“No. It was from Mexico.” She rubbed her nose. “The body’s decomposing as we speak, so it’s a priority, but everything’s slowed down with the fridges full. That means I’ve no way of knowing if there are clear signs of murder.”
I scoffed, “The signs will be there. Nyx doctored Kevin’s shotgun. It backfired into his face.”
Grunting, Lodestar grumbled, “Destructive, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” I said dryly.
“Who disposed of the body?”
“Bear.” I thought back to the day of Carly’s wake and shivered. “I was friends with his sister.”
“Carly?”
“You know her name?”
“He’s got it inked on his neck,” she said with a shrug. “Wasn’t she older than you?”
“Five years older,” I agreed. “But I always got along better with people older than me. Before my mom met Axel—Rain’s father—my nana raised me. Carly was… She didn’t deserve what happened to her.”
“Does anyone?”
“No. True.” I sucked in a breath. “He deserved what happened to him.”
“You won’t hear me disagreeing, but I’m not a jury.”
“Bear promised he’d sort Kevin out, but that didn’t stop Nyx. He got there first. I can’t imagine Bear won’t have been thorough in making sure there’s nothing that ties Nyx to Kevin’s body.”
“Do we really want to risk it?”
The words settled heavily on my heart.
“Why are you asking me? Why aren’t you telling the council?”
“Because Rex is their brains.”
“That’s not fair to the rest of them,” I argued hotly.
“Not saying they’re dumb, just saying they’re not Rex.”
That had me conceding with a grimace.
“Rex is one of a kind,” I mumbled.
She snorted. “You’d know, not me. What do you want to do? Are you talking to Rex? I assume he isn’t cutting you off?”
My jaw worked at the prospect of being the bearer of yet more bad news. Angering Rex didn’t scare me, but the prospect of losing him did. I thought about how we’d come to our deal, and with that in mind, I muttered, “Lodestar, could you do me a favor?”
She arched a brow. “More than discovering the corpse from our resident pedo-hunter’s earliest case?”
“Yeah.”
Clearly curious, she asked, “What?”
“Rex and I… we’re trying to get better at communicating.”
“Right,” she drawled, extending the ‘i.’
“Yesterday, I told him something and he kind of blamed me and it’s been a tough… rough couple days. Would you mind speaking with him if I call him?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
Relieved I wouldn’t get blamed for this set of bad news, I withdrew my cell from my purse, hit Rex’s number, put it on speaker, then shoved it across the table.
I moved over to the kitchen door and closed it, then turned back to watch it unfold.
“Rach?”
“Nah, it’s Lodestar, Rex. Rachel wants me to key you into some shit.”
“Dammit,” he grunted under his breath.
“Now, now. Don’t be blaming her. This ain’t in her job description. It comes firmly under yours.”
“What is it?”
“Kevin Sisson’s body’s been found washed up over in Edgewater.”
“What?” he hissed.
“You really need me to repeat myself?”
“Jesus Christ,” he snarled. “Have the police called around for questioning?”
“No. Not yet. To be honest, Edgewater’s having a problem with bodies right now. Fresh ones.”
“Dad dealt with him.”
“Rachel told me.”
“He won’t have left any trace behind.”
“Doesn’t mean they won’t come sniffing around here once they can spare a pathologist to run an autopsy on him.” She cleared her throat. “Rachel indicated that there’d be clear signs of murder.”
“Yeah. Unless Dad separated his head from his body, which I doubt, they’ll see he was murdered. Fuck.”
“What do you want me to do? I can coordinate with the council and get them to infiltrate the morgue—”
“No. That’ll just look even more suspicious. As it stands, we’ve always stated that Kevin went on a hunting trip, something he did frequently, and he just never came back.”
“You’ve got too many floating bodies, Rex,” Lodestar warned.
“This ain’t like with David,” he dismissed. David was Indy’s ex-receptionist. “Kevin used to go hunting over in Wanaque.”
“So? He was an associate of the MC.”
“No, he was related by blood, but he wasn’t an associate.”
“You’re splitting hairs.”
“That’s what I do best.” He grunted. “Leave it—”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. We go in, it makes it look like there’s something to hide.”
“No body, no crime,” Lodestar grumbled.
“I’ve got…” He sucked in a breath. “I have every confidence in my dad.”
I knew that had to hurt.
After yesterday.
“He’d never do anything to jeopardize Nyx,” he said a few seconds later, his tone staunch, but it was more like he was telling himself that rather than Lodestar.
A part of me wanted to dive into this conversation. The ball buster of old wanted to tear into his reasoning to make sure that he was making the safest and wisest decision, but I just…
I didn’t feel like the ball buster of old right now.
I felt bruised by life. Overwhelmed by it.
So I stayed quiet as Lodestar told him, “Okay, well, if you say so.”
“I do. Keep an eye out, though?”
“I will.”
“How did you even find out about this?”
“That’s for me to know and for you not to find out.”
He grunted and cut the call.
“Your man’s such a charmer.”
The fizz that appeared in my veins at her throwaway comment had me sucking in a breath.
“He has his moments,” was all I said, not arguing that he was ‘my man’ before I jumped as the door behind me was shoved open.
“Wait!” I called out, stepping aside so that I wasn’t barreled over.
“Why you stand behind door?” Amara groused, glowering at me, accent thicker than oatmeal that had been left to stand.
“She wanted away from the fallout,” Lodestar drawled, and I crinkled my nose because she wasn’t exactly wrong.
The amused glint in her eyes told me she knew I wasn’t going to argue with her.
Amara just huffed. “You have news, Lodestar?”
“Yeah, I’m the Tooth Fairy today. Instead of money, though, I hand out information.”
“You speak too much,” Amara declared. “What news? Stop with bullshit.”
My lips curved at her frank, very Baltic command.