Page 162 of Piece You Saved

After Harley and I made love and he went to the hospital, I napped for a little longer before my grumbling stomach chased me out of bed, into the shower, and down to the kitchen.

“Is something wrong?” I ask Kade, putting my fork down beside my empty plate.

I inhaled the pasta and meat sauce Aden made for lunch and even went back for seconds, under Kade’s nodding approval.

“Wrong?” Kade asks, glancing at the doorway again. “What could be—”

Someone knocks on the front door.

Kade is up like a shot. “I’ll get it.”

Frowning, I watch him before turning to Aden, hoping he’ll be able to explain Kade’s strange behavior. “Aden, why is he so antsy?”

Aden smiles and shakes his head before he picks up our empty plates and carries them to the sink. “I don’t want to ruin his surprise.”

“What surprise?” I ask.

“The one that’s on its way,” Detective Morgan says, stepping into the kitchen. “Hello, Miss Leo. Good to see you’re looking well.”

I’m even more confused than ever. “Hi. Is everything okay?”

I search his expression for the reason he’s here. Since he hasn’t brought any government types looking to put Kade, Dariel, and Aden away for their shifting ability, I’m going to assume the news can’t be bad.

“Everything is okay, Miss Leo,” Detective Morgan says, settling into an empty seat at the dining table.

Kade walks in, leaning against the counter closest to the kitchen doorway as if he’s waiting for something or someone to appear. But who? And why?

“I had an interesting day at the station.” Detective Morgan sits back in his seat, his expression blank. “A man was screaming loudly about the existence of werewolves. He was also of the belief that these men who could turn to wolves were threatening to rip him apart.”

Silence.

The cop picks up the glass of water Aden places in front of him and takes a small sip. We all watch him. Kade, like a predator waiting to decide if he needs to kill him, Aden curiously, and Dariel blank faced.

“Insane talk. I mean, werewolves?” Detective Morgan shakes his head. “Clearly, he was unwell.”

“Clearly,” I echo faintly.

Kade relaxes his shoulders. Aden’s expression is one of relief, and Dariel… Well, he’s as unreadable as he always is.

“But that wasn’t the only interesting thing he was spouting,” Detective Morgan continues.

All the tension returns to Kade’s shoulders. He doesn’t look like he wants to kill the detective anymore, but he’s wary.

“And that thing was?” Dariel prompts.

Detective Morgan’s brow furrows in a frown—a deep one. “We discovered Garrett Willard’s car outside. Wanting to know what his motive was, and if there was any medication he should have been taking and hadn’t been, we found a diary. The contents of which were disturbing. They led us to believe he’d become strangely obsessed with his sister. A sister who, it didn’t take us long to discover, had died under mysterious circumstances.”

The name Garrett Willard means nothing to me. From the sudden tension filling the room, it means something to the Hounds. Dariel straightens, Kade’s jaw hardens, and sadness softens Aden’s amber eyes.

“He killed Monica?” Dariel asks softly. “He wrote in his diary that he killed her?”

Monica?Garrett was Monica’s brother?

Suddenly, I recall the too-thin man in the garden who’d creeped me out. He’d warned me the Hounds would kill me the way they’d killed his sister.

Detective Morgan nods. “He claims wolves did it. The disturbing nature of the messages he wrote about Monica led us to believe he was responsible. Whether it was intentional or accidental remains to be seen. We might never know as he’s in a facility undergoing assessment.”

For several seconds, no one speaks.

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