Page 54 of The Runaway Mate

“But you can’t be sure it was him?” Derek questioned, his gaze fixed on Eddie.

Eddie swallowed hard, a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead. “No, I… I can’t. I just… I just said what they told me to say.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know, do I? They… they offered me money to say it was Carson. A lot of it.”

“Money?” My voice turned dangerous. Keller had set up Carson to be killed for fucking money.

Eddie dropped his eyes and nodded.

“Who did you really see?”

“I don’t know, I told you that. But here, look, whoever was there, they dropped this.” Eddie shuffled over to his wallet and pulled out a twenty-dollar note. “It must have slipped outta his pocket when he… you know.”

When he killed the men. I took the note from Eddie and sniffed it. There was a blend of scents on there, Eddie’s scent being the strongest. But scents on bank notes tended to stay for a long time. People touched the notes with their fingertips, transferring their pheromones onto the paper. They soaked in, layer after layer of everyday emotions, of fears, joys, hunger, excitement, and even desire. I took a moment to sort through the smells.

“Brock Madden.”

“Brock?” Derek turned to me. “You sure?”

I nodded. We were werewolves; we could remember the scents of over a thousand different people.

“There are other scents there as well. No one else I recognize.”

“It could be that Brock handled this note in the last few days. It doesn’t confirm it was him at the murder scene.”

“Yeah, but we need to talk to him.”

This time, Derek nodded.

Eddie reached out to take the note back.

“You took this from the scene?” I asked.

“Yeah, man. No one else there needed it.”

I looked around at the inside of the trailer. It was the size of a small bedroom, with both living room and kitchen shoved into a single space. Christmas lights from years past hung from the ceiling, their cords exposed and frayed. The furnishings were old, of the kind found in thrift stores. A television set with a black-and-white screen and a single wooden stool in front of it, a few mismatched chairs, and an old, worn couch were all the furniture I could see.

“What did you do with the money the enforcers offered you?” I asked.

“I don’t have it yet, man. I gotta wait until the whole thing dies down, don’t I? That’s just common sense, man,” Eddie said, still clutching his arm.

I doubted they were ever going to pay Eddie. He’d probably find himself face-down in the river sometime in the next couple of days. Something like this, they’d tie up all loose ends. My guess? They didn’t think we’d make a move so soon and thought they had time to dispose of Eddie.

“The situation dies down, or Carson dies?” Derek asked. His face was blank, but I knew my brother and the hard line of his jaw and the way he held himself told me he wanted to finish the job for the enforcers himself. That Eddie would betray one of his own kind for cash, knowing it was a death sentence, went against everything Derek stood for.

“I don’t know, do I? They just told me I had to wait.” He stood up and took a step toward Derek. “I need the money, man. You see me living the high life? I gotta start somewhere, man. I gotta start somewhere.”

Derek looked at me, and I nodded. We weren’t going to get anything else out of Eddie.

“Leave him some cash.”

Derek raised his eyebrows at me. I knew he didn’t approve. I didn’t respond to his look, and Derek pulled out his wallet, throwing a few bills on the floor next to Eddie.

“Thank you,” he mumbled as he scrambled to pick up the notes. “I won’t tell them that you were here. I promise I won’t.”

“Use the money to get out of here for a while, Eddie. Those enforcers, they’ll be back to make sure you don’t ever talk.”

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