Across the lobby, the newly repaired lounge area for the Sapphire on lookout duty gleamed. A head popped up into the opening in the wall.
"Touch anything and you'll regret it," Gabriel said as he covered the distance between them in a handful of swift steps.
"Hey man, I don't want any-"
Gabriel's fist closed around his shirt and he bodily hauled the shifter over the counter and tossed him on the floor. "Shut up," he said stonily.
The shifter's jaw snapped closed, his protest dying abruptly.
"You're coming with us," he said, pointing to the elevator that Caia had already summoned.
The Sapphire guard nodded meekly and preceded Gabriel into the elevator, followed by Caia, who punched the fifth floor button.
"Don't," he growled as the Sapphire opened his mouth once more. "Trust me, it'll be easier if you just don't say anything."
Teeth clicked as his jaw closed quickly.
The door opened, showing them an empty hallway. Caia exited first, followed by Gabriel, who then turned and pushed the Sapphire back inside. "Go back to your post. Stay there."
The shifter nodded jerkily and the doors closed around him.
"Which way?" he asked Caia as they stood in the hallway.
"This way," she pointed. "I can hear yelling."
He heard it too now, as he listened to try and make out the words. They were too muffled through the walls, however, but it was clear that two people were likely rather mad, possibly at each other.
Without waiting for an explanation, Gabriel turned the handle for the door nearest the yelling. It was locked.
"This is gonna come out of my paycheck," he muttered, before throwing his body into the door.
The flimsy latch gave way easily under his assault, and the door burst open.
"Hello gentleman," he said with a smile, strolling into the room.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Ben snarled from where he was standing opposite Evan. The two of them had obviously been in a heated argument. Their faces were already flushed as they turned toward him.
"Good to see you too," Gabriel replied, wandering around the apartment, inspecting various things.
"You're on my territory," Ben growled.
Gabriel turned and in the blink of an eye his face was an inch from the angry Alpha's. "No fucking shit? Am I on your property? Because, and now correct me if I'm wrong, but all of this belongs to the LMC. Am I wrong in that? I don't think I am, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong."
Ben's lip curled back in a snarl, but he didn't say anything.
"That's what I thought. So why don't you tell me what you two were just arguing about? We had a noise complaint from next door, so we're here to check it out."
"A noise complaint?" Evan said with a nasty laugh.
"Yes. We might have ignored it," Gabriel said, leveling his stare at Evan. "But just before that we received complaints about a smell. We figured perhaps we should come by and help take out the trash."
Evan bristled at the polite insult. Unfortunately Evan was too smart to engage in a fight, Gabriel thought. Shame. The Stone Bear was really hoping to be able to smash some heads together, but it looked like that wasn't going to happen, much to his dismay.
"Did you have a reason for being here Gabriel?" Ben asked, his voice more exasperated than angry as the shock of being interrupted faded.
"Just checking in on things," he said with a smile, heading for the door. "Enjoy your day."
"Go to hell," Ben told him as the door closed.
For fun, Gabriel gave it a sharp kick, which broke the door off its hinges and sent it flying into the room. The two shifters still inside yelped and dodged the flying object.
Gabriel smiled and began to whistle a tune as he sauntered back to the elevator behind Caia. He knew she was going to tear him a new one as soon as the doors closed, but that didn't make what he had just done any less satisfying.
As it turned out, Caia waited until they were outside.
"Well that was just amazing," she muttered as they pushed open the doors to outside.
"Absolutely," he told her, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about everything, and something was nagging at him. His brain was trying to tell him something about what was going on, but he couldn't quite focus on it.
He heard Caia snort in frustration as they got in the truck, but it didn't really register.
"What do all of these have in common?" he said, interrupting her as he pulled the truck out onto the street and headed back for the mansion. The idea was starting to form in his head, but he wanted a second opinion.
"All of what have in common?" she asked dangerously.
"The initial Onyx-Amethyst fight. The Opal crew, the general existence of the Sapphires."
Caia stared at him, her eyebrows raising in confusion as he glanced over at her.
"Arrogance. Extremely quick to anger. Violence beyond the norm. A lack of sense of restraint. Disregard for their own well-being."
"Where are you going with this?" she asked.
"If I told you someone who was generally normal but with a bit of a temper suddenly started exhibiting all of these traits, what would you say that sounds like?
Caia's jaw dropped.
"I would say they were on something, a drug of some sort."
"Exactly," he said, pounding the steering wheel in exultation. "A fucking drug. That's what we're looking for Caia! Someone is making, or buying some new drug that we didn't know was out there. One that works on shifters, and turns them into maniacs."
Caia looked at him thoughtfully as she thought it all over. "That doesn't explain the Sapphires though," she said slowly.
"Lower doses, or a tolerance," he said after thinking it over. "It would fit with our thoughts that they were at the center of this too. That would mean they've been exposed to it longest, so they can either handle the effects, or they take it in weaker doses."
"And Evan?" she prodded. "He hasn't done anything of note as far as we know since that fight. How does he figure in to it?"
"I don't know," Gabriel admitted. "Perhaps he took it once to try that night his crew went crazy, and now he sells it for them? That would explain why he's seen with them. Hell, maybe today he was yelling at Ben for a larger cut? I'm not sure."
"That doesn't quite sound right, but it would make sense," Caia said, then sat upright.
"What is it?"
"I wonder if we did autopsies of the Opal crew," she said. "If we did, there should be something left in their blood, some sign of it."
He watched as she pulled out her phone and called in. The medical section at the mansion wasn't overly large, but it did have several full-time staff, just in case. Shifters healed remarkably well on their own, but sometimes the bones were too destroyed or out of place for them to be set without surgery. Because they could heal so fast, the doctors had to be available 24/7 to perform surgery before any deformities set in.
She hung up the phone several minutes later, obviously frustrated. He hadn't tried to listen too hard to what she was saying. Hearing half of a conversation would have likely left him almost as frustrated as she looked.
"I take it they didn't?" he asked after a minute.
"No, and they need the Kedyns' permission to exhume the corpses."
"Probably not worth it at this point," he commented. "It likely was even too late by the end of the day. But over a week and a half later? Nothing is going to be left."
"I know," she said angrily. "I was just hoping that perhaps there had been some foresight when the office was informed. I think I'm going to ask the Kedyns to implement a change there."
He smiled. Gabriel liked her intensity and her drive. It made him feel more alive simply by being around her. Part of him wished yet again that they could simply make things public, and begin to explore their relationship in more depth. The sex was great, he had no complaints there, but there was so much more to her than that, and he was missing out. He craved just being around her, inhaling her scent and being with her. But at the moment, he couldn't risk that. Neither could she, and it hurt him more than he was willing to admit.
"Okay, I'm going to go tell the Kedyns what we've learned and suspect, and see if they have any more insight," she said as the mansion came into view.
"Sounds like a plan," he said, grasping the wheel with one hand so he could hold hers with the other, a last bit of contact between the two of them before they had to resume their professional personas and forego any contact for the rest of the day. She smiled up at him and gripped his twice, giving it a double squeeze, which he returned.
"I'm going to make some calls to the other Alphas. I want to know if any of them have heard any rumors of a new drug that maybe they thought was just silliness and not worth reporting. I'm sure one of them has heard of something or come across something. Hopefully they'll share and we can come up with a new lead."