Page 10

Seth Mays

You can come get me now.

Elliot Crane

I’m outside.

I’d called him when they’d let me out of the extremely uncomfortable, but at least mostly clean, holding cell where they’d locked me around seven the night before.

It had been a long night, since I hadn’t been able to get comfortable enough to even pretend to try to sleep for reasons that were both emotional and physical.

They hadn’t charged or formally arrested me, nor did they let me call anyone until about nine, repeatedly telling me that we were just waiting for the DNA results to come back—I didn’t need a lawyer.

I’d called Elliot at that point and told him I was being held overnight, but that I was otherwise fine, but that if he didn’t hear from me in the morning, he should call Humbolt again.

I was pretty sure that what they were doing to me was flagrantly illegal, but I also didn’t want to cause enough of a fuss that it provoked someone into actually arresting me or inventing some reason to make my life any more miserable than they already had.

At least nobody had harassed or beaten me, although they hadn’t paid any attention to my dietary restrictions and had served me something that looked like a salisbury steak TV dinner on a tray, so I hadn’t eaten.

They hadn’t offered breakfast, either because they realized I wouldn’t eat it or because they didn’t give two shits about my health and welfare. Or both.

It was nine-fifteen when they officially released me and gave me my phone, keys, and shoe-laces back, and almost eleven by the time they actually processed me back out, complete with finger-prints (unnecessary, since those were already in the Virginia CSI database for elimination purposes, just like my DNA) and a second interrogation that gave them nothing more than what they’d already determined from the day before or my first so-called interview the day before that.

That’s when I texted Elliot. And then I looked up and saw him.

He was pacing outside the front doors because apparently his pacing had been driving the desk staff insane, so they’d asked him to wait outside.

I felt my body half-melt into his when he crushed me in a sweaty hug, his back damp with it under the cotton of his t-shirt. He smelled familiar—earth, shampoo, and the particular musk that was Elliot Crane. I felt him inhale in my arms, his nose pressed to the side of my neck.

“Hi,” I whispered.

He stepped back, reaching up to hold my cheeks in his hands. “Are you okay?”

“Pissed as hell, hungry, and in need of a shower,” I answered. “But otherwise, yeah, I’m okay.”

He hugged me again, and I grunted softly as the tight squeeze of his arms pulled a crack from one of my vertebrae.

He jerked back. “Oh, shit, baby, I’m sorry!”

“Actually, that felt good,” I told him. “But I haven’t eaten?—”

“Let’s get you fed, then.” He offered me a smile that was a little wavery.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“I am now,” he answered, but his words were shakier than I expected.

Ignoring the people moving in and out of the Sheriff’s Office, I bent and kissed him, one hand cupping the back of his skull and holding his face to mine. I felt his warm hands settle on my waist, gripping the wrinkled fabric of my button-down.

“Better?” I asked him, when I pulled away.

He blinked rapidly, but didn’t manage to stop a single tear from slipping out of the corner of one hazel eye. I brushed it away with my thumb. “I’m okay,” I repeated. “Still in one piece, still breathing.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and I kissed his forehead, tasting the salt of sweat pulled out by the already-ninety-degree day.

“Okay?” I asked him.

He nodded, but I could feel him shaking a little.

“El?”

“I—I didn’t know if I’d see you again,” he whispered, and this time I was the one to pull him into a hug.

“I’m here,” I told him. “And I’m okay. Just hungry. I promise.”

He sniffed once, then stepped back. “Thai food again?” he asked.

“I honestly don’t care,” I replied. “I’m just hungry.”

He nodded, sniffed one more time, and then pulled out his phone, tapped a couple times, and called a Chinese place to order more takeout than I thought we could eat, even if I was making up for last night.

“Okay?” he asked when he hung up.

“Great,” I replied.

“I’ll have it waiting for you when you get out of the shower,” he promised, leading me back to the car.

I’d fallen asleep not long after gorging myself on Chinese food, and I was honestly rather impressed that I’d managed to make it through eating the food before falling asleep, since the minute my butt hit the hotel bed, exhaustion had overridden adrenaline and completely wiped me out.

Coming back into consciousness, I noticed the soft sound of a TV first, then realized that I could feel the warmth and weight of Elliot’s hand on my head, his fingers very gently stroking through my hair.

My head was pillowed on one warm and muscular thigh, which—embarrassingly—I’d left a wet spot of drool on.

