“Thanks.” Spencer scooted to make room for us on the bench, angling to face us both. “Your brother’s bill says he was here on a Sunday morning, but that’s just when he was released. He actually came in the night before, with wounds consistent with an animal attack and a fever.” He opened the lid to let his coffee cool, and steam rose from the paper cup. “The attending thought the two were unrelated, because it was too soon after the attack for his wound to be infected, and it wasn’t yet inflamed or warmer than the surrounding skin. They stitched him up, prescribed some ibuprofen and an antibiotic just in case, and sent him home with an order to stay hydrated.”
“Did he say what had happened?” Robyn asked, her cheeks red from the cold.
“That’s the thing.” Spencer blew into his cup, and more steam rose from it. “Justus said he was at a party on the lake. He went into the woods to pee and something pounced on him. Knocked him flat on his face. He couldn’t see the animal, but it ripped up his shirt and his back, then it took off into the woods.”
“Like it got spooked?” I asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Spencer cleared his throat, and I knew what was coming. “Titus, is your brother infected?”
Robyn leaned back on the bench so she could see me. I raised one brow, silently asking for her opinion, and she nodded. She trusted Spencer.
“Yeah,” I said at last. “We think he is.”
“Shit, man.” Spence was quiet for a moment. “You didn’t infect Morris, did you? It was Justus?”
“You can’t tell anyone,” Robyn said, before I could formulate a reply. I’d known there was a possibility that he’d figure it out, and I’d had no choice but to take that chance.
“You can’t keep this secret forever,” Spencer insisted. “People will know as soon as they smell him.”
“Which is why we have to find him first.”
“How weird that he was infected at a party.” Robyn took a sip of her cappuccino, staring into the fountain. “Especially considering that Corey Morris and—”
I coughed, cutting her off before she could mention Ivy Lowe or Leland Blum.
“Considering that Morris was infected right after a party,” she finished instead.
“It gets weirder than that,” Spencer said. “We got another one late last night. Elliott Belcher. Twenty-year-old sophomore at Millsaps, attacked by an animal at a party.”
“In the woods?”
“No, at a museum, after hours. He said he went out for some fresh air—”
“Or for some pot-scented air…” Robyn interjected.
“—and found a great big cat in the alley.”
“He told you this?” I asked.
“Yeah. I was on duty when he came in. I don’t know about the pot, but he was high on something when he got there, and everyone assumed he was hallucinating. Yet he clearly had wounds consistent with being clawed by a wild animal.”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“I took him to…well, to your house early this morning, then I had to get back to work a shift for the guy who took over for me when I left. I’m going on about two hours sleep, so the coffee is much appreciated.”
“Has Elliott shifted yet?” Robyn didn’t look at me when she asked the question, but I could tell from the tension in her frame that she was thinking the same thing I was.
“I doubt it.” Spencer took a sip from his paper cup, then turned to me. “But if Justus is responsible, everyone will think it’s you,” he said, vocalizing what neither Robyn nor I wanted to say aloud. “How long are you going to let everyone think you did this?”
“At least until I find my brother and figure out what happened. Drew’s trying to keep me out of everything. I understand why, but I need to know what happens with this new stray. Will you keep me updated?”
“Of course.” Spencer glanced at his watch and stood. “Is there anything else I can do?”
“Don’t tell them you saw us or spoke to us, obviously,” Robyn said.
Spence’s brows dipped even lower as he turned to me. “Does the council know you’ve resigned? Because when they find out, they’re not going to want you running around with their prodigal daughter.”
Robyn scowled. “You know, everyone thinks ‘prodigal’ means runaway, but it actually means ‘wasteful’ or ‘lavish’.” She gestured from herself to me, then back. “Between the billionaire and the poor college co-ed, who do you think better fits that description?”
“Oh. Sorry.” Spencer grinned at her. “Did you major in Bible story vocabulary?”
