“Now that the hunter business is done and dusted, Holden can stay out of our lives.” Phelan pulled me to his side.
“Dude, stop with the jealous crap. You’ve been given the best news.” Jack wasn’t putting up with any of my mate’s resentment.
I didn’t want to be a buzzkill, but what Holden had revealed brought up other questions.
“I still think we need to look into who killed Mika.”
Phelan groaned and muttered that what we needed to do was be happy.
“We could contact Kendric, Mika’s former roommate,” Bardoul suggested.
We’d chosen not to do that last semester because the guy was so traumatized, but perhaps when Channon returned, he and Bardoul could get in touch.
“I wonder if we’ll ever figure out who killed Sasha,” Jack said.
I remembered how sad his brother had been when we spoke to him so many years after his death. It would bring him and his family some peace if we could solve how and why he died.
TWENTY-SIX
HOLDEN
I should’ve been doing laundry, since two weeks’ worth of it had been piling up. But instead, I was about to commit a crime. Why? Because I overheard some teachers about a staff dinner tonight, one that was mandatory, and I saw an opportunity.
Professor Shaw’s office was going to be empty, and no other professors would be around, either. If there was ever a time to do some investigating, it was now. The problem was, I couldn’t risk doing this alone. I was going to have to ask someone for help. And the only person I could share this with was Rawling. Anyone else would wonder what the fuck I was doing breaking into a professor’s office.
I knew his mate Phelan didn’t like me, probably bordered on hating me, and I got it. I did. I’d been interested in his mate, and we’d dated. But that was over.
Rawling and Phelan had a baby, and Rawling wore his mate’s mark. There was no way I’d try and come between them, even if I was still interested. Which I wasn’t. Not in that way. And I was dating Riley.
And honestly, looking back, I’d been more fascinated by Rawling than I'd been attracted to him. Yes, he was hot, but there were a lot of hot guys on campus. To me, the mystery thatwas him being latent had been part of the draw. And his latency was why I had to get inside the professor’s office. Not that he was actually latent, which made the info I got from the tapes null and void.
I kept a lot of my research into hunters to myself now. Not to hide it, but because I was trying to be respectful of Phelan. While I didn’t want his mate, I could see very clearly how it could look like that was exactly what I was doing. Many an alpha looked for an angle to get close to omegas, and something like a shared desire to learn about hunters could easily be that.
But this wasn’t about him so much as it was me being unable to let questions go—a problem I’d experienced in all areas of my life.
My mind kept flicking back to those interviews I did with Rawling. I’d originally done them for my thesis, but I elected not to use them, and I handed them to Professor Shaw when he asked for them. But now that there was a possibility Rawling had been a hunter when I taped him, I wanted to listen to them again. They may contain vital information.
Professor Shaw seemed awfully interested in Rawling, but I knew his godfather was a good friend of the professor’s, so maybe that was why he wanted them. But knowing how the professor never discarded any research and didn’t lend any of his research to his peers, I figured he wouldn’t return my tapes.
I sent Rawling a text asking for help. Please don’t let his mate be pissed off. Rawling didn’t need me messing with his relationship, especially not now that he was a father.
Hey, I need a favor. Can you watch outside Professor Shaw’s office?
The bubbles of his typing came and went and came and went. I fully expected him to say no, that he was busy. Eventually, a message came through after I couldn’t guess how many types and deletes.
Fine, but not for long.
It wasn’t an enthusiastic “yes,” but I’d take it.
We met twenty minutes later inside the building. It was empty, with all the professors at their mandatory dinner and the cleaning crew not yet there.
When I was a TA, I could have made up an excuse if I was caught in the professor’s office and it would be plausible. But not now. At the very least, I’d have to explain why I hadn’t returned the key when my stint as TA was over, but I’d say I forgot, and besides, no one had asked me for it.
Rawling was biting his bottom lip, saying if someone came, he couldn’t protect me. He’d just talk loudly about the weather as a signal to hide.
Once inside, I went straight for the places Professor Shaw kept important documents and not old school memos from years gone by. In theory, I had a few hours before the cleaning staff came in, but Rawling needed to get back to his daughter, and the longer I was here, the riskier it was.
I flipped through files, opened drawers, and grabbed some old boxes. He’d done some rearranging, and at first I feared nothing of value was still there, and then I found something. It was a box labeled “Charlie,” and the top was partly off. Inside were the tapes containing my interviews with Rawling and some papers. They were cataloged with a six-digit code I didn’t recognize.
