4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

‘How did it go?' I asked Greg as he held my body flush against his. Contentment filled me as his arms slipped around me; this, right here, was my happy place. In his arms I could forget everything the world was throwing at us. In a moment I'd make a concerted effort to do just that, but first I needed to hear what leads he'd run down. ‘Any suspects?'

Greg pulled the duvet a little higher around us. ‘Harden and Ramsay both apparently stepped out earlier, but so did David, Archie, Elena and Thea.'

‘Well, we know what Archie and Thea were doing. David was probably tending to his roses. That man is rose obsessed.'

Elena, though … I grimaced. I really didn't want the killer to be from my pack because that complicated everything. Still, the odds weren't in my favour: someone at the ma nsion had killed Larsden and most of the residents were from my pack.

‘You're tense,' Gregg murmured as he stroked his hands down my body. ‘I think you need a recharge.'

‘I went to Rosie's yesterday,' I pointed out. After the Council had arrived on my doorstop the urge to flee had been pretty overwhelming, plus we'd been through a lot of shit. I'd retreated to Maxwell's hall and some much-needed downtime with my family whilst we all tried to process what we'd been through and find a new way to be together.

My birth family seemed to have assimilated the knowledge that I was their long-deceased relative with some ease, but I was still coming to terms with it. Helena visibly itched for me to call her Nonna, but I just wasn't there yet; grateful as I was to have found them, it had left me with a harsh ache in my heart where my mum and dad should have been.

‘I don't mean that kind of a recharge, I meant an emotional one.' Greg hesitated. ‘I was thinking… It's Sunday tomorrow and your mum – your other mum – keeps inviting you to Sunday lunch. We should go. You don't need to tell your parents about us. I could sit outside and guard you from the car.' He hesitated. ‘Though truthfully, with all that's going on I'd much ra ther be by your side. I don't mind if you introduce me as a friend though.'

I stared at him. ‘Hey! I'm not ashamed of you! I'd love to introduce you to my family, there just hasn't been the right moment.'

He grinned ruefully. ‘I don't think such a moment exists. The Other is chaotic.'

‘You're not wrong.' His idea had real merit. The last few days had been turbulent; I needed some grounding, and a cuddle with the mum and dad who'd adopted me seemed like a really good idea. I reached for my phone on my bedside table and texted: Can I come to lunch tomorrow? I'll bring my boyfriend, Greg. Can Ben come too? I'd love to see you all. xxx

I turned back to Greg. ‘Hey, so guess what?'

‘What?'

‘Emory and Jess are getting married in two months!'

‘Shotgun wedding?' he asked, eyebrows raised.

I snorted. ‘No, she's not ready for kids. I think they're using it to distract everyone from the gargoyle thing. I get to organise her hen-do!' I pulled up the spreadsheet that I'd started on my phone and showed him the screen. ‘Look at all those colours. God, I love a colour co-ordinated spreadsheet. '

He grinned. ‘Your pupils are dilated. I think I've been trying to turn you on all wrong.' He kissed my neck. ‘Time for some new tactics. How do you feel about me making you a PowerPoint presentation?'

I pictured him in a suit using a line graph whilst talking about the pack's investments, and I let out a low moan. His grin widened and the bed shook with his silent laughter. I rolled over so that I was straddling him and rocked my hips against his. His smile vanished, his laughter stopped and his eyes darkened. Heh, heh, heh.

‘Now you're talking,' I purred. As I leaned down and kissed him, I felt his lips curve up against mine. Okay, so I have an extreme love of spreadsheets but my heart is big; I can find some space for Greg.

‘I'll do some statistics to go with the presentation,' he murmured.

I groaned. ‘Keep talking.'

‘I'll do a pie chart,' he promised in a low gravelly voice.

I moaned and started to slide down his body. Time to reward him for good behaviour.

Who needed sleep anyway?

I awoke feeling refreshed and revitalised. Greg had been right: I'd needed a recharge. Our time together had kick-started my batteries and a visit with my family would do the rest.

Can we clean ourselves now? Esme asked eagerly. She loved a shower.

Absolutely!

Greg had rolled out of bed an hour earlier to relieve Tristan from his place at the security desk so I could happily make the shower as hot as I wanted. I luxuriated in the heat rolling through my muscles and Esme made happy noises in our head.

I dried and dressed before carefully toning and moisturising my face. Fresh faced and dewy eyed, I moseyed back into my bedroom to find a huge bacon baguette waiting for me, liberally doused with tomato ketchup with a side of fried mushrooms. Yum. I devoured the breakfast of champions as well as the latte that was standing next to it. This was my super-fuel; screw avocados, give me bacon any day of the week.

I bounced down to my office and gave Greg a blinding smile. ‘ Morning!'

‘Morning, sweetheart. I'm guessing from the grin that Finley dropped off your sandwich?'

‘I didn't see him, but yep. He's a great chef – everything tastes amazing. We should give him a raise. Hopefully that way he won't turn evil and try to kill us all.'

