Black Magic Bayou (9 page)

“Don’t.”

“You’re the one drinking it.”

“Me drinking this is the only thing keeping everyone in this building alive right now.” Of course, Detective Perry picked that exact moment to come into the interview room where Ben, Wilder, and I were sitting.

He set his own coffee—loaded with cream by the looks of it—on the table and took a seat across from us. “We all appreciate you restraining yourself, Miss McQueen. Though committing the crime here at the station
would
save us a lot of investigative energy.”

“Yeah, but just think of the paperwork.” I tried another drink of my coffee and winced.

“I do hate paperwork. Maybe it’s best you keep your cup full.”

“I will if you promise to have someone competent make the next pot.” I smirked, trying to keep things nice and light. The better we all got along, the easier this would be.

“I made that pot.”

So much for charming him. But there was no backing down now. Cops loved good-natured ribbing right? “You do know you’re supposed to use water to brew it, right? Not battery acid.”

“We all need something to get us through the day.”

Ben groaned next to me. “If you two are done flirting, could we get on with things?”

I kicked him under the table.

Unmoved by Ben’s statement, Wilder said, “If you think that’s how she flirts, you are sorely mistaken.”

I blushed. Detective Perry held back a chuckle. Ben rolled his eyes. “I’m in hell.”

“Then maybe you should have stayed home,” I whispered.

He had no quippy response for that.

Good.

Perry charged ahead, pretending the entire exchange hadn’t happened. “Look, this arrangement is a little unusual, I’ll admit, but I think we can all help each other, if we’re willing to be fair about it.”

“Fair how?” I asked.

The question seemed to perplex him because he looked at me briefly like I might not have all my mental capacities. “Sorry?”

“I mean, you say you want to be fair, but how do you see this working? We’ve asked our lawyers to sit this out for the time being, giving you access to our pack members, but by doing that I’m asking two innocent men to waive their Miranda rights. You, on the other hand, are just letting me peek over your shoulder while you work, and you get to question my boys without interference. I want to know what you’re going to do for us that makes this so
fair
.”

The men flanking me had gone silent—a rarity for both of them—and Detective Perry had one ginger brow arched, clearly taking in a side of me he hadn’t known existed.

Yeah, that’s right, guys, I can talk like a goddamn boss bitch.

“Well.” Perry tapped a pen on the file folders in front of him, then took a small drink of his coffee. He had cultivated a much better poker face when it came to drinking the stuff. That or he actually liked the way he made it. I wasn’t sure which was more impressive. “What if I gave you unlimited access to our case files on this and allowed you to sit in on all interviews pertaining to the case?” Perry lifted his pen to stop me, seeing that I wanted to jump into the conversation. “
Just
you. And
observing
only. You don’t get to play junior detective. You don’t get to conduct the interviews or interrogations. I will bring you on as an official consultant for this case and this case alone, which means we’ll treat you like a member of the team and not someone opposing it.”

I eyed the neat stack of folders in front of him, desperate to flip through them. I was equally eager to get in a room with Emmett and Mason and make sure they knew not to behave like idiots. A lot of young werewolves didn’t respect human authority figures because police weren’t pack, and the only law they tended to consider important was pack law.

If I could make them understand pack law and human law were the same thing in this one instance, we might be able to come out of this largely unscathed.

Giving me more time and energy to focus on the other shitshow I was dealing with right now.

Too bad I couldn’t kill two birds with one stone and get the police to assist me with the problems at the Delta Phi house. A couple hours earlier when I’d only known a girl was missing, this problem had the NOPD’s name all over it. Now I knew this was much too serious for the police, and probably too big for me. But I’d gone and gotten involved, which meant I had to see things through.

I heaved a grouchy sigh, which everyone in the room seemed to think meant I didn’t like what Detective Perry was offering. They all waited patiently for me to reply. I glanced at Ben, who appeared almost apoplectic with worry that I’d fuck up his arrangement with the captain. I don’t know what he was so gung-ho about. Perry had clearly said I was the only one who got to play cop for the duration of the case.