I laughed. “She just likes knowing more than anyone else.”
“Screw you both,” Robyn said. But she was smiling. “The Real Story Behind The Bible Story, on The History Channel. The Di Carlos don’t get movie channels.”
“Oh. You have my sympathy,” Spencer said with a frown. “I have to get back, but if I hear anything else, I’ll let you know.” He raised his cup in Robyn’s direction. “Thanks again for the coffee. And the vocabulary lesson.”
EIGHTEEN
Robyn
Leland Blum didn’t answer his phone. I was leaving another message when Titus got into the car with four foil-wrapped hot dogs.
“Voicemail again?” He set two of the dogs in my lap, and the combined scents of beef, relish, and mustard made my mouth water.
“Third time.” I unwrapped the first dog and took a huge bite.
Titus laughed at my enthusiasm. “I promise I’ll take you out for something nicer than burritos and hot dogs soon.”
“Or maybe I’ll take you out. And FYI, this is exactly the kind of high-class cuisine I can afford.” I took another bite.
He laughed again, but then his smile faded as he stared through the windshield at the dorm building in front of us, his gaze moving from window to window, because we didn’t know which one belonged to Leland Blum. “I think we should go check on him. I’m afraid he may be stuck in cat form again.”
“Which would be hilarious, considering the college dorm setting, but probably less than reassuring for the local populace.” I rewrapped what was left of my hot dog and set it on the center console. “Room 204. Let’s go.”
At thirty, Titus was older than the average college student, and older still than the average dorm resident, but I was in my natural habitat. No one gave us a second glance.
The door to room 204 was devoid of all personality. There was nothing stuck to it or written on the message board next to it. “It’s definitely his.” I knocked three times. “Leland? It’s Robyn and Titus.”
When we got no answer, Titus pressed his ear to the door. “I don’t hear anything. This is a hollow door, and there’s no seal at the bottom. If he’s in there, I should be able to hear him moving around, at the very least.”
I shrugged. “So—”
Titus gave the doorknob a quick, firm twist, and the door swung open.
“Oh shit,” I whispered. Now we were breaking and entering.
He quickly pulled me into the room and closed the door behind us.
“We can’t—” The rest of my objection was swallowed by horror. “Oh no…” Leland Blum lay on the floor of his dorm room, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. A pool of blood had soaked into the rug beneath his head, and more dripped from the corner of his nightstand. Where he’d clearly split open his scalp. Very recently, as far as I could tell. The blood hadn’t yet begun to dry. “You think he fell?”
“I think that’s what we’re supposed to think.” Titus knelt next to the nightstand and sniffed the blood. “It’s all his.” He bent even farther to sniff Leland’s hands, careful not to touch the body. “Fresh hand sanitizer. Either he just came out of the bathroom, or someone tried to destroy a scent.”
“You think this was…” Justus? But I couldn’t say his name. I couldn’t theorize that Titus’s brother was now a killer. “…a shifter?”
“A human murderer would have no reason to try to destroy his scent,” Titus said. “They can’
t smell personal scents like we can. Try the doorknob.” He waved one hand at the bedroom door, but I didn’t understand what he wanted until I saw him bend to sniff the bathroom doorknob.
I squatted in front of the front door, but found only the metallic scent of the knob itself and… “More hand sanitizer.” My gaze fell on Leland again as I stood. We’d dropped him off two hours before, alive and relatively well. A sick feeling twisted in my gut. “So we’re pretty sure this is a murder?” If we’d kept him with us, he would still be alive.
This is our fault.
“Looks like it. Let’s go.” Titus took my hand as he reached for the door, but I pulled free.
“Wait, we can’t leave him here.”
“It’s noon, Robyn.” The sense of urgency in his voice, along with whatever Alpha pheromones were leaking from his veins, made me suddenly itch to get moving, even though I was morally opposed to that action. “We can’t carry him out without being seen, and we can’t call the police because eventually, they might be able to match my voice from the 911 call. And even if they can’t, an anonymous 911 call will lead the authorities to investigate this as more than the accident it’ll look like if the body is found organically.”
