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Chapter 17

G ordon was in the dumpster with Glory. The corpse. It wasn’t as easy as it normally was, cutting the moment away from any emotional reaction one should have at seeing a young girl in a dumpster. But Gordon did his best to focus on the evidence, on the scene, on everything his vampire senses told him.

Gordon allowed himself to listen to Adler’s voice, warm and grounding.

“If we’re lucky, we might have him on CCTV footage. The sender of the Ripper letter that is.”

Maxim hummed.

“ If the letter writer did this. Ready to go and let me sniff it?” Willa asked.

Glory was loved . It was the last thought Gordon allowed himself, and with it, he forced everything else away, everything that might be painful. He knew how to pull on the professional guise, had done it a thousand times.

“I’ll take you to my morgue soon. It’s so much nicer there.”

He spoke in a low voice, low even for a vampire. If he was lucky, the other three might not hear, might miss the brittle quality of his voice.

“Hey.”

Gordon turned. Adler was looking at him from outside the dumpster, the werewolf having approached on silent feet.

“We were just getting to know each other.” Gordon looked at her nails. They looked like tiny shards of a pastel rainbow or the scales of a smiling mermaid.

“Right. I’m taking Willa to the station. That okay?”

One part of Gordon wanted to snap at Adler for even suggesting it might not be, for suggesting he needed handholding while doing his job. Another part of him was just…grateful.

“Of course.” Gordon forced himself to look at Glory’s—the corpse’s—neck, which was bruised with the force of choking hands though the marks were very faint on her fae skin. If she’d been human, her neck would have been black and blue. “I do work better without distractions. You’re distracting, detective.”

Adler made a noise somewhere between grumbling and agreeing.

“Look who’s talking, but all right. And don’t forget, you can call me. Anytime.”

Back in the alley, Willa cleared her throat, and Adler let his gaze drop in response.

“I won’t. Talk soon, Adler.”

“Yes.”

It seemed as though Adler wanted to say more, but before he could, he stepped away, leaving Gordon to do his job.

Willa was fiddling with the AC control in Adler’s car. “He seems nice,” she said.

Adler swallowed thickly. “He’s very nice.”

“I watched you following him out of Seneca Park in lap dog mode.”

“There is no such thing.”

“Adler. Do you want to argue with me?”

Tension eased out of Adler’s shoulders. “No, Alpha.”

“Good. He’s nice enough to make you go into lap dog mode. I’ve never done so myself, but then I’ve yet to meet anyone who makes me want to. It appears you did manage some talking. Communication is a wonderful thing.”

Adler tapped the steering wheel with his index finger. “There’s—I shouldn’t tell you any details, but he has a past. The possessiveness made him uncomfortable because of that.”

Willa leaned back in the passenger seat. “Ugh. Why must the people we love always come with a past? How annoying. How rude.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I know. I didn’t mean it sarcastically either.”

If Willa had been anyone but his alpha, Adler might have made a joke about how she was better at restoring houses than at building a family union of her own like so many other alphas obsessed over, but he was very aware that would lead to some significant ass kicking, and he liked his ass, had hopes that Gordon would come to like it too, among all the other attributes Adler was willing to offer.

“So, the scent.”

Willa gave him a hard look. “Changing the topic on me already? For dating, just be sure you don’t do anything that would reflect poorly on the pack and, by extension, me.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

She waved her hand. “I got a good noseful of the scent. If it’s the same person, and if they touched that letter, I’ll be able to tell you.”

Adler nodded, accelerating just a tiny bit.

Gordon liked it better when he was working in the morgue, when the dead came to him. Once he had given Maxim a rough estimate—Glory had still been alive when Linda Finch was already dead, in his professional opinion—the hunter drove him to the morgue, following the Forum’s unmarked ambulance that was transporting Glory while the forensic team were still working back at the drop site.

Maxim, reading the room, was uncharacteristically silent, at least until they reached the Forum parking lot. Glory would enter through the elevator that went down from the parking garage where she’d be shielded from any onlookers.

“I must come inside with you,” Maxim said, looking all dramatic as he leaned on his wheel like an aged human.

“You really don’t have to. I know where I’m going.”

Maxim rolled his eyes. “I will need the file on the other victim, Linda, so I can conduct some well-overdue interviews in her interest.”

In other words, Maxim was going to make a few medical professionals regret having missed signs of a murder. In this case, Gordon wasn’t at all opposed.

“Come along then.” He got out of the car, and so did Maxim.

“If I must. You know, if the Forum loved paper less and could manage to do stuff the digital way, what wonders we could achieve. We would all arrive in the twenty-first century finally.” The hunter fell into step next to Gordon, his every move effortlessly graceful, his footfalls silent.

“I don’t make policy, Maxim.”

Maxim sighed. “If I made policy—ah, they should be glad they never got me to make policy, don’t you agree?”

Gordon looked at Maxim, who smiled quite innocently as they entered through the building’s front entrance.

“I’m sure you’d be fabulous, acting in a position of such import.”

“Aww! Look at you, being all open to compromise and accepting my desires even if they might not fit yours—or anyone’s in this case. Isn’t he a catch?” Maxim asked the werewolf doorperson, pointing at Gordon.

“Uhm, yes?” she said, eyes having gone wide.

“On the one hand, it’s really sweet that you’re shoving me at the werewolf—”

Maxim gestured at the doorwolf. “Not you, dear. He’s being shoved at another werewolf.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“—on the other, murder.”

Maxim nodded. “Indeed. And I will be asking why such a vile deed was missed in Linda’s case. With more than some verbal shoving if need be.” He looked at Gordon. “You should dye your hair, Gordon. Something vibrant and alive. Teal, perhaps.”

Gordon opened his mouth to protest, then considered. It would feel right to change it. But work is first. Our two new guests come first.

After the autopsies, Gordon had badly wanted to see his hairstylist. Instead of allowing himself that comfort, he had ordered a Kawaii Demon Hunter trading card set, which had soothed him and helped him to get out of the work mode. He’d emailed his findings to Maxim right away, who had replied with a haiku and a meeting time at the NAPD:

The digital file

is easy to use, yet far

from Forum’s reach

?

Gordon read the haiku twice, considered he wasn’t done for the day and would be going to the police station where Adler was, and called his stylist after all to see if she could fit him into her schedule on short notice.

“What’re we doing?” she asked as Gordon pulled on his jacket.

“I was thinking…you know what? Teal, with highlights of lavender.”

“Oooh!”

“Is that a yes?”

“I’ll do it for free if I can post a transformation video of it.”

Gordon was about to say no, but his stylist was fae, and he just couldn’t.

“Sure, fine. Why not?”

“Then hurry over, forensic fang. My afternoon just freed up.”

She hung up before Gordon could complain about the moniker she threw at him every once in a blue moon, always in such a way that he couldn’t do anything about it.