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“Is that it?”
A tap on the screen ended the recording on my phone. My smile at the young werewolf in the chair in front of me reassured her. Sarah sat perched on the edge of her chair through most of the deposition. Her left leg bouncing periodically throughout. Occasionally, while I questioned her, she glanced at Elias who sat as a silent observer in the corner. I noticed he only attended the interviews when I spoke with the docile werewolves.
Sarah tucked her hands under her thighs, and regarded me with wide-open, anxious eyes.
“That’s it.” I assured her. “Thank you very much for your cooperation.”
She nodded, stood, hurried from the study that served as my makeshift interview room for the past two days. Elias exhaled and edged forward in the overstuffed chair he occupied. With his elbows resting on his thighs, he tented his fingers together.
“Thank you for your patience,” he stated. “And for agreeing to speak with the pack here.”
I opened my mouth and sucked in air, but closed it, shaking my head instead of speaking the question.
“What is it?” He asked.
“Not that I’m an expert or anything, but I’ve never seen a werewolf so... skittish before.”
“We are not so different than humans.” Elias stood and paced to the window that overlooked the Metra tracks just beyond their backyard. “Sarah came to us terrified. She’s only twenty-three, but already she’s been through more than most people twice her age. She is the only pack member that resides here with Jacqueline, because this is the only place, she feels safe.”
I wanted to ask what happened to her. I refrained since it was none of my business.
“Before the murders, she spoke about moving out and into an apartment. It was in an building down the street from Candace and me, but her own place all the same.”
“Then it’s not usually this...” I paused and searched for the best, non-offensive word to describe the current conditions of the house and settled for, “...full?”
Elias shook his head. “With the funeral Tuesday, the city is filling up with non-pack werewolves. The docile werewolves in our pack find safety in numbers.”
“I imagine there are lot of werewolves that want to pay their respects to both.”
With a snort, Elias turned his back to the window. “Some, I suppose. Most are coming to see if the queen is really dead. Half of them are interested in taking over the pack. Only a handful will have the balls to try.”
I nodded and stood. It felt like I needed to stand to have this conversation. Respect for the dead perhaps.
“I assumed the position would go to Candace.”
“We’re not royalty,” Elias stated after a mirthless chuckle. “The mantle of alpha does not pass down to the next of kin. It must be earned or won.”
The sound of the front door being opened, and then closed pulled my attention to the doorway of the study, but I couldn’t see out into the foyer since Sarah closed the door when she left.
“Candace would make a strong alpha,” Elias concluded. “But so would I.”
“And you would do that?” I questioned. “Fight your mate just so you would be alpha?”
“For the mantle of being alpha, we would fight each other, and the pack would thrive with the strongest as their leader.”
“And what would happen to the city?”
The right corner of his mouth edged up in a smile that held no amusement or warmth.
“Worried our internal conflict would spill over to you precious humans?”
“I’m worried about a body count no matter the species.”
I held his gaze for several purposeful seconds, pivoting to the spines of the books on the case behind him before the time lapsed bled into the uncomfortable gray area of issuing an unspoken challenge. My words hadn’t been a complete lie, but they hadn’t been all that honest either. I worried about how a pack fight would affect Ace specifically, not werewolves in general.
“That would be Amina.” He announced when the front door opened and closed again.
Elias crossed the room and opened the study’s door to reveal Ace on the other side. She stood there with her viola clutched in her left hand and her right poised to knock.
“Hello,” Elias greeted and stepped aside, allowing Ace to enter. “Hungry?”
“If I say no, are you going to bring me food anyway?”
“You need to eat.”
“So why bother asking?”
“I’m polite,” Elias stated on his way out of the room.
I waited for her to turn her attention back to me. Dark circles lurked under eyes duller than I’d ever seen. The light all but completely extinguished from their depths.
“What was that about?” I asked. It felt like the safer topic.
“Food, specifically protein, fuels healing.”
“Ah-ha.”
“With that said, do you mind if we go up to my room? I haven’t been able to sit down motionless for longer than ten minutes today.”
