He turned on his heel to walk alongside me. “What can I say? I’m an old-fashioned man.”
“What were you doing out there?”
“Wyatt’s playing that infernal music again.”
“Air Supply?”
“Aye. Probably pining over an old lover.”
I walked into my bedroom and grabbed the matches on the dresser. “I guess Blue’s keeping an eye on the mailbox then.” I lit the lanterns, including a few candles in the fireplace. The light emphasized every crevice and crack in the stone walls. I sat on the scarlet bedspread, kicked off my sneakers, and lay down, staring up at the painting above the headboard. The bleak, grey landscape reminded me of what Houdini had said: live in the grey. The red trees suddenly looked like blots of violence.
Christian sat facing me, his back against the headboard. “You were gone for a while. Where have you been?”
I clasped my hands behind my head. “Can we not be that couple? I have to learn to trust you, and you have to trust me. I know you were gone today, and I don’t know where. You promised me you wouldn’t go to the White Owl, and I believe you. So that’s why I’m not asking.”
“On my word, I haven’t been. I won’t go there again.”
I took off his shoe and then his sock. “I didn’t ask, Mr. Stinky Feet.”
“I beg your pardon? My feet are as pristine as the nuns of Vatican City.”
I propped his foot on my chest and began rubbing the sole. Christian didn’t have smelly feet, and even if he did, I wouldn’t care. I just loved pushing his buttons.
“Mmm. I like that, Precious. You have the hands of a saint and the mouth of a sinner.” He glanced at the floor. “I won’t ask where you’ve been, but that’s a curious amount of mud on the bottom of your shoes considering it hasn’t rained recently.”
“Shut up and rub my feet.”
My legs parted when he rested my foot on his stomach, and I caught his gaze wandering up to my tight black shorts. It didn’t take long before I felt something hard growing beneath my leg. Ignoring the passion stirring between us, I continued rubbing his foot until he fell in my thrall. Christian closed his eyes and stopped my massage.
“Lenore popped in this afternoon.”
“Do you mind? I’m in the middle of a fantasy, and you bring up that woman.” He opened his eyes when I didn’t say anything. “All right. What did she say?”
“Some of those Shifters wanted their money and didn’t waste time calling her. We should have told Viktor sooner. I thought you were going to talk to him.”
“I haven’t seen him since returning. Perhaps the children sent him to an early grave.”
“Anyhow, Lenore seemed okay with it. She’s going to pay everyone who goes through our approval process.”
“Of course she’s all right with it. It’s good PR. Despite her balking, Lenore considers public relations to be one of the most important things in life. I have no doubt if there was a Breed newspaper, she’d arrange a feature on the front page about her contribution.”
Christian’s erection lost its enthusiasm.
“It made us look bad in front of Viktor. I’m not sure if he would have agreed to it even if she did, but we can’t do something like that again. It was a great idea and got people to trust us, but we did it ass-backward. Something like that could backfire on us, and even you warned me not to make enemies with Lenore.”
He gave me a pointed look. “Did she speak to you?”
“They both asked me to stay in the dining room. That’s how Viktor found out. He lied for us.”
Christian’s head thumped against the headboard, and he cursed under his breath. “I meant to speak with him today, but I didn’t think those shitebags would be calling so fast to collect. Was he cross?”
“I don’t know. It could have made him look bad in front of a higher authority member, like he didn’t know what the hell we were doing behind his back. I’m not sure with them dating if that makes it better or worse. We need to watch our step.”
Christian continued rubbing my foot. “I’ll speak to him later and smooth things over. ’Twas my idea, so I’ll accept the blame.” He patted my foot and sighed. “Do you want to get that, or shall I?”
“Get what?”
A knock sounded at the door.
I pinched his little toe. “I hate it when you do that.”
When the door unexpectedly opened, I rolled to my side.
Blue paused at the threshold. “Sorry to bother you. I just got a message from the Boring pack. I think it was that scrawny guy who suggested that Andy killed his mate.”
I sat up. “What did he say?”
“He says Alisa was secretly pregnant. He overheard the Packmaster talking about it before her death. The snitch thinks it was someone else’s baby, and that’s why Andy killed her.”
“But she fits all the criteria.”
Blue leaned against the doorjamb. “Yeah, it’s just sad. The pregnancy is worth mentioning to the Relic. We might have to consider that one a question mark.”
“Thanks for the cheery news,” Christian said, tossing one of my socks to the floor.
Blue chuckled under her breath. “I’ll let you two get back to whatever it is that you’re doing.”
When the door closed, I crawled next to Christian and nestled against his warm chest.
He stroked my hair before giving my shoulder a light squeeze. “If it’s a virus, there’s something else to consider.”
“And what’s that?”
“Viktor might perish.”
I shook my head. “He’s not an alpha.”
“Aye. But who is to say what comes next? You can’t control a microscopic enemy. First it’s the alphas, but does it stop there?”
Chapter 26
On Friday night we left early to meet with Graham. Blue and I were eager to present our findings now that we’d found a link between the deaths.
“I hope he knows a specialist.” Blue gripped the window crank and rolled up her window. “I bet there are secret labs that study this kind of thing.”
“And I bet there are secret labs that cook it,” I suggested.
“Why the hell did you take this case? I don’t want this responsibility. If this is a virus and people find out we were involved, they’ll blame us. They’ll either say we didn’t do anything soon enough or that we were the ones who started it. That’s how this always goes.” She wound up her long hair and tied it in a messy knot. “I guess Harper is the only one left on my list. Has she called?”
I glanced at the backup phone Wyatt had given me. “Not yet.”
“Do you remember anything about your conversation with her that would suggest Bono was an alpha?”
I turned the steering wheel at a light and tried to recall every detail. “I think she said something about how he couldn’t start his own pack, and nobody wanted him in theirs, but she might have been implying that he wasn’t an alpha.”
Blue pointed toward a brightly lit corner. “This is it. I’ll look for him while you park.”