Page 81 of Foxy Filthy Omega

Per the reports Garcia gave us, the one under the Steele Pier was found in an old, abandoned row boat with faded red scarves. Those scarves were dyed that color too. It wasn’t from blood.

And the first one was displayed in front of an old restaurant. One that’s been abandoned for almost a decade now. The head there had been carefully placed in a pile of red daisies.

Lucy would have spent thirty minutes explaining the significance of red daisies to me, but Soren hadn’t said a word about any of the other crime scenes. His focus was single-minded, like he couldn’t think of anything else until he satisfied his curiosity here.

That could be helpful, but it could also slow us down if he ended up focusing on the wrong details.

I watched as Soren studied the trees, his attention going up once more, like he expected to find someone hiding up there.

Shielding my eyes against the sun, I wondered if one of the cameras up there might actually show us something that could help us.

I felt his attention shift to me, but I pretended not to notice.

“It would be faster if we split up,” he admitted. “But not too much that we can’t see each other.”

Checking the time, I decided I’d give it another thirty minutes before calling it. “Sure, what do you want me to look for?”

“Anything out of place,” Soren told me. He looked around like he was hoping to find an example, but then gave up and shrugged. “I know that’s vague, but you’ll know when you see it.”

“Not footprints?” I scanned the earth beneath our feet, taking note of how many leaves and plants there were.

“If you see one, then yes, but it won’t be easy to notice with all this underbrush.” Soren pointed to the right. “I’ll go a few yards this way. You take the left side. When we hit the trail again, we’ll compare our notes.”

Apparently he could take the lead when necessary.

I nodded and studied the area to my left as I processed that.

Despite the fact that he was an alpha, nothing he’d just said came off as an order or a command. It was merely a suggestion, one that gave me the opportunity to veto him if I felt so inclined.

Soren stuck to the facts too. Things that were impossible to argue with.

Sure, I guess I could be difficult and insist I take the right side instead of the left, but I also knew he wouldn’t care and just switch with me if that’s what I really wanted.

My rookie didn’t like conflict.

It made me wonder just how far he’d go to avoid it and how that might affect our partnership…or whoever he might end up assigned to once his training was done.

I grimaced and made a zig-zag pattern, taking my time as I studied the ground and the surrounding area. I was a fantastic liar, but even I couldn’t convince myself I didn’t care who Soren ended up with.

Of course, if given a choice, I’d always pick Lucy, but that might not be an option anymore.

Even if it was, I might not be able to do this job for much longer.

If Francesca Lopez became the alpha of the Lopez pack, she would constantly be in the spotlight.

There was a reason most legacy pack members stuck to jobs that hardly came under public scrutiny, or if it did, they could easily control the perception of the public.

I glanced over at Soren to make sure he hadn’t wandered out of my eyesight and stopped when I saw a ghostbeard flower. I took out my phone and took a picture of it for Lucy, wishing she was here to tell me what this one meant in the language of flowers and how this might be the last one we see for the year.

Flowers weren’t really my thing, but I loved how excited she got about them.

Lucy would even nerd out about something as stupid and common as a daisy, insisting the red version meant someone completely different from the yellow one.

My chest ached when I realized I might never get to hear her do that again. At least, not when it came to a case.

My time as Frankie James was coming to an end and for whatever reason, that fact was finally starting to feelreal.

I reached out and ran my fingers over the feathery clusters of tiny, cream-colored flowers. They were kind of spiky, more like a fern than a flower, but the color did make me think of a ghost.

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