Eden
I’m busy with work.We had fun, but I’m not interested in pursuing this any further.
Henry
I’ll check on you later
Mr.Hightower’smessage reminded me that I still wanted to honor my father’s wishes before he passed.Though it was selfish to think about myself right now, how was I supposed to move on with my life with Lucian facing a murder charge?Was I supposed to pick a mate who offended me the least?
All evidence pointed to his guilt.If he were anyone else, I wouldn’t bat an eyelash about locking them up.I felt an obligation to help him, but was I doing it to ascertain his innocence or guilt, or was I doing it for love?
Although Marcus no longer posed a threat, what would happen when the next person showed up who wanted to come for me?The man I loved was behind bars—my protector was gone.The only one I trusted to make sure my father would be safe.
I had always been a take-charge person who made good decisions, but right now I didn’t have a clue what to do.
Chapter18
“Thanks for calling, Mr.Vance.”I forced a polite smile at the man in the black cowboy hat and jeans.
“I thought we were on a first-name basis,” he quipped while leaning against his mate’s red Jeep.“Call me Montana.”
I approached him from my car and glanced up at Milly’s house.“I don’t feel right having you do this without accepting payment.”
He shook his head.“You want to hire me to investigate my packmate’s murder charge.I would’ve done it anyhow.”
“Yes, but then I wouldn’t be as involved.This isn’t something we normally do when the evidence stacks up, but I just need an experienced set of eyes on this.I appreciate your help.”
“Think nothing of it.”He scratched his jaw and slanted his friendly gaze toward the road.“Anyhow, it’s better this way.I know Lucian’s been doing work for you, so you have a personal interest in him.Nobody will question your integrity or think you’re giving him preferential treatment if I do all the asking.You and I are just… sharing info.”
“Do you think he did it?”
He scratched the burn on his left hand.It was shaped like the letterCwith two vertical lines on the bottom curve that formed anH.“Lucian’s a good guy.A jerk?Yeah, he can be that too.But he’s not the aggressive type.I mean… he instigates fights when someone comes at him, and sometimes he’s impulsive, but Lucian isn’t the killing type.That’s why I needed to do this.”
A few days ago, I had reached out to Montana and asked if he would review the case to see if we’d overlooked anything.We had already notified the Mageri, who was busy tracking down Marcus’s Creator.Until then, it only made sense to gather all the facts.It wasn’t a secret that Montana used to work as an undercover detective, so I valued his expertise.Maybe an unbiased third party would’ve been a better choice, but Montana was a straight shooter, and I knew from conversations with Lucian that they were pretty close.Maybe he knew a detail in Lucian’s history that I didn’t—something that would shed light on this.
It was Montana’s idea to have Milly examine the deceased.It wasn’t customary to perform autopsies on Breed.Usually there was enough evidence to conclude the cause of death, such as in this case.
Montana removed his hat.His short brown hair was crushed from being stuffed in the hat, so he used his fingers as a makeshift comb.“It took me a couple of days to track down all the witnesses, but their stories match up.Neither man entered the bar.Everything happened outside in the parking lot.Nobody witnessed the altercation, and they found Lucian slumped over the deceased with his face buried in his neck.”
I sighed, frustrated by another dead end.
“The one thing that didn’t make sense,” he went on, “was the tire iron.I didn’t put one in the Jeep, which I need to do, and the victim’s car had one in the trunk.Most people don’t carry two, so where did it come from?”
“Thatisstrange.Were you the one who came by the jail asking for it?”
He put his hat back on and slowly moved toward the house, the sun shining in his eyes when he looked at me.“I wanted to borrow it to have a Sensor check it out—see what kind of energy might be on it.I couldn’t get past Captain Underpants,” he said, referring to Peter.
“We have a strict policy about guests.They have to be approved, and I guess Hiroki or Connor weren’t there.”
“No.”
“We don’t hand out evidence to anyone who asks, but I can discuss this with my colleagues.Do you still need it?”
He stepped onto the porch.“Maybe not after today.My contact isn’t a hypersensitive, and since it’s been a few days, he probably couldn’t get much from it anyhow.I’ve kept in touch with Milly after you told her I was on the case, and she called me a little while ago.I know you have a busy schedule, but you need to see this with your own eyes.”
After I followed him inside Milly’s dark house, we traveled down the elevator into the underground medical facility where she treated people.
When the doors opened, Milly emerged from a room on the right.“I’m used to my patients being alive,” she remarked.“But it’s nice when they can’t complain.”
