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“I—” I’d been about to object, but then I decided I didn’t want to object.

I hadn’t gone into this with the idea of taking the cat, but who else was going to?

I’m sure Helen would have fed the poor thing if she’d known about it, so I suppose it was possible she’d want a mouser…

But Elliot was right. I felt for the little cat, and at least if it came home with us, something good would come out of this godforsaken trip.

I’d managed to coax the cat into the house, and Elliot had found a blanket in a closet to make it something soft to sleep on. We also put out the food and a bowl of water, from which the cat immediately drank.

I wanted to go out into the woods, but I also wanted to keep the cat somewhere we would be able to grab her again—and she was definitely a her , because she let me pick her up and check.

She was friendly enough to allow herself to be petted and held briefly, which made me think that Momma had probably been taking care of her.

Elliot had checked with the hotel, and they’d allowed us to add a pet fee onto our reservation so that we could bring her into the room with us. We’d also stop to get litter and a box on the way back.

But before we did that, I wanted to follow the tracks I’d seen in the mud of the yard—paw prints that looked a lot like Noah’s or mine that headed out into the woods.

And I wanted to do it before I lost the courage.

Elliot didn’t approve, but he wasn’t going to stop me, although he’d made it clear that he was coming along.

I’d been planning on asking him to come with me anyway, since I wasn’t terribly keen on the idea of going into the woods after my murdering father by myself.

Not that I thought I was actually going to find him, but the possibility was non-zero.

I knew going out there was a risk, but I also knew that with Elliot, we’d likely have a size and weight advantage.

Two against one, and Elliot’s claws were damn scary.

I was also counting on the fact that it would be too obvious if we disappeared in the woods to actually risk killing us if we did find someone—or something—that didn’t want to be found. And it was also likely that my father had left town after killing my mother to avoid being caught.

It was still stupid.

We were doing it anyway, because clearly the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office hadn’t found the paw prints, or, if they had, they hadn’t investigated further.

Whether you wanted to call it a professional obligation or just being irritated at base-level incompetence or desperately wanting to do anything to help my brother get out of jail, I had good reason. For the record, it was all three.

“You’re sure about this?” Elliot asked me.

“I need to make sure there isn’t something the police missed,” I said. “Something that might help Noah.”

I could tell from his expression that Elliot wasn’t happy about it, but he nodded. “Let’s go, then. Before it gets dark.”

It was a reminder that two different people had warned us against being up here at night.

It was almost enough to make me want to be here at night—to find out what it was that everyone was so concerned about.

Between Elliot and I, we had quite a bit of muscle and weight—to say nothing of teeth and claws.

And, yes, if my father was a wolf shifter like me, he would have teeth and claws, too, but there was one of him and two of us.

Not that I wanted to fight my father in fur. Or at all, because I really didn’t. But I felt like if we were prepared, Elliot and I would at least be able to defend ourselves against one wolf shifter.

So I carefully tracked the prints in the mud, avoiding stepping on them, with Elliot following cautiously behind me. I turned, looking back, and saw that he was picking his way by stepping in my footprints.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

He looked up. “Trying to preserve evidence?”

I blinked. It was… considerate. I’d been avoiding the paw prints, but I hadn’t really planned to try to preserve evidence, since I wasn’t sure that anyone was going to actually listen to anything I had to say.

“I doubt anything I find out here will matter,” I told him.

“It’s not like there was a murder weapon, or something. ”

“Wasn’t there?” Elliot asked me.

I frowned. “She was killed by a shifter,” I pointed out.

Elliot shrugged. “Nobody’s said how she was killed,” he countered.

“They found shifter saliva and blood,” I said.

“But that doesn’t mean that’s what killed her,” he replied.

I blinked, then frowned. He wasn’t wrong. It was a sharp reminder why I was an evidence tech and not a detective.

“I mean,” Elliot said, sounding a little nervous. “It might have been. I’m just saying we don’t know that.”

“No,” I agreed. “We don’t. So if you see a gun or a knife by the path, tell me.”

“Fuck,” Elliot muttered, mostly under his breath. I wasn’t sure he intended for me to hear it, but he also knew I had excellent hearing. I chose not to respond, simply resuming my slow pace alongside the wolf tracks.

