“Only until Spencer says we can move her,” I assured him. “We’ll put her in my apartment, so I can take care of her and question Cam.” I glanced into the next room, over Austin’s shoulder. “Jace!”
“Yeah?” he called.
“We need to sedate Cam,” I said. “If he can shift his hands, those cuffs won’t hold him.” But a sedative could keep him from shifting.
“On it.” Jace appeared behind Austin and showed me a pre-loaded syringe, also from our rather specialized first aid kit.
“Wait!” Bishop bellowed, accompanied by the creak of the ancient chair as he stood with a groan.
I launched myself from the bed and pushed past Austin, loathe to leave Davey, even with Vance at her side. “Bishop, stay away from him,” I snapped as he knelt next to our prisoner, across from Jace who stood ready with the syringe.
Bishop scowled at me. “I just want to talk to him for a second before you sedate him. You owe me this, Charley.”
I exhaled slowly. “Fine. But make it quick.” Interrogation was my job, and I wasn’t going to miss a damn thing Cam Senet had to say. But my sister’s life was my top priority.
Bishop turned back to Cam, snarling at him from inches away. “Why did you kill my wife?”
Cam tried to squirm away, but Jace planted one foot against his hip. “Who’s your wife?” Cam finally said, the first words I’d heard from him since he’d shot me.
“Yvette Graham-Mattheson,” Bishop growled, as Austin stood over his shoulder, both fists clenched. “Tall, with long, curly dark hair and blue eyes. You bit her three months ago, in Covington, and she died right in fucking front of me.”
Cam frowned. “Sorry, dude. I remember all of them, and I kept meticulous records. But I was never in Covington, and there was no Yvette anything in my project.”
“Fucking liar!” Bishop’s left fist flew as he snarled, and Austin pulled him back, blunting a blow that should have shattered Cam Senet’s face. Instead, it glanced off his jaw.
“Seriously, man. I’m proud of my work, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But I’ve never heard of your wife. And I never bit anyone. I just scratched them, casual-like. In passing. They never even saw the claw.” He lifted his cuffed hands, showing off a single partially shifted finger on his right hand. “Davey’s the first one I ever took, and that’s only because I had no choice. And I neverbitanyone.”
TWENTY-SIX
“Hey.” Vance came out of my bedroom as I was transferring my sheets from the washer into the dryer. One handed, thanks to a new sling and the sterile bandage wrapped around the top of my right arm, covering my painful, freshly stitched wound.
“Hey,” I said. “How is she?”
“Still unconscious. Fever’s 104.2, even with the meds. Spencer’s got her covered in ice packs and hooked up to that IV.”
“Can you keep an eye on her while I go back downstairs? Text me if anything changes.”
He frowned. “You don’t think the second interview can wait?”
Jace and I had interrogated Cam the moment we’d gotten Davey settled, but I’d been reluctant to leave her for long.
“I don’t thinkBishopcan wait.” He’d threatened to bust down the basement door, even with a bullet hole in one shoulder, if I didn’t let him in to talk to Cam again. “And I need to stay busy.”
Despite exhaustion and injury, I couldn’t sit still. Something wasn’t right. There was no reason for Cam to deny biting Yvette, when he’d admitted to everything else, unprompted.
We’d missed something.
“Speaking of Bishop…” Vance eyed my dryer as I closed the door and turned it on.
“Don’t start.”
“It’s none of my business,” he began.
“People keep saying that, then talking about it anyway.”
Vance smiled. “And I’m only asking because peoplearegoing to talk, and you’re the Marshal, which comes with a certain respect protocol. So, I kinda need to know how hard I should shut down the rumors.”
I sighed. “There’s no real point, anymore.” Spencer had no doubt gotten a good whiff of my sheets as I’d stripped and remade the bed—one-handed—for Davey. Austin and Tucker already knew. And with Bishop in his current state of indignant rage, he seemed less and less concerned about what anyone thought of his grieving process or our special little brand of rage-aversion therapy. “So, I would say don’t dignify the rumors with any real reaction, and just remind anyone you hear talking—about me and Bishoporyou and Davey—that none of it is any of their business. Hopefully they’ll get bored with it and move on.”
