“I totally was,” I lie.
She rolls her eyes. “At least you didn’t threaten to dig the walls Shawshank Redemption style to escape learning about the basics of yourown bodylike you did the last time.”
She’s exaggerating. It wasn’t a threat, more of a fantasy. “He tried to pop his claws out recently,” I point to the victim’s nails, successfully distracting her.
Cami comes beside me with a small clipper and pokes gently under the nails. “No blood.” She looks closely at the clipper. “Some thread?”
“So, he couldn’t reach the assailant. They must have either left already or were standing far away. They got close enough to feed him the drugs, so he definitely trusted them, but he must have realized what was happening sooner or later. The drugs can’t be that fast-acting,” I think out loud.
“I mean, they’ve had a lot of practice by now,” she says.
I nod. “Let’s make sure they don’t get any more,” I say.
She frowns at me. “Meena is assigningyouthe case?” she asks.
“I think so? Why else would she want me here?”
“Dude, when are you going to work on this? Weren’t you just complaining about your workload?”
It’s cute that she’s worried about me when she doesn’t even know anything about my off-the-clock creepy activities. Okay, that sounded dirty. My otherunauthorizedinvestigations. Balancing two full-time jobs with a stalking gig on the side is getting a little too much. But I’ll manage. Besides, sleep is for the weak.
I know if we continue this conversation, I’ll soon be tellingher all about Elliot. About how I would rather just be in my car outside of his clinic or his home than anywhere else, even though he hasn’t done anything remotely suspicious in the last six months.
Not that I’m watching him all the time. That's stupid. I like to do random shifts because I can't afford to give up my beauty sleep entirely. Plus, my friends are demanding. Am I complaining about having a healthy, fulfilled life because it’s cutting into my creepy stalking time? Probably. Am I going to talk it out with people who’ll help me? Nope.
Cami tilts her head. “Hey, are you—”
“Good, you guys are already here.” We turn to look at the short, petite woman with the aura of a six-foot-seven wrestler.
I take it as a gift from whatever god was feeling generous enough to distract Cami and get us back to work. “Do we have an ID?” I ask Meena.
Meena nods and walks around the bed. “Harold Nolan. Worked as a trainer. Lived alone. Lost his wife recently,” she looks up at us pointedly.
“Wife died of an animal attack?” I fill in the blanks.
She continues her inspection of the body from a distance, ignoring my sarcasm. “The human police cleared him. So, he matches the profile of the previous targets,” she says.
“Why weren't we looking into him?” I ask because I can never leave well-enough alone.
She sighs like she’s tired. Of work? Of me continuously hounding her about the lack of manpower in the agency, and therefore the constant rise in overlooked cases? We’ll never know. “We can’t have the same argument again, Nicholas. We would have gotten to it eventually.” A mystery we’ll have to die with, probably.
I blink back at her.
Meena ignores me completely.
“When are we getting the toxicology report back?” Meena asks Cami.
Cami slowly turns to Meena. “At least a couple of days,” shesays. “The body will go to Marcus by tonight. I’m just glad we got permission from his family to conduct our tests.”
Meena nods. “It’s easier now that we know it can be the work of a serial killer. In the beginning, we had to make up lies about ongoing research to get them to cooperate. Anyway, I’ll ask Marcus to speed up the autopsy.” Then she turns to me. “I want you to take over the case. Do you have the bandwidth?”
“Yes, absolutely,” I say over Cami’s, “He really doesn’t, but he’ll lie to get the case.”
I direct a glare towards Cami.
Meena frowns. “Too much work at the LAPD?”
“No, it’s fine. I got this,” I assure Meena.
