Page 29 of Criminology of a Character

“I’ll save you from the interrogation,” Flynn said. “What do you do for work?”

“You might be saving me, but you’re condemning the table to boredom,” Eamon chuckled. “The simple answer is finance.”

He launched into a quick explanation of his role in financing companies, which turned into the men animatedly talking about business and then sports and then topics Bel stopped paying attention to as the women caught up. Voices shouted over each other in chaos and affection,and itwas pure magic. It was the most joyous Thanksgiving they’d enjoyed together, and when everyone needed a break from eating before they even attempted to taste the desserts, the guys took the kids and dogs outside. They played such an epic football game that Bel knew she’d never attend another family event without Eamon. She’d been nervous about bringing him. Would her sisters like him? Wouldtheir husbands? Was he someone who could integrate with her family? She could never love a man her family hated, and she’d been almost sick worrying the Emerson clan wouldn’t see past his darkness. This dinner would determine if he was worth forgiving for his crimes, for the teeth that used to haunt her, but ashe carried Cerberus into the house in one arm, Michael Darling in the other, and two of Rose’s four boys on his back for pumpkin pie, Bel knew forgiving him for his sins had been the right choice.

A ringing phonepierced the silence, and Bel jerked awake with a groan. Something warm and solid rested below her cheek. Her neck ached from the angle, and she realized she was sleeping sideways on the guest bed, her face plastered on Eamon’s bare chest where he lay half-naked and tangled in the sheets. Cerberus was snoring somewhere in the room, but her fuzzy brain couldn’t focus on the sound well enough to pinpoint her dog’s location.

“Sorry, I forgot to silence it,” Eamon grunted as he cradled her head to protect her neck before he reached for the screaming phone. She wasn’t sure if immortals could get hangovers, but she certainly felt that last glass of wine. She hadn’t gotten drunk, but she’d indulged since they were spending the weekend at her father’s, and it was too early for the phone to be that loud.

“It’s not mine.” Eamon dropped his cell back on the bedside table and pulled her body into a more comfortable position. “It’s yours.” He kissed her forehead, and she grudgingly snatched her phone with exhausted movements.

“Hello,” she grumbled as he tucked her comfortably against his side.

“Emerson, I’m sorry for calling so early,” Sheriff Griffin said, and Bel jerked to a seat so fast she thought her brain might dislodge from her skull and fly across the room to slap the wall.

“What happened?” she asked out of habit because she already knew. There was only one reason her boss would call her at the crack of dawn on Black Friday.

“There’s a body.”

A rushed goodbyeto her family and a few hours later, Bel arrived at the address Griffin sent her. Eamon had dropped her off at her car before taking Cerberus to his mansion so he wouldn’t be alone, and she’d followed the GPS to a farmhouse so far out of the way that she was shocked she was still in Bajka.

“Thanks for coming.” The sheriff greeted her as she parked next to his truck on the long dirt drive. “I’m sorry for calling you, but Gold flew home, so she can’t make it back quickly.”

“It’s okay,” Bel said as she studied the farmhouse, the reason for her presence obvious. An electric company truck stood beside a massive tree that grew dangerously close to the house, and it had fallen onto the power lines, snapping them before crashing into the home. “What happened?”

“We had a thunderstorm here last night,” Griffin answered. “The electric company received an alert that power lines were down on this property, and they arrived this morning to find the tree had knocked out part of the wall. The charring suggests lightning hit it.”

“Did it kill someone?” she asked, horrified that this had been someone’s Thanksgiving. One minute they were eating turkey, and the next a tree was crushing them alive.

“No.”

“Okay.” Bel squinted at him. “You said there was a body.”

“There is, but the tree didn’t kill him.”

“So, what are we looking at?”

“You should see for yourself,” Griffin answered, and Bel’s stomach dropped. The last time a man said that to her, she’d walked into Lumen’s Customs to find a heartless man built into a gruesome chandelier. What had the electric company found inside this house?

Bracing for the worst, Bel donned the protective gear and climbed the front steps to the porch, where medical examiner Lina Thum waited.

“We wanted you to see the body before I removed it from the scene,” she said.

“That bad, huh?” Bel asked.

“It’s weird, that’s for sure.” Lina nodded toward the collapsed section. The deputies and electricians had cleared the dangerous tree branches from the wall, and deeming it safe to walk through, they beckoned Bel into what was once the living room.

“Where’s the body?” she asked when no corpse caught her attention.

“Somewhere you wouldn’t expect.” Lina pointed to the collapsed wall. “There.”

Bel followed her finger and cursed when she saw what Thum meant, for the body wasn’t strewn about the floor like she’dexpected. It protruded from inside the wall, tightly bound by plastic and tape.

“He was in the wall?” she asked as she approached the unconventional grave. The corpse was shriveled and black, and she didn’t need the M.E. to confirm that the time of death was well in the past. “Someone doesn’t end up wrapped in plastic and shoved into the wall by accident. This is either murder or an accidental death someone didn’t want the police to learn about. Do we know who this is?”

“No,” Lina answered. “The features are too decayed. We’ll have to wait until I run his dental records for an ID.”

“That looks like blunt force trauma.” Bel pointed to the cracked skull.

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