“What about the others? Ren gave me a list.” I reached into my pocket.
Graham waved it away and lowered his voice. “You shouldn’t carry that around with you. It’s dangerous. Slanderous. I can’t speak for all the names on their list, but there was nothing suspicious happening in the packs I work for. Natural causes. Alisa could be an exception.”
“So you admit you could be wrong.” Blue finished eating her oatmeal cookies and pushed the empty plate out of the way.
“About one,” Graham admitted. “Maybe two. But if I can’t properly determine a cause of death, I might as well quit right now.”
“What about the lady in Ren’s pack?” I asked. “She was only two hundred. That’s not even middle age. When you start comparing all the deaths, doesn’t it look suspicious?”
Graham shrugged while licking icing off his fork. “I don’t work for your friend’s pack, so I only know what they told me: she died in her sleep. That’s not what I chalk up to a suspicious death, and I’ve handled a lot of dead Shifters in my time. When they’re found in an alleyway or inside a trunk—that’s suspicious. My family’s been working with Shifters for eight hundred years. Eight hundred! Generation after generation. I’m the last of the generation, and all my knowledge stays right up top until the day I die.” He tapped his finger against his temple. “You see, I can’t have children. So I know all about getting dealt a bad hand. It happens, and it’s a terrible thing.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Blue said earnestly.
When the waitress arrived, she set down more plates and twirled away. Not as chatty as Betty, but we didn’t have time for socializing.
Blue squirted mustard onto her chili dog in a zigzag pattern. “I know about unexpected deaths, but usually it happens with children. They can’t shift to heal, and it’s almost impossible to keep them from jumping out of trees or falling off a horse. It’s rare to see people die in the prime of life—unless it was in battle or during a difficult pregnancy.” She turned to look at me. “Pregnant women can’t shift. Well, they can, but it’s too dangerous for the unborn baby. Our animal will refuse to come out. It’s the only time they sleep in peace.”
When Graham leaned toward his soda a bit too quickly, the straw poked him in the nose. His cheeks bloomed red beneath the facial scruff, and he wiped his hands on a napkin instead of taking a drink. “You’re basing it on your personal experiences. Do you know how many Shifter groups reside in Cognito? I’m not talking about the packs, but all animal groups. Not to mention all the rogues. The names Ren threw at me were scattered across the board. A few of them were my clients, but most weren’t. I can’t afford to jeopardize my career in this fruitless investigation of his. Do you think it would be easy for me to find new clients? The only time that happens with a good Shifter group is when their Relics drop them or die. If they thought I was keeping secrets or this stirs up unfounded gossip, I’ll wind up working behind a gas station counter.”
After biting into my juicy burger, I reached for an onion ring. Graham seemed levelheaded, and I needed an honest opinion. “Back to my earlier question: do you think we’re wasting our time?”
He glanced at his watch. “As a Relic, my nature is to question everything. I only hope you’re being careful. People talk, and what you’re asking them will raise a few eyebrows.”
“Our stories will match up,” Blue confirmed, oblivious to the dab of chili sauce on her cheek. “What can you tell us about the cases you personally oversaw? How did they die?”
Graham scratched his scruffy jaw. “One was a boy of ten who drowned.”
I dusted crumbs off my fingers. “Why the hell would he end up on our list?”
“I asked the same thing.” Graham resumed eating his cake, not leaving a single crumb to waste. “I suppose the Packmaster thought it was suspicious since the kid was the best swimmer in the pack. His mother revealed that he wasn’t feeling well earlier but still wanted to play. The boy had just eaten, and everyone knows you shouldn’t swim after eating. It’s not science-based, but people sometimes cramp up. I knew one lady who had food regurgitate into the esophagus, and she choked, which caused her to drown in a panic.”
Just as he said that, Graham inhaled cake and went into a coughing fit. While he gulped down his soda and tried to regain his composure, I devoured my burger and wondered if I should have taken this case. Ren had assured me that none of the names were accidents or sickness, so why was a drowned kid on the list? There were only three kids he marked as a true accident, and none were by drowning.
Graham cleared his throat. “Another was a twenty-one-year-old male, motorcycle accident.”
I got up from the table and stormed into the bathroom. After scrolling through my contact list, I called Ren.
“Got anything?” he asked.
“A growing bout of indigestion. Am I wasting my time? Tell me now, Ren.”
“What happened?”
“A drowning? A motorcycle accident? One of them looks like domestic violence. You convinced me the deaths were suspicious, like they dropped dead out of thin air. You said there weren’t any accidents.”
“Dig deeper, Raven. You’re better than that.” Ren hung up.
As tempting as it was to quit the case, I knew Ren wouldn’t risk his reputation if he didn’t think something was fishy. It probably wouldn’t amount to anything, but maybe all he needed was someone to tell him that.
I sighed and stared at my reflection. My ruby necklace was tucked beneath my shirt so it wouldn’t draw attention from the packs. They wouldn’t expect someone from the higher authority to show up wearing fancy jewelry. I clutched it and stared at myself. “From killer to private investigator. Don’t fuck this up.”
When I returned to my seat, some of my onion rings were missing. “Sorry, I had to freshen up.”
“We heard,” Blue quipped.
“All right,” I said, getting back to business. “So we have a drowned boy, a motorcycle accident—what else?”
Graham stared at his empty plate. “This past winter, a man in his fifties passed away. Another one of my clients was a twelve-year-old girl.” Graham raised his head and met eyes with me. “Be very careful. These people are grieving, and you’re going to be poking at a fresh wound. Don’t put any wild ideas in their heads. Shifters are paranoid—more than other Breeds. They always think someone’s conspiring against them. People die every day, and not always from trauma. Some just have faulty genes. I’ve looked at the names, and I just don’t see any plausible connection. If there is, I want to be the first to know about it. That means I overlooked something I shouldn’t have. If only they’d let me perform autopsies… I’d be able to confirm with absolute certainty, and there wouldn’t be all this tiptoeing around.”
After finishing my burger, I pushed my onion rings toward Graham, who had been eyeing them like a hawk. “We have another stop today with a group of bears.”
“They call themselves a sleuth,” Blue interjected.
I nodded, not really knowing all the proper terminology. “Are the Franklins one of yours?”