by Lyra Evans
“It makes no sense,” he said again, and Oliver glanced back and forth from the gun to Will Sumpter, still suspended above the couch by Oliver’s magic. The collar at his neck grew hotter as he cast more and more spells, all sustaining at once. Oliver suddenly felt tired.
As a last ditch idea, he retested Will Sumpter’s hands, the charm he cast meant to scour the hands of a suspected shooter to identify gunpowder residue and match it to another sample. But that test too came back positive. Sumpter definitely fired this gun to kill himself. The question was—did he fire the gun to kill Malcolm Ryan and Jamie Grace?
Turning back to Connor, Oliver shook his head once. “I’m sorry, Connor,” he said, but Connor refused to hear it. He brushed away Oliver’s words with a hand, his back to Will Sumpter.
“No,” Connor said. “Why would he do this? Why would he kill himself, let alone anyone else?”
Oliver shrank the gun’s bubble and slipped it into his pocket. He released Will’s body slowly, allowing it to sink back to its original position on the couch without displacing anything. His collar finally hummed to silence. His fingers reached up, without him meaning it, to touch at the obsidian stones beneath the fabric of his sweater. He didn’t know what to answer Connor, what to say. Motive, here, was clouded.
“Was there a note anywhere?” Sky asked, glancing around. They quickly searched the room but found nothing. No note, no message of any kind.
“Donna would have found it if there was one,” Connor said, his certainty tethering him to ground, like a boat tied to a pier in a storm. “Which just makes it less likely he killed himself. No Werewolf would—”
“You’re going to have to readjust your view of your people,” Sky said, arms crossed. “Werewolves do kill themselves. And they kill other people. It happens. Maybe it’s rarer here than elsewhere, and maybe the circumstances are different, but Werewolves are hardly superior to the other races in that right.” His tone was even, careful, but Sky’s green eyes cut a line on the air toward Connor.
Connor stopped, his jaw tight, and glared at Sky. “I never said we were superior,” he said, every word cold, slow, with precise calm.
“The reality is,” Oliver said, cutting between the two and drawing their attention back to the case, “Will Sumpter did kill himself. We might never know why. Suicide is like that. But what we need to discover is whether or not he killed—”
“He didn’t,” Connor said, and there was that certainty again. Oliver’s eyes searched Connor’s face.
“Connor, we just don’t—”
“He didn’t commit suicide,” Connor amended, and Oliver stared at him. He’d run into people like this before, unwilling to consider the reality that someone they knew or cared about might take their own life. It was a common reaction, really, in the face of suicide. And Oliver understood it well. Very well.
“Connor,” he said quietly, reaching out to grasp Connor’s hand. But Connor pulled away, his expression sharp.
“He may have killed himself,” Connor said, blue eyes flashing like lightning across a winter sky, “but he did not commit suicide.”
There was silence, stretching long into the corners of the room. Then—“What exactly is the difference, to you?” Sky asked, staring incredulously at Connor. Sky was always brilliant at deducing solutions to murder, but he was much less skilled at empathy in cases like these. Oliver glared at him.
“He was coerced into it,” Connor said. “Forced to do it. Something. He would not have taken his own life without prompting.”
Sky threw his arms in the air, shaking his head in bewilderment at Connor. “Are we going to sit here all day trying to convince you of the truth? What evidence is there Sumpter was coerced in any way? He was here alone.”
Connor narrowed his eyes at Sky. “He wouldn’t have killed himself because he had everything to live for,” Connor said. “He was about to be mated to an Alpha, about to become a pack leader in his own right. He had love, a future.” Connor shook his head, his eyes finding their way to Will Sumpter’s body again. “He was happy. I knew him. He was happy.”
In another circumstance, they were the words every family member spoke to themselves, to convince themselves that suicide was not an option. Oliver had heard them before, had spoken them. It was easy to think that there was everything to live for, if you weren’t the one living it. But depression, pain, anguish—these things were harder to spot than most people realized. They were deep-seeded, rooted in the soul, and so difficult to kill. So difficult, in fact, sometimes people thought the only way was to kill themselves.
