Bound to Shadows (Riley Jenson Guardian 8)

"It isn't often my instincts are wrong. " He shrugged. "I spoke to Tyson London and he backed up everything Evin has said. "

Tyson. Something within me shivered at the sound of that name, so obviously it had once meant something to me. Something unpleasant.

"Did you run any other checks?"

He raised his eyebrows. "The word of a pack leader isn't enough?"

"Pack leaders aren't infallible, you know. They lie and scheme as much as the rest of us. "

"You really haven't got a very high opinion of pack alphas, have you?"

"Apparently not. " I pulled the toast toward me and picked up a piece. "Does this mean I'm no longer a suspect in the crime?"

"No, it simply means you're not lying about who you are. The whole crime thing is another issue entirely. "

And if he was drinking our coffee and eating toast, then I very much doubted he was here in any official capacity. He seemed the type to be a stickler for rules - written and unwritten - and regular cops didn't usually sit at a suspect's kitchen counter eating their toast and drinking their coffee, because any evidence gathered that way would be inadmissible in court.

Which didn't mean he wasn't fishing.

"Has the autopsy happened yet?"

He took another drink then shook his head. "These things take a time in this part of the world. I did, however, read about similar crimes in Sydney and Brisbane. "

I nodded. "They're revenge crimes, just like this one. Which suggests there's a fairly big organization behind it. There has to be, given they've hit people in four places now. "

He raised his eyebrows. "Four?"

"I Googled the murders last night. None of them matched the information my - admittedly faulty - memory is providing. "

"Then how would you even know about it if you didn't read about it, either online or in the newspapers?"

"I don't know. " I finished the rest of the toast, then wiped the crumbs off my hands. "Have you sent an information request to the Directorate? This would be their sort of gig. "

"Marcus Landsbury was human, and he was killed by someone wearing a devil mask. That isn't Directorate territory. "

"It is when the person wearing the mask isn't human. "

The last hint of friendliness dropped from his gaze. "What makes you say that? There was no scent other than Landsbury's at the crime scene. "

"And you didn't find that odd? You're a wolf. You should have been able to smell the killer given how fresh the kill was. "

He didn't say anything to that, so I continued. "Besides, Landsbury said his killer was small but he moved him easily. That in itself signals nonhuman involvement, because most humans simply couldn't have lifted a man his size with any sort of ease. "

"But neither of those is the reason you think there's nonhuman involvement, is it?"

"No. " I hesitated. "I really do have no idea where half this stuff is coming from, but I didn't kill Landsbury. "

"If I was accusing you of anything, we'd be down at the police station, not sitting here drinking coffee. "

Which didn't mean he thought I was innocent. "Look, I keep getting this feeling that I was involved in investigating a similar case. Whether that was as someone who has a talent for talking to souls, or in a more official capacity, I can't say. "

"If this other crime exists, then there'd at least be a record of it somewhere in the system - "

"Not if it's a Directorate case. "

"True. But if it was a Directorate case, my sending in an official query about a possible copycat would have prompted a response. So far, it hasn't. "

"The query would be red-flagged. How fast they get back to you depends on what other cases they have ongoing. " I hesitated. "It also might depend on which Directorate office picks it up. "