I lifted my head slightly, blinking blearily at the TV through contact lenses that had been in my eyes for far too long. Some homesteading thing. Elliot liked those, and a lot of cable channels would just marathon them, so he could usually find one of them if there wasn’t anything else.

“Hey, baby,” he said softly. “Better?”

I let out a grunt that I hoped communicated assent and let my head fall back to his thigh.

“You can sleep more if you want to,” he told me.

“Nah,” I replied, snuggling up to his leg.

I watched some guy skin a fish on the screen.

“My DNA didn’t match,” I said.

“I assumed as much,” Elliot replied.

“It’s still related to us, though,” I told him.

“So it could be your father?”

“Or one of mom’s siblings, maybe. Or a cousin. But no more distant than that.”

“The blood and the saliva?” Elliot asked.

“Yeah. Both were from the same person. Shifter.”

He was silent, still stroking my hair.

“I think… I think it’s probably my father’s,” I said, then, softly.

Elliot’s hand stilled, but he left it on my head.

“And I think…” I blew out a heavy breath, remembering how my father had always seemed so quick and so strong.

As a kid, you don’t think about it much, because all adults are so much bigger and faster and stronger than you are.

But I wondered. And maybe it was my memory playing tricks on me, but now I wasn’t so sure. “I think he might be a shifter.”

“The DNA suggests that, doesn’t it?” Elliot replied, his voice even.

“I mean, I think he always was. Or at least, I think he was when I was a kid, too.” The words were stretched, strung like over-tightened guitar strings, ready to snap at the slightest touch.

“Which means—” I swallowed back the threatening return of my Chinese food, then pushed myself up to sitting, although I didn’t turn to look at Elliot. I wasn’t sure I could. Not right now.

The hand that had been on my head now rested on my back, letting me know he was still there. Still listening.

“He knew what was happening to Noah,” I continued, when I managed to get myself under control. “He knew, and he was going to just let him suffer .” I swallowed around the tears that were tracking their way down my cheeks. “He was willing to let him die .”

Elliot said nothing, but the hand on my back rubbed a gentle, slow circle.

“He killed her,” I said, then.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered.

After several more minutes, I spoke again. “And he’s not dead.”

Elliot drew in a long breath, then let it out. “Should I call Hart again?”

“Probably,” I answered.

“Jesus fucking Christ in a chicken basket, Mays, what the fuck is wrong with your family?!”

Elliot made a soft sound that indicated he was displeased.

“Everything, apparently,” I replied miserably, not bothering to comment on his extremely creative combination of food and religious figures.

“Present company excepted, of course,” Hart emended.

“I’m not so sure about that,” I muttered.

“Seth,” Elliot interrupted, his tone a little sharp.

I shot him a look that asked how on earth he could think otherwise.

“Seriously, though, Mays, Bucky has a point. How the fuck are you this normal?” Hart asked me. “Your… sperm donor is an abusive, evangelical, homicidal fuck-nut. How did you end up with anything resembling a moral compass, much less actually being nice ?”

I wasn’t sure I qualified as nice , but I suppose in comparison to Hart, I at least sounded nice. Hart is actually very nice, he’s just also a foul-mouthed asshole.

“Seriously, Mays. That is one seriously fucked-up pedigree.”

“Not helpful, dickhead,” Elliot interjected.

“Right. Sorry, Mays.” Hart cleared his throat.

“Here’s the problem. I’m not sure if we’re allowed to intervene in this case,” he admitted.

“Your killer might be a shifter, but that doesn’t meet the criteria for federal intervention.

There might be something… I don’t know. So I’m going to send all the details to Raj to see what, if anything, we can do. ”

Raj was Special Agent Rajesh Parikh, the senior agent on Hart’s team and the guy who either got to make the calls or, at least, who did the liaising with the powers-that-be to get approval to take cases.

I’d met the big tiger shifter once or twice—he was as tall as Hart and half again as broad—and he seemed like a good enough guy.

But I also knew that when it came to things like federal-versus-local turf wars, there was only so much they could do.

“Come out here,” Elliot said to Hart.

Hart sighed. “El?—”

“You did it for me,” he snapped.

“Yes, I did. And Gale Smith was really damn tolerant about me sticking my nose into his shit,” the elf replied.

“But I wasn’t a fed when I did that. I was a PI, and I could investigate on your behalf as a PI.

As an FBI agent, I really, really can’t fucking do that.

” Another sigh. “In fact, if I try, I’m more likely to fuck things up even more than if I don’t. ”

“Bullshit,” Elliot said.