“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.”
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.”
