Page 49 of Escalating Alpha

Not even ten minutes later, I was about to explode. Like…Explode.

I turned to the officer and couldn’t hide my venom. “Can you explain this to me in crayon-eating terms how thefuckyou ruled this as adrug overdose, you idiotic useless asshole?”

The shock from everyone—even my own team—was almost hysterical if the situation wasn’t so severe.

“This is exactly what was done in Memphis with those shifters,” the guy finally snapped. “The drugs they were given did this to the bodies so they could become trophies—”

“Arrest him,” I said, nodding that I wasn’t kidding. “Arrest him before I put him in the ground. The fact this was kept fromthe FBI—arrest him for obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence—everything.”

“Do it,” the local division chief told his people. “I don’t know that we have before, but it’s got to be that bad.”

I met his gaze and didn’t hide how close I was to losing my shit. “Yeah, it’s that bad because there weren’t any drugs involved in Memphis. He’s pulling all of this out of his ass. Those people were mounted inhuman formlike animal kills.” I gestured to the first body who was half person and half puma—dead and trapped that way. “I’ve never seen this.”

Several people cursed under their breath.

“Which means this could absolutely be poison or murder or alistof everything,” I told the officer. “And you just fucked any clues we could have had with your assumptions. The three others might not have died if you called us in instead of assuming it was supe drugs which therearen’tany.”

“There have to be if you have birth control and other medications,” he seethed.

“No known recreational drugs. We barely get high on pot,” I spit out. “Of course there are things that work on us—you are so underqualified—this has to stop. It’s never going to get better with these pathetic slaps on the wrists.” I gestured to the agents to go ahead. “Arrest him and whoever was in charge of the case—the detectives or whoever else have been involved.”

“This won’t stick, Thomas,” the officer seethed.

“Maybe not, but this will make you assholes rethink how far you’ll abuse your power and making calls you’re notqualifiedto make,” I threw right back. I met Emilio’s gaze. “Take a few pictures, send them to Monroe, and call him. Get him the update and tell him what I did.”

“You’re going nuclear,” he muttered.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” I asked him, guessing the answer from the way everyone was freaked out atwhat we were looking at. “Yeah, so we’re stumped and he was making the call it was an OD. I’m tired of this same shtick with the locals. We should have done this from the start so it never happened again.”

“Agreed,” he said before I could ramp back up. He told the coroner who Monroe was so he was allowed to see the pictures.

I gave the coroner a look to tread carefully. The man simply gave it back to me which I found surprising.

He sighed and stepped away from the body. “I told them repeatedly I couldn’t—I have no experience with supes. They wanted me to sign my name to an OD for all of them. We found nothing in their blood, not that we are equipped to even know what to look for. I run a clean lab and wouldn’t do it. I won’t let people send photographs either.”

Fair enough and I said as much. He wasn’t happy to be dragged into it all and basically was trying to keep his nose clean while surviving all of this.

I took a few more deep breaths that I let out. “Okay, walk me through what you’ve found. Please. And then we’ll get it all transferred over to our labs.” I looked at Davis. “Warn our people in Chicago. They aren’t set up for supe anything here, and this is something I’ve never seen before—none of us have.”

“The council might have,” she muttered.

“Yeah, okay, check with Haton, and we might get a team to Chicago to investigate.” I looked at Emilo. “I want one of ours with these transports. I’m not risking—anything. I’m not risking anything at this point.” I promised the coroner we’d have all the right paperwork for him before we did anything.

Because I did follow the fucking rules.

Mostly.

The first body was found three weeks ago and wasn’t a local puma, so no one knew to even say anything.

“So…” I let out a slow breath and tried to move past my rage. “Something had to put his body in this state. Assume drug or potion, but jumping to some recreational drug and it was an OD is ridiculous.”

“Or someone cooking up something to try out on unsuspecting supes,” the division chief added. “This guy brought it in if not a local, and—if something injected, it would be able to turn the tables on him. You’d see something weird if it was snorted, right?”

“Depends how old he was and strong and I can’t tell when he’s this long dead,” I told him. “I could swallow some acids and heal. I’m not old but powerful. It’s all pretty damn broad.”

“Which is why humans don’t investigate for supes. Got it. Yeah, I’ve heard that.” He bobbed his head and looked at the coroner. “You find anything wrong with the organs?”

“Didn’t have permission to open him up, none of them,” he said.

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