“Raincheck?” I say, apologetically. So, so apologetically. My werewolf is demanding I throw Elliot over my shoulder and dump him on the nearest flat surface to explore those lips and his entire body slowly. Then fuck him senseless. I swallow. My werewolf needs to be far, far away from my investigation. “Got an early shift tomorrow.”
Elliot’s face crumples for a fraction of a second. Was it a disappointment? Probably confusion because, yeah, I can’t imagine anyone sane saying no to that offer. But then he schools his expression just as quickly. “See you around, Nicholas,” he says and slips into his car.
He takes off while I stand there rethinking this and every other decision I’ve ever made in my entire life.
***
“Do you really need two separate boards for one case?” Bree cocks her head and gives my boards a disapproving look.
Do I need them? No. Will I move everything to one board, destroying the tidy symmetry? Also a big fucking no. “If you don’t want me to add another one, sit your ass down and make sure we catch this guy before there are more victims.”
She sits down beside Marcus on my couch. I’m growing as a person, so I’ve decided to bring in the entire team into the case. Meena’s seventeenth email, threatening me with a month of desk duty if I didn’t start delegating properly, might have played a part, too. But it’s mostly the growing-up thing.
Plus, Matt got Chinese.
“You would think the threat against the city's werewolfpopulation would be reason enough, but thetwo boardsare really grating my nerves.” Bree grumbles. “Let’s solve this bitch.”
“Hell, yeah,” Sloan hollers.
Every in-field Bureau Agent has specific tasks assigned, and we typically like to stay in our lanes. Bree is an emergency dispatcher, so she diverts calls involving werewolves and keeps the Bureau updated on any werewolf-related incidents in the city.
Sloan monitors the crime scenes and fabricates evidence as and when needed. As a medical examiner, Marcus keeps track of werewolf deaths and deaths that werewolves may have caused. Matt is a firefighter, so he deals with all the werewolf-related emergencies while keeping his colleagues and the general human population in the dark. Camilla deals with werewolf incidents that reach the hospital and provides medical consultations.
It’s my work to solve crimes. I can take help from the fellow agents, like everyone else can. In fact, we solved the case of the psycho werewolf killers last year that caught Oliver in the crosshairs together. So, our paths intersect from time to time, and we sometimes volunteer for work that isn’t our responsibility, like Matt did last year, to make sure Oliver doesn’t find out about werewolves. And got a fiancé out of it.
But it’s still my work. So, the point is, I’m not going to entertain anyone’s complaints about my murder boards and their numbers, the food bribe can’t do a thing about it.
“What theories are we working with?” Matt asks from the office chair he’s perched on in the corner, bringing us back to the topic. Of course he does. He’s my brother, he always has my back. We’re one— “Because I don’t want to look at these confusing and disorganized boards longer than I have to.”
My jaw hangs open. “What’s confusing about it,Brutus?” I narrow my eyes at all of them sitting and munching on food littered on my coffee table. Sloan slowly smuggles rice to Mickey under her chair.
“It’s so simple. This row at the top has all the victims, thenon the left are the people who saw them last. The pictures on the right are of the people who had grudges against them. Below them are people connected to two or more victims. See the red yarn, it matches people with each other.” I turn to look at their blank, clueless faces. See,that’swhy I work alone. I don’t need murder board moralists in my apartment.
“What’s the yellow yarn?” Sloan asks hesitantly.
“Yellow matches the victim to werewolf suspects and orange one to human suspects,” I explain.
“But why didn’t you use a brighter shade of orange or practically any other color? They look so similar,” Marcus complains.
Because I was out of yarn, but I’m not admitting that to them. “You’re awerewolf. You have supernatural sight. Use that,” I snap. “Does anyone else have any questions?”
“The date was that bad, huh?” Matt asks flatly.
Four sets of curious eyes snap to Matt’s face.
“Ooooh, what date?” Bree asks.
“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” Cami says, but her tone is more ‘you should feel bad you haven’t told us already’.
Ugh, might as well get it over with. They’re gonna know soon enough since I expressly gave Matt permission to tell them because I don’t want to hide it. Not from these people.
I know this is Matt big brothering me to let me come out with little drama, the only way I would want to. But I still send an obligatory glare his way. Don’t want him to get complacent.
“I went on a date with Elliot,” I announce.
“Oliver’sElliot?” Bree asks.
“Can kill you with his glareElliot?” Cami adds.
