Chapter 5
INTERROGATION
don’t worry.
if anyone can fix brother,
it’s gus’s wolf friend.
— gus
This has to be the interrogation room. There’s a simple table, a pair of chairs on one side, a single folding chair on the other, and a reflective wall that I’d put twenty bucks down is a two-way mirror.
Despite Deputy Barrow’s side comment that we’ll be waiting for a while, it’s maybe twenty minutes before the door opens and Riordan steps into the room looking like he should be running a luxury casino instead of the sheriff station.
His dark hair is slicked back neatly from a model-perfect face without a single strand out of place.
Every inch of him is meticulously groomed right down to the sharp crease in his charcoal slacks.
Forget the shit-brown uniform. He has on a black silk shirt that’s impeccably tailored to his broad chest and muscular frame.
Only the badge clipped to his belt gives any clue that he actually works here.
Well, that and the aura surrounding him that just screams ‘big, bad motherfucker in charge’.
Unlike his younger brother, who carries his wolf’s dominance like a protective wall around those he loves and considers his, Riordan wears his like a sharpened knife hidden beneath his expensive clothing. If you get too close, it might not be his claws and fangs you have to worry about…
Good thing I know that, for the most part, the points of his weapons have been blunted. Ever since he had a curse placed on him by a witch, he’s been careful to control his every word. His every action. His every movement.
Honestly? It’s kind of freaky, and another reason I fuck with him. It’s not natural for an alpha wolf shifter to be bottled up so tightly, and one day soon, he’s going to fucking implode and take all of Moonburrow with him.
Not today, though. If anything, he looks tired as he yanks back one of the two chairs opposite of me. He drops down into it, legs spread as his elbows knock the top of the table.
Ash is hovering in the corner of the room, quiet as he has been since we entered the room. I pointed out the camera before I plopped down onto my seat, and since I learned as a young kit that the law will hold anything you say or do against you, I shut my trap. Ash followed suit.
Gus climbed up my leg, launched from my lap, curled up on the tabletop and has been conked out for the last twenty minutes. His nose started twitching when Riordan entered, and he rolled from his side to all fours the moment the big, bad wolf took his seat.
Riordan spares a second to scratch Gus’s back. And then—
“What did you do, Roxy?” he asks in a careful drawl.
Oh, look. Deputy Lick-My-Balls is blaming me just like I figured he would.
Who would’ve thought I’d miss Sheriff Stick-Up-His-Furry-Ass?
“I didn’t kill anybody,” I say, rapping my knuckles on the tabletop. To my surprise, Gus shuffles from Riordan’s side to mine, parking his furry rump by my wrist—and he isn’t even trying to bite it or anything. “I’d like to formally acknowledge that before we continue this conversation.”
“I know that.”
Wait—
“You do?”
He sighs. “Okay. Let’s get this out there. Max and Honey only just left this morning. I was expecting two weeks of peace and what do I get? Moonburrow’s favorite raccoon calling in a DB.”
I’m Moonburrow’s only raccoon. “You think I’m happy about this? I promised Honey I’d watch the bakery. I didn’t sign up to be involved in a murder.”
“Lucky for both of us, it doesn’t seem like a murder.”
“What?” says Ash.
I echo the sentiment. “What?”
“So far, the alley has been secured. The pack is preserving the scene. Tracking scents... looking for evidence.” His golden gaze holds mine steadily. “And Ashton Morgan’s body has been recovered.”
A lump lodges in my throat. I force it down. “And?”
“Faith examined him.” Faith? Oh. I know Faith. She’s a maternal wolf shifter and the pack healer. “It appears that Ashton Morgan is not actually deceased.”
I want to believe him. I want to believe him—believe that there might be a chance that my mate is still alive and kicking—but that’s kind of hard to do when Ash’s ghost has drifted away from the corner, moving until he’s hovering right next to my chair.
Riordan is still talking. “...supernatural coma. At least, that’s what Faith thinks.
It’s like when Honey would play dead. He appears to be deceased.
There’s no pulse, no response to outward stimuli, but her wolf insists that he’s…
gone. Not dead. More like he’s been cursed to lose a part of himself.
” He runs his fingers through his hair, leaving claw marks in his wake.
“Faith says it could be magic. A witch might know more.”
I was thinking that. Despite being a supe myself, I don’t always jump to magic, but if Ash is still alive… maybe we do need a witch.
But the way Riordan says that it might be that Ash lost a part of himself… I glance over at the see-through ghost. “Could it be his soul?”
