Page 52 of Bitter Discord

“I can,” Zuri thundered, and Elissa paled as she stepped away from me and the door. Zuri sneered at Elissa before turning the expression on the rest of the room. “This is a seventeen-year-old boy we’re talking about. Is he that scary? If Mason was killed by a teenager, maybe Mason should have paid more attention. Stop being foolish. If he did do it, it will be handled by the pack and byus. It wasourguest who was murdered. You will ask your questions and use the answers to keep yourself safe. That is all. I will remind everyone in this room that you do not get to make these sorts of decisions while a member of the ruling family is around, so if you act on your own, that will be its own crime.”

The tension in the room was palpable, and I was worried, at any moment, one of the other werecats would go for the door. I wasn’t putting Arlo on a hit list, not until I knew for certain he was the killer. Zuri was right. If he was the shooter, Heath and I would handle it.

It would leave a scar on my soul, but we would handle it.

“So, where do we go from here?” Everett asked. “I’mmorethan okay with you two handling this, but it leaves all of us in a bit of a spot, doesn’t it? It wouldn’t be smart for any of us to go home. Ysabel said it. One of us could have done it.”

“There would be a rather simple way to deal with that,” Zuri said, looking around. “I could ask each one of you if you did it, and the scent of a lie would be strong.”

“Unless you have a Talent like Alpha Price,” I added, trusting everyone in the room knew the reference. That werewolf had lied without giving away a scent, using it to orchestrate Liza’s murder and get away with it. He’d tried to do the same to me, going further by giving my name to the BSA, which led them to the discovery of me as a supernatural and a werecat.

“There is the potential someone here has a Talent that could muddle this up,” Zuri agreed. “But we can work around that by making the interrogations worthwhile. There’s so much we can cover. First, I would like to learn where everyone was last night.”

“I can put together a timeline of the murder,” I offered. It was something to do while waiting on Heath. “I’ll use my contacts at the BSA. They received the initial call about the body and secured it for us.”

“You’re seriously going to make sure none of us murdered Mason?” Lonan snarled. “Weknowwho did it! You won’t let us take care of the problem, and you clearly don’t want to do it yourself.”

“We’re going to cover every possibility, which includes questioning all of you. If you want to avoid questioning, we’ll just assume you’re involved in some manner, even if you didn’t pull the trigger. Then I’ll handle you accordingly.”

“It’s insulting to assume it’s one of us,” Hannah pointed out.

“I’ve already picked my favorite people here.” I leaned toward Zuri. “The ones who aren’t trying to make life harder. Marnar, Abraham, Roland, Everett, Coyotl, Tokabi—”

“Yes, I quite agree,” Zuri said, not letting me finish my list as Hannah glared at us. “As for the insult of making you provide evidence of your innocence… I don’t care. Someone, whether or not that person is here, thought it would be a good idea to murder a werecat when things are clearly fraught. That trumps your perceived insult.”

“I’m going to work in the office upstairs,” I said, stepping away. “Unless you need me.”

“Leave that office for me, actually. There’s another, isn’t there?”

“Yeah, there’s one closer to the front door. You know, that’s a good idea. You can watch the basement door to make sure others don’t leave while you talk to each of them privately. I’ll be near the front to let in Heath and his second.”

Leaving, my phone came back out of my pocket for another round of phone calls. In Shamus’s old office, I found a legal pad and a pen as I sat down behind his old desk. Most of the room was redone, but I hadn’t wanted to replace the furniture. There was a lot about this mansion I never got around to. I had been preoccupied with the idea of giving my family bedrooms upstairs and getting rid of the prison in the basement.

“Pick up,” I hissed as I called Bethany. After four rings, it went to her voicemail. I didn’t leave a message, opting to hang up and call again. This time, she picked up on the second ring.

“Jacky, I’m so sorry. Things at headquarters are a bit out of control,” she explained quickly. “What do you need? Has anything else happened?”

“It’s been a long day, and it’s only going to get longer. I need some information. It’s nothing I shouldn’t have asked when I met the Director at the scene, but…”

“You’re not exactly a detective. What do you need? I have access to the file. It was handed to me when I finally got here. I should have gotten a place here in the city while you were here.”

“I need to know some exact times. What time did the original call come in? Director Rhodes says it was an anonymous tip. Do you know anything about the caller? Male, female, young sounding, scared?”

“The call was at one-fifteen in the morning. The person who took the call says it was a male, very fearful. Described him as having a shaky voice, tripping over words, and seeming to want to end the call as quickly as possible. I can email you the transcript of exactly what was said. Let me see if it was recorded as well… Yup. I can send that along as well.”

“Can you do that?” I didn’t know how much she was allowed to give me. “What about… I don’t know, procedure?”

“The BSA doesn’t work the same way as other organizations, Jacky. You know that. We rarely take anyone to court. We worry little about prosecutors and what is or isn’t admissible. If another supernatural committed this murder, like if it was a werewolf, we send it to the party we know will handle it according to their own laws. We send our findings to them and tell them to handle it… or we will.”

“If the murderer is a human?” I was writing everything down, including a list of questions I knew I still wanted to ask her.

“It depends, really. Sometimes, we turn a blind eye. We note in our files we never found the suspect or something. Sometimes, we build the case, but that case needs to be rock solid from a human’s angle. Scents and everything else you can do? They don’t work out. So, if we can’t build a case without supernatural help, we cede jurisdiction to the supernaturals.

“Generally, people killing supernaturals are part of your world, like employees or business partners. That strips them of some protections from our government. Essentially, we treat you as a foreign power we have extradition with. Now, keep asking me what you want to know. Director Rhodes wants me to stay close all day. He won’t mind me telling you this, but I’m certain you don’t want him hovering.”

“What time did the agents first report on the scene?”

“One-twenty-five and they couldn’t find the caller, who was told to wait. They found the body relatively quickly and called headquarters to confirm it was there and that they had no identification or idea what the victim could be.”

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