‘Mrs Dawes wasn't our fault,' he said firmly. ‘She was off her rocker before we even met her.'

‘I know, but she hid it so well.' I sighed. ‘I hate that.' I gave him a long kiss before I finally sat behind my desk. ‘Any more thoughts on Larsden? I guess we should go through his room and see if he helpfully left any incriminating evidence.'

Greg frowned. ‘We should probably have done that last night.'

I shrugged. ‘Probably, but you started talking about pie charts, so… Besides, I'm an accountant and you're a soldier. Investigating crimes is Jess's thing.'

‘We worked pretty well together last time,' he pointed out.

‘Oh yeah, we're totally going to find the killer,' I said with supreme confidence, ‘but Jess would do it faster. With less bumbling.'

‘We don't bumble! We mismanage. And of course Jess would do it faster – all she needs to do is walk around asking people if they killed the victim and wait for one of them to lie."

‘Yeah, that lie-detector shit really is an unfair advantage. Come on, let's go and invade Larsden's privacy.'

Greg nodded. ‘Just let me find someone to cover the desk.'

I rolled my eyes. ‘We can leave it unattended for one little minute.'

‘No, we can't,' he said firmly. ‘DEFCON 1, remember? The desk is always covered.'

‘Fine, if you must. But frankly, staring at the security feeds is like watching paint dry.'

‘Even so.' He marched out and came back a moment later with Ethan in tow. Shoving him at the desk, he ordered, ‘Watch the feeds.' Then he turned to me. ‘Let's go.'

I picked up the master key that opened all the guest rooms and checked to see which one Larsden had been in. ‘Elton Suite,' I murmured. ‘First floor.'

Greg led the way and I traipsed happily behind him, enjoying the view of his buns of steel as we trotted up a flight of stairs to get to the first floor. It was still early and the place had a sleepy, restful feel. We moseyed along a wide corridor lined with a red carpet and with various ancestral paintings hanging on the walls. It was long and dark, and I almost tiptoed along it; I didn't want to wake any of my ‘guests'. It was too early to deal with Kearns or his lackeys.

We paused outside Larsden's suite. We needn't have bothered with the key because the door was slightly ajar. Greg pushed it open and preceded me into the room. It was a God-awful mess. Fuck.

I grimaced, filled with self-recrimination. Why hadn't I thought to come here last night? We had totally mismanaged the situation. It was an absolute balls-up; even worse, though we hadn't thought to search his rooms someone else clearly had.

‘This isn't him being a slob,' I said. ‘Someone's tossed the damned room.'

Greg looked as vexed as I felt. ‘The question is, did they find what they were looking for?'

Cushions were strewn about, clothes had been dumped on the floor and Larsden's suitcase had been cut to pieces, presumably because the killer had been looking for hidden compartments. I snapped some pictures and then we got into it, tidying and straightening as we looked for clues as to who had done this.

After we'd had a good look around, I stripped and shifted onto four legs. Several scents permeated the room, the most notable being stale sweat and ejaculation. Esme sniffed the sheets closely. Only the man's smell, she muttered.

He must have been masturbating alone, I noted.

I do not understand. Why would he just not mate with someone?

Masturbation wasn't a wolfish activity and explaining it was really beyond my capabilities at that moment. Maybe he couldn't find someone to be his mate, I suggested lamely.

The few times I'd met Scott Larsden he'd actually come across as quite nice, but the USB drive had told me otherwise – that, and the fact that he'd been murdered. Generally, super-nice people didn't get their throats ripped out, not unless a crazy serial killer was on the loose, and that sort of random crime was incredibly rare. Larsden had pissed off someone enough to get himself killed.

I thought again of Elena. I'd need to speak to her later, to look her in the eyes and ask her directly. She'd lost her brother because of the black tourneys, and she was nothing if not passionate about them getting shut down. She'd worked with Lord Samuel to do it the right way through the Connection, then she'd worked solo to do it the wrong way after the Connection had conducted a raid and let almost everyone inside go scot-free.

Esme and I sniffed around the room, but apart from ejaculate and sweat there wasn't a single noteworthy odour. Either the person who'd tossed it had used a potion or they'd dressed head to toe in a crime-scene suit to keep their skin cells and hairs where they should be.

I shifted back onto two legs and got dressed. ‘He jacked off last night,' I said to Greg, ‘but there's no smell that suggests anyone else was present.'

‘Someone's masking their scent,' Greg noted.

‘Did you find anything whilst I was sniffing around?'

‘I found a laptop case but no laptop.'

I brightened. ‘Okay, so maybe we find that and we find the killer.'

‘Here's hoping.'

‘Let's go back to our office and check the security feeds from last night.'

‘Great minds think alike.' He grinned at me.

‘And fools rarely differ,' I parroted the other half of the phrase.

‘I prefer to think that we are great minds.'

I smirked. ‘So does every fool.'

We closed and locked the door and headed back to our office, hoping that the security feeds would shine some light on who had killed Scott Larsden.

I really did hope it could be that easy.