“Okay, all.Be good out here.I need to work now.”I picked up my backpack and went into the studio to start my day.I was putting my second octopus into the annealer when I saw movement on the deck.Damn.Detective Osso, a very tall, broad-shouldered Black man who was also a bear shifter, was standing in the window, hands on hips, glaring at me.I knew he couldn’t actually see through the glass, but he was glaring nonetheless.
“Give me a minute,” I shouted, and he finally relaxed and walked to the railing to wait.
I had a feeling I knew why he was here, and this wasn’t going to be a fast visit.I closed down the hot shop, opened the vents in the roof to air it out, and then went into the studio to use the bathroom, grab a drink, and pick up my backpack.
When I finally went out onto the deck, Osso was back to looking pissed off.“What took you so lo?—”
“Let’s go,” I said.“You have to bring me back, though.Declan’s meeting with a potential client today.”
“You don’t even know why I’m here,” he grumbled, following me around the back of the gallery toward his SUV.
“Sure I do.You found a body at an abandoned summer camp.And by the way, if Mrs.Voorhees jumps out at me, you better be there to swat her head off.”
He opened the passenger door for me then gave me his hand to help me up, which was very unlike him.Wait.Did he know I was pregnant?My dad had said that shifters picked up on scent differences in gestating women.Interesting.
A moment later, he slid behind the steering wheel on a growl.“How come when I make a Jason joke, I’m told I’m being insensitive?”
I shrugged.“I think people just don’t like you.”
He grumbled some more as he spun the SUV around and we headed out of town.“Did you have a dream about this or something?”
I redirected all the air vents toward me.“Something like that.I had a vision.”I drank from my water bottle, face still red and sweaty from working in the hot shop.
“Do you want me to tell you what we know so far?”he asked.
I tipped my head into the rushing air.“Shoot.”
“It was some kind of Christian camp that was started in the early fifties,” he began.“Churches in the county visited for decades.It was a family camp and later became a kid’s summer camp.The owners couldn’t afford to keep up on repairs and eventually had to shut it down in the early nineties.The family continued to own it but let it go derelict.
“The owner, Mrs.Sloane, inherited it when her parents passed in the late eighties.She tried to keep the camp open, but in addition to the repairs she didn’t have the money for, there was some scandal that tanked them.Hernández is in the station, doing a deep dive on the owners.All we know now is that Mrs.Sloane died a few months ago and the property was sold to someone who wants it all demolished so he can build a vacation home.”
Hernández was Detective Sofia Hernández.She was the one I’d agreed to help on a child abduction case a few months ago.She and Osso often work together, though, so by default, I became a consultant for both.
I checked my face in the vanity mirror on the sunshade.I was no longer red, so that was good.“Do we know how long the body was under the cabin and whether or not he was actually murdered?I mean, maybe he was looking for shelter and died of exposure.”
Osso gave me a look over his dark sunglasses.“Not a lot of severe weather in Monterey County.Do you think a breezy evening where the temperature dropped to fifty might have done him in?”
I watched the trees we passed.We were definitely out in the woods now.“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to deal with a murder victim this time.”
“Sorry, kid.”And he actually sounded sorry.There was something up with him.
“So, how have you been?”he asked me.
Detective Osso was not the friendly, chatty type.Annoyed and short-tempered?You bet.This was weird.
“I’m fine.Thanks.”
He nodded, driving a dirt road that looked as though it hadn’t been driven in far too long.Tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel, he finally said, “Anything new?”
I turned in my seat to stare at him.“What do you know?”
“I don’t know anything I haven’t been told.”He pointed ahead and I turned to see a large wooden gate with a sign reading His Way Camp.The trees and bushes on either side of the road were overgrown to the point of almost obscuring the road at spots along the way.
“It’s not far from here,” he said.“So, nothing new, huh?”
“Declan and I are”—his eyebrows rose at that—“in the process of moving into the flat he built us above his workshop.”
Grumble, grumble.
