“Of course,” I replied. I hadn’t expected or wanted to go to his house, but I wasn’t about to complain about it, since he’d come to pick me up and was disrupting his day in order to accommodate my demands. Did it make me nervous? Yeah, of course. But I didn’t think Humbolt was going to try to have me kidnapped or killed or something.
I’d texted Hart anyway, letting him know that I was meeting with Humbolt and that we were going back to his house because he needed to supervise his grandkids.
Hart had yet to respond.
Humbolt’s grandkids—Keeleyand Tristan—were adorable. Keeley was a very precocious five, and Tristan was three-and-a-half, as he very firmly informed me. I’d kept them entertained by helping them with some Lego sets while Humbolt put together a healthier snack than he and I had consumed at the Dairy Queen.
Once settled with their Legos and ants-on-a-log—celery with peanut butter and raisins—apple slices, and cheese cubes, the kids proceeded to work on building a Lego city that ignored all rules of uniformity of color, style, or physics, the last of which caused fits of sticky giggles.
“Now,” Humbolt said, pulling a chair up to the side of the couch where he’d insisted I sit to put my leg up. “First of all, I’m sorry for your loss?—”
“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about,” I interrupted him quickly. “Elliot’s not dead.”
Humbolt blinked. “But—the police think he is.”
“Actually, no, they don’t. Or, at least, some of them don’t.”
“I—what?”
I proceeded to explain what we knew—that a deputy, presumably Mosby, had forced Elliot off the road and had then shot at the gas tank until it ignited. Elliot had shifted and gotten himself out of the car undetected, but the police had impounded the burned-out car, which meant that at least the people who had investigated the car knew that there hadn’t been a body in it.
“So you think thewhole departmentis committing conspiracy to cover up murder?!” Humbolt was horrified, although whether at my suggestion or the implications for jurisprudence in Augusta County, I wasn’t sure.
“No, I don’t.” I explained about Cabell’s obvious fury at Mosby’s actions. “And I would guess that either Mosby has a few buddies he made sure worked the crime scene, or somehow he managed to falsify reports or keep the reports out of anyone else’s hands.” I shifted. “Also,” I continued, “Mosby is a shifter,” I said.
“You know this?”
“Yes. And he knows I’m a shifter.”
“How?”
I sighed, then looked at him pointedly. “The same way I know Keeley is a shifter, but Tristan isn’t. And if your son wants some advice on raising a shifter kid, Elliot underwent his transformation when he was a kid, or I can connect him with Hart’s fiancé, Taavi, who was born a shifter, too.”
“You cansmellother shifters?”
I nodded. “I can also smell ghouls and vampires, but their characteristics are visible, so that’s not really that helpful.”
“Huh.” Humbolt looked thoughtful. “Interesting as that is, why is it relevant in this case?”
“If my father is a shifter—a wolf shifter, specifically—it’s not impossible that there might be other shifters among the Community. And if that’s true, that some of those shifters mighthave been put into the police or other government or county positions to help protect the Community.”
Humbolt blew out a long breath. “Good lord, what a mess.”
“Sorry.”
He waved a hand. “You aren’t at fault here, Seth—if I may?”
I nodded. I was sitting in his house explaining what Hart would call a ‘complete clusterfuck’ to the poor man. If he wanted to use my first name, he was welcome to it.
“And you should call me James,” he said. “It seems that your mother set me up for a very long and interesting summer.” His emphasis of the wordinterestingsuggested that he meant something more likehorrifyingornightmarish, but he was putting a brave face on it.
I grimaced. “Sorry,” I mumbled again.
“Still not your fault,” Humbolt replied, forcing his voice into a mildly cheerful tone. “Do you have any idea why this Mosby person wanted to frighten or harm your boyfriend?”
I sighed. “Hart thinks—and I think he’s probably right—that I was the real target.”
“Why?!”
