Page 28

Chapter 28

O nce more, Adler smelled the scene before he saw it. Once more, there were crime scene technicians in anonymous white at the scene, an apartment painted in light purple, pale bottle green, and bright sunflower yellow.

Someone lived here and loved living here .

The photos mounted in the hallway were proof of that, many of them small groups of smiling people, but there were vacation photos too, selfies. Two lovers, smiling for the sake of making a memory.

A few of the technicians turned to give the three of them cursory glances, much like the NA police officers outside had.

“Professor Megan LeRoux was a fae and lectured on English and French literature at New Amsterdam University,” Maxim said, indicating the dark-haired woman who’d rubbed her cheek against her husband’s in one of the pictures. “Married to Jonathan West. He worked with at-risk children in a group home, and before you ask, his record is clean, according to Heath.”

Gordon wordlessly went to find his own sterile whitesuit while Adler and Maxim looked at the scene from the hallway. Adler pressed his lips shut so as not to ask his mate if he was okay, if he’d not be more comfortable waiting outside where the scent of blood didn’t permeate. Gordon is used to it, don’t be weird. Let your mate shine at what he’s good at, at what he chose as his calling.

Adler looked at their two victims. “Their chests are torn open. They’re missing their hearts, just like the other family?”

Maxim nodded. “Yes, and there is very little blood, considering. Even if we do factor in the wicked calligraphy.”

He pointed to a yellow wall bathed in morning light. “ The deserved suffering before death ,” it read there, and red dripped from the base line of the T and the open loop of the d and s and g. Adler stared at the crudely and cruelly written words, a respite, because the bodies were not easy to look at.

“Time of death is easily yesterday morning,” a white-clad Gordon said, his hand inside the husband’s body. He explored further, and Adler noticed the minute tightening of his mate’s muscles; surprise.

Gordon changed his gloves and examined LeRoux’s chest, which had been torn open much more viciously, jagged edges showing. Then, he pulled the gloves off and walked out of the room, past Adler and Maxim, and outside of the apartment toward the stairs at the end of the hallway and up a few steps. Adler and Maxim followed.

“No one’s close enough to hear us, right?” Gordon asked. Eyes finding Maxim’s.

“No, this is fine.”

Gordon nodded. “They are both missing their kidneys. She’s missing her liver. I have to get them both on my table for all the specifics, but there are marks on her ribs and tear marks inside both of them that look like teeth.” He looked at Adler. “I’d say wolf teeth, if I really had to guess.”

Maxim crossed his arms in front of his chest. “And you are putting the time of death at before nightfall? You’re certain?”

Gordon nodded.

“Another mixed couple,” Adler mumbled.

The words, the thought of that, made his skin feel heated, and he angled his body so that his back shielded Gordon from any threat that might come up the stairs. Instinct, Adler thought, silly instinct. But he didn’t move, and thankfully, Maxim, who couldn’t not notice, didn’t comment.

“They are. They were. We seem to have a motive that lines up with everything else we know,” the hunter said. “Though it’s strange that there are no witnesses here. All the neighbors said they didn’t hear or see anything because they were watching TV.”

Gordon cocked his head. “They were all watching TV?”

Maxim shrugged. “Obviously they were compelled to think that. Someone went through the trouble of preemptively destroying any witness accounts they might have given.”

“And you cannot undo the compulsion.” Adler rubbed his temple. He didn’t like this.

Maxim raised an eyebrow. “Not without unacceptable risk to the humans, no.” He shrugged. “But still. If those are indeed teeth marks, and if they are from a werewolf rather than a trained dog, this mean there’s a day shifter wrapped up in this. This gives us a werewolf and a vampire working together against mixed couples, for no better reason than hate.”

Gordon inclined his head. “I should be able to tell for sure whether it was a dog or werewolf once I have them in the lab. Pearson was just working against all supernaturals. It’s a bit like London, you know. Chaotic. But, like, not chaotic evil, more like a blend between lawful evil and chaotic evil.”

“Oh, fun,” Maxim said. “We are using a crime alignment chart to keep track of this mess. Gordon, darling, are you sure you don’t mean neutral evil?”

Gordon pulled the hoodie of his whitesuit back. “There is nothing neutral about this. But what I mean is that someone here wants a certain degree of chaos because chaos breeds panic, and panic breeds fear, and that in turn breeds hate.”

Adler snorted. “Don’t we all know that.”

