There were a boatload of bars and clubs along this stretch of Pacific Avenue, but this particular place seemed even more crowded than the others, especially for a Sunday night. But the dark-haired woman mixing the drinks at least paused long enough to look at the photo. “Yeah, I recognize him,” she said after squinting in the bar’s dim light before looking back up at Trey and Connor. “He’s in here pretty regularly. I don’t know his name though, and I don’t think I’ve seen him this weekend. But he’s a player. What he’d do, assault some woman who wouldn’t pay attention to him?”
The bartender had pegged him and Connor as police officers the moment they’d walked in, even though they were both dressed in civilian clothes. She’d eyed them up and down and informed them that no one had called the cops, then visibly relaxed when she heard they were there looking for someone.
“No, nothing like that,” Connor said. “But he might have left with a woman—or a couple.”
The bartender shook her head. “I think I saw him last Friday, though it might have been Saturday. Didn’t see him with anyone that I can remember. Sorry.”
Trey thanked the woman, then he and Connor walked around and asked a few of the servers to see if maybe they’d seen anything the bartender had missed. They hadn’t.
“That’s another one off the list,” Trey said, pulling the aforementioned list out of his back pocket and drawing a line through the name of the bar with a pen.
Connor groaned as they walked out of the place and started down the sidewalk lining Pacific Avenue. “So that only leaves what, twenty more places or so?”
“About that,” Trey replied.
It had taken them over two hours to work through the first four clubs Alden Cox had been to. At this rate, it would take them days to get through the rest. Unfortunately, by then there’d almost certainly be another dead body showing up in one of the local landfills. If it wasn’t there already.
Following Trey’s suggestion, STAT had built a list of clubs, bars, and restaurants that Alden Cox and Demario Harris had visited in the days right around their supposed times of death. Then they’d compared those locations with the routes taken by the garbage trucks that could have picked up the bodies. Since they’d known exactly which truck had picked up Demario Harris’s body, that list—which Hale and Trevor had—was much shorter than the one Trey and Connor had been stuck with. But both were longer than they’d hoped. Demario and Alden had covered a lot of ground on the weekends of their deaths. As if they’d both been looking for one last shot at life before it was all over.
Trey and Connor didn’t talk about how hopeless this exercise probably was as they walked. Instead, they moved from bar to club to restaurant, flashing Alden’s picture to anyone they thought might remember him. Lots of people did. He was a regular at almost every place in the Pacific Avenue district. On the downside, no one could remember seeing him with anyone specific.
“How’d your date with Sam go last night?” Connor asked as they left a large nightclub that had taken them over an hour to work their way through. “Do you still think she’s going out with you simply to get information about us?”
That was a loaded question if there ever was one. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure how to answer it.
So, instead, he checked his list, then his watch, before motioning down the block toward the bar on the corner. “It’s getting close to last call for most of the places in this part of town. We’ll probably have time for one more, then we’ll have to call it a night.”
Connor fell into step beside him. The sidewalk was still crowded. “So, what about Samantha? Since you don’t want to talk about the date, does that mean you were right about her?”
Trey’s mouth edged up. “The date was fantastic. Even better than the first one, if that’s possible. We went out to the art district and walked around the shops, then grabbed pizza. We didn’t even talk about SWAT or you guys or anything.”
“But?” Connor prompted.
“I still don’t know if she’s playing me.” Trey sighed. “Even though I’m sure she’s definitely The One.”
The crazy emotions she admitted feeling were more than enough to convince him that she was the woman he was meant to be with. Not to mention make his inner wolf sigh in contentment. And yet, his human side still urged him to be cautious.
“I don’t want to be the one to say I told you so, but I told you so.” Connor grinned.
Trey slanted him a glance. “Did you miss the part where I said I’m not sure if I can trust her?”
Even now, the gauze Samantha had used to clean the cut on his hand nagged at the back of his mind. Why hadn’t he cleaned up the mess and tossed everything in the trash before he left? Did his inner wolf somehow instinctively already know she wasn’t a threat to the Pack?
Dammit, why couldn’t things be simple? But finding The One hadn’t been easy for any of his teammates, so why should it be different for him?
“I still think you should tell her that she’s your soul mate,” Connor insisted.
“Yeah right.” Trey snorted. “We’ve been on two whole dates and you think it would be a good idea to throw her in the deep end of the pool. I can see it now. Hey, Samantha, you know those weird feelings you’ve been experiencing? Well, you’re getting them because I’m a werewolf and you’re my soul mate. But don’t worry, I promise not to bite.”
Connor scowled. “Okay, I guess I see your point. But you know you’ll have to tell her at some point, so maybe you should come up with a plan now on how you’re going to do that. Unless you want it to all blow up in your face.”
Maybe Connor was right. Maybe if he sat Samantha down and explained everything in a very straightforward, scientific way, she’d realize what they had was too important for her to ever expose that he and his pack mates were werewolves. He needed to stop overcomplicating things and put his faith in the bond developing between them.
When he and Connor came to a rather unassuming bar illuminated by a series of soft orange and red neon signs in the windows, Trey had to admit it didn’t look like the kind of place Alden would have hung out. It seemed a little too low-key for the guy’s taste.
“We’re on last call,” an older man behind the bar announced as he and Connor stepped inside. “I’ll pour you two some drinks, but you’ll have to down ’em fast.”
“Thanks for the offer, but we’re not here for a drink,” Trey said, flashing his badge. “We’re looking for information on someone.” Taking the photo out, he placed it on the wooden bar. “Have you ever seen this guy around?”
The man behind the bar barely looked at the photo for more than a second before nodding. “Yeah, I know Alden. All the regulars do.” He motioned to several other people sitting at the bar. “Comes in every weekend like clockwork. Sometimes during the week, too. I haven’t seen him in a while, though.”