The flick of contempt in Cade’s voice was familiar. It had been directed at Marlow on more than one occasion when Cold Winds operatives had ended up on TAC’s radar. Like strong emotions, some skillsets also carried over the change. Not whole, but enough to cause problems for the Night Shift.
It was a lot more palatable aimed at someone else.
“So then, one question.” Marlow stopped and rocked his weight back and forth, from his heels onto the balls of his feet. Bits of glass in the carefully unkempt grass crunched and gritted underfoot. “Shouldn’t the glass be on the inside?”
Cade stared at him for a beat and then turned to look at the small boarded-over square of a window high on the wall. It was his turn to mutter “Fuck” under his breath. Marlow braced himself for the back-and-forth of counter theories, determined to prove his point.
“Haley Jenkins wasn’t here as a guest,” Cade said in a low, harsh voice that scraped in his throat like ice on a lake. “She wasn’t detoxing. She was a prisoner.”
It took Marlow a second to pull the points in his favor that he’d already queued up on the tip of his tongue. He put the defensive arguments back in their mental boxes—he might need them later—and nodded.
“Maybe. We can’t prove it… yet,” Marlow said. “But yeah, it fits. I mean, you designed the security for this place, right? How hard would it be to turn it from someplace designed to keep peopleoutinto somewhere to keep people in?”
The muscles in Cade’s jaw tensed, knotted under his skin. Then he nodded grimly. “Not hard,” he said. “Easier than you’d think. It’s the trade-off that people make, part of their freedom in return for peace of mind. It’s not something most of them like to think about, though. It looks like Parker had access to Macroy’s in-house system—which he probably had through work. He could have locked the house down. The logs showed he turned off the smoke alarms and the motion sensors—which didn’t raise any flags because it’s not unusual. Someone gets a pet chicken or has a kid, and they don’t want to deal with us rolling up in full TAC gear every time one of them gets in through the window.”
Marlow crouched down and pulled a shard of glass out of the ground. He turned it in his hand to see the light pick out the streaks of blood on it.
“So, Haley picks the first night she knows that he won’t be able to be here.” He fished an evidence bag out of his pocket and put the glass in it before he sealed the top again. The bag went into his jacket, zipped into one of the extra pockets. “And she escapes.”
It would have been too easy if the story ended there. They both knew it hadn’t.
“The only problem is that you’re right,” Cade said. “Parker wasn’t here. Some of those hunt lodges in LA are Cold Winds clients too, and they have good security. They don’t want just any Tom, Dick, or Fido hopping a wall and getting a free pork roast. Once he was in, he was in for the night. So how did Haley go from getting away to being dead?”
Marlow pushed himself back to his feet. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but how many of the Reserve residents would she have had to dodge?”
“Too many,” Cade acknowledged. He turned to scan the trees that pushed close to the sparsely eked out plots of the Reserve. “But you know a wolf didn’t kill her, Marlow. A wolf wouldn’t take the hands and leave the meat.”
He said it matter-of-factly. Marlow wondered if the wolves ever realized how disorienting it was to be reminded that someone you might enjoy kissing, might enjoy ripping your stomach out too. Once a month, at least.
That said, Cade was right. Wolf kills weren’t pretty, and they didn’t leave much behind.
“It was a null that killed her,” Marlow agreed. He half-turned to judge the path back through the woods toward the guard’s station. There were null operatives on call, according to the outline Cade had filed with the chief of police, in case they ever needed to intervene, but no one was physically on site. Haley might not have known that. “She might have gone that way, back toward the road. It would be her best chance.”
Not much of a chance. Marlow was well-trained, in good condition, and used to being out in the moonlight. Armed and kitted out, he might get back to the city alive. He’d not put a lot of money on it, though.
Haley had been an actress, she’d already been blooded, and she probably stank of fear. Easier prey than deer. She probably wouldn’t have even made it to the guard’s stop.
Cade put a hand on his shoulder, fingers slid under the collar of Marlow’s T-shirt, and pulled him around to face the trees again.
“That’s what you’d do,” he said. “A scared addict with one chance to get around, they run the direction they’re pointed.”
Unfortunately, that still left a lot of ground to cover.
“Cold Winds has the resources, and we’re already on the ground,” Cade said into his mobile as he stalked through the undergrowth. Other Cold Winds operatives were strung out in a chain between the trees, armed with directional radio mics and infrared thermal detection wands. “We’re glad to get the search started. Obviously, we’d expect our assistance to be reflected in any statements—”
He paused to listen, nodded, and ended the call.
“Captain O’Hara sends his regards. He said you’re still on roster for tonight. If you need overtime that much, the job offer is still open. Private sector pays better, and there’s… other benefits to working closer with me.”
Marlow yawned, a jaw-crack of a gape, as if he’d needed to be reminded he was tired.
“You know, I am never sure if you’re flirting with me or just being an ass.”.
Cade turned slowly to give him a disbelieving look over his shoulder.
Because he’d heard that.
Shit. That had been meant to be athought, not something Marlow said out loud.
