Page 34 of Raven's Curse
“First of all, you all have alibis. Chase was with me, and I know the rest of you were scarfing down pie at that new all-night café. Which is the real problem, because I doubt you’d planned on bringing us any. And second, I don’t need S.W.A.T. I just need Jordan.”
Bodie coughed. “Way to boost my ego there, Greer.”
Greer smiled. “Please, the woman could take us all down without breaking a sweat. Which reminds me, before you lose your shit, Kash, she’s out with Eli on patrol. Should be back shortly.”
Kash chuckled. “How angry was she when you insisted Eli babysit her?”
Greer scoffed. “She’s babysitting him. Eli doesn’t know this county well enough to go traipsing off on his own, yet, and I’d rather not lose anyone else. Which reminds me, I heard your last rescue had a better result.”
Foster headed for the coffee machine, pouring a cup before leaning against the wall. “We managed not to add to your caseload, so that’s a positive.”
“I appreciate that, and we can all use a win right now.”
Zain ambled over to the whiteboard. “Can’t help but notice there’s not as much empty space.”
Greer pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’d be more impressive if any of it gave me the answers. As it is, I’ve gone through financial and medical records, cell logs — had Portland PD track down a couple possible leads — but there’s nothing in either of their backgrounds that points to a connection outside of Raven’s Lodge, and nothing in either of their files worth killing over.”
Foster nodded. “What about Rhett’s military record?”
Greer snorted. “The three words per page that weren’t blacked out have been extremely insightful.”
“You did mention it was going to be redacted.”
“There’s redacted, and then there’s the DoD laughing in my face.”
Chase inched forward, meeting her gaze when she expected he’d skip over it — focus on the patch of air off her shoulder like he’d been doing the past couple days. “Was Pike able to confirm if Stacey had been dosed, too?”
She pursed her lips. She could lie. Hide behind her badge in order to save his sanity a bit, but it wouldn’t do either of them any good. Especially if there were more victims. “He just called.”
“Potassium chloride?”
She glanced at Foster, then back to Chase. “Not this time. Apparently, it was a massive insulin overdose.”
Chase’s expression fell, his shoulders rounding slightly as if she’d punched him in the stomach. “She was diabetic? She didn’t have a medical alert bracelet.”
“That’s because she wasn’t. Which suggests our perp injected her for the same purpose as he did Rhett. To make you think you had a chance at saving her.”
“Except where if I’d known, I could have countered it with glucose?—”
“But that’s the point. You couldn’t have known, which also explains why he strangled her. It masked any symptoms you might have picked up on as part of the trauma. And Pike estimates she was too far gone by the time we arrived.”
She took a step forward — nearly reached for his hand — before catching herself. Drawing back when he looked as if he wanted to crawl out of his own skin. She took a breath, then stared each of the men in the eyes. “We need to have a candid talk.”
She stood her ground when the men all gave each other a look. One of those internal conversations she swore they all had with nothing more than an arched brow or a frown. “I’m concerned about the possible implications of some of the forensics.”
She grabbed a couple photos off the board and held them up. “I assume you knew Rhett still wore his dog tags.”
Chase nodded. “No way we were removing them until…” He swallowed, clenching his jaw before pushing out a rough breath. “Why?”
She handed him the first photo. “Someone inscribed a word on the back.”
Chase stared at the photo, sharing it with his buddies. “Abandoned. What the hell does that mean?”
“I was hoping you might know.”
Kash shook his head. “That word wasn’t on there the last time we saw him.”
“You’re sure?”
