Something Rys had said earlier had niggled at me on my drive in. As much as I didn’t want it to mean anything, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe he was right.
Thankfully the building was virtually empty as I walked down the corridor to the office I shared with Max. I could see him at his desk through the glass door, and my heart rate kicked up. He already knew Rys and I were together, but this was on a whole other level.
I opened the door, didn’t even make it over the threshold before Max’s head snapped round.
“Stop.” His eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring as my scent hit him. “You bonded with him.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “I did.” He stared at me, a myriad of emotions crossing his face, so I walked in and closed the door behind me, leaning on it for support.
As I waited for Max to say something more, I realised I needed him to be okay with this.
Max wasn’t just my work colleague, he was my friend. Probably the best friend I had here apart from Nick.
After what seemed like hours, he sat back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. “Fuck me, Mase. You couldn’t have dated him for a few months first?” He grinned, and tension left me in a whoosh. “I won’t say I’m not surprised, because I am. But soulbonds don’t play by the rules. Sit down.” He waved me to my desk. “I have a million questions regarding you and my cousin, but they can wait until we’ve sorted out this mess.”
This mess being the photoboard that held all the victims so far.
Rys’s words came back to me.
Was I the link between them all?
I didn’t think so, but…
“Have you got the footage from Midnight?”
He tapped his laptop. “Zane just sent it over.”
“How far back does it go?”
Max sat back in his chair, eyeing me. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” I ran a hand through my hair, wondering whether to share my vague theory with Max. “Something Rys said this morning.”
Max nodded as though that explained everything. “How far back do you need it to go.”
“I was at Midnight the weekend before Callum went feral. Can we check that footage?”
“We can.” He tapped at his keyboard, then beckoned me over. “What exactly are we looking for?”
I joined him in front of his screen. “Me.”
* * *
“Bollocks.”I stared at the image of me on the screen of Max’s laptop. I had a beer in one hand, talking animatedly to Callum. I’d been talking to him for ten minutes, and I had absolutely no recollection of ever meeting Callum before we found him in the forest.
Max stopped the footage. He didn’t look at me but let out the longest sigh. “I take it you don’t remember any of that?”
“Not a thing.”
“Were you drunk?” Max asked, finally sitting back in his chair so he could see me.
I shook my head. “No.” I’d had a couple of beers. “I wasn’t there long.”
“Was Nick there that night?” Max went back to his laptop again, replaying the footage.
“I don’t remember seeing him. But I don’t remember seeing Callum either.” I didn’t want Nick to be on that footage. Didn’t want to have to think what that might mean. “He’d seemed genuinely surprised to see me when we went to see Zane. If he’d seen me before then, wouldn’t he have said hello?”
“You’d think so.” Max clicked through the cameras until he found the one that covered the bar we’d seen Nick manning the other night. “It’s not him.” The two servers were both women, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief because as he fast-forwarded, they were on there all night.
