*Keera*
I should have been scared. Any human in their right senses would have been scared, especially when his eyes had outrightly flashed gold, his wolf threatening to take over. Luckily, I wasn’t any human. Grayson had another thing coming if he thought he could make me bend to his every will. I was more than ready to face his wolf if I absolutely had to. He had no right dishing out orders like I was some lowly member of his pack he could command.
“Why are you so bent on acting stubborn?” He asked, sounding a lot like he really wanted to know. I twisted in his grip, trying to free myself from him. Rather than let go of me, he raised my other arm above my head with his free hand and held my wrists even more firmly. “What on earth gives you that much courage?”
I barely stopped myself from cursing at him.
I took a calming breath for the thousandth time since I met this insufferable man. There was no use struggling and trying to get out of his grip on my own. Even I knew that I was no match for his strength. Every part of him was finely muscled. From his broad shoulders, to his tattooed chest, down to his trim waist. I was never getting out of his hold unless he wanted me to.
And he was looking a lot like he enjoyed having me in this position.
I grimaced when I realized how sexual the thought was. He probably mistook the action for me pretending to be in pain so he could let go of me. The last thing I needed to entertain right now were thoughts of Grayson and I doing anything remotely sexual. Not when I was this close to him and he could very well hear my heartbeat. I cleared my throat, hating that I was beginning to feel a little self conscious with the way he was staring at me. “Fine, we can talk.” I conceded.
His gaze dropped to my mouth. “Funny,” He murmured under his breath. “I was beginning to enjoy having you like this.” His eyes locked with mine as we both realized what his statement had sounded like. It was his turn to clear his throat as he finally let go of me and took a few steps back to put a bit of distance between us. I brought my wrists to my chest, soothing the pain from his vice-like grip. “What did you want to talk about?” I asked, moving to lean against the fridge.
He ran a hand through his dark hair and released a deep breath through his nose. “Sarah almost killed herself today.” He informed me flatly. There was no trace of whatever that had been seconds ago. If anything, I could detect a slight note of anger in his voice once more. I crinkle my forehead, trying to match the name to a face. It took me a minute to realize he was talking about Tala’s mom.
She almost killed herself?
I had no doubt that neither Josie nor Kathryn had known about it. They definitely wouldn’t have kept something like that away from me. Which led me to believe that she’d probably made the attempt to commit suicide after they had both left. Was that why Grayson had been so angry? Did he think we had anything to do with it? It was understandable that he would lose his shit after being told that a pack member had almost died, amid the whole crisis that was currently going on in the pack.
Even though that pack member had practically called for her own death.
“I can’t imagine why she-”
“You can’t imagine?” Grayson repeated incredulously, interrupting me. I squinted at him, smarting at not just the way he had interrupted me, but also the accusation coating his question. He pinched the bridge of his nose, looking around like he wanted to punch something. “Keera, you sent your team to question her.” He reminded me, his voice rising. “What part of she just lost her only pup didn’t you understand?”
“The part where we’re not supposed to question her when it was something we clearly had to do for the sake of the case.” I fired back. The muscles in his face twitched and I wondered why he was suddenly so worked up about it. I’d let them know during our meeting that we were going to be having interviews with families and friends of the victims to see if we could find anything that would point us in the direction of the killer. I couldn’t recall if he’d agreed to it but I knew for a fact that there had been no objections on their end.
So what exactly was this all about?
Grayson moved his head from side to side, fixing me a scalding look. “You said you were going to conduct interviews,” He said. “You didn’t say anything about accusing anyone of having a hand in their pup’s death.” There was no way Josie and Kathryn had said that. I could swear it anytime. They were both professionals and they had the sense to know that it would be extremely unprofessional of them to accuse a victim’s parents of having a hand in their pup’s death.
Without evidence.
I tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “You can’t stand there and tell me that those were their exact words, Grayson.” I stated bluntly. “Because you and I both know it would be a complete lie.” My stomach growled silently and I slanted a look at my food before glancing back at him. I didn’t care whether or not it was going to piss him off. I was very close to having dinner.
“It doesn’t matter whether or not they had said those exact words,” He countered, gesturing with his hands. “You have no right to insinuate that Sarah was in any way responsible for Tala’s death.” He emphasized. Suddenly I was tired of the entire argument. It was really pointless if you asked me. Certainly not important enough for me to abandon my meal.
