I smiled at that response. I knew Sinclair was going with his gut feeling. Sometimes, he just knew things. I had always been amazed at that ability. It had saved my ass more than once when he had told me not to go somewhere or warned me of danger I had yet to see.
Sinclair’s sixth sense was not something to scoff at. It was very real.
“Please get back to me as soon as possible with anything you find.”
Stryker nodded. “I’ll call.”
I heard a door close a moment later. Sinclair sighed as he went back to the stack of files in front of him, letting me know Stryker had left the room. The tight press of his lips made me clench my fists. I wished I had the right to tell him not to take on the council position, but I didn’t. I never would, and that was my own damn fault.
I watched Sinclair for a bit longer before the waitress came and told me they were closing for the night. Knowing I couldn’t stay where I was, I closed down my laptop, gathered my stuff, paid my bill, and headed for the door.
I wished I could go to council headquarters, but I wasn’t wanted there. Sinclair had made that more than clear when he handed me off to Ion.
Maybe I’d give it a few days and then call Sinclair. That would give me time to complete my current assignment and give Sinclair time to cool off. I knew the man wanted to keep distance between us, and I couldn’t blame him. But I’d take those weekly phone calls over nothing.
Nothing was tearing me apart.
Chapter Three
Sinclair
The throbbing in my head wouldn’t go away, no matter how much I rubbed it. Pain pills wouldn’t help because shifters burned the medication off too quickly. I simply had to suffer through what might be the worst headache I had ever had, and I’d had it for a few days.
Between the constant migraines and throwing up because my stomach was in knots, I felt like road kill. I had lost more weight than I could really afford to lose because I couldn’t seem to keep anything down. Every time I tried, my stomach knotted and rebelled.
Stryker hadn’t gotten back to me yet, but the lack of information I had found on the missing teens made the throbbing in my head even worse. There was nothing, no trail, no bread-crumb to follow, not even a whiff of anything being wrong, except that the kids were missing.
By all accounts, every single one of them had been good kids. No trouble in school, well-liked by their peers, good grades, the works. They had been everything a parent could dream of, right up until they went missing.
The police didn’t seem to be looking very hard. Their cavalier attitude about seven missing teenagers made me see red every damn time I talked to them. It was almost as if they didn’t care. I knew that there was still hatred and fear toward shifters, but a missing kid was still a missing kid. Something needed to be done.
The council wasn’t much better. My one and only phone call to them had ended with me hanging up before I let loose with the thoughts raging through my brain. Getting on their shit list my first month as a councilman was not how I wanted to start off.
The more time I spent going through files, the more I was surprised at how little Councilman James actually did. It was almost as if his main goal had been to steal as much money as he could instead of looking after the panther shifter species. The more I dug, the more disenchanted I became with anyone who had anything to do with the council.
I sighed deeply when someone knocked on my office door. “Come.” I smiled when the door opened and Bob and Shade stepped into the room. “Hey, how was the honeymoon?”
Bob grinned. “Not long enough.”
Shade grunted, but his eyes brightened when they landed on Bob.
I didn’t sigh with envy.
Really.
Bob beamed. “How’s my cat?”
Crap.
“To be honest, I moved Mustachio into my quarters.” I shrugged when both men stared at me. “I kind of liked having a friendly face around.”
“And…the mansion isn’t friendly?” Bob asked.
“It’s not that exactly. It’s just…everyone here knows me because I’ve been here for ages. I just don’t think they like the idea of me taking over Councilman James’s position. No one’s been outright disrespectful or anything. It’s really just a vibe I get.”
A very unfriendly vibe.
I waved my hand at all the files in front of me. There were a lot of them. “And with this, I haven’t had a chance to do anything else but work.”
