16. The Plumber in the Walls
Chapter sixteen
The Plumber in the Walls
Dorian
By morning, plumbing has become my least favorite word.
This is an achievement, considering the week has included murder, poison, cursed paintings, ancestral violence, magical misdirection, and a rotting mackerel that continues to look smug from inside an evidence jar.
Kelly stands beside the conference room table with three service logs, two tablets, one stale coffee, and the expression of a woman who has decided the entire repair industry is personally suspicious.
“I used to think pipes were boring,” she says.
“They are.”
“No, they’re not. They’re tunnels for murder.”
I look up from the Harborlight Playhouse maintenance report. “That is not an official classification.”
“It should be.”
Unfortunately, she is not wrong.
The report confirms what my gut already knew. On the afternoon of Mara and Caleb’s deaths, Harborlight Playhouse filed an emergency request for a backed-up dressing room sink and low water pressure near the backstage kitchenette. The problem was marked resolved at 4:12 p.m.
The victims died hours later.
Lilissa and Rafe’s kitchen sink backed up the morning of their poisoning. A Bayline Plumbing van appeared outside their house. An unknown man who called himself George entered with a tool bag and left before anyone knew that a company that did not send him had apparently sent him.
Two attacks.
Two water-related access points.
Two manipulated service records.
This is not coincidence.
I write PLUMBING ACCESS across the board in red marker.
Kelly eyes the color. “That feels aggressive.”
“It is.”
“Good. Pipes deserve it.”
I add:
Harborlight Playhouse — dressing room toilet / backstage, Lilissa + Rafe — kitchen sink / water line Unknown Bayline van
Kelly slides another tablet toward me. “I pulled every maintenance call connected to the victims, the matched couples, and the Harborlight in the last sixty days.”
I take a look.
The spreadsheet is mostly noise—HVAC filters, broken locks, a jammed disposal at Foglight Tavern, a leaking roof at the gallery—until the pattern sharpens.
Three service requests list different contractor names but the same billing contact number, now disconnected.
Two have signatures close enough to pass casual review but not close enough for court.
One uses a vendor authorization code belonging to a retired municipal contractor who has been dead for eight months.
The paperwork is not sloppy. It is deliberately almost correct. That is worse.
“Someone is spoofing authorization,” I say.
Kelly leans over my shoulder. “Same person?”
“Same system. Same hand may be behind it.”
I open the next file. A property alert from this morning. Residential service complaint. Water pressure failure. Emergency overflow technician dispatched. Same phone number called.
Address: Tala Sterling and Decker Ridgeclaw.
My blood goes cold.
Kelly sees my face. “What?”
I turn the tablet toward her. She reads the address once. Then again. “Oh, no.”
Tala and Decker.
Another of Fate’s matches. One of her most recent.
Dorian’s old history.
Decker Ridgeclaw, alpha wolf, criminal record, too much controlled violence under the skin, mate-bonded to a woman this killer may now see as another thread tied to Fate.
Kelly is already moving. “Call them?”
I dial Tala first. No answer.
Decker next. It rings. No answer.
My wolf rises hard beneath my skin. I grab my jacket from the back of the chair.
“Come on,” Kelly mutters, already reaching for her keys.
The call drops to voicemail. Silence.
Not proof. Never proof.
But silence has become one of my least favorite answers.
I try Tala again as Kelly and I head for the door. Still nothing. Behind us, the murder board waits with its red lines, fake vendors, paired victims, and too many names Fate loves.
The plumber has moved from public settings to living rooms.
Not historical. Not theoretical. Close.
And if the killer is circling Fate’s matches, then every unanswered phone in Everwilde becomes a warning.
We make it to Tala and Decker’s in four minutes.
Not fast enough.
The first thing I see is water.
It spills from beneath the front door, down the porch steps, across the walkway in thin, shining streams. The porch light flickers over it, turning the flood gold for one heartbeat and black the next.
The second thing I notice is the silence.
No voices. No movement. No Decker on the porch threatening the weather with bodily harm.
Only the sound of running water.
Kelly’s hand goes to her weapon. “Dorian.”
“I know.”
I am out of the car before the engine fully settles. Rain hits my face. My wolf strains forward, searching through wet cedar, damp earth, burst pipe, and panic.
Then—
Tala.
Alive.
Her scent reaches me from inside the house, sharp with fear but not death.
Decker too.
Furious. Very alive.
The front door yanks open before I can break it down.
Decker stands in the doorway barefoot, wet to the ankles, shirt sleeves shoved to his elbows, fury rolling off him in waves strong enough to make the rain seem cautious. Behind him, Tala grips the banister in a thick sweater, pale but steady, water lapping around her boots.
