She had a bad feeling this was connected to the current case, but one never knew. “Great. I’ll be right back.” Mia left her coffee and ran upstairs to her phone to dial Kurt. It was early, but he was dedicated when he was on a case.
“Morning.” Kurt said. “I’m already at the office. It’s time to head back out to Lost Asylum and interview everyone about Nurse Bobbi Trienze. I don’t like the coincidence that two of the most recent victims were nurses. Are you coming in?”
Mia reached for a heavier sweatshirt and tucked her phone between her shoulder and ear. “I am. I wanted to know if we missed any detail in that report last night. It was so preliminary. It didn’t tell us anything but the victim’s name.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I just spoke with the head of the forensics unit out of Seattle. They’re sending over a more complete report. This murder was a little different than the others.”
“How so?” Mia asked, holding her breath.
“The killer left a bright red bow on the body.”
Chapter29
“Seth, your dad saved everything,” Jenny said, tossing three more file folders into the bin they had designated for garbage.
Seth nodded from across his father’s home office. “I know. It’s ridiculous.” He’d never been much of a saver, so it was a surprise to find that his father had been. Oh, the man had been extremely organized, but nobody needed the warranty information on a 1950 Sentinel model 335 PM-AM radio. And as far as Seth knew, his father had thrown that away at least forty years ago.
Seth was going through the massive desk drawers as Jenny started on the various filing cabinets and cupboards throughout the room.
“Oh.” She pulled out an old shoebox and lifted the lid, rifling through. “Seth, these are love letters from your mom to Ben.” Her expression softened.
Seth cocked his head. “Love letters?”
“Yeah.” Jenny touched the envelopes. “I shouldn’t open them.” However, the desire to do so was definitely on her face. “I’m sure it was private.”
“I’m sure it was,” Seth said dryly. “You can put those to the side. I’ll look at them later.” Curiosity rode him, but he wouldn’t admit it. It pleased him that his mother had found love, even though Ben hadn’t been the easiest man to live with. But he remembered them being happy, and that mattered.
Jenny’s expression fell, but she nodded and put the lid back on the box. “All right, but if there’s anything incredibly sweet, I would love to read it. I’d keep it between us.”
So, his new admin was a romantic at heart. That was good to know. “I promise if there’s nothing too personal, you can read them.” Although, since his mom had been a sweetheart, those letters probably were romantic.
It was nice that Ben had kept them together and away from his official documents.
Seth had had a wild youth and had butted heads with Ben often, but he knew his mom and Ben had loved each other. Even if Ben had been a little rough as the Alpha of the pack, he’d always been kind, even sweet, to Seth’s mom.
Jenny wiped down the interior of the cupboard with a dust rag.
Seth shook his head. “We’re probably going to burn this place down. You don’t need to clean it.”
“I don’t think you should.” She looked around. “There’s too much history here. If you want to update the building with all modern furnishings or a country style or whatever, you should do that. I wouldn’t burn it down, though.”
Seth looked around. The feeling of history was heavy in the air. “Maybe you’re right. This would probably make a great home office for Mia. We’d have to take out all the furniture and start new, but that could be fun.”
Jenny nodded. “The walls are strong in this place. I know half the house has fire damage, but that’s the part you can take all the way down to the ground and do something different.”
She was right, and a huge change like that wouldn’t make the pack feel any more settled. Plus, he and Erik had grown up here. Seth nodded. “All right. Then I need you to find me some contractors and an architect. I wish we had one in the pack.”
She reached onto the bottom shelf and pulled out stacks of what looked like owner’s manuals for various appliances. “You’d have to let people leave here and go to college for us to have an architect.”
The woman wasn’t wrong. He studied her. She had four kids and no doubt had plans for them. “Again, you make an excellent point. We need to let the kids go off and explore. I just want to figure out a way to do it so they’re safe. And I would like them to go in groups of four, if at all possible.”
Her eyes lit up. “I think that’s a great idea. I could start looking into different college programs and housing arrangements, maybe even scholarships, if you want. We could create our own that has guidelines for the recipients, meaning our kids, that could keep them safe.”
Seth sat back in the heavy leather chair. “You’ve been thinking about this.”
She nodded. “Every mother I know in the pack has been thinking about this.”
Then it was time they got to make the decisions. He shut the top drawer and moved on to one of the bottom ones. “All right, you’re in charge of coming up with that plan.”
