Part 5 (2/2)
Laurel stared at the wall and sniffed heavily. ”Never thought you'd need anything from me.”
”Miss Hicks, when someone dies it's customary to be a little more broken up about it than you are right now. You getting me, sweetheart?” Bryson leaned forward like a pit bull smelling hamburger meat.
My eyes roved over the countertops, which were covered in empty pizza boxes and Lean Cuisine containers, a dish of cat food, and a pair of orange prescription bottles.
I whacked Bryson on the shoulder and he winced. ”The h.e.l.l, Wilder!”
”Laurel . . . may I call you Laurel?”
She lifted one shoulder. ”Whatever you want.”
”Laurel, is it true that you didn't get in touch with the police because of Bertrand's involvement with the Loup?”
She looked me over, her eyes swimming up from their sedated depths to really examine me. Finally she asked, ”Bitten or born?”
”It doesn't matter,” I said. Rule One was keep the focus on the victim. Get your subject to empathize with him, and with you. ”But I know how hard it can be to be an outsider with a pack, put it that way. Why are you afraid of Bertrand's pack?”
Bryson gaped at me and I snarled under my breath, letting my eyes flash gold, which he wisely interpreted as the signal to shut the Hex up.
”Gerard Duvivier is a nasty little worm,” Laurel said, feeling making its way into her voice for the first time, ”but I'm not scared of him. I'm a psychiatric nurse. He can't rattle me.”
”Good for you,” I said. ”Now explain to us why you didn't come forward. You cared about Bertrand, didn't you?”
She shook once, like a plucked string, and started crying again. Bryson whipped out a monogrammed handkerchief, bright white against the stained tones of the apartment, and handed it over. Laurel took it and buried her face in it while she sobbed.
”I . . . only knew him . . . a couple of months,” she managed. ”But he . . . I think we would have fallen in love, if he'd . . . he hadn't . . .”
”I understand,” I said. ”And it's shattering when someone dies suddenly, I know. How did you hear about it? Did the pack threaten you?”
”No,” said Laurel, gulping in air. ”I was there.”
Bryson sat bolt-upright in his seat, and I felt my own heartbeat pick up.
”What?” Bryson managed. ”What?”
”I was there,” said Laurel impa.s.sively. ”We were camping in the Sierra Fuego Preserve.”
”Why did you run?” I asked Laurel softly. She met my eyes.
”You'd run, too, Detective. Believe me. A human and a were, with his pack already in upheaval? How would that have looked? I'd be in a cell and I have patients who need me. It was too dangerous to stay.”
”Oh?” I sat on the arm of Bryson's chair, ignoring his grunt, and didn't correct her on the ”Detective” a.s.sessment. ”What's happening in the Loup?”
”Bertrand was about to challenge Gerard for dominance,” Laurel said. ”To be pack leader. Bertrand had more right to it or something, he said. The Lautrecs have been in Nocturne for a long time.”
”Fascinating as that history lesson is,” Bryson said, ”I'm gonna need you to come down to the Twenty-fourth Precinct and make a formal statement. Can you handle that, Miss Hicks?”
She looked to me. ”Only if she comes along.”
”Hex me,” Bryson muttered under his breath. ”All right, fine. You game to pay a visit home, Wilder?”
”Not my home anymore,” I said. Going back to the Twenty-fourth ranked just above sitting on a bed of nails watching a snuff movie marathon.
”Wilder, for the love of the G.o.ds in the pantheon, will you please just go along with me so the skirt will come make a statement?”
I rolled my eyes. ”Fine. This better not take long, though. I'm on call.”
”If a Eurotrash terrorist tries to rob the O'Halloran Tower, you're free to leave,” Bryson said. ”Miss Hicks, why don't we get you ready to go and we'll take my car.”
He followed her into her bedroom, standard procedure to make sure witnesses and suspects don't grab a gun and shoot themselves, or us. He left the door open, but his back blocked me from Laurel Hicks.
I grabbed the armchair and scooted it over to the door, yanking at the root charm until it came free of the dry-wall with a slimy grasping at my skin. I hate how magick feels. I wrapped the thing in the edge of my T-s.h.i.+rt before transferring it to a pocket, where it couldn't rub against my skin and cause me to accidentally Path its ambient power, which would result in unpleasant side effects like phasing and for all I know, shooting lasers out of my eyes.
I hadn't tested my Path abilities to draw in magick and use it to exacerbate my were side except for once, when a caster witch had me in his grasp and was squeezing for all he was worth. I didn't want to do it again. Too much bad happened when I dipped into the pack magick that my bite had given me.
Laurel came out of the bedroom with a coat and purse over her pajamas, Bryson trailing after her. He shot me a look and I gave him an innocent smile.
”What the h.e.l.l are you up to?” he whispered when he pa.s.sed me, guiding Laurel out the door by the elbow.
”Tell you when she's not around,” I muttered back.
”Crazy G.o.ds-d.a.m.n woman,” Bryson muttered. Coming from him, it was almost starting to sound like an endearment.
CHAPTER 5.
The Twenty-fourth Precinct appeared as it always had, a slightly dusty red-brick firehouse with patrol cars parked out front and dirty windows hiding what went on inside.
Today, though, the tenor of the place had changed and when I walked inside, trailing Bryson and Laurel Hicks, my insides jerked like I'd just gone over the first drop of a roller coaster.
Even the burnt-coffee smell mixed in with dirt and the acc.u.mulated stench of thirty years of felons pa.s.sing through the place was wrong, and so very different from the bland, filtered air of the Justice Plaza.
”This sucks,” I said, soft enough so only I heard.
”Interrogation Three,” Bryson told the uniform, who gave Laurel Hicks a visitor badge and spirited her away. It was daytime, so Rick the night sergeant wasn't working. Thank the G.o.ds for small things. Rick would want to talk. Catch up.
Sh.e.l.ley, the day sergeant, barely looked at me. She and I had never really gotten along, due to her thinking weres were a menace and me thinking she was a b.i.t.c.h who wore tacky press-on nails, and I never thought I'd be so happy about that fact.
”Hey, so what the h.e.l.l is up?” Bryson asked me when we stopped at his desk in the bullpen. My old desk was still vacant. I didn't know whether to be flattered or disappointed.
I pulled the root out of my pocket and showed it to him.
”That thing stinks,” said Bryson, his nose crinkling. ”Like old-man deodorant.” He was right, but I pressed on to the important bits.
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