Blue surged forward. “He’s one of the victims? Which one?”
Wyatt took on a mocking tone. “He says his name is King Freeman, son of Sambah Freeman.” Then Wyatt smirked. “That’s what you sound like.”
“King?” I uttered, completely dumbstruck. “Your father said you were found on the stairs. Did you fall?”
“No,” Wyatt replied.
Christian waltzed in. “And what do we have here?”
“Shhh,” we all said at once.
Christian threw his hands up and stayed on the other side of the room, leaning against the desk with his arms folded.
“He was sick,” Wyatt continued. “Says he was going downstairs for… a glass of what?” Wyatt shuddered. “A glass of boiled roots. He was having some chest pain, and it wasn’t going away like before.”
“So he was chronically sick?” I asked.
Wyatt paused a minute as he listened to King. “Occasionally he got heartburn. Says he was under a lot of stress about whether to start his own pride or take over for his father.”
“Start his own pride,” Blue repeated. “Sambah didn’t mention King was an alpha, but maybe I should have asked by the way he spoke about him. Usually the firstborn is the alpha of the family.”
“That’s why he has so many siblings. Insert laughter here,” Wyatt said, making air quotes. “I’m not apologizing. You kept me up all night when I was at death’s door.”
Christian snorted and lowered his head.
“Twelve sons and seven daughters,” Blue added, telling me something I hadn’t known. “Shifters live a long time, but usually at some point, they stop making babies. They like to sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labors. Sounds like Sambah was trying for a successor. No wonder he chose the name King. That’s too bad.”
“He says he was going down the stairs,” Wyatt continued. “He suddenly got a terrible pain in his head that blinded him. He fell. When he hit the landing, he was still alive, but he couldn’t call for help. The pain got worse, and then he couldn’t breathe. After that, everything went black.”
Blue cupped her hands over her mouth, appearing deep in thought as she stared at her feet. “Alphas are stronger. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Has anyone else in his family died under similar circumstances?” I asked. “Or of unknown causes?”
Wyatt shook his head. “Some people just have a bum ticker.”
“I’m not sure that was a heart attack,” I said. “It sounds more like a stroke. Did he have any other pain before it happened?”
Wyatt cocked his head to the side as he listened, and then he replied, “Just the chest pain, only it was different than before. Sharper and more intense.”
“Sounds like a pulmonary embolism,” Christian remarked. “But I can’t say those happen at the same time as a clot in the brain. What are the odds?”
I shoved a short stack of papers aside that we had ruled out. I thought back to every interview. Some who were among the last to see the deceased alive made remarks about them not feeling well. “Chest pain, heartburn…,” I muttered.
“Even Andy mentioned it,” Blue said. “Remember that guy?”
“You mean the beta who threw a knife at me? Yeah, I remember.”
I noticed Christian ease away from the desk.
Blue glanced down at the floor. “He said she was having chest discomfort and went to bed. That fits the pattern.”
I fished his paper out of the stack. “Damn. I thought maybe his snitch of a packmate was right about him killing her. He seemed like the aggressive type.”
“Could be some gene mutation.” Blue sat cross-legged and lined up a few papers. “But they don’t belong to the same animal species.”
“Then we have to consider it might be contagious.” I turned a paper clip between my fingers. “If that’s the case, not everyone’s getting infected—or at least, not everyone’s dying from it. Maybe they’re just carriers. But what do these people have in common? It can’t be the same blood type, or we’d have a bigger list.”
“How would you know?” Wyatt asked, staring at the empty space beside him. “I thought you only hung around your own kind.”
Blue looked up. “What did he say?”
Wyatt rolled his chair back a little. “That there are a lot of alphas in your pile.”
I stared at the papers, remembering Ren had mentioned a few alpha wolves. “Who does he recognize?”
Wyatt kept rolling backward. “He knows the young motorcycle guy—Rain. Met him in an Italian diner. And—slow down, you’re talking too fast. They don’t need to hear your life story.” Wyatt changed direction and scooted toward us, still staring up at nothing.
I twisted my hair back. “Ferro mentioned his son was an alpha, so that’s not a surprise. We’re just not sure about his death. He fell off his motorcycle.”
Wyatt spun his chair in a circle. “He says that boy wouldn’t fall off that bike if you turned it upside down. And he also heard about the little alpha who drowned.”
I perked up. “The boy was an alpha?”
“Alphas always know another alpha. Even children.” Blue suddenly lurched forward and opened a file where we’d put a few photographs that were offered to us. Then she held one up. “She’s a redhead. And so is the teenage girl. Do you think—?”
“Do I think what?” I asked. “The men could be alphas? That’s possible. We didn’t exactly ask everyone, and they probably didn’t think it was relevant to mention. But what about the rest?”
“Redheads have a higher probability of producing alphas. Nobody knows why, but maybe it’s something in their DNA. Something that makes them just as vulnerable to a virus as the alphas.”
I tossed the paper clip onto the floor. “We need to make some calls.”
Blue sat back and stroked her feather earring. “We have to play it cool. If we ask that kind of question, it’ll raise a red flag.”
“Everyone’s got a phone these days,” I said, mulling over an idea. “Why not ask them to send us a photo? People are discouraged from collecting pictures, but we know they probably have at least one.”
Claude lifted his legs onto the couch and twisted so he was lying on his side, head propped in his hand. He was so tall that one leg hung over the armrest, the other bent at the knee. “I enjoy watching you females at work. It’s better than a detective novel.”
“Photos are a good idea,” Blue said, ignoring him. “How do we verify if the males are alphas?”
“Compensation,” Christian offered.
We all gave him the same “what planet do you live on?” look.
Striding toward us, he put his hands in his pockets. “If you’re working on behalf of the higher authority, who has Shifters’ best interests in mind, ask them if the victim is an alpha. They’ll answer, to be sure. Alarm will set in, so that’s when you give them assurance that the higher authority will offer compensation for the loss of an alpha for the obvious reasons.”
I collected the loose paper clips. “We can’t lie to these people. Not unless you want to make a ton of enemies.”