“Maybe you should take a few days off, Ace. You’ve been through a lot these past few days.”
“I...” she stumbled over the words and shook her head. “Can’t.”
I followed her upstairs. I figured with the pack house being her childhood home, her bedroom was the same one she occupied during her youth, but I wasn’t prepared for the relics of her teenage years. Opposite the door, an Aaliyah poster and a Set It Off poster took up equal amounts of wall space, with a likeness of the Milky Way galaxy painted across the entire ceiling. Stuffed animals and books competed for space on her bookcase with both flowing over into baskets surrounding the dark wicker furniture. All of it offered a peek into her life as a child.
Ace moved with careful purpose, stretching out across a full-sized bed. Exhausted and in pain, she still looked beautiful. She patted the earth toned comforter in an invitation for me to join her. The springs of the seasoned mattress groaned and creaked under my weight. The firmness of the mattress caused the stones in the ring to press into my thigh through the heavy material of my pants. I began carrying it around after Bella’s reception.
Wallet?
Phone?
Keys?
Expensive symbol of a failed proposal?
Check, check, check, and check.
I wanted a redo, but we needed to resolve some issues prior to me requesting a lifetime commitment again. My first marriage taught me that. In my head over the past few days, I conducted dozens of conversations with Ace.
“I miss you,” I confessed.
“I miss you,” she echoed.
I reached out and smoothed my hand over her hair. “Are you staying here this weekend?”
“Doubtful. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but it’s starting to get crowded here.”
“Elias said the docile wolves are staying close.”
“Mmm-hmm,” she agreed.
Ace closed her eyes and scooted closer. I closed the rest of the gap that separated us, and settled her into my embrace, careful not to press any weight onto the wounded area on her side. I tucked the comforter around her as much as possible. Her body shivered despite radiating heat.
“We don’t expect anything to happen, but it’s still safer for them here,” she added.
“It’s safer for you too.” I moved my hand in a large circular pattern on the back of my werewolf burrito.
“I didn’t get attacked until I came here.”
“Does that mean you’re coming back to my place?”
“Doesn’t your week with Pippa start today?”
I moved my head up in down in a slow nod. “I’m picking her up in a couple hours.”
“Then no,” she said.
Knowing her answer before she gave it, didn’t make hearing it any less disappointing. I added her reluctance to spend time with me when I had my daughter to the list of things we needed to discuss soon. Marrying me meant marrying Pippa.
“Promise me you’ll be careful?” I murmured the request into her hair. “I can’t prove it yet, but the attacks feel personal.”
“Is that why you’re doing these interviews?”
“Just standard procedure.”
The rise and fall of her back under my hand slowed with her breathing.
“Ace?” I whispered her name.
“Mmm,” her answer came back a decibel above a whisper.
Silence stretched between us while I tried to work out the best way to start, and which topic took precedence.
“I know we have a lot to talk about,” Ace began in a sturdier voice. “But I’m exhausted, and you have to go be a dad soon.”
I opened my eyes and found her staring at me. Her pupils so dilated only a thin rim of her brown irises remained.
“I have an hour or so before I have to go.”
“Stay with me until I fall asleep?”
Baby steps. The cop in me pointed a high probability that her being vulnerable in front of me stemmed from her being wounded. I thought back to what I told Rasa. Exposed vulnerability meant trust.
I plucked my phone from my back pocket and set the alarm.
Holding her hand in mine, I tucked in for a nap.
#
Horrendous traffic plagued my drive.
An hour after I dozed off with Ace, the trilling alarm on my phone brought me back to consciousness. I silenced the alert, hushed Ace back to sleep, and took my leave. My nap came with consequences that stuck me navigating to pick up Pippa at her troop meeting in Lincoln Park, from a south side starting point, in the heat of Friday evening’s rush hour.
Other children milled about the interior of the field house by the time I arrived five minutes after the meeting ended. I spotted Pippa at the far end of the gym with other members of her troop. They shrieked and giggled and took turns trying to toss the ball up through the bottom of the basket.