But this time—this time—something struck Oliver about what Connor said. Will Sumpter was about to be mated. Which meant he head reason of his own to wear a collar.
Oliver knelt next to the couch to study the collar more closely. The leather was fine, soft, and black, like the other collars, but the stitching around the edges was different and lacking the hematite stones. Woven with silver and gold thread, the stitching was intricate and elaborate. It spiraled in an out, knotting without beginning or end in minute patterns. This was different to the previous collars. This was more personal.
“This isn’t like the other ones,” Oliver said, and Sky stilled behind him. “The collar is different.” He turned to look at Connor. “We need to go talk to the Alpha he was going to be mated to.”
Connor took no convincing and led the way out of the basement. Sky, however, lingered a moment behind, studying the body still. Oliver hesitated at the foot of the stairs.
“What?” Oliver asked, his tone softer than it had been all day. Sky noticed. Giving Oliver a half-surprised, half-grateful look, he smiled slightly. Oliver squirmed in himself, a conflicting set of feelings at war in his chest.
“It’s just—if Sumpter is the killer, then the Alpha we’re going to see isn’t just a grieving family member,” he said. His voice was so quiet it barely carried to where Oliver was standing, and Oliver glanced up the stairs to where Connor had disappeared. When he looked back, Sky was watching him carefully. His dark red hair framing his face, his vibrant green eyes shaded in the low light of the basement, he looked beautiful. And Oliver pulled himself back. “We’re going to have to interrogate this Alpha carefully. They could be involved.”
Heart pounding, Oliver turned away from Sky and began up the stairs. “I know.”
They drove in silence again, resuming their previous seats. Connor’s hands on the steering wheel were tight, his knuckles white, but the expression on his face was one of resolution. The profile view Oliver got from the backseat was a sharp line against the window, the planes of his gorgeous face arranged in a mask of determination.
Sky meanwhile seemed more relaxed than he had been before, his head tilted slightly toward the window, one elbow propped against the door. Oliver’s eyes followed the line of his arm, travelling the trail up his hand and along his long fingers, perched against his soft lips. The palpitations in his heart pressed against his throat, beating a rhythm Oliver didn’t understand. He looked between Connor and Sky and found himself more confused than ever.
Sooner than he expected, they arrived at their destination. The house wasn’t as large as Connor’s manor, but it was sizeable enough to denote the status of the owner. A stately home with pillared entry and colourful shuttered windows, it looked like the kind of old-money summerhouse the courtiers of Nimueh’s Court bought on a whim. The door was painted a bright green, matching the open shutters of the windows, and a latticework rimmed the roof. It had the vague look of a dollhouse, really, but with the weight and warmth only something lived-in can acquire.
They stepped out on the driveway and up the short steps to the front door. A knocker in the shape of a stag head greeted them, and Connor reached up to use it. They waited in an uncomfortable silence—Connor tall, shoulders straight, with the posture he had when performing as Alpha; Sky casual, with the slink of his hips that marked his cool confidence; Oliver with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, doing h
is best not to look at either of the other two men.
When the door opened, a somewhat familiar woman greeted them. She was tall and thin, her long hair plaited and adorned with silver chains and leather strips, dotted with tiny gilded feathers and canine teeth. She wore a dress fitted perfectly to her, edged in fur. Her eyes were the dark grey of storm clouds, ringed with deep circles of a fading purple. The last time Oliver had seen her, it was at Hunt during his investigation for the Carmichael Case. The circles under her eyes had not been there then.
“Kyrie,” Connor said to her, nodding his head. Kyrie nodded back, her fine eyebrows arched in confusion. “I wish we were here under better circumstances.”
Her eyes flashed surprise, concern, and she glanced at Oliver and Sky. “Connor, what is it? What’s happened?”
“May we come in?” he answered, and Kyrie nodded.
“Of course, please,” she said, stepping aside to allow them past her. As they stepped in, Oliver found himself overwhelmed with the antiseptic scent of a hospital. It pervaded the whole house from the moment he breached the door. A quick look around as he removed his boots identified several machines he’d only ever seen in a doctor’s office. The main sitting room was furnished with modern pieces, all in shades of white and pale teal, but the adjacent room, the door partially ajar, held what looked like a hospital bed complete with heart monitor.