“Well, she wasn’t exactly the most involved in her daughter’s life now, was she?” I clapped back. I ran a tongue over my bottom lip, hating how dry it felt. “Rather than accuse my team of saying something we both know for a fact that they did not,” I stated calmly as I pulled out a chair from the table. “How about you let us do our job and ensure that the rest of your pack are a little more aware of their own families at least?”
I lowered myself to my seat and pushed the chair forward. He stood staring at me for a minute before he headed for the front door, slamming the door behind him as he exited the house. I felt a slight ache in my head as I finally forked my food into my mouth. I was going to talk to Josie and Kathryn tomorrow but for now I didn’t have it in me to think about anything. Not the team. Not Grayson.
Not even the case.
***
“I’m not sure we’d be able to narrow the time of death to anything more specific than two weeks.” Lexi stated, her voice barely audible through the face mask that covered the lower half of her face. I stared at Tala’s body, carefully laid out on the autopsy table and silently agreed with her. Most of her nails and teeth had already fallen out, the skin of her tummy showed discoloration and most of the superficial veins of her skin were visible.
All signs that she had been dead for about two weeks.
We did a few more tests and examinations and finally concluded that she had died somewhere between evening and dawn. Lexi and I checked the state of her organs with the help of Kathryn so we could figure out whether or not we would be able to ascertain the cause of death. We already knew that all the organs of werewolves were slightly smaller than that of humans.
It wasn’t something anyone would notice without already having the knowledge. It made shifting a lot easier and since they already had superhuman abilities, they could do without the extra help from having slightly larger organs. We spent almost the entire day carrying out different exams on Tala but we didn’t come up with anything that could help with the case.
Her tissues were already badly compromised.
“Think we should check out the scene where they’d found the second body?” Lexi asked as we cleaned up the lab. She looked almost as tired as I felt, her hair sticking out in several places. I threw my used gloves into the trash and brought my phone to my view to check what the time was. “There’s still a little time.” She added. “We could just see if we’re going to find anything important.”
I picked up some evidence packets and we headed to the second crime scene. The second victim had been older than Tala. A twenty eight year old brunette. Her file showed that she had only met her mate just two years earlier. She’d been gone for six hours when her mate informed the pack that she was missing. That was way faster than Sarah and Will had done, I couldn’t help thinking. Apparently she’d stepped out to the store to get a few things.
The store had only been about ten minutes away from where they lived.
I considered the possibility that she had been killed by her mate for a few minutes. Although I was having a hard time figuring what his motive would have been, I couldn’t completely rule out the fact that it was possible. No one had seen her leave the house in the first place. He could have easily killed her and then reported her missing to cover up his tracks.
“It’s very unlikely,” Lexi said when I voiced my thoughts to her. She had her hands on her waist looking around the scene with careful eyes. “I don’t know much about these people but even I know that they would never purposely harm their mate.” She said matter of factly, squinting her eyes at me. “Aren’t they supposed to feel it whenever their mate is in pain?”
“Maybe he’s so much of a psychopath that it didn’t bother him.” I countered, frustration becoming evident in my voice. Becka had been found between bushes by the road. The location was so far away from both her house and the store she’d supposedly been heading to that it was a little shocking. The killer had obviously ended her life and then dumped her body between these bushes.
Her body had been found only two days after Tala’s.
From the corner of my eyes I saw Lexi give me a shake of her head. “I don’t think he killed her.” She said bluntly. “It’s more likely that there’s one killer.” She reminded me. “At most two. If Becka’s husband was the actual killer or at least one of them, it wouldn’t match up with the other deaths.” She explained but I could see that she wasn’t completely convinced herself.
“We can’t say that for sure.” I told her, putting on my gloves. I didn’t think we would find anything but then again I could still be wrong. “He could also have killed Tala and all the others for all we know.” I said. “But, I guess you’re right. We can’t consider him a major suspect until we find some kind of loop hole in his story.”
Which Josie was supposed to get done today.
My phone rang out and I signalled Lexi to give me a minute as I took off my gloves, a little surprised that I was getting a call. It was the first time anyone was calling my cell since I’d arrived at the pack grounds. My heart beat began to race when I identified the caller. Why on earth was Ginny ringing my cell? I wasn’t surprised she had my number. Everyone on the council did. I was however surprised that she was calling me directly. I picked the calm, bringing the phone to my ear.
And receiving the most shocking news.