“You’re late.”
“Hello to you too, Pilar.”
My ex-wife stalked forward from where she lurked on the side of the gym. An expensive looking purse hung on her arm, and Kenneth hung back with his arms crossed over his chest. He scrunched his facial features in signs of annoyance.
“I was beginning to think you were not going to show up,” Pilar said.
“You know I would call if that were the case.”
“I thought you might be busy with other priorities.”
“Pippa is and will always be my first priority. Ace understands that, and wouldn’t have it any other way.”
She stopped in front of me and placed the non-purse hand on her hip. After she struck her pose, I realized her expensive handbag went with the rest of her outfit.
“You’re awfully dolled up for a troop meeting.”
“We’re celebrating our anniversary.”
I glanced over her shoulder at Kenneth and struggled not to indulge the morbid curiosity from the voice in the back of my head that wanted to know, which anniversary.
“Daddy!”
Pippa’s approach saved me from tumbling down that rabbit hole. I watched her barrel towards me and bent down at the last possible moment to scoop her up.
“Doesn’t mommy look pretty?”
“She sure does.” I agreed and kissed my daughter’s cheek. “Go get your things, babygirl.”
Once I returned her feet to the ground she skipped towards the bleachers and the piles of coats and backpacks.
“Don’t forget she has a dentist appointment Tuesday morning.”
“I remember,” I lied.
My memory put Pippa’s dental appointment on the following Tuesday.
“What?” I asked.
Pilar’s laser focus on the door caused me to glance over my shoulder in search of what she looked for.
“Is your fiancée waiting in the car?”
“She’s with her family.” I replied in a pointed tone, deciding not to correct the label she used for Ace. “You may remember, she did just lose her mother and aunt in a vicious murder.”
My ex glared at me, and shifted much of her weight to her right foot. Her arms folded over her chest. A battle stance if ever I saw one.
“So, you’re still planning on marrying her?”
“How is that any of your concern.”
“Her becoming Pippa’s stepmother makes it my concern.”
She had a point, but denying her the satisfaction of agreeing, I glanced over and watched our daughter shrugging into her coat while talking with two other friends.
“I told you the other day. I’m worried about my daughter’s safety with her around.”
“If I can say Kenneth’s name, you should be able to say Amina’s. And she isn’t a danger to our daughter.”
Behind her, Kenneth scowled like he knew I had just spoken about him. If he meant the narrowed eye stare he gave me as an intimidation tactic, he missed the mark.
Next to me, Pilar shifting from one foot to the other brought my attention back to her. The movement had long been her tell-tale sign of pent-up anxiety, however, her face lacked the normal pinched lips and strained expression that with her perturbed state of mind.
“What’s wrong?” I asked and hoped I wouldn’t regret the question.
“I owe you an apology for the other day. I shouldn’t have threatened to take your daughter away. You’re a wonderful father.”
I stood there with my mouth open. “I... um... thank you.” It took several more seconds to recover from the compliment. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve said to me in years.”
“I’m just scared.” She admitted. “What I saw Saturday—”
“—That’s not a normal day in Ace’s life. She can control it.”
“She didn’t Saturday.”
“Saturday was an exception. Ace was stressed, and I didn’t help things.”
“Most women enjoy having a man proposes to them.”
I moistened my lips and thought back to how Pilar and I had flirted. We were stuck with each other and at the time I thought, what harm could come from pretending to have a good time? Except after an hour or so, the pretense turned genuine. Getting along had never been difficult for Pilar and me. We always clicked. Had Ace picked up on that? Is that what set her off?
“Why now, Beto?”
“What do you mean?”
“You ever wonder why I haven’t married Kenneth?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Pilar—”
“—We couldn’t make it work, and it wasn’t for a lack of love. I messed up, but you were never there. How is this time around going to be any different? Being a prosecutor is more demanding now than being a detective.”
“Ace gets it. She understands.”
“So did I, the first couple of years.”
What could I say? Ace was different. She was, at least I thought she was. Prior to Saturday I thought Ace and I vibe on a frequency I never experienced with another woman. Standing there in front of Pilar, my doubts just became more prominent.
