Page 31

Chapter 31

T hey were all standing around the white van, the noises of the city around them a background hum Adler might have appreciated on any other day. Today, it made him feel exposed. What does a college kid have to do with these murders?

“What now?” Corinne asked.

“Now I find an address,” Heath said over the phone.

“My Heath is the best at computers and things.” Maxim looked at Corinne with parental pride or like someone who’d just gotten a compliment on his knives.

Heath groaned. “Do you have any idea how fucking old you sound? Ancient, that’s how old. Like you lived among the mummies before they were mummies. Like you should be a museum piece.”

Maxim held his phone at arm’s length and shielded his mouth when he talked to Corinne. “When things get hard with the computers, he gets particularly agitated, and his verbiage shows it.”

“You know I can still hear you, right? Can you not talk to other people about me like I’m not there?”

“Hmm, but you aren’t here, Heath.”

Corinne brightened. “Oh, I get it! This is like when Dr. Morris talks to his corpses.”

“Excuse me?” Gordon pursed his lips and frowned at Corinne.

Adler used the opportunity to move a little closer to Gordon. He intertwined his index and middle finger with Gordon’s pinky and ring finger. He’d have liked to kiss him, but there were still Forum workers and police officers about, and while no one was explicitly watching them, whatever they did wasn’t likely to be ignored.

“It’s true.” Corinne shrugged.

Maxim rubbed the back of his neck. “Heath talks back more than any corpse ever did. He’s always been chatty like that. There was this time when we stayed at a farm, and the lady farmer took him to the stables to show him how to milk a cow and—”

“Fucking hell, will you shut up? I swear I’m going as fast as I can here, okay? Don’t rush me.”

“Darling, I didn’t mean to do that at all,” Maxim said, though Adler was pretty sure he saw a twinkle in the hunter’s eyes, the kind of look every alpha would get when expressing fondness for a beta by teasing them.

Corinne turned toward them. “Are we heading back, Dr. Morris?”

Adler opened his mouth to tell Gordon goodbye, but before he could, Gordon began unzipping his whitesuit, his brows furrowing with intent.

“I’m coming.”

Adler didn’t release Gordon’s hand, effectively stopping him with the whitesuit off one shoulder. “Sweetheart, this might be dangerous. You’ve seen what happened to the victims. There’s no need for you to come.”

Gordon narrowed his sapphire eyes. “Knowing what happened to the others is exactly why I should come. What if the human college kid isn’t involved? What if he needs help?”

“Sweetheart—”

Maxim sighed. “Gordon, I share your mate’s concern, but the point you make is fair. Though, taking a morgue lover like yourself to attend the living like this once more feels like messing with the order of things.”

“Fuck the order of things,” Heath said.

“Darling, you sound stressed.”

Adler tuned out Maxim and Heath and focused on Gordon instead. “I’m scared to take you there. I’m scared you’ll get hurt. You have no training at all for this kind of thing. You are so good at what you do, but this is—”

“Maxim is going to be there,” Gordon said. “Also, you are going to be there. I’ll hide behind the both of you.”

Corinne cleared her throat. “Vampire.”

Gordon nodded. “And I’m a vampire. Notoriously difficult to kill, remember?” Gordon lowered his head. “I’m coming, Adler.”

Adler froze. The wolf in him was wild, every instinct blaring with the wrongness of this. I can’t forbid him. He has such a soft heart, and he’s strong. Not like a werewolf, but strong all the same.

Heath made a hissing, screeching noise from the other end of the phone.

“Darling, please calm down. Should I sing you something? I remember every lullaby you liked, so—”

“No, old bat, no one wants you to sing. This Highgate character…I mean, he has properties he owns and rents. There are holding companies here—he owns shares in a car dealership, an old typewriter company that barely even still exists, and a restaurant chain even though he’s a fucking vampire who subsist on blood alone. Who the fuck is this guy?”

Maxim tilted his head, and a golden strand of hair fell over his shoulder. “Typewriters?”

“Yeah. No one uses those anymore.”

Gordon stopped pulling the suit off. “Wrong. They’re turning into collector’s items, plus going analog is a thing.”

“A wrong thing is what it is,” Heath grumbled. “Look, I don’t fucking know. He booked suites in three hotels, three!”

“When’s his last lecture supposed to be?” Maxim asked.

“Hmm, two days from today.”

Adler felt his mate tense. Gordon opened and closed his mouth before he spoke.

“That’s too long. If the college kid has nothing to do with this, but if he—if he…why would this vampire professor even take him?”

Maxim looked at the both of them with a neutral expression sitting on his face like a mask. “There is darkness in imagination, and when imagination comes to reality’s light, it stains like ash mixed with water and rubbed into the skin. Heath, dear, like Gordon said, two days is too long.”

“Telling me that is going to slim down my list for sure, you know. Tell me bad things happen, and I’ll suddenly see what isn’t there to see. A fool-proof tactic that never didn’t work.”

“The sarcasm is strong in him,” Corinne said. “Uhm, I’m taking the bodies home?” She pointed at the van.

Gordon smiled at her and nodded. “Home they go. Take good care of them.”

“Right.” She twisted so she could look past Gordon at Adler. “You take good care of my boss. I need my cookie supplier.”

Gordon beamed. “Corinne, you make me proud.”

Adler couldn’t help himself. He was proud as well, proud of his mate who cared about his own people and helped them grow. No, he didn’t like that Gordon wouldn’t stay put, but he respected it. If I could give him my mate bite all over again, I’d do it. The wolf wanted to howl out that truth into the world.

“I’ll watch over him,” he told Corinne when Gordon rolled up the whitesuit and handed it to her.

“Corinne, do we have a medical kit in the van?”

She nodded. “That’s regulation. Hold on.”

Heath clicked his tongue. “Okay. It’s still a list, but at the top of it, I have properties that are close to our crime scene. Don’t know that’s going to help, but it’s the best I can do with the information we have.”

“Is the typewriter company on there?” Maxim asked.

“Yeah. That’s where you want to start?”

“I think that might be rather a good idea. My turtledoves, if you can move yourselves into the car, please? I think it’s time we went hunting for our killer.”

“The bag, Dr. Morris,” Corinne said and handed Gordon what seemed like the bigger version of a first aid kit to Adler.

“Ready, detective?”

I’m always ready when you ask, sweetheart. “Yeah.”