I took it and looked from it to the open book and back again.
Mina bent next to me. “What is it?”
I held the map for her to see and then pointed to the book.
Her breath caught. “No freaking way!”
They matched.
We locked gazes.
“Are we still doing this?” she asked.
The pit in my stomach increased. I pushed away my concerns as my curiosity grew. “Yes.”
ChapterNine
Jonathan
Jonathan enteredthe conference room again, having gone to his office to put a call in to Simon and Ash Murray. He’d left them a message with limited details, imparting upon them the importance of them returning his call to discuss their sister’s possible involvement in what was going on in Detroit. He’d also put a call out mentally on the pathway he shared with Dwayne.
The wolf-shifter should have been back from break already, and Jonathan was starting to worry that something bad had happened to the man. Since the Detroit branch of Van Helsings was possibly the target of something nefarious, his concerns were warranted. While Jonathan hadn’t gotten a full response back mentally, he had managed a connection, and that told him Dwayne was alive and well.
That was at least something.
Looking Dwayne’s wife and son in the face and telling them something bad happened to the man wasn’t something Jonathan wanted to do. He’d given too many death notices to his kin in his long life. They never got easier.
And he’d attended more than his fair share of funerals in his lifetime. He remembered every single one of them. He was instantly struck with the memory of attending Alvin’s and Kate’s funerals. They’d been held jointly, and hundreds of slayers had come to show their support.
That had been the last time he’d seen Helen. Jonathan had intended on paying his respects to the family but had gotten sidetracked when he’d found a little girl in a black dress crying softly on the stoop of the funeral home. Instead of going inside, Jonathan sat next to the child, quietly listening as she told him all about heaven and asked him questions about angels.
He'd done his best to answer her questions, all the while wondering where her parents were since she’d been left outside unattended.
“Jonathan,” said Leo, jarring Jonathan from thoughts of the past.
He found all eyes on him.
Leo lifted his chin. “What did the Murray boys have to say about their sister?”
“I left them a message. Hopefully, I’ll hear something back soon,” said Jonathan, covering the distance to the corkboard. He began assessing it with the idea that the culprit might actually be Helen Murray and her faction.
Where the idea that the crimes had been the fault of wolf-shifters had left him questioning what they were missing, the thought that it might be Helen became less and less unrealistic.
It would fit.
She and the misfit group of hunters who followed her would have the skill set to commit not only the atrocities but also the know-how to make it look as if shifters were the culprit.
Killing innocents went against every moral code a hunter had, but that wouldn’t have stopped Helen.
Jonathan glanced at Leo. “How much do you trust your C.I.?”
“He’s never steered me wrong before,” Leo answered. “But he does have a grudge against the Murray line, so take that as you may. He’s got an issue with some guy named Chester or Lester. He didn’t elaborate on why, but the guy sounds like a real winner from what little was mentioned about him.”
“What if they’re being framed?” asked another Van Helsing.
“Then it’s a really determined group of shifters,” said Jonathan.
“What makes you say that?” asked the man.