Both of the males make a face. Ash, because he probably doesn’t want to think that his soul is missing. Riordan, because he probably thinks I’m fucking with him.
“No,” I say. “I’m serious.” I wave at the space next to me. “He’s right here, Riordan. Ashton. Or what’s left of him. I mean, we both thought that he was a ghost, but—”
“Ghost?” Riordan’s jaw goes tight. “I know we’re supes, Roxy, but there’s no such thing as ghosts.”
Yeah? “What about him?”
“Him? Him who?”
“Ash?” Another gesture. “He’s literally right here.”
“I’m right here,” Ash says helpfully. He even waves.
Of course, Riordan doesn’t see him. “Roxy—”
Gus lifts his head. He chitters something. I thought he was talking to the wolf, but it’s Ash who nods and says, “Sure. If you think it’ll help.”
Huh?
Before I can ask what’s going on, Gus jumps from the tabletop to my lap before leaping at Ash. His claws manage to hook onto Ash’s barely there sweater before Gus scurries up until he’s perched on Ash’s shoulder.
I glance over at Riordan. His face is stunned. I know why, too. In the mirror behind his bulk, I can see me—and I can see Gus floating in mid-air with the only thing supporting his tiny furry body an invisible (to Riordan) ghost.
Just in case he needs any further proof, I stand up from my seat and turn to Ash. “Lift me up.”
His eyes go wide. “Excuse me?”
“You’re a shifter. You’re strong. Pick me up, Ash. It’s the only way I can think to prove to him you’re really here.”
The fleeting panic in his face fades as something indescribable replaces it. “You called me ‘Ash’.”
“So?” I say defiantly. “You said—”
That his friends call him Ash. But me… we just met. So he told me I was cute. So I know that he’s my fated mate and I’m supposed to be his.
“Whatever. Let’s just say I’m big on nicknames and leave it at that.” I jerk my thumb at Riordan, who is watching this exchange with an inscrutable expression. “He’s Deputy Lick-My-Balls, remember?”
Riordan sucks in a breath. “I do not lick my balls.”
Sure, wolf. Whatever you say. “Come on, Ash. Wrap your arms around me and lift me up. I’m trying to prove something to the wannabe sheriff over there.”
“Roxy—”
I ignore Riordan. So does Ash. Instead, looking as though he thinks I’m too delicate to handle his touch, he lays his ghostly hands on my hips.
I snort, trying to hide the slight shiver that ran through me at his touch. “I’m not breakable. Go on. Just do it.”
He does, and I realize that I’m playing with fire. My raccoon wants nothing more than to wrap her arms and legs around Ash, never letting go of her opossum. I revel in being this close to him before I clear my throat and he lowers my boots back to the floor.
There. He might explain away a floating Gus. But a Roxy that just bobbed up and down in the air?
I smirk at Riordan as I take my seat again. “You wanna change your mind? ‘Cause, I promise you, the ghost of Ash Morgan is in this room with us right now.”
Ash clears his throat. “If you would, Roxy, please tell him that I’d appreciate it if his wolves could figure out what happened to me. Oh, and if there’s some way to make me normal again…”
I relay the message to Riordan who, this time, doesn’t scoff and tell me that I’m making it up. I guess, when confronted with a floating opossum, you kind of just have to go with the flow. Especially since he’s an LEO with the perk of being able to have an interview with his ‘murder’ victim.
For the next half an hour, Riordan asks questions, taking notes on a page from this tiny notebook he pulled out of his back pocket.
I answer for Ash, explaining how he’s Honey’s cousin, he was coming to take over the apartment atop the bakery, and that the last thing he remembers was being startled and waking up as some sort of ghost.
Riordan’s conclusion is that, whoever did this to him, did it in Moonburrow.
This is definitely a Moonburrow problem, though we both agree not to involve Max—or Honey—just yet.
Now that Faith has confirmed that Ash is not dead, there’s no reason to break the news of his early demise to his cousin.
As for Max, Riordan insists that he can investigate what happened to Ash without bothering his brother and interrupting his honeymoon.
Since Faith’s initial impression as a shifter healer is that magic might be involved, Riordan did put a call out to the local witch coven.
They’re not part of the Moonshadow Pack, but because they exist in Moonburrow, they have a working relationship with the sheriff’s office.
With Riordan calling as the acting sheriff, asking for help, the head of the coven promised that she’d send one of her best witch healers to look over Ash as soon as she could.
That leaves only one last problem for Riordan to handle at the moment…