Page 163 of Rejected By the Alpha King

“My wife and I are in a honeymoon period. We tend to be loud.”

“Wife? I didn’t see any records for that.”

“We don’t really file for wedding certificates. What’s going on here, detective? Do all your out-of-towers get this level of scrutiny when they come visit?

The detective cleared his throat and pulled out a folder. He didn’t open it. Just let it sit on the table. I looked at it with curiosity and raised my eyebrows. “What is that?”

He pushed the folder aside. “We’re going to get to this a little later. You should know that we found that missing woman.”

The hell they did. Where the fuck was he going with this? “That’s great. I’m assuming I’m here because she said I was involved. Do you need some sort of alibi or something? As you can see, I’m not exactly traveling alone.”

“No, you aren’t. You’re traveling with a large crowd for someone on his honeymoon.”

“I’m mixing business with pleasure. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, we don’t get out much.”

Warnos grunted and pulled out another file. This one, he opened. “It’s strange that there’s so many communities in the mountains. Kind of harsh living conditions. You also don’t seem to be under any police jurisdiction.”

“I guess that makes us your jurisdiction. Should we call you if we start having problems? It might just be easier if we get our own police station. Then you could move on.”

His jaw ticked, and I knew I’d hit a nerve. He didn’t even like being here. He would hate to be further up the mountain. “We’re not a cult, detective. We’re not criminals hiding out. We’re a large community. We pay our state and federal taxes. I’ve personally met with the state governor. I understand that we’re responsible for taking care of our own emergencies. But I’m not here because you’re interested in my community. I’m here because two women were reported missing, and you think that somehow has something to do with me. So either you tell me what I’m doing here, or I walk out of the station, and we go back up our mountain where you’ll never see me again.”

The detective flipped open the file. There were two photos. One of Janelle and one of Anna. It was one Emerson must have had taken recently. “You’re here, Jax Bishop, because we have an eyewitness who not only identified you but followed you back to the motel last night.”

“Bullshit. I never left the motel last night. I didn’t kidnap any women.”

“Maybe not.” Warnos flipped the photos over and spun two new ones around. At the shocking sight, my entire body went cold. “Maybe you just murdered them.”

She was nestled in the leaves, her eyes closed as if she were sleeping peacefully. Except of course for the blood dried all around her chest.

It was Anna. Dead.

76

Anna

“Murder? You’re fucking kidding me!” I stared at Amelia in shock. It had only been two hours since our cellphones had gone down. Finn had gone out looking for Amelia and Jax and returned one hour ago to report that they weren’t in any of the stores.

Two hours of agony, of thinking that Amelia might be dead. Finn was ready to lose his mind, but my mating bond was bright and throbbing. I just couldn’t figure out how to use it to communicate to Jax. To figure out what the hell was happening with them.

Turns out, he was in police custody. Human police custody.

“Who the hell do they think he murdered?”

“You. And Janelle,” Amelia said quietly. “They don’t have any evidence, but they’re going to hold him for the longest amount of time possible. That’s three days. He’s requested a lawyer, but conveniently, the only criminal lawyer in town is on vacation. They said it’ll take two days to get someone here. We’ll never get our pack lawyer down in time either.”

“They have to have bodies to be investigating a murder charge. Janelle and I are clearly not dead. We just need to go show this lawyer that we aren’t dead.”

Amelia shook her head. “You can’t do that. It’ll look even worse for him because it’ll provide a connection. Two women who happen to look identical to two women that Jax is traveling with end up dead? Plus, you and Janelle will be exposed if you leave the motel. You’re safer here. Jax said to not do anything. If he doesn’t get out in time, we’re to leave him here.”

“No,” I snarled. “We are not fucking leaving him here, and right now, he’s not your goddamn alpha, so you don’t have to listen.”

There was no response from anyone else in the room, and I whirled around. “You can’t be fucking serious. You can’t leave him here!”

“If they don’t have any evidence, they have to let him go,” Amelia said softly. “I think we should keep our heads down and let the law do its job. If we make too much noise, this detective might take an interest in our little community, and that wouldn’t be good.”

“Emerson won’t just leave it at that. Jax is in a fucking cage. Emerson will find a way to kill him while he’s in there. If you walk away, you could be signing his death warrant,” I hissed.

“And I’m not going anywhere without him. If you get on that boat, you do it without me.”

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