“For someone he’s known for a few months? Someone who’s given him nothing more than trouble since the day we met? Someone who’s not just a flight risk, but untrustworthy and so completely broken that he’ll have to spend his entire life fixing?” My breathing gets fast, and my eyes sting.
That pity in his eyes is back again. I hate it. Every part of me wants to go back to a minute ago and take back my words. “Elliot—”
“Sam, don’t… I don’t want to talk about it, okay? I know what I’m doing. I promise I’ll tell him if we ever find Raymond. I promised him I’d never kill again, and I won’t without telling him everything. His response is future Elliot’s problem.”
Sam sighs. “Alright. Just don’t make his decision for him, okay? People are allowed to worry about you and love you. Don’t decide that they can’t.”
I take a deep breath in and nod. “I can’t believe you’re willing to whore yourself out for a mission,” I say when I feel like I can say another word without breaking down again.
Sam smirks. “Oh, honey, I’ll whore myself out for a lot less than your safety.”
Chapter Eight
Research Rabbit Holes and Really Bad Feelings
Nick
Getting the list of relatives of the werewolves Elliot killed is easy enough. Bree had created an extensive one back when we were chasing the murderer who was targeting humans with ties to werewolves. The killer turned out to be Dominic, my colleague at both the Department and the Bureau. Not figuring him out sooner is the second biggest failure of my career.
First is not protecting Elliot from him sooner. I’ll spend my entire life apologizing for the hours Elliot had to spend tied up in that basement because I couldn’t do my job properly.
Not this time. I sit comfortably on the couch, patting Mickey, who’s made himself at home beside me. I’ve put onCars, his favorite movie, to keep him occupied so he doesn’t whine about the laptop on my lap instead of on his head. He’s completely focused on the screen.Kids these days.
Clicking on Bree’s email, I get to work. Two hundred fifty-six names. I cut down the names of the deceased and the kids. Two hundred fifty-one. Then by people living outside the state. One hundred seventy-two entries.
I create a separate list for the out-of-state people, since we won’t need to do an extensive interrogation. We can get awaywith figuring out if they had traveled to the city when the murders occurred.
Then I lean back and prepare myself to read the reports of every interaction the Bureau has had with these people. I’m in for a long week.
When the credits roll, I’ve only gotten through seven reports, all of which contain very limited information about the werewolf murders. We only shared the cause of death as poisoning. No mention of the combination of drugs Elliot used. The agents who spoke with the families mostly told them variations on the theme of ‘we found some irregularities in the reports, so we want to conduct another autopsy’.
Mickey gets antsy the moment the screen switches to black-and-white text. He nudges my laptop off my lap with his head. “Mickey,no.”
He whines, flopping down and giving me the full effect of his puppy-dog eyes.
I sigh. “You know you used to be nicer.”
He barks, rubbing his face on my thigh. I click a picture of him on my phone and send it to Elliot.
Me: Mickey is becoming more demanding every day. I wonder why that could be.
I look at my text, every word spelled out. When did I start texting like an adult? I suspect that had something to do with Elliot, too.
Closing my laptop, I let Mickey sleep on my lap. At least he’s grown out of trying to fit his entire giant self on it. I scratch behind his ear while he prepares for, hopefully, a short snooze.
Elliot replies quickly, considering, you know, it’s him.
Elliot: It’s called developing standards.
I laugh. Mickey looks up at me in confusion. I drop a kiss on his head. “It’s good to have standards, buddy.” I pat him.
He sighs before going back to his slumber.
Me: Good thing I come with a seal of approval from the people with the highest standards.
Elliot: I’ve never heard Amy Poehler mention you.
Aw, he likes Amy Poehler now. I’m taking full credit for that. And she does hang out with the best people. Must have really high standards. But not as high as this guy. C’mon, I worked hard to get that seal of approval. I’m sure if I met Amy, it’d be way easier to make her like me than it was to get Elliot to talk to me for more than thirty seconds.