Maxim gave Gordon a long look. “For someone good with corpses, you have a lot of insight into what it takes for a mind to desire to make them.” The hunter looked around. “I’d like to go back to 43 Ruthaven. I’d also like to take you along, Adler. I think we need to work on finding commonalities, and Heath is surprisingly good at that.” He looked back and forth between them. “Gordon, send us what you found on the old Ripper case and then join us once you are done with our two victims.”

Gordon nodded. “I’ll call Corinne. I hope she hasn’t indulged in too many cookies.”

“Indulged.” Adler rubbed the back of his head. “This was indulgent.” He looked back over his shoulder, thought back to the scene, two bodies sitting in chairs, their lives torn out of their chests while they still wore their clothes. They had been placed so that anyone who found them would see them like this, would see the gaping loss and the sticky, hollow red that remained. The message on the wall was almost an afterthought, a frame.

“Think about it,” Adler went on. “If I can compel people, I can compel a majority of the people around me at any given moment to forget they ever saw me. If this is a vampire and a werewolf, subduing even a fae shouldn’t be that hard, never mind that compulsion doesn’t work on them. But something about this whole thing feels like they enjoy doing it. Like it’s…fun? And they weren’t trying very hard to hide it, hence they didn’t bother with really hiding themselves in the compulsion.”

Maxim nodded. “Indeed. If it were about shocking onlookers only, there are far more public ways to do that.” He went pensive, pulled out his phone. “I think we should look at unsolved crimes, even at solved ones over the years and look for this kind of staging. Heath will moan about handling the data to no end.”

“Tell me what the motherly reaction to dealing with an upset child is, then.” Adler meant to slightly poke the alpha hunter, though he was also interested, for Mil’s sake.

Maxim made a moue. “Well, we’re going to stop by his favorite bakery to get him some treats of course.”

“That just sounds like bribery.” The white tips of Gordon’s blue hair looked like errant snowflakes the way the strands lay mangled from the hood and from their earlier lovemaking.

“You give out cookies yourself, Gordon.” Maxim typed away on his phone, presumably to tell Heath about having to do more work.

Gordon frowned. “Yeah, but mine are fun.”

Maxim shrugged. “Heath cannot handle too much fun. Believe me, I have tried. Detective, are you ready to go?”

Adler tensed. I have no right. Gordon doesn’t need me here.

He swallowed, his throat dry. “Sure, if you have everything you need, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, I can take it from here. I’ll catch up later. Maxim, is Clement going to be okay watching Mil?”

“Absolutely. There’s nothing to worry about there.”

It’s good that he’s thinking of Mil. I should be happy. No, I should be thinking about her. Fuck. It’s still the full moon in my blood.

In that moment, as if he’d heard him, Gordon looked at Adler. “Hey, you can leave, but if you want to wait for Corinne to get here, I don’t mind.”

Adler’s chest swelled. “I, uh. I don’t want the forensic people to think I can’t let you out of my sight at a crime scene. That would be…patronizing.” He cleared his throat. “I think I could eat a few cookies myself, actually.”

He forced himself to take one step down, but that likely didn’t have the desired effect as he didn’t manage to turn away from his mate.

Gordon just smiled. “I’ll have to change into a new suit, but come here.”

Adler moved as if on autopilot when Gordon opened his arms, hugged him close, and ran his nose through his hair, kissed him, nuzzled his neck, thinking, mine, the word going round and round in his mind.

“This is the cutest. Keep at it, the light is perfect.”

Adler growled and turned. “You’re taking photos?”

Maxim managed to look innocent. “I thought you might want them for your album? I’m being helpful. Else I’d just be standing here and watching you, and that would be very voyeuristic.”

Gordon chuckled while Adler sighed.

“Okay. Fine. Sweetheart, Maxim and I are leaving. Call me if anything comes up, okay?”

“Is that an order, detective?” Gordon asked coyly.

He has no idea what that does to me. Just play it cool. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Gordon bit his lip, not really making things easier for Adler, but this time, Adler knew he had to leave. One stair after the other, and just before Gordon went back into the apartment, Adler gave him another kiss on the cheek, then walked outside after Maxim.

“He loves me, you know,” Adler said as he and Maxim got into the vampire’s car. “He’s a good mate, better than he needs to be. The idea of anyone thinking he couldn’t be because he’s not a werewolf…” Adler shook his head.

“Yes. I agree. We need not be born a thing to be that thing. That’s a truth I have seen confirmed over and over again in my long life.”

He put the car in gear and drove off.

It’s time we put an end to whoever is doing this.