Do you need me to come back?
No.
I’m going with Noah and Lulu.
So I might not be here when you get back.
Are you sure?
It’s fine.
Really.
I’ll see you later.
I love you.
Be careful.
I love you, too.
I wonderedif he’d ever stop telling me tobe careful, now. Not that it wasn’t warranted if I had to go to a fire or potentially hazardous crime scene, but, most of the time, my job happened after the threat of violence had passed. Being a crime scene tech was generally a safe job—the Arcana Killer aside, of course. And with Elliot’s history of having been the victim of multiple attempted murders, I guess we’d both assumed that I was the one who wouldn’t have any real issues facing imminent death.
I actually wanted him to come with us—to come with me. But he was with Hart and Raj, giving further evidence against Mosby that, alongside my father’s death, was going to launch a massive investigation into corruption in the Augusta County Sheriff’s Department and the County Jail. He’d already given his evidence to Raj and Hart, but he also had to run through it with Internal Affairs and the FBI agents from Charlottesville.
According to Hart, the corruption case was going to be massive and very, very ugly.
Call me a coward, but I wanted to avoid that mess as much as humanly—or shifterly—possible. I liked the clarity of science, the answers that could be confirmed or denied through particulates or DNA or tire tracks. The same things that would confirm that my father had killed my mother. The same things thathadconfirmed that my father had killed my mother.
I liked the fact that I could do my job and end up with facts that weren’t debatable—they justwere. But human emotions, human greed, human beliefs,humans—and Arcanids, obviously—were messy and complicated and didn’t make sense.
And, yes, I know that psychology is a thing and that there are plenty of people who study human behavior who can offer explanations for why people do the stupid shit that they do, but until we have a model that can predict our actions with anythingresembling accuracy, I’m not going to hold my breath about ever really understanding people, whether human people or Arcanid people.
I was pretty sure that I understood Elliot, though—he wanted to make sure that everyone involved in this disaster, whether they were members of the Community or corrupt cops or guards or even a bribe-able front desk person, were arrested, put in jail, fined or whatever the worst thing was that the federal government could legally do to them.
Badgers aren’t exactly the most nurturing of animals. Elliot certainly wasn’t the most forgiving.
I just wanted it all to go away.
Or, more accurately,Iwanted to go away fromit.
Butitwasn’t done with me yet.
Noahand I both had to sign the paperwork from the morgue—since Noah was no longer in prison under suspicion for murder, both of us had to be there to sign out our mother’s body. Humbolt and Walsh were also there, reading the paperwork over before sliding each sheet to Noah and I to sign.
It was tedious, but at least Dr. Fisher had been apologetic about the fact that I was having to do this twice. And I was very doubtful that the Community was going to attempt to claim her this time, given that multiple Elders were missing—although I was pretty sure we knew where they were—and the Community itself was under federal investigation.
At the end of the process, we all trouped out again—all that paperwork, and the only thing that had happened was that we’d agreed to release Momma’s body to our chosen funeral home. The only one that had been willing to work with usandburyher in the small family plot next to Rachael. What she’d wanted. And, for the record, it had been the one Humbolt had originally recommended, although I’d forgotten about that until after we’d already confirmed the contract.
This morning, Noah and Lulu had spent a lot of time on the phone with various funeral homes, asking if they’d be willing to bring Momma’s body up to the mountains to bury her there. Most had said no, and Noah was clearly getting frustrated.
“So what if they don’t?” I’d asked, irritably. “It’s not like she knows the difference.”
“How can you say that?” he asked me, genuinely horrified.
A quick glance in Lulu’s direction showed me that they looked worried—cautious, the way one gets when trying to decide if a can of soda is about to explode or not.
“Because if we can’t find someone to do it, I’m not about to try stealing a body,” I retorted, figuring that would be safer than doubling down on the notion that our mother was beyond caring what happened to her corpse.