Kyrie gestured to the couch as she seated herself on a white armchair by the hearth. Oliver sat himself on the edge of the sofa cushion, between Connor and Sky, hyperaware of their heat on either side of him. He glanced again at the open door and the hospital bed.
“I’m afraid we have some difficult news,” Connor said. He paused, swallowing hard, then inclined his head in a gesture of condolence. “It’s Will.” Kyrie’s expression shifted to open alarm, her whole body suddenly braced. “He’s—dead.”
The reaction was almost immediate. There was a beat, as she processed the news, and then a half-blink, and she crumpled. Her hand swinging out to catch herself on the armrest, she fell forward, collapsing on herself, her eyes staring blankly outward.
“How?” she asked, her voice hollow.
Connor glanced at Oliver. “Well, that’s part of why we’re here, Kyrie,” he said. Adjusting himself slightly, Connor continued. “It looks as though—he took his own life.”
Kyrie winced as though punched in the gut, her eyes finding Connor’s face and flaying him with a look. “Impossible.” She pressed a hand to her stomach, eyes already red though she wasn’t crying. “Impossible.”
Oliver swallowed against the tightness in his throat. “He was found in Connor’s basement,” Oliver began, “with a shot to the heart.” Kyrie flinched at the details, but Oliver pressed on. “The gun was caught beneath him. He tested positive for gunpowder residue. I’m sorry.”
Silent tears began to spill down her cheeks, darkening the circles beneath her eyes. But Kyrie just shook her head. “He can’t have. He can’t.” She met Oliver’s eyes, searching. “Why would he?”
Having no answer to the question, Oliver decided it was kinder to deliver all the information quickly, honestly. “There’s something else.” He swallowed again, his throat dry. The antiseptic smell irritated his nose. “The gun he used was also a match to—the murders of Malcolm Ryan and Jamie Grace.”
At that, Kyrie’s eyes widened, her body still, chilled. “You can’t think—”
“Was Will behaving strangely at all lately?” Sky asked. “Was he being more secretive than usual? Did he show any latent feelings of anger or resentment toward Connor or Oliver?”
Kyrie’s mouth wrought into a horrified grimace. Her head shook minutely. “No!” she cried. “He loves his pack, loves Connor! He supported your relationship with Oliver from the first, Connor. You know that.” She kept shaking her head, eyes shooting angry, frightened looks at Sky. “He would never kill anyone. Not with a gun. Not—murder. It’s cowardly, and Will is no coward.” Her shoulders straightened and she sat taller, proud of her lover. She kept talking about him in present tense, as though he were still alive. Oliver sighed. She wasn’t involved.
“Some people might argue that taking your own life is cowardly,” Sky said, and Kyrie’s expression shifted again, a sharp look, teeth gritted and vaguely wolfish, reminiscent of a snarl.
“Which is why he would never kill himself,” she snapped, but soon after her ferocity failed her, and she flagged, sinking against the back of the chair. “He can’t be. He just can’t. It’s not true, is it, Connor?”
The plea was painful to hear, small and desperate, and Connor’s blue eyes were red around the iris now too. “I’m so sorry, Kyrie. But it is true.”
The crush of grief overwhelmed her, and she let the tears flow freely, her mouth pulled down so far it seemed to want to pull her entire face with it. “No, no, no, no,” she said, shaking her head again. “He can’t be, not now. We’re going to be mated in a few days. Only three. We were going to be—and I was so happy this morning when I saw—I wanted to tell him. I kept waiting for him to come home to share it. But now he’s….he’s never…” Kyrie lurched forward, face in her hands to hide the tears, she held herself on her knees. The urge to curl into oneself was something Oliver knew too, something he’d done before. Too many times, but that was long ago.
“Did Will have a collar?” Oliver asked gently. Kyrie spared him a look, confused.
“Yes, of course,” she said.
“Can you describe it?” Connor asked.