“You don’t think they’ll know this was a murder?”
“Not unless they connect it with Ivy’s disappearance. And we can’t afford to be the ones who call this in, in case they do make that connection. Let’s go.”
Reluctantly, I followed him into the hall, then out of the building without making eye contact with the two people we passed on the way. Fortunately, they were both staring at their phones and couldn’t possibly identify either of us, if asked to.
By the time we got to the car, the unasked question was like a hot coal sitting on the end of my tongue. “Was it Justus?”
“I don’t know.” Titus slid into the driver’s seat, closed his door, and started the engine. “Accidentally infecting people, I can understand. He likely didn’t even know that was possible. But murder? In human form?” He shook his head as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road. “He wouldn’t do that. It’s not Justus.”
“So maybe it was an accident.” I think I wanted to believe that as badly as Titus did. “Maybe he came to confront Leland about Ivy, and they fought. Maybe Leland hit his head, and Justus panicked.”
Titus’s gaze stayed glued to the road, but he didn’t seem to see the traffic. “That’s a lot of maybes.”
“And I stand by each one of them. But there are other possibilities. There have to be. If it wasn’t Justus, who else could it be? What are we missing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who else would want Leland dead? Not that Justus would want him dead,” I hurried to add. Which was when I realized I was making guesses about the motives and thoughts of a person I’d never even met. “My point is that we could be overlooking someone else’s motivation. If this wasn’t an accident, it was murder, and murder always has a motive, right?”
“I’m pretty sure that true psychotics murder people just for fun,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Okay, but if Leland Blum got infected by a shifter, lost his girlfriend, and was murdered by a true psychopath, all in the span of two days, he’s the unluckiest man on the face of the planet. Odds are that his murder and his infection are related. We just need to figure out how.”
Titus stared at the road in silence.
I put one hand on his shoulder, half afraid he would shrug it off. “That doesn’t mean Justus did it. That isn’t what I’m saying.”
“I know. But it’s what I’m thinking. Who else would have anything against Blum?”
“We may not know that until we know who killed him.”
“Or we may never know.” Titus pulled the SUV into the parking lot of his brother’s apartment building, then into Justus’s designated space. He shifted into park, then folded his arms on top of the steering wheel and laid his forehead against them. “I can handle a brother who lost control of himself after being infected. But I don’t know what to do with a brother who’s a murderer.”
“We don’t know this is Justus. We have plenty of trouble on our hands. Try not to borrow more okay?”
Titus sat up, and his gaze caught on my mouth. For a second, I thought he was going to kiss me. Then he frowned. “I’m taking you to Drew. Let’s run in and get your toothbrush.”
“What? No! You promised the council—”
“That I’d keep you safe. That’s what I’m doing. Leland Blum was murdered, Robyn. It’s not safe for you out here anymore, and I can’t let anything happen to you.”
“I’m not going—”
“Yes, you are. You should be surrounded by enforcers right now. Come on.” He got out of the car, and I had to follow him to argue with him. Yet on my way up the stairs, I realized there was no good argument to be made. I probably would be safer at his house, surrounded by enforcers. But the only thing I wanted to be surrounded by was Titus’s arms.
“Hey!” I snapped as I jogged up the stairs after him. “I’m not—”
“Shh!” He turned to me with a fierce look, then pointed at the door to Justus’s apartment. Which stood open about two inches.
“You locked it when we left,” I whispered. “I specifically remember that.”
“Yes, and I also closed it. Stay here.” Titus pushed the door open, flinching when the hinges squealed, then stepped inside. “Damn it,” he swore, but I couldn’t see what the problem was until he headed for his brother’s room, clearing my line of sight.
Justus’s living room had been destroyed.