Wilder showed no outward signs of caring about this situation one way or the other. Classic Wilder, managing to act like he was above it all, loftily observing. I had learned a few things about him in our short time together that told me otherwise, though, and even though he played it cool, I knew this mattered to him because it mattered to me.

There were layers and layers to him I was only starting to unravel, and I genuinely believed I might go my whole life without ever fully understanding the inner workings of Wilder Shaw.

He caught me looking at him and gave me a soft
It’s all good
smile, which could be the truth, or maybe he was trying to make me feel better.

Who knew?

I resisted the urge to put my hand on his thigh, recalling how quickly things had gone from zero to horny in the car before we came inside.

Taking a breath to steady myself and get centered in Alpha mode, I said, “Detective Perry, I want a personal assurance from you that you won’t use this as an opportunity to turn your case into a werewolf witch-hunt.” Yes, I knew how ridiculous it was for me to say
werewolf witch
in a sentence. “With the pack, our word is our bond, and when we make a promise, it is not something we take lightly. So I am promising you I will do everything in my power to help you catch the person who did this. That is, providing you will promise to help me keep my pack’s name out of the press.”

“And if it turns out your pack is responsible?”

The small hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, bristling from the subtle accusation. Perry had a funny way of switching from charming and likeable to ruthless and shitty in the span of a second.

“If my boys did this, they will be held responsible.”

“Yeah, but by you or by us?”

Ah, there it was. He didn’t want punishment to be meted out by the pack. Chances were he was the kind of person who thought we wolves went soft on each other, and if Callum or I were the ones to punish Emmett and Mason, they’d basically be walking away with a slap on the wrist while we said
bad dog
.

I almost laughed at how preposterous that notion was.

If it were up to me, they’d be met with the hunt. An ancient tradition in which werewolves were chased by members of their own pack and brought down. It was violent and bloody, and depending on the crime it quite often resulted in severe mutilation or even death.

It was certainly a more fearsome punishment than prison.

Callum…well, if my uncle was the one deciding punishments, we’d probably be accused of crimes against humanity.

Murder was no small sin to wolves. A werewolf murdering a human was worse because of the risk it put on every single one of us. Before we’d been forced into the spotlight, a werewolf murder could have exposed us all. And a failed killing brought with it the added concern of possibly making a new wolf who would have no clue about our customs and traditions. Lone wolves were super dangerous, especially those who had no idea how to control themselves.

Luckily, unlike with vampires, once someone was dead from a werewolf attack, there was no coming back. The man outside the bar wasn’t going to be creating any new and exciting problems for us.

Just the collection we already had.

But Perry wanted me to let the human justice system handle Emmett and Mason if they were guilty. I wanted to remind him no human prison could contain a werewolf, and they’d be a risk to themselves and others in containment, but I held off. I didn’t think they were guilty, and right now we were still two weeks shy of the full moon. Nothing to worry about, provided I could solve a murder in fourteen days.

Sure, why not? Not like I had anything else going on.

“
If
they are guilty, I will leave their punishment up to your legal system.” And publicly renounce them from my pack, which I hoped this wouldn’t come to.

Detective Perry stuck out his hand. “Welcome to the New Orleans Police Department, Special Officer McQueen.”

I stared up at the ceiling of my living room and wondered how long that water stain had been there.

It was shaped like a heart, light yellow in the center and faded brown around the edges.

Had it been there when I moved in? It certainly didn’t look fresh. If something had leaked, surely I’d have noticed it. Who did one call for something like that? A plumber? A painter? Someone who did roofing?

The longer I looked at it, the more it started to look like a face. As if it were taking form and would soon become an evil monster sent from the bowels of hell to eat me in my sleep.

Maybe I was more shaken up than I let on.

