7. Avery
Avery
W ith all the squad cars and the lights and the ambulance, everyone was awake and out on the street even though it was late. Wade and I took the opportunity to question Remy’s neighbors on both sides, as well as the Gregsons, who lived across the street from him.
Jodi Gregson and her wife were worried about Remy and were going to call the police earlier in the night, because they’d seen a man who was so much bigger than him at the house.
“Hold on, go back,” I instructed, because they’d lost me. From Wade’s expression, he was just as confused, and it didn’t help that they were talking over one another.
“There was a man, and he was really scary,” Jodi explained.
“Like, really, really scary,” Tiffany backed up her wife. “That guy had muscles on top of muscles, and he picked Remy right up off the ground. And Remy’s an alpha, so I got super freaked out; we both did.”
“But the guy left,” Jodi chimed in, “and Remy waved at us and yelled over that it was just a misunderstanding before he went back inside.”
Wade nodded. “So you got the feeling that Remy knew him?”
“I did,” Jodi granted, nodding.
“But you can’t describe him to us?”
She winced. “He was wearing a hoodie, so I can tell you the size of his arms and his back, but that’s about it.”
“I took a shot of his car,” Tiffany told me, showing us the blurry picture, “but it was parked at a bad angle, and then he tore out of here.”
“No idea of the plate number, even a partial?” Wade queried hopefully.
She shook her head. “No, I’m so sorry. That’s why I take pictures of everything; my memory is total crap.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I soothed her. “Remy has several exterior security cameras, so hopefully one of them caught something.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” she apprised me. “As far as I know, they’re all for show—at least that’s what he told me—except the one at the front door.”
At least maybe we’d see someone on that.
Wade and I questioned the Morenos, the neighbors on the right, next, and while they had a lot to say about Remy’s parties—the dozens and dozens of people who came and went at all hours, and that it was not right he should have orgies in his house—they couldn’t help with much more.
They’d been downstairs in their theater room, and Mr. Moreno liked watching his movies loud.
“He’s not having orgies.” Mrs. Hurley, Remy’s neighbor to the left, contradicted the Morenos. “That’s not it.”
“What is it?” I asked her.
Both of them, Mr. and Mrs. Hurley, looked at me, then at Wade, and back to me.
I turned to my partner. “Could you give us a moment?”
He shot me a scowl but walked away, and I turned back to them.
“Omegas,” Mrs. Hurley announced, stepping in close to slip her hand around my wrist as she laid out the story for me.
It was a lupine’s instinct to touch, we needed to make physical contact, and I knew at first scent, of course, they were wolves, an alpha and a beta.
“I know them when I see them,” she assured me. “And smell them.”
Except, it appeared, where I was concerned. I guessed she believed I was a beta like herself. In my experience, when you expected something, it was what you saw. “You’re a hundred percent sure?”
“Absolutely,” she said, glancing at her husband.
“I stopped one of them,” he admitted, shaking his head.
“Tiny little thing I thought had to be barely legal, but he showed me his ID, and he was twenty. I told him it wasn’t right that he was there, in Mr. Talmadge’s home, unescorted, and I threatened to inform Remy’s cyne , but he begged me not to.
He said that Mr. Talmadge was a blessing because, for a minimal fee, he was helping to put omegas into les fausses chaleurs before the gatherings to make them more likely to draw a mate. ”
In short, Remy Talmadge was paid to arouse them.
It was a horrible practice. I’d heard of it being done, les fausses chaleurs , or fake heat, mock heat, but I’d never met an omega who felt they had to use it.
I was friends with omegas like Linden and Bridget, who were genetically blessed, and others from rich, powerful families who could afford the latest couture, who had every advantage by way of stylists and entire teams of hair and makeup artists.
But for those less fortunate, those families who had three or four omegas and couldn’t possibly afford to provide for them long-term, it wasn’t enough to hope to find a suitable alpha to buy their contracts.
They had to do everything possible, exhaust every advantage, to snag one.
Being put into a fake heat would greatly improve their chances of making a match.
Omegas would allow a willing alpha to arouse them so they were no longer in control of their own pheromones, drowning potential suitors in the lush scent of sex.
From what I understood, it didn’t last long, three hours tops, but that could be just enough time to get the job done.
