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He looked up at me, and I saw impossible pain refracted in those beautiful hazel eyes. “Thank you.”

I offered him a small, sickly-feeling smile. “No problem.”

His hand tugged me toward the couch, and I went. “Seth…”

I waited.

“I—” He bit his lip. “Can I show you Dad’s office?”

“Of course.” Even though I answered immediately, part of me was panicking. I had no idea if I’d be able to help him through that. Because I was pretty sure he hadn’t been in there at all in the last year. I knew Hart had, because he’d sent me pictures from inside. Carpet with another button. A smudge on a window. Black rubber scuffs on some other piece of furniture.

I had deliberately not asked Smith for the files from the murder case. Not asked to see the crime scene photos. I didn’tneedthem, of course, but I was pretty sure that if I’d asked, Smith would have let me see them. But I hadn’t, because it felt wrong to look without Elliot’s permission or knowledge.

He set the plate down on the couch and stood up, then headed down the hall, his steps a little halting, but determined. As though if he didn’t do it now, he wouldn’t be able to do it.

I followed him, fear balling in my stomach.

This part of the house felt cooler—unlived in. I suppose it was, since the only room in this corner was the office, with its glass doorway leading out into the poison garden and the massive windows and sliding door out the side by some of the flower beds. There were shades inside that had been lowered, so maybe Elliot had been inside, at least once, to do that. Or maybe he’d asked someone else to do it. Henry or Judy, maybe.

Elliot had stopped, both palms pressed against the wood of the door. “Val closed it up for me before he left,” he said softly. “Made sure I had everything important for the house, taxes, that shit.” I heard him swallow. “I—I haven’t been able to?—”

I put a hand on his shoulder, and I felt the muscle shift beneath my palm as he tensed.

“Sorry.” I pulled it back.

“No—Please.” He sucked in a breath, and I heard it catch. “Please touch me.”

I put my hand back, and this time I felt him lean into it, turning to look at me. Then he took a deep breath, his shoulder rising and falling beneath my hand, and turned the knob on the door.

It felt anti-climactic, the simple fact of opening a wooden door and walking into a dark and cool room that smelled stale from the lack of anyone living setting foot into it.

Elliot stood in the doorway, trembling, then reached out and flicked on the switch just inside the door, bathing the dark space in light that was disconcertingly warm in tone. It felt wrong—like the light should have been cold or sinister. But it wasn’t, and I could easily see how cozy the room could have been and probably was when Gregory Crane had used it.

Dragging a shaking breath into his lungs, Elliot crossed the threshold, and I followed.

There was dust, but not as much as I would have expected.

I could tell from the tilt of his head exactly where Elliot was looking—at the beam with a very slight scuff mark that had to have come from the belt that had hanged his father.

I heard him drag in another shaky breath, and my heart melted when one hand reached back, clearly looking for one of mine. I took it, squeezing back when he gripped it tightly.

“Do you—” He broke off, swallowed, and tried again. “Do you think it wasn’t as bad, because they’d hit him already?”

I didn’t know. Hart might. Ward almost certainly did, since I knew he’d summoned Gregory as a ghost. But I didn’t. So that’s what I told him. “I don’t know, but if he was unconscious, then he at least might not have been aware of what was happening.”

Elliot shuddered. “Fucking hell, I hope not,” he rasped, and the hand that wasn’t holding mine went up to his neck, his fingers running over the scar around his own throat. “It—” He swallowed again, and I held my breath. “They were waiting for me inside. I’d left the back door cracked so I could get back in. They grabbed me, tried to throw a sack of some sort over me, and I fought back. I hit one of them, at least, I think.”

He paused, and I wasn’t sure if he was going to continue. I didn’t know what to say, so I just squeezed his hand.

“They hit me several times, under the burlap. I’m not sure what with, but it was hard. A bat maybe. Crowbar. I don’t fucking know. I passed out at some point.” He paused, drew another breath. “They gave me something. Injected, I think. To push me to shift back. Left me in a basement with a pair of dirty fucking underwear, my hands tied. They made me put them on. I tried to shift, and couldn’t—I was too drugged.”

I knew there were a number of adrenergenic drugs that suppressed the magic in shifter blood that kept us shifted or let us shift into animal form, particularly arcaphenylephrine, arcaclonadine, and arcaoxymetazoline, all of which were based on non-arcane alpha-receptor adrenergenic medications. They weren’t easy to get a hold of, as they were strictly controlled substances, but if you had access to an arcane hospital or the right doctor—or possibly a medical examiner—it was absolutely do-able.

But Elliot didn’t need—or probably even want—to hear all that.

He dragged in another breath. “I remember them moving me. It was cold, loud. Maybe I was in the bed of a truck? A trunk? I don’t know. I was in and out. Until I came to on the floor of the barn.” He swallowed again, his fingers rubbing harder at the line on his throat.

I stepped up behind him, capturing his hand, stopping him from continuing to worry at the scar. I kissed his fingers, and he leaned into me, letting out a long sigh. Still holding his hands, I wrapped my arms around him.