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“Hungry?”

“No.”

“Will you eat anyway?” I was channeling my mother, and I knew it, but I also knew that Elliot’s shifter metabolism required more food than he was putting into it.

Another grunt. It wasn’t a refusal, so I took it as agreement. I served up a full plate of cheesy scrambled eggs and potatoes and put it in front of him, along with a fork. He picked up the utensil and stabbed a potato, but didn’t lift it to his mouth.

“Eat it, Elliot.”

He sighed, but obeyed.

I dished up the rest on my own plate, then sat on the other side of the kitchen island. He looked up at me. “You should’ve taken more,” he mumbled around a mouthful of potatoes.

“You’re a shifter,” I replied.

“And you’re an elf.”

“Your metabolism is still higher,” I pointed out.

“I’m not that hungry.”

“You need it more, El. Eat.”

He sighed, but kept eating.

“What do we need to do today?” I asked him after a little while.

He swallowed a mouthful, then pushed some potatoes around with his fork. “I have to take… clothes to the funeral home.”

Which meant we’d have to go into Gregory’s room. The last few days, Elliot had stuck to the kitchen, the living room, and his own room—I had also been in the office the once, as well as in and out of the basement, but neither one of us had opened the door to Gregory’s bedroom.

I was starting to look forward to the funeral—not in the ‘oh, yay’ kind of way, but because it seemed like that would maybe bring Elliot some closure. Or at least would let him stop spending every waking second thinking about the fact that his dad had been murdered. Because every single thing we had to do—for the funeral, for insurance (who were totally being dicks about the suicide ruling), for the bank and the house and every fucking legal thing under the goddamn sun—just seemed to be rubbing salt and acid into the raw wound that was Elliot’s loss.

And maybe it wouldn’t stop with the funeral, but then at least the funeral would be over, and then there would be one fewer thing to deal with. At this point, I would take whatever we could get.

When we finished eating, I put the dishes in the dishwasher and started another pot of coffee, because I hadn’t slept for shit, and it didn’t look like Elliot had, either. Fortified with fresh mugs, we made our way to the closed door of Gregory Crane’s bedroom.

Elliot took a deep breath, then a second breath, and I could see the tightness around his neck and jaw.

“Want me to do it?” I asked him.

“No. I’ve—I’ve got it.” I could tell he had to force himself to reach out and grasp the doorknob, then turn it and push open the door.

The air inside Gregory’s bedroom was cool, probably because it had been shut off from the rest of the house and the heat. But the temperature change made it feel even emptier. The far wall was a single floor-to-ceiling window looking out over the back yard. Elliot walked over to the window, placing one palm on the glass and resting his forehead on the pane.

I followed his gaze out across the yard, toward the stand of paper birch trees, beneath which Elliot and Gregory had placed a beautifully carved stylized woman—Naomi. Elliot had made it over the year after Naomi died.

“I want to do a badger for Dad,” he whispered softly.

“He’d like that,” I replied. Then, because I couldn’t help myself, I asked, “You’re keeping the house?”

Elliot didn’t turn to look at me. “I can’t sell it.”

I didn’t ask what he was going to do with it, but I understood. Or thought I did, anyway. Gregory and Naomi Crane were in every inch of this house and its yard. The garden alone was a master work of art and craftsmanship. Elliot had grown up here.

Also, honestly, it was a kick-ass house.

Too bad it had to be located in fucking Shawano.