Page 31 of Black Bird

“No … I agree with you. I do.” He hung his head for a moment and then reached around her, pulling her into a tight hug. “I’ll always be here if you need me, you know.”

“I know. Me too.” She squeezed him back and when they pulled away, he didn’t waste any time with an awkward goodbye. She was grateful for that. Something empty still tugged at her as she heard him trudge down the stairs and out the lower entrance. She supposed that was normal for someone who just broke it off with someone she’d been with for the past two years, but strangely … it wasn’t as painful as it should have been.

It always goes the same way. The minute someone leaves an argument, or an extremely uncomfortable conversation, one finds themselves thinking of all the things they should have said … or asked. Sarah reflected on that as she rinsed her coffee pot out for the third time tonight and started a fresh one. He never answered her question. Never said anything more about the picture of his father on her phone. There was plenty more she figured he wasn’t telling her, and she’d just let him down easy.

Maybe that was a good thing. It meant there was still a chance for her to ask those questions and get honest answers. And she’d be doing exactly that after he had a few days to tuck his tail and shake it off. She stood at the kitchen counter and stared over at the coffee table at the discarded mug that had long since grown cold next to the disassembled frame with her mother’s photo inside. Sarah found herself wondering about the man who’d drank from it … what he was doing.

If he was thinking about her …

CHAPTER 6

THE WEB

The white board. It only came out on special occasions. Those occasions being the ones where the case had so many working parts that neither Athan, nor Rhaena could manage to keep them all in order in their minds. Athan swiveled in his chair at the precinct to stare up at it, holding his third mug of coffee in his hands. Rhaena had told him last night. She told him about her meeting with the EverLife CEO, about Conrad Stratford being there when she arrived, the tension between the two men that was way too obvious, and all the interesting details about their conversation once they were alone.

Nick Specter was a slippery little fuck. Athan already knew that after having to continue to deal with him to supply the coven with a steady amount of blood to keep them satisfied. He hadn’t kept his dealings with Specter from Rhaena. She knew everything, but never let on during their meeting that she had any of that knowledge. It was almost amusing to hear all the ways the CEO had tried to skirt around his dirty secrets. He did believe Specter though, when he still claimed not to have any idea who contaminated the lab with illness … they had covered their tracks immaculately. When Rhaena had presented him with the lab results from the hospital and pointed out that EverLife had pulled them all on numerous occasions, she’d said Nick’s face turned green.

Athan spun the silver ring on his thumb, the only thing that kept his temper from flaring. Nick had explained to Rhaena that after the break-in at the facility, the fact that Sarah had been attacked by thewhatorwho, in Boston that they still hadn’t found, and the fact that Sarah was alive and was to be their new employee in one of the highest paid positions that wasn’t administrative … the documents he’d taken were a necessary precaution. She’d pressed him about his thoughts on the reports since she knew he’d obviously gone over them and Nick had simply said that it was strange. He also offered to allow Sarah to test her own blood if she so wished, to see if her talent that they’d hired her for could be put to use to perhaps help solve her own case. In doing so, it would also help put to rest the other cases around the city that branched out, but all seemed to come back to this mystery creature.

The grimy little prick …

While Athan had showered after their romp in the kitchen, Rhaena had come to the conclusion that the pot of gold everyone seemed to be after was Sarah’s blood. Athan couldn’t disagree, especially after showing her the documents Sarah had given him from her apartment. He’d left out all the other details about what happened at her place. He must have looked over those papers a thousand times after Rhaena went home forthe night. He’d find out who was after her. He’d find them and kill them. He couldn’t figure out why it had overwhelmed him with guilt after he’d thoroughly plowed through Rhaena’s toned body on that counter. The force in which he’d taken her, and every inch he slammed into her from behind … he’d thought ofher. He couldn’t stop it, nor help himself. He felt guilty for that, although he’d warned Rhaena about that the last time she’d tried to screw him, but he also felt dirty … like he was somehow being unfaithful to Sarah, even though they’d only met twice, and she was with another man.

Stratford. Rhaena had agreed that there was something connecting that family to this case. It would make perfect sense, because … how?Howdid these two people end up together? And so began the web. Athan stared at the picture of Sarah that hung right in the center of it. He started to wonder if she’d been in the center of all of this, even before he’d fed on her. Rhaena carefully drew lines that extended from Sarah’s photo and hung other photos at the end of those lines. Bubbles with names and bullet points with what little pieces they had that were starting to come together.

“Northwood and Kane … my office.” Foley’s voice rang over the precinct. Rhaena glanced toward him and Athan shrugged, sitting his coffee on the desk and following her to the captain’s office. “Shut the door and have a seat.” They did, and it was hard not to notice that Foley seemed … pissed.

“Everything alright, sir?” Rhaena asked nervously.

“Well … that depends. Unless you’ve got something that just broke this case wide open, I’m pissed enough to throw at leastoneof you off of it.” He gave Athan a pointed stare. He wasn’t the only one. Rhaena flinched at the statement and started staring too. Foley tossed a newspaper into Athan’s lap. Shit … he was front page news. “Trouble in paradise … St. James cozies up to Boston’s finest …” Foley read without taking his eyes off Athan’s face. Below the large photo of Sarah leaning over his shoulder at the stoplight was another photo of them in front of her apartment smoking … then another of him following her upstairs.

“Sir … this isn’t what it looks like,” Athan started, as Rhaena snatched the paper from his hands. Her face was red with rage.

“It never is, and I can understand that. But it doesn’t change how it looks, Kane. And you better have a damn good reason for this. You got two minutes to convince me not to send you home and give this case to someone else.”

“Sir, please. We’ve found some threads and I need him here to help me pull them.” Rhaena pleaded.

“Where were you, Gloves?”

“At the EverLife campus, questioning the CEO. Just give us a moment to explain.”

Foley took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms in front of him. “I wanna hear from you first, detective.” His attention focused on Athan. “Why was our vic on your bike?”

“I went to the hospital that morning to ask her if she’d given permission to EverLife to extract her lab records after this attack. She hadn’t given it. In fact, she hadn’t even started signing paperwork to start her job there.” Athan looked through the blinds toward the white board, Rhaena seethed from beside him.

“The vic works at the lab?” Foley asked.

“She was just recently employed, sir. I could show you our board if it would make this easier.”

“Let’s go.” Foley gestured toward the door and Athan let Rhaena out first, then Foley and they all moved over, Rhaena stewing in her desk chair and the captain taking a seat on the edge of her desk while Athan started pointing out things on the board. He showed the captain the lab reports, explained all the connections, and tried earnestly to let him know exactly why he felt the need to get her out as quickly as possible. “Look, I can agree on that, and I would say that it makes perfect sense … but all the public sees now is a woman that’s already in the spotlight because of who she’s engaged to, let alone the fact that she’s been on the news since she lived through this attack. And here you are … lookin’ way too comfortable with her, smoking cigarettes, and taking her upstairs to do what everybody else will no doubt perceive as the obvious. Do you know how that makes us look?”

“That wasn’t my intention, sir. I understand. I just wanted to make sure she was safe, and that someone was with her before I left. I swear to you, I was only doing my job. I left with more than I started out with.”

“No shit, you did.” Rhaena grumbled under her breath, earning a chuckle from the captain.

“Was there more?” Foley asked.

“She gave us these.” Athan handed him copies of Sarah’s personal documents and he looked them over. “These were given to her when she was still in Seattle. We think that’s their objective for getting her in the door at EverLife, but we’re trying to figure out why. Look … sir, I—I understand what you might be thinking, but I’m still concerned for her safety. I’m asking permission to stay on this case.”

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