Pippa’s timely return put the conversation on hold.
“Bye mom.”
Pippa gripped my hand and waved at Pilar with her other. After securing her into the back seat, we headed to my apartment in the southern edge of Chicago’s North Center neighborhood. She won the dinner selection, which meant several slices of delivery pizza later, Pippa watched Star Wars from the couch, while I sat at the kitchen island that overlooked the living room, and went over the coroner’s report for the dozenth time that night.
I knew I missed something, but twelve passes failed to uncover it. I had hoped knowing they were murdered by a werewolf might provide some great revelation, but I remained in the dark. Why would a werewolf attack and kill not just Jacque, but Gisselle? Especially considering the significance of what her being a völva meant to lycanthropes. I dismissed the attacker not knowing. If nothing else was obvious, the ladies knew their killer. I doubted either of them would agree to meet a stranger in the middle of the night at a deserted location without a significantly good reason. If one existed, I had yet to figure it out.
Sorting through the crime scene photos, I stopped when I reached one that provided a broad view of the background. The chances of being seen behind the museum, at that time of night were slim to none. Why decapitate Jacque, and not Gisselle? He obviously came prepared to remove limbs so why not be thorough?
I picked up my phone, unlocked it, and got as far as opening the messenger app before I placed it back on the counter. Ace needed rest, not me texting random questions.
“Dad? Can I have some water?”
“Sure thing, chipmunk.”
I closed my laptop and shuffled the photos back into a folder before I took Pippa a glass of water and sat on the couch next to her.
“I wish Amina was here,” she stated after she took a sip. “You watch movies with us when she’s here. And she tells funny stories about the characters.”
I stretched my arm across the back of the couch and toed off my shoes to prop my feet on the coffee table.
“I wish she was here too, chipmunk, but she needs to be with her family.”
“Is she sad?”
“I think so, yes.”
“I’d be sad too if someone made momma and Tia Bella go away.”
I moved the arm across the back of the couch down and pulled my daughter under the crook of it. “That’s not something you have to worry about.”
“I know,” she said in confirmation.
My body sagged in relief. Days ago, I struggled with the best way to explain the deaths to a seven-year-old. How to explain it to her with words she would understand, and not make her feel like I talked down to her, while making sure not to tell her more than she needed to know, and ensure that she continued to feel safe? Those two words assured me if I failed in the other three areas, at least I succeeded in the most important one.
“Papi?”
“Yes?”
“What does spectacle mean?”
“Uh.” My brain drew a blank on a Webster definition, so I went for the parent standby. “Why do you ask?”
“Momma told Ken the mayor is making a spectacle of the funeral.”
Of course, she did.
“I think your mother is talking about the city making the funeral for Miss Reeves and Miss Legend a public event.”
“Mom said she wasn’t going.”
“I would be concerned if she was,” I stated.
“Are you going?” She asked.
“Mmm-hmm,” I murmured and confirmed the words with a nod.
“Because it’s a spectacle?”
I chuckled at that and looked down to find my little girl grinning up at me. Her expression one of someone with complete triumph.
“Because Amina is very special to me, and I want to be there for her.”
“Can I go?”
I looked down at her again. The traces of amusement departed as I once again studied my little daughter’s earnest face.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, chipmunk. The funeral will be during school.”
“But I have to miss Tuesday morning for a dentist appointment anyway.” Her tone so logical had I not been staring at her, I might have thought I was talking to the teenaged version of her older self.
“I’m not sure your mother will appreciate that line of thinking.”
“Please papi.” She tilted her face up more and rested her chin on my chest. Her hazel-green eyes opened wide in her best Bambi imitation. “Amina’s special to me too, and I want to be there for her.”
With my words uttered from her mouth verbatim, I chuckled and kissed the tip of her nose. “How can I say no to that face?”
Pippa flashed a mouth full of teeth in a smile and snuggled close.
On the screen, Hans Solo called it.
I had a very bad feeling.