Kyrie shook her head again, then with a force of will Oliver couldn’t understand, she sat up straight and reached around her neck. Unlacing something, she handed them her own collar. Oliver took it as though it was made of cloud, delicate and insubstantial. The fine leather was the same as Will’s collar, the stitching around the edges identical in colour and design. When Oliver flipped it over to find the maker’s mark inside, he realized it was of different origin than the collars on the previous two victims.
“So it was his collar,” Oliver murmured to himself, thinking. Sumpter had wanted to keep her close to him, when he did it. Oliver was sure of it. But the question was why? If he loved her so much, why kill himself?
Glancing back at the hospital bed, the antiseptic smell still cloying in his nose, Oliver felt his lips part, a possibility pulling at the frayed edges of his previous theory. “What was the news?” he asked, offering her the collar back. She took it, wrapping it immediately around her neck. Oliver fought the urge to touch his own collar, to soothe himself by feeling it.
“What?” she asked, blinking back tears at him.
“You said you wanted to share news with Will,” Oliver said. “What was it?”
Connor looked back and forth between Oli and Kyrie. Sky’s attention never left Kyrie, though, his eyes studying her every movement.
“I—” she began, hesitating. Licking her lips and smoothing her dress, Kyrie looked as though she was feigning pride to cover shame. “I’ve been ill,” she said, wiping at her face with a tissue she plucked from the side table. “Very ill.” After a long, slow exhale, she went on, “I was dying. Or so the doctors thought.” She met Connor’s eyes. “New Moon sickness,” she said, and Connor’s face fell. “It’s usually fatal in adults,” she explained for Oliver and Sky. “It stops transformation, makes it impossible. We aren’t sure the cause, but once it happens, once you stop transforming, your blood begins to thicken, your heart beats slower, harder, fighting to pump the blood. The first Full Moon you don’t change is how you know you’ve got it. The second Full Moon—that’s the last.” She glanced at the Moonchart on the wall. “Will wanted to mate, wanted to make it official so I could have that with him before—” She broke off, dabbing at her eyes again with the tissue. “And my pack love him. He’s a great leader. No one else is ready to be Alpha. None of my Wolves. They didn’t think they’d need to be. I only took over three years ago. So Will said he’d watch over my Wolves, lead them until another suitable Alpha was rea
dy. But we had to be mated for that. Before the Full Moon.” Tears spilled over her cheeks again, her chest heaving once, sharply. For a moment she didn’t breathe or move, and then with a gasp, she smiled sadly at the ceiling. “And then this morning the pain was gone, my heartbeat back to normal. And I tried—I tried transforming. And I did it. I did it. I don’t know how, but I’m cured, and I was so happy I couldn’t believe it. Will was so strong, but the illness was killing him too. I could see it.” She shook her head again. “I’m all right. I’m actually all right, and now he’s—our love was Fated, but Fate is cruel.”
Kyrie descended into sobs again, but Oliver was lifted. His mind racing, all the uneven pieces of this case’s puzzle began to fit together, began to show him an image.
“Do you happen to have Will’s phone?” Oliver asked, and Kyrie blinked at him again, blowing her nose into the tissue.
“Y-yes,” she said. “It’s here.” She stood and collected the phone from the mantle, caressing it a moment before offering it to Oliver. “He forgot it here before he went out. Otherwise I would have called him to tell him to come home…”
Unable to trust the hope, Oliver took the phone and unlocked it, searching through the apps. At the last page, on the lowest corner of the screen, was the Ember app. Oliver clicked it, searching through the settings and download information. It had been downloaded to his phone yesterday night, after the killer had left Connor’s grounds, and something wasn’t right about it. Will had no reason to have Ember on his phone. None at all. He was in a loving, devoted, Fated relationship with Kyrie. He was about to become Alpha of a pack. Cheating on Kyrie would have ruined their plans for him to take over her pack. It made no sense.
“Can you tell how this was downloaded? Whether it was purchased or not?” Oliver asked Sky, and Sky took the phone from him. Watching over Sky’s shoulder as he tapped around on the screen, Oliver tried not to think of the warmth of Sky against his chest, the spiced wood smell of his hair.