Behind him, he heard Jason laugh while Raven said, “Ume!You can’t sit in my lap.”
There is sunshine at my back, at least.
Chapter 28
Maximworried.He’dchosento head downstairs in his casual clothes, and they felt much less like armor than his hunter’s blacks.So, as the elevator doors opened, he straightened, steeled himself, and settled into the knowledge that he had saved his prisoners’ victim from whatever they’d had planned for him.
As he headed toward Bryan’s desk, Maxim spotted the doctor’s blue hair with the white tips, and watched as the detective brushed it back behind his mate’s ear in casual intimacy.Bryan was watching too as he reached for a tangerine from his fruit bowl while biting his bottom lip.Hmm, what is this, embarrassment?Not jealousy, that much I know.Then…longing?
Maxim cleared his throat before addressing the vampire and werewolf couple.“Gordon, Detective, how have you been?”
Adler frowned, and Gordon turned.He’d brought his medical bag, held loosely in his left hand.
“Fine, fine,” Gordon said.“How’s Raven?Is he doing okay?”
Maxim smiled, concentrating on keeping his voice even.“He’s resting upstairs.”
Adler’s arm wound a tad tighter around Gordon’s waist in a reflex the detective was likely not aware of.“Do you think we can interview him?If he knows anything, it might help us figure out what Highgate was involved in and how it relates to Pearson.”
Maxim’s pleasant expression was getting strained.He knew and understood the impulse to ask a survivor questions, knew that the detective was not looking to inflict a new hurt on top of one that was barely healed, and yet, Maxim couldn’t allow this.He wouldn’t force Raven to speak of what had happened before he was ready.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible right now, Adler, but if he remembers anything of use to our cause, I’ll let you all know.Say, where is young Milea?”
Gordon sighed.“School.They start way early.”
Maxim nodded.“Well, it’s best to begin when they’re still little.”
Adler chuckled and pulled Gordon against his side, shooting him a look of such loving adoration that Maxim was certain most artists would have paid them outrageous sums to get them to model.
“He means early in the day.”
Maxim nodded.“Yes, that too can be an issue.You might want to consider private tutors, like I did with Heath when he was small.So, Doctor, are we ready to head downstairs?”
Adler frowned.“Do you really think that’s necessary, Maxim?I mean, what can Gordon do?No offense, sweetheart, but you’re a rockstar with the corpses, and the problem with that day shifter is that he isn’t one.”
Gordon leaned his head against Adler’s shoulder.“I do have medical training, Detective.And I ain’t afraid of no wolf.Not when you’re there.”
Adler seemed to brighten with an inner glow, as though his heart was a candle and someone had held a match to the wick.Behind him, Maxim heard Bryan let out a long breath.
Maxim cleared his throat.“I shall be backup, then.Bryan, anything we should know before we head downstairs?”
He turned to look at Bryan, who immediately straightened and shook his head.“No.It’s all like you wanted it.The werewolf hasn’t been doing much of anything, just like before.”
Gordon crossed his arms and nodded.“I’m ready.Let’s go.”
It was silent from the brightly lit cell at the end of the hallway.Maxim appreciated that, though it was not a silence he would trust.Highgate deserved no such thing, and Maxim had a sense that the man was foul in ways he hadn’t revealed yet.
There was a keypad with a fingerprint sensor on the cell door, behind which the shifter was lying on his side on the thin blanket that covered the bunk.There was a manual override too, and Maxim knew that Bryan wouldn’t ever let the door open unless he was down here or some other emergency struck.
“Doctor?”Maxim asked when he saw the tense lines around Gordon’s mouth, much like that day when he’d come here to seek advice about how to handle a possible relationship with Adler.
“Yeah.Let’s go.”
Maxim gave the scanner a code and a fingerprint, and the door opened.He could hear what he’d seen through the shatterproof glass—shallow breathing.The werewolf still hadn’t touched his food, and he didn’t move, not even when Maxim approached him.
“Daniel, we have questions for you,” Maxim said, coming to a halt near the foot of the bunk.“Can you sit up?”
The shifter’s eyes blinked open, but it didn’t look like he was seeing anything.
