He heard Saint snort as he continued to run his diagnostics. Teddy grabbed the toxicology report the coroner had left with them and flipped through it, steadily ignoring the vibration in his pocket. The report was incomplete, the guy saying they were still waiting on some results because the first lot hadbeen contaminated. Other than that, nothing obvious stood out. Lizards eating eyeballs wasn’t exactly commonplace.
The fact that it resulted indeathwas the weird part.
As far as they suspected and knew, people were shooting up with this drug, not getting it directly from the source, so what had gone wrong here?
“It’s definitely got curse traces, just like the others.” Saint snapped off his gloves.
“Do you think our guy was trying to make his own supply? Curse an animal instead of paying for a fix?” Teddy wondered.
“Could be. Or maybe he knew more than he was letting on. He could have been one of our distributors and something went wrong. He seems squeaky clean on paper, but who knows what skeletons he has in his closet.”
Teddy hummed. “We need more evidence.”
“Good thing we have some leads, then.” Saint grinned.
“Let’s tell the coroner to put him back on ice for the time being.” Teddy pulled off his own protective gear. “Just in case we need to examine him again.”
They disposed of their gear and talked to the coroner before heading out of the morgue just as the sun was threatening to rise over the glass buildings.
“If you keep yawning I’m going to catch it, and I still need to get us home,” Saint said, unlocking the door to his car.
Teddy caught himself midway through one. He hadn’t even noticed. “Sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“Curses never rest. You had two calls when we got back.”
“The first one was simple. It was the bachelorette-party-gone-wrong thanks to a jealous maid of honor that really ate up the rest of the day and much of the night.” Teddy groaned and tried to crack his neck.
Saint whistled. “Bet they thought you were the cursebreaker stripper come to call.”
Teddy grimaced and Saint burst out laughing.
Teddy shoved him into the hood of the car. “Shut the fuck up.”
“He’s not even cursing me with big words, it must have been bad.” Saint continued to cackle as he righted himself and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Teddy took his place in the passenger’s side, glaring. “I should have told you to get lost when you called.”
“Nah. The case was getting colder by the minute; you wouldn’t have,” Saint said confidently. Which was completely right. Teddy wouldn’t have said no. Sometimes he liked to pretend though.
“We should ping our findings over to Slatehollow.” Saint paused and glanced over. “Need me to do it?”
“I’m fine,” Teddy almost snapped.
Saint raised a brow. “Didn’t suggest you weren’t, my man.”
Teddy chewed the inside of his cheek, brows furrowing against his will as he turned to gaze out the window. West. Exactly where Slatehollow lay. He tried to imagine what Wren was doing at that moment. Where he was. He wondered whether he was thinking of him too. Maybe looking into the distance wondering the same thing. They used to be so in tune with each other that they could finish each other’s sentences. He wondered if their minds still aligned. A flash of a familiar car parked in a narrow alley caught his attention.
He squinted against the glare of the still-glowing streetlamp and clenched his jaw. Always watched. Always tracked. Always accounted for.
“I’ll do it,” he said, peeling his gaze away from the car and back to Saint, who was already looking at him.
Saint drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a few beats. “He seemed happy to see you.”
Heartache was a dull throb in Teddy’s chest. “He ran away from me again.”
“Before that.”
Teddy glanced over, knowing his feelings were written all over his face.