The glass coffee table lay in shards and chunks all over the pristine white carpet. The couch had been overturned, leather cushions tossed aside. Every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen stood open, and the bi-fold doors concealing the washer and dryer had nearly been pulled from their hinges.
“The bedroom’s empty. And it’s trashed again,” Titus whispered on his way through the living area toward the guest room. “I don’t think this was Justus. Whoever was here didn’t have a key and seems to have been searching the apartment.”
I tiptoed behind him into the kitchen, my new boots crunching on glass, and grabbed a butcher knife from the block on the granite countertop.
“Robyn!” Titus snapped softly. Then he pointed to the front door, silently telling me to go outside.
I held the knife up and mimed gutting the vandalizing bastard, but Titus looked distinctly unimpressed. He opened the guest room door, his entire body tense and ready to spring into action. Then his arms fell limp at his sides and his shoulders relaxed.
I looked past him into the room. It was practically untouched. The only thing out of place was…
“Um, Titus?” I edged by him into the room and picked up a wallet lying on the unmade bed. “Is this yours?”
“If my wallet were here, you wouldn’t be wearing new clothes right now.”
I sank onto the bed and opened the leather trifold. The clear ID pocket was empty, but the credit cards inside belonged to— “Shit. Leland left it here.”
Titus sat on the mattress next to me and I gave him the wallet. He thumbed through the credit cards, then opened the billfold to find a thin stack of cash. “They only took his ID.”
“Which means they were looking for him, right?”
Titus shrugged. “All I can say for sure is that this wasn’t a robbery. But yeah, they could have been looking for Blum. Or they could have been looking for Justus, and found Blum’s ID instead.”
“So, whoever broke in here found Leland’s driver’s license, tracked him down, and killed him?” And that probably wasn’t Justus; he wouldn’t have to break into his own apartment.
“Looks like it,” Titus said. “But ID alone wouldn’t have led them to his dorm room.”
“Because addresses aren’t listed on college IDs and his hometown address would have been listed on his license.” I nodded, thinking of my own university identification. “S
o how did the killer find his address?”
Titus frowned. “I think the more pressing question is ‘Why would someone kill Leland Blum?’”
“Oh, good. A mystery. But I have to warn you, I’ve seen every episode of Scooby Doo. Even the ones where Scoob was a puppy.”
Titus smiled, in spite of the circumstances. “Wow me, Thelma.”
“Okay, but I call dibs on ripping the rubber mask from the murderer, when we find him.”
“Didn’t the Scooby gang specialize in finding missing property?”
“Yes, but in my humble opinion, they never lived up to their true potential,” I said, and Titus actually laughed. “You’re taking this a lot better than I expected.”
He shrugged. “I have to admit; I’m a little relieved to have potentially eliminated my brother as a murder suspect.”
“Yeah. Okay, so whoever broke in here was either looking for Leland Blum, or was looking for Justus and found Leland’s ID instead.” I stood, and Titus followed me into the living room, while I closed the front door. The latch still worked, even though the lock itself was busted. “So who, other than the two of us, would be looking for Justus? And might also want Leland Blum dead? What’s the connection between Leland and your brother?”
“The most obvious connection is Ivy,” Titus said. “So maybe someone who knows they’re connected to her disappearance?”
“Okay…” I got out my phone and pulled up Ivy Lowe’s social media accounts, one by one while he tilted the couch back onto its feet. “But no one even seems to know she’s missing yet. And here’s why.” I turned the phone around, and he read from the screen. “Thursday afternoon’s post. Three days ago.”
“‘Heading to the cabin for a long weekend! Unplugging…now!’” Titus frowned as he replaced the couch cushions. “So it would have to be someone who knows what happened at the cabin. Which is you and me, poor dead Leland, my missing brother, and…” His frown deepened. “That’s it. Corey Morris doesn’t know that either Ivy or Leland were infected, and he has no idea my brother even exists.”