We followed them until they stopped in a muddle of dirt and grass about a mile-and-a-half from the house.

I crouched down, trying to find some better clue about what had happened in the clearing, the forest floor a mess of dried churned-up mud, grasses that had been bent, broken, and trampled, scuff marks on the large, flat stones that were exposed through the dirt and grass.

It was hard to find the order in the tracks—impossible, even.

It was also difficult to know how old any of them were.

It had rained the day before Momma died—and not again since, although I knew it was supposed to rain again tonight and would obscure any and all of these tracks, especially if it came down hard the way summer storms often did.

“Um. Seth?”

I looked up, seeing Elliot staring into one of the bushes.

I grunted as I stood, then crossed the clearing, trying to see whatever he was looking at. “What?” I asked him.

“Come down a few inches,” he said.

“What?”

“Crouch. It catches the light.”

I was about to ask what the hell he was talking about, although I did as he asked, anyway, but then I saw it. A flash of sunlight off metal.

“Give me your bandanna?” He had it tied around his head, holding the loose hair away from his face.

He didn’t ask me why—either because he knew I needed some way to grab the object without putting fingerprints on it, or he simply trusted that I wouldn’t ask for no reason. I appreciated it either way. He handed it to me, the cloth damp with his sweat.

“Thanks.”

I took a couple photos as best I could from outside the shrubbery, then reached in, wincing a little as the long tendrils of blackberry vines poked at my arms. I grimaced as I squatted down, then sidled my way into the bushes, cursing under my breath as the thorns from the wild blackberries scraped along my skin, made sensitive by sun and heat.

“You okay, baby?” Elliot asked, his voice concerned.

“Fine,” I grumbled, taking a few more photos close to the knife, showing it situated in the foliage. Then I put my phone away and retrieved the blade, earning myself several long scratches for my trouble. “Goddamn bush.”

I swore I heard him chuckle, but when I emerged, his expression gave nothing away. I held up what he’d seen: a hunting knife, most of the blade still silver, except for the scalloped top edge, which still held a few brownish stains.

“Fuck,” Elliot breathed.

I nodded. “We need to get this back to the house and in a baggie,” I said.

“A baggie?”

“I mean, I need an evidence baggie, but I’m pretty sure Ziplock is the best I’m gonna be able to do.”

“You’re turning it over?” he asked me.

I looked back at him. “Well, I don’t exactly have a DNA test kit here.”

“They’re going to lose it. Or fuck it up,” he said grimly. “Or lie about it.”

Although I’d seen little from the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office to inspire confidence, I also hadn’t seen anything that would indicate that level of corruption—although I suppose I couldn’t blame him for distrusting police. But that didn’t mean it was bad advice.

I decided to take a swab from one of the scalloped edges before I put it in the baggie.

“Let’s go,” I said, wanting to get back to the house and get this taken care of.

I was pretty sure I’d be able to find cotton swabs in the bathroom, and I could boil water to sterilize it.

Not as good as sterile swabs and distilled water, but beggars can’t exactly be choosers.

My heart started pounding at the soft thump that echoed from somewhere within the house a few seconds after we walked in the back door.

Had my father come back to the scene of the crime?

Had someone else from the Community come to investigate the house or look for valuables?

Had Helen or Ray come looking for us for some reason?

An insistent mrow came from the doorway, and I immediately felt foolish.

Beside me, Elliot let out a laughing sigh, and I realized that he’d tensed up as much as I had.

“Hello, cat,” he said to the small brown animal.

“Mroow!” This was was drawn out longer.

“Do you need more food?” he asked her. “Water?”

“Mrrrrrew.”

I left him to deal with the cat, going into the kitchen in search of baggies.

They were in the same place I remembered them being, and I grabbed several, knowing I’d need to wrap the blade before dropping it in, since dropping a hunting knife unwrapped into a baggie was a good way to drop a hunting knife down my leg or into my foot.

I laid one on the counter, then set the knife down on it and put a pot of water on to boil before going in search of cotton swabs. I found them in a drawer in the bathroom, and brought back a few, preparing to take a sample from the knife.

“What are you doing?” Elliot asked, coming into the kitchen.

“Merowl,” the cat put in, seeming to echo his question.