Mitch wiped his eyes. “No. Not really. He was doing so good the last few years. Shit, he’d even gotten his GED. He was thinking of signing up for some classes to get his contractor’s license.” Mitch shrugged. “We’d talked about leaving Keeble and Jax and maybe starting our own company.”
“That doesn’t sound like someone who’s about to vanish,” I said.
The first thing that occurred to me was that Rick and his daddy had somehow manipulated this guy. Had they known about Lenny’s past drug addictions? Twisted that by tempting him and then supplying him with drugs? That would be the best possible way of controlling a feral.
It all lined up. They’d isolated him from Mitch—the only support system he had—then, when he was all alone on drug-fueled benders, he slowly succumbed to being feral. The supply of drugs to keep the pain and sickness of detox away would be better than any whip when it came to control.
I had no proof of that, of course, but it wasexactlywhat I’d do. Well, it’s what I’d doifI were a soulless, heartless, and deranged prick.
Mitch was still talking about all the plans he and his cousin had been making, but a movement from Cameron caught my eye. She’d reached down surreptitiously and lifted the clipboard the morgue attendant had left behind. The heading of the top page showed a toxicology report, but I couldn’t make out anything else.
“What did Lenny like to do for fun?” I asked, hoping to keep Mitch focused on me and not Cameron.
Mitch blinked, pulling his eyes away from his dead cousin’s face to mine. “Huh?”
Cameron gave a faint, almost imperceptible nod.
“He sounds like he was a great guy. What did he do for fun?” I asked.
“Oh, uh.” Even through his shock and grief, Mitch managed a slight chuckle. “It’s gonna sound weird.” He put a hand on Lenny’s cold shoulder, and a tear slipped down his cheek.
“You can tell me,” I said. “Honor your cousin. The world should know about people. They shouldn’t fade away; they should be remembered, celebrated. Right?”
Mitch peered into my eyes, and the intensity of his stare sent chills up my spine. Was it wrong to do this? To use his cousin’s life to hide Cameron’s search?
The doubt vanished as quickly as it came. Itwasokay. A man was dead, and by all accounts, he’d been twisted into a weapon. He deserved to be memorialized, even if that was right here, right now, in a discussion over his inert body.
“Well, you’re gonna think this is crazy, especially given his age, but he was really into Dungeons and Dragons. Like, obsessed,” Mitch said.
Cameron took a step back, scanning the clipboard.
“No way,” I said, a very real grin crossing my lips. “For real?”
“Yeah. He was totally into it. The guy was a geek.”
I had to rack my brain to think of a way to further the story. All I knew was that Dungeons and Dragonswas some sort of game that had been huge in the ’80s, but other than that, I had no clue what it was.
Over the next several minutes, Mitch spouted words that meant nothing to me—“Dungeon Master,” “Mage,” “twenty-sided dice,” and “map creation.” From the sound of it, Mitch was pretty into the game as well.
The clerk came back just as Cameron slid the clipboard back into place. “You folks done?”
“We are,” she said, then put a hand on Mitch’s shoulder. “Are you ready?”
The smile on Mitch’s face faded. With one last look at his cousin, he followed us out to the parking lot. Mitch put his hands on the hood of his truck and exhaled loudly.
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “You know the worst part?”
Cameron and I shared a look before I said, “What?”
“I lied before. We weren’t in the same pack. I’m the only one in a pack. Lenny was a lone wolf. He barely had a support system.”
“So, Lenny was a lone wolf.” That confirmed what I’d suspected.
Mitch groaned in misery. “Yeah. That’s why I went to you when you walked into the bar. I thought maybe if you agreed to the job, you’d have a better chance of finding him.”
“Why was he a lone wolf?” Cameron asked.
