Billy blinked. He glanced from me to Vance, then back, and I could practically see him assessing us. Trying to figure out how much we already knew.
“If you’re innocent—if you had nothing to do with what Silas did—why have you failed to mention for at least the past year that one of our regulars—whom you saw here all the time—was Silas’s son?” Vance demanded softly, as I paced back and forth in front of Billy’s cell.
“Because I couldn’t tell you who he is without telling you who I am!” Billy’s frustrated shrug ended with his hands tossed into the air, like the flap of a crane’s wings, only less graceful. “Are you…are you saying he killed Austin’s sister? Bishop’s wife? Is that why I’m here?” His focus volleyed between us again, faster. Panicked. “Is that why you were at the trailer this morning, before dawn? You thoughtIkilled her?”
“Did you?” I sank into my chair again, staring straight at him, eye level.
“No! I never even met her!”
“Did Denny know her?”
“I have no idea! It’s not like we hang out anymore. I haven’t spoken to him since Charley was infected. I try not to even go out front, when I know he’s out there, because—” His mouth snapped shut, his cheeks flushing slightly.
“Because you worriedhewould tell us whoyouare?”
“No, not really. I figured that if he got me fired, you’d toss him out, too. And I figured he thinks the same thing. Mutually assured destruction, or whatever. Only Cam and I aren’t really enemies. Well, we weren’t, anyway. Because I didn’t know about Yvette. Charley, I swear. I was avoiding him because I was afraid that if we suddenly seemed to be old friends, you’d ask us how we knew each other, and if our answers weren’t good enough, or if mine didn’t match up with his, you’d keep digging, because that’s what you do, and that meant that even being friendly with Denny felt kind of dangerous.” Another shrug. “So, I just tried to steer clear of him. And he seemed fine with that.”
“When was the last time you spoke to him?”
“Right after Charley was infected.” Billy swallowed thickly. “Before that, though, I was trying to help him. Eamon had taught me all this stuff. About support systems, and how important it is for us to be there for each other. About how Titus was trying to form a community. About being resources for each other. And Denny didn’t have any of that. So, I called him, and we started getting together on my days off. For…coffee.”
Wherein coffee was actually weed, no doubt.
“And you told him about Charley?” Vance asked.
Billy shrugged. “I told him about everything. About everyone and everything I knew in the shifter community. I was trying to…show him a place he could belong. I’d found a new family, and I wanted him to have that too. And Ben had just died, so I told him how the community—what there was of it, back then—was coming together to mourn him and try to move forward together.”
I had no doubt that he’d heard that—the exact phrasing—from Eamon.
“I told Denny how frustrated I was that there was nothing we could do for you and your family, because you were human. I told him how much I missed your dad, since your parents had moved, and—” Billy shrugged, looking helpless. “How much I thought you missed them too.”
I had. I’dreallymissed my parents. Ben’s death had been too much for them. They’d already been thinking about retiring, but after the funeral, they saw no reason to put it off. They were hurt. They couldn’t stand to live in the house where we’d grown up—where Ben had grown up—anymore. So they’d signed the bar over to me and Davey and sold the house. And they’d moved to Florida. All within three months of Ben’s death.
“So, Denny knew my brother was a shifter?” I asked, my voice low and as devoid of emotion as I could make it. “Before ‘Cam’ became a regular?”
“Yeah. But I didn’t know what he was thinking. I didn’t know what Silas had figured out. I didn’t find out about any of that until afterward.”
“Find out about what?”
Billy shrugged miserably. “That I wasn’t the only one making friends. Learning stuff. Denny told me later—the last time I talked to him—that his dad had been trying to figure out what went wrong with my mom. Why she’d died, when we survived. He’d heard from some guy he met—a shifter—that some werecat scientist out west had discovered this gene. Or set of genes, or something. That you can’t survive infection without them. He figured that he and Denny must have them, and I must too. But that I could have gotten those genes from my dad, instead of from my mom, and that’s why she died, when we lived.”
“And that gave Silas an idea…” I finished for him.
“Yeah. I didn’t know it at the time, but Silas thought it could be done. That there could be female strays. And he thought the best bet would be to pick a woman he knew had that gene. I didn’t realize I was giving him your name. I didn’t know what he was planning until after you were already back at work, and he was dead. Until Eamon told me that you were still processing everything, and that might take a while, and I should just not tell you that I knew Silas, because you were still in a fragile state, and you might take that out on me, if you knew.
“So, I didn’t tell you. But I did call Denny, because I didn’t think it could be coincidence that I’d mentioned you and your family to him, and then his dad had kidnapped you. And infected you.”
“And he admitted that?” Vance asked. “That he’d targeted Charley?”
“No. He didn’t say he had anything to do with it, and I could tell from Charley’s scent that he wasn’t the one who bit her. But that’s when he told me all that stuff. About genes, and Silas’s idea. He said his dad had started talking about it like it was a mission. Some great deed he could do for the whole shifter community. To bring balance and ensure the survival of the species.”
“That’s fuckingnuts,” Vince swore, while I tried to stop my skin from crawling right off my body.
“Yeah,” Billy agreed. “But by the time he told me, it was all over. Silas was dead. It was too late for me to…tell anyone. To stop it.”
“So, for the record…” I cleared my throat, struggling to keep my voice steady. “Denny told you what his dad had ‘figured out,’ but he did not admit to taking part in my kidnapping and infection?”
“That’s right,” Billy said.
