“She was bitten on July thirtieth.” Austin’s voice cracked. “She died two days later. August first.”
I scribbled as he spoke, writing for myself, even though Tucker was still recording on his phone.
“Did you take her to a hospital?”
Austin shook his head.
“We knew better,” Bishop said. “There was nothing they could do for her that we couldn’t.”
“IV hydration? Antibiotics? Monitor her pulse and her fever?” A human hospital didn’t have to know what was wrong with her to treat the symptoms.
“We did all that ourselves,” Bishop said. “We keep serious first aid stuff on hand, for obvious reasons.”
As did most shifters, because going to a doctor would bring the risk of something odd being noticed in a blood test. I just wasn’t sure if two strays who’d eschewed our community would be aware of that. Or would care.
“You did the right thing,” I assured them. “And the outcome likely would have been no different in a hospital.”
“We did call an ambulance when she died, though,” Austin said. “They did an autopsy. Officially, Yvette died of an unidentified bacterial infection. The CDC was briefly involved, but since she tested negative for everything they know to test for, they bowed out and let us bury her.”
That was a risk we wouldn’t have taken, but I was glad, for their sake, that they had a grave to visit.
“If you’re ever in that position again, make a religious objection to the autopsy. If there’s no sign of violence or contagion, they’ll respect that.”
Austin nodded. Bishop stared, his gaze unfocused, at my desk blotter. He’d gone oddly quiet, now that his immediate anger had faded. Now that getting his hands around Nolan’s neck was no longer an imminent possibility.
Speaking of which…
“What makes you think that Nolan Blake was involved?”
Austin’s sigh warned me to settle in for a story. “We didn’t, at first. We’ve spent several weeks tracking down every shifter we’ve ever met, demanding proof of an alibi.”
“Whoa, wait.” Vance rounded Bishop’s chair, leaving Tucker at their back, guarding the door. “We would have heard about that. Someone would have reported being harassed by the two of you.”
Bishop shrugged. “I assure you, they would not.”
I exhaled. “You threatened them.”
Austin glanced at his lap again, clutching the arms of his chair. Bishop stared right at me, answering me with eye contact, though his mouth remained shut.
Their threats wouldn’t have worked on the average shifter, in the average territory. But the Mississippi Valley Territory was anything but average, and the same was true for our members. They hadn’t grown up with an Alpha. With a council to turn to for help. With an innate sense of their position in a distinct and meaningful hierarchy. They’d grown up human, and at best, they now lived with a forever-dueling mindset wherein human habits and tradition battled with largely inscrutable feline instincts and new rules that often felt arbitrary.
Finally, Austin shrugged. “Most of the cats we know exist outside of your community.” Shifters who hadn’t yet made themselves known to us. “So, they wouldn’t have contacted you anyway.”
“And you ruled them out?” Tucker asked.
Bishop twisted in his chair to nod at him. “All of them. But Nolan Blake wasn’t even on our radar until we saw the footage.”
“What footage?” I asked, as he turned back to me.
Austin pressed his lips together. “There’s one part we haven’t told you yet.”
An uneasy feeling churned in my gut.
“The day she was bitten, Yvette withdrew ten thousand dollars from her personal savings account,” Bishop said. “In cash. That was nearly every dime she had.”
Holy shit. I could feel Vance staring at me. I could practically hear what he was pointedly not saying.
It’s not the same.
