Leonard and Min follow us into our room. “I bunked with him before when we were kids. Never again.” He turns to Min with a pleading look. “I swear I won’t bite. Don’t make me.”
Min arches a brow, then looks to me. “What’s the plan?”
She’s calm, but I can feel her rage thrumming like a live wire, can smell the acridity of it.
“We start with a list of possible suspects.”
“I agree,” Marcus says.
I turn to the others. “Anyone have paper?”
“I’ve got some in my laptop bag,” Leonard says.
“Perfect. Thanks.” I give him a small smile. He wasn’t exactly a dream best man at our wedding, but he’s been civil since I moved in.
“I’m sorry about your family,” he says quietly as he hands me a pad of paper and a pen.
“I’m sorry about yours too.”
He nods, and we take a moment to let our shared trauma root us.
Min digs into her bag and pulls out some different colored yarn. “I’ve seen this on human TV. They use string and pins to make a murder board.” She flinches. “Sorry. Bad word choice.”
“No, it’s fine. Great idea.” I take the yarn from her. Of course she has knitting with her. Min always does. I’ve never actually seen her finish anything, but she’s always making squares.
“Shall we set up in the living room? It’s a bit cramped in here,” Marcus points out, his eyes landing on the simple furnishings in the room that barely fit in the small space.
“Good idea.” Leonard agrees.
I groan at the thought of leaving the bed. It’s not covered in silk or Egyptian cotton, but it feels like the most luxurious thing I’ve ever felt at this moment. I think Marcus may have a point. If I sit on this bed any longer, I’m not going to get up.
We head into the living room, and Leonard gestures for us to sit on the couch. I choose one of the stiff occasional chairs. If I sit anywhere plush at the moment, I’m definitely going to fall asleep. Now that the adrenaline is gone, exhaustion has set up shop and it’s a bitch to keep my eyes from falling shut right now. The only thing keeping me awake is pure determination to figure out who dared attack my family.
“Right,” I say, pen poised. “We need to start a list of our enemies. If the council’s right and we were the intended targets, then someone out there wants us dead. Who all serves to benefit from our death? Marcus, let’s start with your list.”
I point the pen at him. He’s sitting casually with his arm slung on the back of the couch, but the taut lines around his neck suggest he’s anything but relaxed. In fact, his dark eyes scream revenge. Pain and revenge. Shit, I’ve been so busy accusing him of carrying out this heinous act that I haven’t stopped to acknowledge that he lost his family too.
His clipped tone breaks into my thoughts. “You assume I have enemies?”
Leonard snorts. “Only a dozen hundred or so.”
Marcus glares at Leonard. He shrugs. “What?”
I tap my pen.
“How about we start with the council members?” Min suggests.
Leonard shakes his head. “They need this union to work or they wouldn’t have suggested it. The alpha also only has three years left, and he can’t afford to end his term with a scandal like this.”
“Yeah, besides. They wouldn’t take out one of their own,” I state, thinking of Tallulah’s grotesquely petrified form, half human, half bear as she tried to shift during the petrification.
“Right. Truth.” Min nods.
“Let’s start with your family,” Marcus suggests, looking pointedly at me.
“They’d never pull something like this. Not murder-suicide.” If he’s going to start the blame game again, I’m going to seriously throw down. My wolf howls in my mind, begging me to let her at him.
“Still. Write them down. Write mine down too.”
