Page 153 of Tides of Fate

“Go. Break the news that we’re heading out after the police are done. No phones, no internet. Please, Leo.”

“Yeah, yeah. But that tub was big enough for everyone.” He sighs, his dreams of a post-rut bathtub orgy swirling down the drain.

Jay calls 9-1-1, and the dispatcher says they’ll send someone right out, while Gideon makes call after call, speaking quietly and seriously.

Twenty minutes later, the police and evidence unit eventually crawl up the drive.

“Fuck, I’m going to make dinner,” he nods toward the house clacking his tongs in goodbye.

Jay understands his desire to avoid muddying the waters with his affiliation to Carnell.

Only Leo and Jay remain outside in the cold, standing well away from both the house and the spot where Tsuki dragged the body. The puppy continues to sniff the perimeter as a navy sedan and a forensics van pull up and block the drive.

The older detective speaks briefly with a forensic specialist before making his way toward the woods alone. The other detective approaches them, pulling her phone from her jacket pocket to take notes.

“Mr. Rhodes, I’m Detective Bender. You told the 9-1-1 operator that your dog dragged the victim out of those woods?”

She sounds skeptical, understandably so. The dead guy is an easy 200 pounds, and the DSR-1 another six or seven. Tsuki is a generous forty at most.

She’s obviously just a three-month-old puppy—so happy to see the newcomers that she spends five minutes chasing her tail as if to prove how sweet and friendly she is.

Something she had never done—not once in the ten days she’d been with the pack.

Bender narrows her eyes and glances at Tsuki again, her lips twitching like she’s holding back a snort.

Jay can’t blame her for her skepticism, but it’s the truth. “Yes. She’s stronger than she looks.”

Tsuki suddenly stops just out of the detective’s eye-line and tilts her head.

Detective Bender also tilts her head in precisely the same way.

“Hmm. Mr. Rhodes, you say you just arrived? I’m wondering why a sniper was waiting for you outside your vacation home—and why you think I’m going to believe your forty-pound dog dragged this guy three hundred yards?”

Her partner emerges from the woods, an evidence bag in one hand and his phone pressed to his ear with the other. He pauses, glances at Jay, then speed-walks toward them as he hangs up.

Jay isn’t a novice when it comes to managing uncomfortable questions—he’s spent his entire adult life dodging prying interviews about his mates, his music, his past.

And that’s just from his mother.

Detective Bender has nothing on Miranda Rhodes.

“Mr. Rhodes, are you certain you weren’t in the woods with your dog? Perhaps you came across the man with the rifle?”

“And what, Detective? I avoided being shot and then tore his throat out?” Jay deadpans. Then, just as effortlessly, he flashes his best rockstar smile—dimple popping, teeth dull, white, and unmistakably human.

She’s not wrong, though, because if Jayhadcome across the guy with the rifle, hewouldhave torn his throat out—but that’s neither here nor there right now.

This guy was already dead.

“Well, maybe you disposed of evidence before you called.”

Leo snorts, crossing his magnificent arms, and nods toward the older detective approaching.

The forensic investigator intercepts, whispering to Detective Bender. She doesn’t intend for Jay to hear—but he does.

And that’s when he learns that the exact time this man died was the moment his family’s future shifted.

The moment he learned they’d welcome a new pack member next summer.

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