“Not until the killer’s caught.”
Raven hadn’t expected that though she should’ve guessed. “This is a police matter—”
“That’s somehow caught up in one if not both of your cases.” Dominic crossed his arms, doing a pretty fair job of intimidation. Though he might be alpha, she didn’t care, and opened her mouth to tell him so when he beat her to the crux of the problem.
“You might be able to take care of yourself, but you now have others to watch over as well.” Raven winced at the way Jackson scowled at Dominic’s words.
“We take care of our own.”
Dominic slowly turned, his autumn scent wrapping a wall of protection around her. “Until she makes her choice, she’s not yours.”
A backlash of tension flooded the room as both of their animals flared at the challenge. Energy swirled around her body and every second that passed stole her breath. No one so much as twitched at the palpable threat. “And until she either makes a choice to cement the pack or cut you lose, I don’t go anywhere.”
This was getting out of hand. She refused to be a bone between the two men. Without saying a word, Raven rose and walked toward the door. Taggert followed her, but everyone else remained seated. “Let me know when you’re done with your pissing match, and we’ll talk business.”
Raven silently closed the door after them and hurried up the stairs. Maybe if she was quick, she could escape before the others realized they’d been duped.
Conscious of Taggert’s gaze on her, she quickly grabbed the first things in her closet and disappeared into the bathroom. In less than five minutes, she was ready to go. Instead of heading back downstairs, she opened the balcony window and greedily inhaled the fresh air. She swung her legs over the railing and jumped over the edge.
The impact jarred her bruised back. By the time she straightened, Taggert had landed silently next to her on the spongy lawn in a graceful way she envied. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into staying?”
Those dark eyes met hers. “Where’re we going?”
“To help the police find a killer.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve left messages all morning.” Scotts held up the yellow police tape for her to duck under. He appeared haggard, deep grooves of stress cutting lines in his face. His shoes and pants were splattered with mud. “Not you.” He dropped the tapeline in front of Taggert, moving his bulk to block him from crossing. “You stay here.”
Raven nodded, and Taggert dipped his head ever so slightly. She scanned the tree line, hardly recognizing the area of attack in daylight. “I got here as quick as I could. What’d you find?”
“Another body.”
She missed a step, then increased her pace to catch up. She’d been afraid of that. She wondered if it would be Cassie’s friend or the mysterious woman she’d encountered last night. She didn’t doubt that she could kill, but Raven didn’t think her hit had been strong enough to take down whatever or whoever she’d seen. The shadowy figure had been too fast, too strong. “Where?”
“The stream. We couldn’t wait for you any longer and pulled him from the water.” Scotts led the way past the other officers, and they stepped back, giving her a wide berth. Scotts, Ross and those who didn’t know better, treated her with respect. The others waited for her to fail, hating that an outsider had to be brought in on their case. She couldn’t blame them. She’d feel the same in their place.
Ross straightened when she drew near. “Here.” He held out a pair of gloves. She snapped them on and coughed at the plume of powder that gusted back in her face. The burn of chemicals filled her nose, and she resisted the urge to sneeze. She recognized Ross’s special blend of chemicals to stop the decomp smell and blanched. Nausea dropped her gut to between her ankles.
She gave a stilted nod, and he lifted the plastic sheet. The corpse was relatively whole. Relative being the choice word. Gnaw marks dotted his body, while sections of the legs had chunks of flesh ripped from them.
One fact riveted her.
The cadaver was pinkish.
Still fresh. They’d killed him about the same time she was running around in the forest.
She swallowed hard at the black, gaping hole in his torso. They’d gutted him. The line on the stomach was clean. Her brows furrowed. Too precise. No animal, either shifter or wild, could have done that with claws. “Knife?”
Ross nodded. “One clean slice. No hesitation marks.”
Raven paused, but she needed to know. “Dead or alive?”
“He was sliced open while alive.”