“They might want statements. I don’t mind waiting,” I tell him.
He nods and walks away.
Sam takes his place. “That was some superhero shit, dude!” he says.
I smile. The man is easily impressed. “Just followed a hunch.”
“Well, you might have saved a lot of people. That man from the other apartment was singing your praises, too.”
My hackles go up. “Yeah? What did he say?”
Sam huffs out a laugh. “Must’ve been having some traumatic reaction. Saying weird shit like, ’You’re so strong and powerful.No wonder you’re one of them.’”
My eyebrow goes up. So, the guy knew I was with the Bureau? We don’t keep it a secret, not within the werewolf community. But no one would know unless they’rereallylooking.
“Did he say anything else?” I know I shouldn’t be probing. Sam clearly thinks he was talking about me being a firefighter, but I just can’t leave well enough alone. I guess Oliver’s rubbing off on me.
“Oh, he wasfull-onblabbering. Said something about, ‘If you’re so strong, they don’t have a chance.’ I’m guessing he was talking about fire? After that, I left him with Mickey,” he says, confused by my interest.
So, he knows something. Come to think of it, there’s no way he could have missed what was going on in the apartment right next door. If I could have heard the heartbeats over all this noise, there’s no chance he missed it, even if his senses weren’t as strong as mine.
“He might have hurt himself. I wanna check if he’s alright. Did they take him to the hospital?” I ask.
“Don’t know, man. Ask Mickey.”
I nod and walk downstairs, taking two steps at a time, ignoring a few friends from the station trying to get my attention.
I catch Mickey around the triage area, examining people.
“Hey, man. Nice job up there,” he smiles up at me as soon as I reach him.
“Just doing my job,” I wave him off. Before he can respond, I continue, “Anyway, Sam told me about this man I rescued who was behaving weirdly. I thought I’d check if he’s fine. Tall, broad, in his forties—”
“Oh, I know who you’re talking about. The guy was either on something or had a serious head injury. He wouldn’t stop muttering. None of it made sense. We were transporting him to the hospital, but he literally disappeared into thin air,” he says. “You don’t think he was involved in this, do you?”
Oh, he definitely was. “I guess that’s for the detectives to find out, and there they are.”
Nick and his partner, a short, pretty Hispanic woman who loves to tease Nick, park their Charger in front of the building.
“I’ll see you around,” I nod to Mickey and beeline towards them.
“Matt,” Serena greets when I join them.
“Serena.”
“So, you found the bodies?” Nick gets to the point.
I hear the implication of his statement. “No one made it out alive? I could have sworn at least two were still breathing.”
Nick gets the message. When I found them, two were alive. “They died in the hospital. Suspected smoke inhalation, amongst other things,” Nick says grimly. “The ME will look into them.”
We’ll have to come back later because now I’m certain this isn’t as simple as it looks. And considering we’re talking about multiple possible abductions and a secret door, it was never simple to begin with.
I give my statement, and when they finish their initial walkaround, the crime technicians take over. I wave at a grinning Sloan, who’s capturing the scene.
I pull Nick aside after a while and tell him everything about the man across the hall.
“Do you think this is related to what we found in your building?” he asks once I’m done.
