Page 90 of Mystique of the Fallen
Sentinels kept their emotions private, but Brynnius’s brown gaze was full of compassion, which immediately set Grant on edge. “You…well, you…”
Samson took Brynnius’s hand. “I got this, B. Grant Calisto was fired from the Arlington County Police. Allegedly, Calisto falsified reports. He was never charged with anything, but there was speculation in the news for several weeks.”
“What the fuck?” Grant whispered.
“The cases that Calisto was speculated to have interfered in all involved clients of Reginald Bradley,” Albrecht stated. “It connected Calisto and Reginald in the press. That is how we discovered anything of human Grant’s life.”
“Here’s where it gets really fucked up,” Samson remarked. “The press, of course, goes to Reginald and is like…what the fuck? How can this cop allegedly falsify evidence on just your cases? Reginald claims he met Calisto as a teenager. That they were friends at some point. Well, he befriended Calisto because he basically felt sorry for a kid with a troubled past. According to Reginald, Calisto grew obsessed with him, and the evidence tampering had to be a way to show his dedication. Calisto wanted to move in Reginald’s circles and was doing whatever it took to impress Bradley.”
Grant was queasy. How could that human have been him? “Troubled past? How was Calisto’s past troubled?”
“We will keep searching, but it does not appear the press was interested in reporting that,” Albrecht stated. “None of the articles Brynn and I read together delved into Calisto’s past. They were far too interested in the way he had destroyed his career and ruined his reputation.”
“I’m digging around for private investigator Calisto,” Arvandus said, waving his phone in his hand. “But there is nothing really here. I’m assuming he’d have a website or something.”
“The man is dead. Maybe the website was removed,” Roman suggested.
“Okay, but here’s another weird thing,” Samson said. “If you search Grant Calisto and death, nothing comes up. Nothing about him missing or anything. Wouldn’t there at least be an obituary?”
“A family usually publishes those,” Roman commented. “Calisto mentioned one aunt, and even she wasn’t biologically related to him. He told me she basically raised him.”
“How do we find her?” Grant asked. “Maybe she knows what happened.”
“If she was his legal guardian, we can search public records,” Arvandus said. “Same for death notices. The problem is most of these human websites want us to pay for that information. I’m happy to toss in a few bucks to help solve our mystery, but they don’t accept our identification cards.”
“That’s a dead end then,” Roman remarked. “As much as we want the information, we are fallen knights and sentinels. How the fuck do we legally get human money to pay for it?”
“What if we asked James or one of the vampires in our family?” Samson asked. “They deal with humans regularly. James used to be one. Maybe he has a way we could pay for it.”
“Is it legal to ask him to break a human law by purchasing something we should not have access to?” Albrecht asked.
“Technically, our laws don’t prevent shit,” Samson said. “It’s the human treaty that makes it illegal. That’s on their side. What the fuck are they gonna do…arrest us?”
Brynnius turned slowly to his mate and blinked heavily. “You cannot break laws, Sammy.”
“Okay, okay, if anyone breaks a law, it’ll be me,” Grant said. “And I’m not sure if that’s the route we need to take. I think I need to talk to this Reginald asshole again.”
“Can you trust a word he tells you?” Roman asked.
“No, but the good news is I can recognize lies,” Grant responded. “So, I at least will know not to chase after untruths. But maybe I’ll get lucky, and he’ll say something close enough to reality that I can figure out what the fuck Calisto was thinking and why he’s now sitting in this living room wondering how he led such a fucked-up life.”
Roman caressed Grant’s cheek. “Baby, he’s not you. His life was messy, and we don’t know what drove him to make the decisions he did. Maybe he had good reasons for what we learned. We may never know. But you can’t chastise yourself for what you perceive as mistakes you made. He’s not you. He’s dead. What we need to know is how he died and why. That was the mission of this entire thing. Let’s not judge him. Treat it like a case file on your desk. You need to explore the why as much as the what, okay?”
Grant frowned. “It’s surprisingly difficult to be unbiased when you know it was your soul in that body.”
“That doesn’t matter. Your soul is a beautiful, living thing. But it doesn’t have to endure daily as the heart and mind do. Everything in our life changes us. You know that. Your spell taught you that, and it was drummed into your head during training. Be impartial. Calisto isn’t VK Valerius.”
Sucking in a deep breath, Grant forced himself to take a step far away from what he’d learned about Calisto. “I think maybe I need to take stock of this and focus on other things before we move forward.”
“That is wise,” Albrecht said. “You have a matebond ceremony to celebrate.”
“And a parade to plan,” Samson added. “We’ll put a pause on this. No problem. Call us in again when you’re ready to take the next steps.”
“Thanks, I feel bad for roping you in and immediately freaking out,” Grant responded apologetically.
“I would be concerned if you were not shocked by what we learned,” Albrecht replied. “It is unsettling.”
“Doesn’t sound like Calisto had an easy time of it,” Arvandus said. “And getting near this Reginald character probably didn’t help.”