For half a second, relief hits so hard it almost becomes anger.
Decker’s eyes lock on mine.
“You didn't answer your phone," I yell.
“I was busy stopping my kitchen from becoming a bay. Damn plumber. Just up and left.”
Kelly steps onto the porch and looks past him at the water spreading through the entry. “I’m going to skip the alpha measuring contest and ask whether anyone touched the kitchen after the plumber left.”
Decker’s gaze flicks to her. For a second, wolf dominance fills the porch.
Then Tala says, “Decker.”
One word. Soft.
He exhales through his nose and steps back. “No one touched it.”
Good.
His control is not gentle, but it is functional.
Inside, the house smells like pine beams, wolf, damp wood, burst pipe, and anger.
Water crawls over the floorboards, reflecting lamplight in broken strips.
A chair has been shoved against the wall.
Towels are piled uselessly near the kitchen threshold.
Somewhere deeper in the house, a pipe roars like it is trying to eat through the walls.
My wolf does not like this.
Not because of the water.
Because a mated home has been entered.
Violated.
“Help me turn off the main line?” Decker asks.
Together we cut off the water from the street to his house.
Then and only then, I ask, “What happened?”
Tala wraps her arms tighter around herself. “We saw a leak in the kitchen. We called the plumber. Before he got here, the pipe under the cabinet burst.”
“Company van?” Kelly asks.
“Yeah,” Decker says, voice low enough to vibrate.
“He just drove off?” I say.
They nod even as they survey the massive damage to the house.
Tala reaches for his arm. “I begged him not to leave us like this.”
Kelly steps carefully around the spreading water, notebook already in hand. “Now tell me everything from the beginning. Leave nothing out.”
Decker looks at the flooded kitchen, then at Tala, then back at me. Something occurs to him. “Why are you here?” he asks.
“We were researching a possible suspect, and it turns out he had an appointment here.”
That stops him cold in his tracks. I feel his protective wolf rise up.
“He got inside my house,” Decker states.
“I know.”
His eyes flash wolf-gold. “No. You don’t.”
I look at the water pouring from the heart of their home and think of poisoned wine, staged deaths, fake service calls, and Fate’s red threads turned into targets.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I do.”
“The sink started backing up about forty minutes ago,” Tala says. “Then water pressure dropped upstairs. I called the number on the magnet by the refrigerator.”
“Bayline?” Kelly asks.
Tala nods. “Yes. How did you—"
"It doesn't matter."
Tala stalls for a moment, then continues. "I thought Decker had used them before.”
“I didn’t,” Decker says.
“It looked familiar.”
“Because someone wanted it to,” I say.
Tala’s eyes sharpen.
“The man arrived fast,” she says. “Too fast. Gray van. Magnetic sign on the side. He said he was overflow help because the regular crew was backed up.”
Kelly writes that down. “Name?”
“He said George.”
My attention snaps to her. “But you didn’t believe him?”
“I don’t know. Something seemed off.”
Decker’s mouth curls. “He mumbled a lot.”
“Did you get a last name?”
“No. Come to think of it, he didn’t have one of those embroidered name tags on his shirt either.”
She circles her fingers around her chest area. Kelly writes everything down.
“What did he touch?” I ask.
“Under the sink. Disposal. Pipes. Faucet. He had gloves and a small brass tool I didn’t recognize.”
Decker’s growl is low. “He wasn’t here long. He took off as soon as I asked why his van had no plates.”
Kelly looks up. “No plates?”
“Temporary cover. Mud on the back. Too convenient.” Decker’s eyes flash. “He smelled wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
“Human fear. Old metal. Medicine. And something stale.” His gaze cuts to me. “Like command.”
Coercion.
Similar to the scent I picked up on Niall.
Kelly’s pen stops. “Well, it’s a good thing you asked.”
Tala’s hand tightens on Decker’s sleeve. “He dropped a packet when he ran.”
She points toward the kitchen threshold.
A small waxed paper packet lies near the cabinet toe-kick, half-soaked but intact. Pale residue leaks from one torn corner into the water.
I crouch without touching it.
Herb compound.
Maybe harmless alone. Maybe not, when paired with something else.
My pulse slows.
Fate’s protection spell hums faintly at the edges of the room. I can feel it now that I’m looking—stitched into the doorframe, thin but fierce, red-thread magic wrapped around old wood.
It may have disrupted the application. May have caused Decker to ask questions normal homeowners would never consider.
Either way, Tala and Decker are standing.
Alive.
The killer got close enough to reach their water line. Close enough to test another matched couple Fate loves.
I look at the water pooling across their floor like a warning already delivered.