter 22

  While Dani and Matthew launched their hunt for Grey, Matthew assigned officers to interview Lorraine’s brother, other tenants of her apartment building, and girlfriends she might have called in a pinch.

  The officers reported they’d found nothing. It seemed Lorraine had gone home from work in a bubbly mood—excited to see Grey during her break—and then she’d simply vanished. No Comms, no visitors, no exit from her apartment...nothing. It was as if she’d gone into her room, stepped into the closet, and disappeared from the face of the earth.

  Meanwhile, Dani and Matthew returned to the Howler and repeated their questioning there, but the tension of an oncoming full moon made the air feel like gelatin—thick, sticky, heavy—and they left without any new leads.

  “So, the guy has no friends, no home, no patterns,” Dani said, frustrated, “except that he came to the Howler to collect Lorraine. He spent time with her, and then disappeared.”

  “He must dwell in The Depth,” Matthew said. “Assuming he’s attuned to the pack, it would be the safest, most logical place for him to go.”

  “We don’t know if he’s part of the Sixth Pack—nobody has confirmed that. All we have to go on are his tattoos.”

  “Fair enough,” Matthew said. “Unless you have a better idea?”

  “We can’t—” Dani hesitated. “There’s no hope of finding a werewolf in The Depth.”

  Matthew raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m sorry, you might be fast and have a ridiculous sense of smell, but he knows The Depth much better than you,” Dani pointed out. “He’ll know how to hide, how to mask his trail and cover his scent.”

  “You forget...” Matthew stopped walking and reached for Dani’s face. A strand of hair had fallen from her ponytail into her eyes, and he gently brushed it away, hating that she flinched as he did so. “You forget how long I’ve been alive. I might just know The Depth better than you think.”

  “If you’d tell me how long you’ve been alive, maybe I wouldn’t have to guess,” she growled, and he laughed. “It’s not safe to go in there tonight with it being the full moon. But I don’t see any other way. We have to go if we want any chance of finding Lorraine.”

  “The Depth never used to be dangerous for all,” Matthew said. “Years ago, it was an enchanted marvel. Fairy hollows and gnome colonies intermixed. Pixies had their own set of branches and even the goblins toiled in the caves. It was all one magic forest, as it should be.”

  “Why did it turn south?”

  Matthew gave her a sad smile. “We can’t have nice things because someone will always find a way to ruin it. Now, The Depth is ruined—unless one is willing to kill or be killed. That is the last standing rule. I’m afraid it’s too dangerous for you, and I’ll have to ask you to stay back.”

  “Not a chance,” Dani said. “If you’re going in, I’m going in.”

  “Then consider this an order, Detective: Go back to the station and follow up on Lorraine’s contacts. Hopefully, something will turn up and the journey into The Depth will be for naught.”

  “It’s not for naught,” Dani spit the word as if it tasted foul. “Dillon’s drop site is in The Depth. Something is going on in the forest, and it has to do with PowerPax. Take me with you, or I’ll follow you anyway.”

  “I gave you a command.”

  “And I don’t report to you. I’ll give you my badge back and go in as a civilian,” Dani said. “Either let me stay by your side so I have a chance of making it out alive, or send me to my death.”

  Matthew gave the longest of sighs. “You are most dramatic.” />
  Dani smiled. “Great. That’s what I thought. Which way, Captain?”

  The Howler bar was located near the forest—easy, Matthew supposed, for the bouncers to toss unruly wolves back where they belonged. Matthew idly wondered how many shifters would be tossed out before midnight. By the wee hours of the morning, surely the bar would be emptied save for the few dangerous souls who dared stray near The Depth on a night the moon appeared in full: Usually, these were the souls who didn’t much care if they made it home alive.

  A howl sounded in the distance, and Matthew tensed.

  It had begun.

  Yet here he stood, leading the precinct’s most valuable resource into the jaws of the forest on its most dangerous night in the cycle. He must be going crazy to have agreed to it. Then again, he didn’t have a choice. The alternative was worse, and Dani was right. She didn’t work for him, and he couldn’t give her an order.

  She never had, hence the reason their relationship had been acceptable. Unlike many of the women Matthew had dated over the last few centuries, Dani stood up to him. She argued her points, and she didn’t give in when she believed herself correct.

  Also, unlike most women, she hadn’t wanted to be ‘his’, to be a thing that Matthew loved and cherished like a childhood teddy bear or a piece of fine jewelry. She had wanted to be partners—equal in all ways, together as one entity—and that is what had grabbed Matthew and held him by his unbeating heart.

  Though he wanted to reach for her hand, he knew she’d slap it away the second their skin brushed together. Instead he cleared his thoughts of her and focused on the scarf he carried in his hand.

  Where Dani’s scent was fierce and feminine, potent and lethal—to Matthew, at least—Lorraine’s smell was like a carefully crafted bouquet of fake flowers: sickly sweet, pretty for a moment, and then too overwhelming. Dani was more like the rose that bloomed once per year—a visceral, rare beauty.