An unsuspecting, younger, more vulnerable alpha would offer for their contract before they were even aware they’d been duped.
It wouldn’t work on stronger, older alphas, but those weren’t who the omegas were after.
Most alphas, like my brother, wanted to find their mate when they were young.
They were expected to settle down, have children quickly so they could turn their attention to running businesses and heading their families.
Alphas who went into their thirties unmated were normally cynes from families of exorbitant, old money wealth, and could breed at their leisure.
Those alphas were rare, powerful, and did not succumb to doe-eyed ingenues reeking of pheromones.
Men like my alpha, like Graeme, they were drawn in by something deeper, truer. He would never look at—he…
“Detective?” Mrs. Hurley sounded concerned.
I met her worried gaze. Shit. “Sorry, I––”
“Are you quite well, dear? You look a bit flushed.”
“No, no, I’m fine.” I cleared my throat, looking from her to her husband. “Please continue, Mr. Hurley.”
The older man coughed softly. “Well, after speaking to him, I didn’t think it was fair of me to limit the chances of all the omegas who were coming to Mr. Talmadge for help, so…
I turned a blind eye,” he confessed sheepishly.
“I knew it was wrong, but Detective, if you’d seen all those poor boys and girls, you might have too. ”
“Our son Kevin’s an alpha,” Mrs. Hurley chimed in, “and he’s been a bit down on his luck lately, between jobs, and I mentioned to him that perhaps he might think about helping the omegas as well.”
Being a detective, I heard the strangest confessions.
“But you see, our Kevin would probably end up impregnating the girls, because he’d be tempted into rutting.”
And people overshared. A lot.
“But you see, now, Remy is gay,” Mr. Hurley explained, wanting to contribute, talking over his wife. “So the female omegas don’t have to worry about him going too far, because he’s not attracted to them, and the males, he couldn’t get them pregnant even if things accidentally got out of hand.”
There were so many things wrong with Mr. Hurley’s statement.
For starters, anything getting out of hand with an omega in fake heat was rape.
Secondly, I suspected that Remy Talmadge was bi.
If he had no interest in having sex with female omegas, his pheromones would have never aroused them enough to trigger any kind of response.
It all started the same way, with that urgent, excited roll of awakening that flared quickly into desire.
Talmadge was jump-starting that cycle and then sending them out the door.
The Maion council frowned on the practice of placing omegas in mock heat, as did everyone I’d ever spoken to about it, but I was fairly certain it was punished at the discretion of the individual holt leaders, which was why, as Mr. Hurley had said, he looked the other way.
As far as human law was concerned, the omegas were all consenting adults, were all there in Mr. Talmadge’s home of their own free will; they weren’t forced or drugged, and they were free to leave at their leisure. I had nothing to charge the man with.
“Tell me, did you ever see any other alphas here with Mr. Talmadge?”
“That cousin of his, who was here after you all showed up tonight, the cyne , he came once, right after Remy first moved in. There was another one a week ago, huge, all muscle, and I think he and Remy had words, and they might have even fought, but I’m not sure.”
Muscular guy, like the Gregsons saw tonight. I needed to find him.
“Remy’s a nice man. Good neighbor. I hope he won’t get in any trouble.”
Had they missed the body rolled out on the gurney?
“And we both know he didn’t hurt anybody.”
“Did you, perhaps, see the man’s face? The one with the muscles?”
“No, he was wearing a hoodie,” Mrs. Hurley explained. “He had it pulled way down.”
I nodded, gave them my card, and told them to call me if they thought of anything else. Once I was nearly to Wade, I noted his crossed arms and scowl as he perched on the hood of one of the police cars.
“Why didn’t they want to talk to me?” he barked when I got close. “Too Black?”
I shook my head. “Too human.”
“Oh.” He grunted, uncrossed his arms and stood up. “I don’t know why that’s better; it’s still something I can do nothing about.”
I grimaced, knowing he was right.
“Anyway, what’d they say?”
“I’ll tell you on our way back into the house.”
“Why?”
“I’m wondering, did the CSIs check the panic room for cameras? The neighbors said nothing worked outside, but I don’t know. It’s an expensive home; I’m thinking maybe he let them believe that because he didn’t want anyone freaked out that he had eyes on the whole block.”
We put new booties on before we went back inside and up to the panic room, talking through this as we moved down the hallway.