Page 138 of A Silent Prodigy for the Lycan Princess

Chapter forty-three

The Painful Truth

*AURELIA*

The assistant Eric’s forensic brought along greets us the moment we get out of the car. “I was about to call you,” she tells me.

“So, you found something?”

“Yes,” she says. “We put the pieces of the body together. Come and have a look.”

“Goddess, have mercy,” Eric groans.

“I’m more and more impressed with how you can stomach all of this,” I tell the young woman.

“You get used to it,” she says. “But I do think you need to have a certain personality to seek out this job,” she admits. “And you need a lot of dark humor.”

“I’m just relieved you are doing this,” Eric says. “Because it means I don’t have to.”

When we walk around the hideout to the backyard, I notice that they have retrieved the bodies. Two of the victims are ready to be transported back to their packs and get the send-off they deserve.

“Do we know who the third victim is?” Eric asks me.

“Zoé is currently working on it,” I say. “I sent her the picture. It’s only a matter of time for her to find out where she came from.”

Meanwhile our unknown male body is spread on a blanket. I have to suppress my gag reflex when I spot his dismembered body. They indeed put the parts together as if it were a puzzle. Even Maxima finds it gross.

“He shows signs of a head trauma,” the doctor explains to us. “Must have been beaten. There are also signs of broken bones that healed over and over again. Whoever he worked for must have been very violent.”

“His cause of death?” Eric wants to know.

“I’m not sure how to put this into correct medical terms,” the doctor says. “But you can summarize it as being sliced to death.”

“Night ripped him apart,” I say. “He must have been furious. It makes sense now that they abducted Léna and Coralie. We truly messed with their perfect business.”

“Look,” the young assistant says. “He has a tattoo.”

When she shows us the body part with the tattoo, Eric and I exchange a gaze. “That’s the one Annette described, and Nox saw in the hospital.”

“It’s hard to say,” Eric looks the man over. “Because there is blood all over him, but it could be the same man from the hospital. Let me take a photo and send it to Valerie as well. Hopefully, she doesn’t take long to verify it with Annette. OnlyAnnette can tell us if this man here and the guy in the hospital are the same person.”

Eric does as he said before we both look around the area, hoping to find something. But it becomes clearer with every passing minute that we need an actual plan. Val pulls us out of our gloomy thoughts by calling, thankfully.

Eric puts her on speaker again. “Princess, I hope you have good news.”

“Not sure if it’s good,” Val says, “but at least I have news. Annette verified the identity of the two pictures you sent me. The man from the hospital and the dead one are the same. She says he was called PJ. Seems like Meg disliked him in particular and tried to shield Annette from him.”

“We have a name but no real identity,” I say. “Again.”

“Leila just arrived,” Val says. “She is helping me here, but she is in constant contact with Zoé.”

“Any news, Leila?” I ask.

I hear some shuffling before Leila’s voice becomes clearer. “Zoé and Arden are working without any breaks to find the identities of PJ and Night. Arden is focused on Night. I think he is going through every snippet he can find, looking through all pictures of the orphanage, surveillance cameras, and the like.”

Arden working so tirelessly worries me, but I understand why he is doing it. “Did he find something?” I ask.

“He found Night in two more pictures already,” she says. “Seems like he was a regular visitor in the orphanage… a patron.”