Page 56 of Relics of the Wolf

I hesitated, torn between wanting to protect Bolin and realizing his explanation might seem plausible to the police, at least as a reason why over-muscled thugs had shown up. Nothing I could say would explain the wolf attack, not without confessing to everything.

“We’ll look into that.” The male officer lowered his tablet, and the pair’s focus turned back to me. “Were you here with… Shit, we didn’t get his name. That guy. Were you with him the whole time? According to witnesses, there was shooting and some kind of huge dog fight. No, a dogattack. There are dead men all over the parking lot out there, their throats torn out.”

“Dogsweren’t responsible for that,” the woman said grimly.

“Wild animals, then.” The man held a hand out helplessly.

“I was with Duncan the whole time,” I said.

That, at least, wasn’t a lie. Never mind that we’d been responsible for the torn throats…

“He’s distracting,” I said, though I doubted they would buy sex as a believable reason that we hadn’t heard the commotion.

“I’ll bet.” The woman glanced in the direction he’d gone. “We still need to talk to him. If he’s staying in the parking lot, he might have seen some stuff.”

“He’s been with me for hours,” I said.

True again.

She eyed me. “Hours, huh?”

I nodded firmly.

“You want to get his number on the way out?” the male officer asked her.

She shot him a dirty look, though her cheeks also turned pink. “I just want answers to our questions. For the record.”

“Of course.”

The officers asked me if I’d spotted anyone unusual on the premises that day, if there’d been suspicious activity recently, or if any of the tenants had been acting oddly lately.

“You’ve worked here twenty years?” the man asked to finish off the questions.

“More than. Nothing like this has happened before.” I spread my arms in what I hoped was the picture of innocence.

If nothing else, it was another true statement. I’d managed more of them than I’d expected, mostly because the police hadn’t asked any questions that implicatedme. Even if it had been somewhat mortifying to have Duncan naked in my apartment when they’d arrived, it was probably saving my ass. Sexdidapparently seem like a reasonable alibi. Not that police who knew nothing about werewolves and the paranormal world would have a reason to think a forty-five-year-old woman would have something to do with throats being ripped out…

“All right. We’re going to speak with some more of the tenants and see if anyone saw more thanbig dogs attackingand men driving in and shooting at them.” The female officer shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe any of this.

“Okay,” I said.

“You come with us.” The man pointed at Bolin. “I want to hear more about your family and why someone might be after you.”

Bolin grimaced—he probably didn’t care to lie either—but he didn’t object. He did, however, give me a long look over his shoulder as he trailed them back out to the parking lot.

I rubbed my face. Later, I was going to have to sit down with him for a private chat. After all that had happened, I owed him an explanation. And, after all that had happened, he might believe it.

Though the police hadn’t requested it, I washed myself, changed into a new set of clothes, and headed to the parking lot. Ambulances had arrived, as well as more police cars, and their flashing lights threw the entire front of the complex into reds and yellows. Paramedics were putting the bodies onto gurneys and wheeling them to the ambulances, though I knew without a doubt that they would go to the morgue, not the emergency room.

Would there be autopsies? Would someone figure out that strange alchemical substances had coursed through their veins? I had no idea.

I spotted Duncan darting out of the shadows behind a tree and toward the black Tesla that had crashed into a cedar tree. He’d found a moment to put on clothes, including a black leather jacket, the pockets bulging with who knew what. There was just enough light to make out a credit card or maybe a hotel key card in his hand.

Confused, I walked across the lawn toward him. He looked like he was trying to avoid notice, so I also stuck to the shadows. A police car idled not far from that Tesla, but the driver and passenger had gotten out and joined their colleagues. The pair of officers who’d questioned me were on the far side of the parking lot; they’d been mobbed by tenants who were all trying to speak at once and share what they’d seen.

Trusting they were suitably distracted, I trotted over to join Duncan. He’d reached the Tesla, its matte-black paint swallowing the flashing lights instead of reflecting them, and was trying to peer through the driver-side window. Despite the tint, a glow was visible inside, the light from the big rectangular display on the dash.

“The doors on those lock automatically, I think,” I said when I reached him. The windows that had earlier been down enough to allow rifles to fire through them had rolled up of their own accord.

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