Magnolia set a glass of water on the floor next to my head and slipped my cell phone into my hand. “You’ll want to take this one.”

I highly doubted that, but raised the cell to my ear anyway.

“Genie McQueen,” I announced.

“Do you actually answer the phone like that?” a familiar female voice asked. “Sounds like you’re an insurance broker. So formal and boring.”

My heart skipped a beat and I sat up. “Secret.”

“I’d go with something like
What do you want
?”

“You usually go with,
This better be good
.”

She chuckled. “It’s a classic for a reason.”

My sister. My wonderful, weird, messed-up sister. The only person I knew with a crazier life and worse luck than me.

I’d texted her when we left the police station but hadn’t expected her to call back so soon. “It’s good to hear your voice,” I admitted.

“So look, I’m just about to get on a plane for Bolivia. We’re dealing with this nasty rogue situation down there and some asshole who is trying to pretend he’s a vampire god. But I’ve got like five minutes before we take off.”

“I didn’t think you had to turn phones off on the jet.” Yeah, she had a jet. Or more accurately her husband had inherited a jet, along with his title, when the old King of the East died.

“Des needed the plane for something else. I’m flying
commercial
.” She made this seem like the grossest unfairness she’d ever experienced.

This was the same woman who had been operated on while still awake just so a psycho doctor could see how her physiology worked.

Nice to see she had some perspective on the real injustices of the world.

In the background behind her voice I heard airport announcements, but nothing to indicate she’d need to hang up right away, so I charged ahead with the conversation.

“Did you hear the news?” The death had been kept out of the papers, but Secret worked for an FBI task force. Arrested werewolves in Louisiana must have set off an alarm at their office.

“Yeah, Emilio called me this morning right after the initial report was filed. Nothing in it looked especially hinky to me. I asked Desmond, and he agreed. No real werewolf hallmarks to the killing, but I can’t say that for certain without seeing it in person. I’m assuming you don’t think they did it?”

“I’m their Alpha. They said they’re innocent, so for the time being I believe them.”

“Did you get to the scene before they cleared the body?”

“Yeah, it was still there.”

“And what does your gut tell you?”

My gut told me it really wanted a roast beef sandwich, given the loud rumble that must have been audible across the room. How long had it been since I’d eaten? Going too long between meals was never a smart idea for werewolves. It gave
hangry
a whole new meaning.

“I don’t think a werewolf killed that man.”

“Me either.” She didn’t hesitate for a second, and she was literally the expert on this sort of thing. Enough of one for some government agency in Bolivia to give her a free pass into their country to hunt would-be vampire gods.

Man, my sister was cool.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” Secret asked. “Your text said
week from hell, literally
. This is just a dead body. It’s not exactly great news, but I know for a fact you’ve already been through way worse. So what’s up?”

Before I could speak another announcement sounded behind her, calling for first-class passengers to El Alto.

“Shit, that’s me.”

“First class isn’t what I’d call slumming it, Secret.”

“Look, the champagne is great, but they don’t love it when I want to walk around. I still get a bit squirrelly in small spaces,” she admitted.

Didn’t we all?

“Tell me your other thing quick. I’ll mull it over on the plane and call you back.”

“It might take longer than a minute.”

“CliffsNotes version?”

I almost laughed, because I’d said the exact same thing to Tansy earlier that day. Great minds.

“There’s a demon living in a sorority house, and three girls have gone missing in a week.”

A long, quiet pause followed this, during which I could only hear the muffled sounds of an airport. Finally she said, “In my experience most sorority houses are already filled with demons.”

Oh good. She was making jokes.

“Secret. Come on.”

“Are you sure it’s a demon? I’ve only come across one
once
. They’re not all that common. Maybe it’s some kind of fae. What did it look like?”

“Umm. It looked like a tapeworm swallowed a human and then had sex with the giant spider from
Lord of the Rings
.”

Another quiet spell. “I beg your pardon?”