Page 48 of Tested
“Sure. They only called me a couple hours ago to share the unfortunate news.” Again her gaze drifts toward me. “You’re so young. Surely you’ve got better things to do than sniff around dead people.”
Help me, Connor. I send up a mental SOS. I knew coming here was a shit idea. “I try and use my powers for good,” I say a shade pompously, hoping she’ll get the joke.
“Hmm…have you seen many dead bodies?”
Okay, that’s enough. I give her my most polished, yes-I’m-an-alpha-wolf smile and nod in my associate’s direction. “I think Connor has more important questions for you.”
“That’s right—”
“But I want to know.” She speaks over him, her attention locked on me.
“Fine.” I straighten, pretty sure there’s no comfortable angle to be had in this thing that passes for a chair. “I’m fairly new to the game, but as you probably know from the news, your ex is the third in a recent string of murders. I’ve seen all of them.”
“I don’t watch the news,” she says mildly. “What are their names?”
I glance at Connor and he shrugs. “I mean, you can google them if you want, but okay. They were Adaline Nosaka and Monica Johnson.”
For the first time, the succubus looks flustered. “Adaline and Monica were two of Kitten’s best friends from high school.”
I blink and Connor sits up straighter.
“But they graduated from different schools.” I can’t remember the name of Monica’s private school, but it wasn’t the same as Adaline’s.
Connor pulls out a note pad and starts jotting things down.
“I didn’t know them then,” the succubus says as if she couldn’t believe we’d think she wasthatold. “I’m almost certain they were all freshmen at Beverly Hills High, however.”
I can barely keep my ass on this funky old chair. If all three of our victims were friends, there has to be something in their shared past that would account for the killings.
Connor manages to get a couple questions in – how long she’d known Kitten and how long they’d been married. Whether she could think of anyone who might want to kill her ex. That sort of thing. I listen with half an ear, because really I’m planning the internet search that’s going to tie the three homicides together.
Exhausting his supply of questions, Connor stands, so I do, too. “Thank you for your help. If you think of anything else, please let me know.”
He hands her a business card, which she sets on an end table. She rises from her pillowy chair and offers her hand for Connor to shake. She just smiles at me. “You need to take this piece of Grade A beefcake home and roll him good, hon,” she says, leaving me with my jaw hanging open.
I manage to garble something in the neighborhood of thanks and follow Connor to the street. “Succubus, man,” I mumble, and he knocks into me with his elbow.
“Next time I’m getting on your nerves, you just remember I’m Grade A.”
I laugh, probably too loudly for this neighborhood. I can’t help myself, though. “You’d think the LAPD could find such an obvious link between Monica and Adaline.”
Connor looks up from his phone. “You think they’re even trying? The victims are supes. That’s why Smith has such free reign, and you and I are allowed on the crime scenes in the first place. If we don’t find the killer, no one will.”
“Well, fuck.” That takes me down a peg. Still… “But we’ve found the connection. It’ll just be a matter of figuring out who they pissed off in high school. We can do this.” I’m so excited it’s hard to stand still. I’m not at all sure I want to be an investigator when I grow up, but if I decide to try, I want to be a good one.
Connor gives my arm an affectionate squeeze. “Let’s get out of here.” Before I can hit the Uber app, a big, black SUV pulls up.
The driver rolls down the window and shakes his finger at Connor with a grin that’s on the wild side of human. “Well, look what the wolf dragged in,” he says.
“Kerr,” Connor says, his voice strangled. There’s another man in the SUV, an older man. “Colonel Poole.”
The Colonel rolls down his window. “Get in, Mack. We need to talk.”
The back door pops open and Connor gestures at it as if he wants me to get in. I gesture right back because no way am I getting trapped in the middle of the seat. He gets in, leaving space for me by the window.
“What the hell is going on?” I hiss, climbing into the SUV only because I don’t want to wear out my shoes walking all the way home.
“Hey, look at that little hot tamale,” the driver says, giving me the creepiest once-over I’ve ever received.
