Bloody Claws (Camren) Book 3

Chapter 2

It was ten minutes until six when I decided to call it a day. I shrugged into the black pea coat and fished my keys out of the side pocket. The phone rang and I frowned.

"Whoever this is, it had better be good."

"Don't I always have something good to tell you?"

It was Detective Dylan O'brian. Dylan and I had worked together since before I was infected with lycanthropy. He'd recently been promoted to detective.

"Do you want me to be honest or to hold my tongue?"

"I didn't know a lesbian could hold her tongue."

"For you, I'll make an exception."

Dylan joked pretty much nonstop, about anything and everything. When he wasn't joking, I was worried, because it meant shit had hit the roof. Dylan had only gone serious on me a few times in the past several years that I'd known him. It hadn't been a pretty sight. I always thought he was light-hearted, but I'd found out that beyond the joking attitude he had more depth than he let on. He was also an excellent cop and had been since the day I'd met him, but like most cops, the preternatural wasn't his area of expertise.

"Are you busy?" he asked.

I frowned even harder. Dylan only asked me if I was busy when the police wanted to call me in on something.

"Damn it, Dylan. If you tell me there's a body, I'm going to be pissed."

"You always say that and actually, no. We don't have a body."

I sighed in relief.

"We can't find the bodies alive or..." he added.

"If you can't find them, why are you calling me?"

"Neighbor called us," he mumbled. "She hadn't heard from the couple next door since yesterday evening. Said it's unusual. I'll explain more when you get here. I sent two uniforms out to talk to her. She had a key to the house but didn't want to go in. Well, uniforms used it."

"So you have a missing person's case?" I asked. Contrary to popular belief, the police won't always wait seventy-two hours to declare a person officially missing. It really depended on circumstance and evidence. If the absence was not common or the police found any indication of violence at the scene, they'll jump in and secure it for the crime scene investigators and possibly forensics as quickly as possible.

My stomach turned. "There's violence at the scene, isn't there?" I asked.

"There appears to be."

"You suck."

"No, but I know a guy who does."

"Are you referring to your boyfriend?" I quipped.

He laughed loud enough that I had to draw the telephone away from my ear.

"Man," he said, "I love your comebacks. So you on your way?"

"Does this have anything to do with the preternatural?" I asked. "If it doesn't, Dylan, I don't have to do anything. You know the rules."

"Mila," he said, "I'm holding the crime scene photos."

"I need a better reason than that."

"You want a better reason?" He said, and sounded a little angry. Dylan never got angry with me. What the hell?

"Here's a better reason. There are symbols painted on the walls in blood. You want to know something? They look a lot like that star necklace you used to wear. The couple's bed is covered in what appears to be blood. Something happened there, Mila. I can feel it in my gut."

He was referring to my pentacle necklace. A lot of witches wear jewelry symbolic of their spirituality. Thanks to the lycanthropy and not connecting the dots...I had a permanent white scar on my chest where I'd tried to wear my necklace after being infected. Yeah, silver and lycanthropy is a big no-no.

Dylan said. "We've got the house blocked off. I want your opinion on this. Come down to the department, Mila."

I heard his hand cover the phone as he mumbled something to someone else in the room. I had supernatural hearing, but covering the phone muffled the words enough that I couldn't make them out.

A man's bass voice suddenly boomed in my ear. "Cabello, get your ass down here immediately. That's a fucking order."

The phone clicked silent. I knew the man's voice. How could I not? Captain Holbrook was my old boss and Dylan had just sicced him on me.

That rat bastard.

I turned the lights off and locked my office door on the way out. June was still at her desk.

"June," I said, and she looked up from the stack of paperwork she was sorting.

"What?"

I ignored the attitude. "Next time, would you please walk the client to my office? They have a tendency to get lost."

"How hard can it be to find your office when there's only two up there?" she asked. "Besides, your friends don't seem to have trouble finding it."

I ignored the chastising tone in her voice. June had once met Dinah, and the time she'd met her, Dinah had walked up to my office without June's okay. June obviously was holding a grudge about that.

"There's a difference between a friend and a client. If it's someone you don't recognize and you know they're a potential client because they have an appointment, walk them up."

"Fine." She returned to sorting through paperwork.

"Have a good evening. Lock up when you leave."

"Don't I always?"