‘I found a hair. Just one hair, mind, and I’m not sure how useful it will be. After I found the injection mark, I went back to look at the tie that was used round his neck. The hair was caught in the knot. It’s too long and too light to belong to Anthony Brown. To Tony,’ she amended. ‘I’ve examined it and there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s lupine.’
I sucked in a breath. ‘Werewolf?’
‘Yep.’ Laura looked pleased with herself. She had good reason to be. ‘You won’t find a match for it on any system. We’re not permitted to keep records of supes’ DNA or fingerprints. But it definitely came from a wolf.’
‘Can you show me?’
She nodded and pointed at a microscope. The hair in question was trapped beneath its glass slide. Russet coloured, and with a definite curl. I stared at it. Gotcha.
‘I don’t need to tell you that, because Tony Brown worked in Supernatural Squad, he’ll have come into contact with supes all the time. A single werewolf hair isn’t proof of anything. It could have come from anywhere.’
I smiled. It was proof enough for me. ‘Thank you, Laura.’
‘Any time.’ Her smile vanished. ‘I should tell you that someone called last night asking about you.’
I stiffened. ‘About me?’
‘It wasn’t my shift,’ she said apologetically, ‘so I didn’t speak to them, and the caller didn’t mention you by name. The phone call was logged – I heard about it when I came in this morning. They wanted to know about your body, if it had been brought in to this morgue, that sort of thing.’
‘Police?’
‘I doubt it.’ Her voice was grim. ‘They didn’t leave a name.’
I drew in a sharp breath. I hadn’t been sure I could feel much worse after re-visiting the scene of my rebirth and seeing Tony’s body again, but I did. ‘Male?’
She nodded.
My killer. It had to be. He’d gotten wind that I was wandering around the streets and wanted to know what had gone wrong. ‘Are the phone calls recorded?’ I asked, desperation uncoiling and manifesting itself in the tremble in my voice.
Laura made a face. ‘Sorry, they’re not. It was decided by the powers that be that recording grieving families when they enquire about their loved ones was an intrusion too far.’
As much as I could understand the sentiment, it didn’t help me.
‘Maybe you should lie low for a few days,’ Laura advised. ‘We didn’t give out any information about your body, not even confirmation that you’d been brought in. We’re not allowed to without ID validation. But that doesn’t mean you’re not in danger.’
I thought about Tony’s body lying on the cold gurney. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Somehow I knew you’d say that.’ She reached out and squeezed my hands. ‘Be bloody careful, Emma.’
Easier said than done.
Chapter Nineteen
Putting my worries about the mysterious caller to one side because there was nothing I could do about him, I walked outside with my head held high. Despite the lack of proof, I was beyond convinced that Tony had been murdered. I didn’t know why his death had been made to look like an accident while mine had been the complete opposite, and there was no apparent motive for either of our murders, but I felt like I was getting somewhere. The answers were within my grasp if I looked hard enough.
I smiled to myself – then I saw Lukas leaning against Tallulah and my smile vanished.
He raised a hand to me as I approached. ‘There’s no need to look quite so glum when you see me, D’Artagnan.’
‘Are you stalking me now?’
‘In a sense,’ he replied. ‘I came looking for you and I suspected you might be here.’
‘You mean you don’t have hospital workers on the payroll?’
‘Actually, I do.’ He offered me an easy grin. ‘But none of them work in the morgue. It wasn’t rocket science to work out that you’d be here. You told me yourself that you’d be visiting.’
I had – but I didn’t like the idea that he was going to continually show up without warning. I had enough metaphorical shadows as it was; I didn’t need real ones too.
