"Then sit."
Malcolm sits but he does not sit. He taps the table with his fingers. Stands up. Sits back down. Looks at his watch. Looks at Rhys.
"Don't," Rhys says, without looking up from his coffee.
"I wasn't—"
"You were going to ask me to go look for him."
"You don't know that."
"You were."
Malcolm closes his mouth.
I put my hand over his on the table.
He stops moving.
Looks at me.
"Whatever Chase has to say," I say. "We hear it first. Okay?"
He exhales and nods. Then turns his hand over and holds mine.
We wait until the familiar car pulls upand we all exhale at once.
Chase comes in with the expression I've learned to read by now—the professional neutral that's working harder than usual. He sets his jacket over the chair and sits down, and he looks at each of us before he speaks.
"Alex's case was reopened this morning," he says. "New information."
Nobody speaks.
"Marie requested an emergency meeting with the board." He pauses. "She threw enough of a fit that they agreed to speak to her."
"Marie," Malcolm says.
"Marie." Chase laces his fingers on the table. "She had information about the night Alex was arrested. About what actually happened."
Rhys tenses beside me.
"She was there," Chase says. "She was with her mother that night. She saw everything."
"It’s been like… ten years," Malcolm says. "She would have been—"
"Young. Yes. Maybe twelve." Chase looks at Rhys briefly, then back at the table. "She told the board that she saw the alpha who confronted her father. That her father threw the first punch when he was called out for hitting her mother. She said what happened was defense—of himself and of a helpless omega against her abusive mate."
The room is quiet.
"The board pushed back," Chase continues. "Her parents are registered as betas, her mother couldn't have been an omega." He pauses. "Marie said the paperwork was falsified. That her mother was an omega in a pack that treated her badly. That her father killed her mother later in a fit of rage."
Everyone pauses as it sinks in. Her mother… murdered by her father.
I remember what Marie told us at Ragon's. Early on, before everything went wrong. That her parents were strict. That they treated her like a trophy.
"Chase," I say. "Marie told us once that her parents sold her to her first pack."
Chase nods slowly. "If what I’ve learned about her so far is true, most of what she told you is probably false but that part actually sounds likely. She was definitely lying to the registry about her parents being betas to match the paperwork." He pauses. "I've been investigating Marie for months. Before she was ever sent to Ragon's. There were patterns in her behavior that didn't fit. But that's not what this is about right now."
