Page 55 of Relics of the Wolf

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Duncan openedthe door before I reached it, revealing Bolin standing outside with two police officers, a man and a woman. Their guns weren’t drawn, but my stomach knotted as concern about everything coming out tangled within me.

What if they demanded to see tonight’s footage from the security cameras? Before I had a chance to delete it? What if my story was so pathetic that they saw right through it?

I hated the situation and that it would force me to lie. I tried to be an honorable person, damn it.

Instead of waiting for them to start the questions, Duncan ambled out the door. “I need to check on my van. I heard there was a ruckus in the parking lot.”

The male officer reached for him, took note of his nudity, and reconsidered. The female eyed his nudity, including his lower regions, and then looked frankly at me.

“I guess we know what the property manager was up to at the time,” she told her partner.

I grimaced. Someone must have pointed out that I lived here and wondered why I hadn’t made an appearance yet.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can change and come out if that’s what you need.”

Duncan continued past them.

“Wait, sir.” The female officer stepped after him, then gripped his arm when he didn’t stop. “The tenants said you’ve been hanging out in your van in the parking lot. We need to question you.”

“Hanging out?” Duncan turned to face her.

To my senses, he exuded power, and I thought of the story he’d just told me. I assumed a mundane human couldn’t feel his magic, but the officer let go, uncertainty in her eyes. She took a step back and glanced at her partner.

“I’ve been courting my lady.” Duncan tilted his head toward me.

“My lady,” the woman mouthed, much as I had when he’d first used the term.

“He’s from Europe,” I said, as if that might be a suitable explanation for his eccentricities.

No, he was from a scientist’s laboratory, if that tale was true.

Bolin was standing back, pointedly not looking at Duncan as he waited. When our gazes met, he dug something out of his pocket to hand to me. My phone from the office. He’d probably tried to call me before leading the police to my apartment. My nudity-filled apartment.

“I need to check on a couple of things,” Duncan told the police while giving me a significant look that I couldn’t interpret. What did he want to check on? A minute earlier, he hadn’t seemed to have anything pressing on his mind—anything exceptme. “If you have questions for me later, I won’t leave the premises.”

The female officer looked toward her partner again.

“I’mnot grabbing him,” the man said.

“We’ll talk to him later.” The furrow to the female officer’s brow suggested she wasn’t sure why she hadn’t handcuffed Duncan and demanded answers immediately. Maybe shehadsensed his power, at least on a subliminal level, and her subconscious mind had decided it would be better not to start something with him.

Unfortunately, they hadn’t decided the same about me. Wearing no-nonsense expressions, they turned to face me. The male officer lifted a tablet open to a report.

“I didn’t see what happened out there,” Bolin told me, “but I informed them that one of the dead is the man who mugged me a few days ago and that there’s a police report on the incident on file.” The way he held my gaze made it seem like he was sending a silent message along with those words. Saying hehadseen some of what happened? But that he was trying not to get me in trouble?

“And you think you’re the reason they came back?” the female officer asked Bolin.

“I suppose it’s possible.”

I shook my head, not wanting Bolin to lie, even if it was to help me.

“Do you have any idea why they’d want you?” she asked, not looking at me.

“No. I mean, unless they wanted to kidnap me and ransom me or something. My parents own this place and numerous other large multifamily properties. They’ve done well for themselves.”

“Huh.” The male officer tapped notes into his tablet.

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