Embraced By Darkness (Riley Jenson Guardian 5)

The cleanup team arrived precisely on time. I left them to it and walked back to the house. I didn't see any hair floating about on the breeze or caught in trees. Maybe it had already been swept down the street drains. Or maybe the answer was far more sinister.

Perhaps what I needed to do was check out past murders, and see if this pattern had been set elsewhere.

Cole was nowhere to be seen when I arrived back at the house, but his scent was drifting out from inside. I donned my sweater, then grabbed my jacket and purse and headed back to my can There was nothing more I could do here at the moment - or rather, nothing more that I wanted to do.

It was time to go talk to Adrienne's lover.

Jodie Carr lay wrapped in white hospital sheets, looking more than a little sorry for herself. Her blue eyes - a blue so pale they were almost gray - fixed on me briefly as I walked in, then her gaze skipped away to the window, staring as if there was something more interesting out there than just the brick wall of another building. She couldn't even see sky through that window. For a werewolf, that would have been hard to take, but I guess humans had higher tolerances.

"Jodie Carr?" I asked, stopping beside her bed and digging out my badge.

"Yeah. What's it to you?"

I held my badge in front of her. "I'm here about Adrienne."

She finally looked at me again. "Why? What is she to you?"

The slight edge in her voice had my eyebrows rising, if only because it oddly seemed to hint at jealousy. "Her alpha has asked me to investigate her disappearance."

She snorted. "That bastard didn't give a damn about her, not as long as she obeyed his edicts and behaved like a girl should."

"So he had a suspicion you and Adrienne were lovers?"

She blinked, and for an instant, fear slithered across her face. Not that I blamed her. I'd spent many years afraid of Blake and his get.

"Why the fuck would you think something like that?"

"Because it's true? Few people would try to kill themselves just because they believed a friend was dead."

She looked away and didn't say anything.

"Look, her father thinks she's in serious trouble, so any information you can provide might just help bring her back."

"She won't ever come back."

"And why would you think that?"

"Because she's dead."

I blinked. "Her father doesn't seem to think so."

"Her father is a goddamn moron. He doesn't know Adrienne. He never has."

"He's a clairvoyant. That would give him - "

"Nothing," she spat. "Nothing compared to what I have."

"And that is?"

"Love." She closed her eyes. "She's dead. I can feel it."

The pain in her voice had me wanting to reach out and comfort her, but I had a strong feeling any such move would be rejected. "What story was Adrienne working on before she disappeared?"

"I'm not really sure. It was something to do with the club - something she saw there." Jodie shrugged. "She never really talked about her work much at home. That was our rule."

"What club arc we talking about?" Even though I'd already guessed the answer, I asked the question all the same. Better to get a sure answer than to be proved wrong later. "Mirror Image?"

She nodded.