Chapter 3 #3
“I’m not a robot,” he said stiffly.
“But you are murderous?”
He didn’t reply.
After Mason searched the chairs, he carted them into the alley. Cecil rode his shoulder on the last trip outside, and Fennel was on his heels.
I prayed to every god I knew that Cecil would keep the explosions to a minimum.
The last time he’d used one of his incendiary spells, the entire back of Floyd’s building had gone up in Mardi Gras colored flames. No one inside had been hurt, but the outside had to be power washed to remove a thick layer of soot and gold, green, and purple sparkles.
While the three of them played with fire, I returned to the business of going through the awfullest man on earth’s blackmail files.
It was heartbreaking. Floyd had compromising photos and upsetting information on some of the nicest wolves I knew. Those were the first batch of files I sent through the industrial grade shredder. Later, Cecil would torch the bags. No one would ever use this stuff to hurt any of these wolves again.
Fennel was snoozing on a file cabinet, and I was tying a knot on another garbage bag of shredded materials when Ronan knocked on the door frame.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. Two thirty. I’d been at it for over two hours.
He thumbed behind him. “Saw Hartman and Cecil in the alley. Guess they burned those nasty chairs.”
“The chairs, bags of shredded files, every throw rug and towel in the bathrooms, the clothes he left in a closet…” Yet another file turned into finely chopped pieces as I fed the pages into the shredder. “Once in a while, they wander in for more kindling.”
“They seem to be enjoying themselves.”
“Yeah.” Another page went into the shredder. “Mason and Cecil are bonding, and that should be a red alert to all of us.”
Ronan gave me a forced smile. He looked so uncomfortable I had secondhand awkwardness on his behalf.
“Were you able to track down all five of Floyd’s laptops? There might be more, but I doubt it. He was always going on about how much damage he could do to this town with what he had loaded onto his five laptops.”
I nodded, gestured to the sleeping cat on my right. “Mason grabbed the three he’d stowed at his house. Finding the last two wasn’t difficult. Fennel found twenty-eight USB drives and six external hard drives hidden in the walls. They’re secured for now, awaiting Cecil’s not-so-tender loving care.”
“Good.” He gazed around the room. “It already looks different.”
“Not different enough, but we’ll get there.”
“I know you will.” He moved closer but didn’t touch me. Not that it mattered. My heart rate tripled anyway.
Even after sleeping in the same bed for weeks, the man still gave me goosebumps with a glance. No one had ever affected me quite like Ronan Williams.
He wrinkled his nose, shuddered. “Gods, it stinks in here.”
“Once we get rid of the rest of the furniture, scrub the place, and paint, the odor should be gone,” I said.
“You think so? Because I’m thinking this room might need to be taken down to the studs. The stench has seeped into the walls.”
“We’ve already made holes in the drywall to fish out Floyd’s gross USBs, so it wouldn’t be a huge leap to tear it all down and start fresh.”
Ronan looked around. “Easy to forget how sensitive wolf noses can be when you aren’t one.”
Was that a dig?
I decided to ignore it if it was, because this was Ronan, and he didn’t say things like that normally. He’d earned the benefit of the doubt.
“You don’t have to be here. I mean that.”
His gaze jerked to mine. “No, it’s fine.”
“Ehh, is it, though?” I winced.
“Fuck.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I didn’t think it would feel so intense to walk in here.”
“Is it the first time since everything happened?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah.” He made a low growling noise in the back of his throat, looked shocked that the sound had been loud enough for me to hear, then clamped his mouth shut.
“Sounds like your wolf doesn’t like it here, either.”
He shook his head. “It’s just this first time. We’ll be good after this.”
“You sure?”
“I can handle it, Betty.” There was an edge to his words, a brittleness I didn’t want to challenge. He was definitely not all right.
“I’m taking off soon,” I said, to break the tension. “The boys and I are dropping by the Desert Oasis with some arthritis charms for the senior shifters. I don’t know how late I’ll be, and I have to get the boys home right after. We’re still babying the string-of-pearls plant.”
“Yeah,” he said, only half paying attention. “I’ll be at the pub. Got some paperwork I’ve been putting off. Probably be late. Might stay over just to get it done.”
“You aren’t coming home tonight?”
“If I do, it’ll be late. I’ll alert Hartman so he covers your security.”
He didn’t seem to consider that I might like to spend the night at his place, didn’t even offer. I tried not to feel hurt, tried to understand that he wasn’t himself, but it stung.
“Okay,” I managed. “I won’t expect you.”
He gave the room a final sweeping glance and me a quick peck on the cheek then strode out.