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  “I’m going to go back to my office now, let me know what they find if it’s of interest to me.” I gave him a little wave, and he snorted.

  “I know where to find you if I need you,” he called after me as the door shut.

  I shuffled through the reception area, giving Mandy a wave as I made my way to the hallway. The light reflected off the tile while I made my way to the stairs. I still couldn’t bring myself to take the elevator after the south PIB building blew up because of a magical bomb placed in the building’s elevator. The blast had killed a few of our Agents, and the verdict was still out on my partner. He was dead on paper, but there was evidence that suggested otherwise.

  I swiped my badge over the scanner to open my office door. The tumbler clicked, and I walked, not even glancing at the empty desk to my left. PIB hadn’t assigned me another partner yet, but they hadn’t removed the desk yet either.

  I was over my grief and had moved on to action. I would learn why Nick’s body disappeared, why his badged ended up at my uncle’s, and why his fingerprints were on my destroyed car. I walked over to the window. The glass panes overlooked the parking lot and gave me a great view of the mountains.

  Below me, I saw the forensic people still working on the body in the box. I wondered if anyone else in PIB had gone out to try and take the case. As far as I was concerned, they could have it. I didn’t want it. Lately, I didn’t want any of my cases. The last year had been such a blow between Nick dying and learning that Levi was the king.

  I heard a knock on my door, and I turned to see Detective Mason through the glass window. I walked over and let him in, motioning to the chair at the empty desk.

  “What’s up?”

  He sat down and looked at me. “The body seems to be human, the cause of death looks to be multiple stab wounds right down the spine. The neck was broken, but we’re pretty sure that it was done postmortem.”

  “So, so far, everything about this is pointing to human.” I sat down and met his gaze. “So it’s your case.”

  He nodded. “But I’d still like to have you close by since the case is on PIB property. I’ll need someone here I can touch base with. Do you know who else saw the box?”

  “Someone found it this morning and reported it to Boss Man; he didn’t say who. You’d have to ask him. He called me down from the office.”

  “And why you?”

  I laughed. “I have no idea why. Apparently, he thought I’d be best to handle a box that was bleeding. I’m not sure if there’s protocol for this or not.”

  “Is that your official statement?” He crossed his arms. “Is that what everyone here is going to tell me.”

  I met his gaze. “My official statement is this. I went out to see the box when Boss Man called me. I called you as soon as I realized that the box was bleeding. I don’t know if he went down there to look at it or not.”

  “Alright then. I’ll make sure to talk to him.” He turned to leave. “You doing alright Abby?”

  “Moving forward.” Mason wasn’t privy to the information about Levi, so I knew he wasn’t talking about that. He did know about Nick’s situation. He’d been the one to discover that Nick’s fingerprints were on my car after he’d been proclaimed dead.

  He stopped for a moment at the door. “That’s the only way you know how to do things, isn’t it?”

  “Yep.”

  He didn’t say anything as he left the office and turned down the hall. I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes for a moment. There wasn’t much I could do right now. The body wasn’t officially mine, and anything else I wanted to research about Ira and Levi, I couldn’t because it’d raise red flags in the system.

  I opened my eyes and looked at the clock. I could take a break for some coffee. Yeah, coffee sounded good.

  I sat in the coffee shop down the road from the building. I’d walked because the fresh air was good for my brain. I huddled in the corner table, playing on my phone and taking an occasional sip of coffee. The shop wasn’t busy this morning. The meeting room towards the back had a group of people that were quietly talking, giving no clues to what kind of meeting it was. The baristas kept busy cleaning up behind the counter or around the tables, a few of them moved to the beat of the pop music that played overhead.

  This was better than the office where there was a body shoved in a box. And yet, I couldn’t turn my brain away from it. It wasn’t even my case, and I felt like I should have been there, looking it over.

  My phone rang, interrupting the game I had been playing. Mason’s number flashed on the screen, and I answered it. “Agent Collins.”

  “Abby, where are you? I stopped back by your office and found it empty.”

  “I’m out having a coffee break. Want to join me?”

  “I’ll swing by and pick you up.” He called out something I couldn’t hear; he was probably talking to one of the other men on the scene.

  “What for?” I sipped my coffee and leaned back in the chair. “Did you find something interesting on the body?”

  “Well the box, yeah, but we have another body that arrived, this time to a group of women.”

  I tried to wrap my mind around things. “A group of women?”

  “Well, it’s a moms’ group. The box was addressed to their founders.”

  I swallowed the bit of panic climbing up my throat. “Please tell me that there were no kids around when they opened the box?”

  “They haven’t opened it.” The door of his cruiser slammed shut. “They noticed the blood and called us.”

  Bodies in boxes shipped to a moms’ group. This was new territory, even for me. “Okay, I’ll meet you outside. Do you want coffee?”

  “Yeah, I feel like we’re going to need it to get through our day.” He hung up before I could ask him what they had found in the box. He was only a couple blocks away, so I wouldn’t have to wait long, but I couldn’t help but feel that he purposely avoided giving me that information. Which made me wonder what he had found in the box.

  I walked up to the counter and ordered him a plain black coffee and then made my way outside to wait for him.

  His cruiser pulled up, and he waved me over. I climbed in and handed him his coffee. “Just the way you like it. Black, plain, bitter.”

  He chuckled. “Coffee as it’s meant to be.” He raised the cup as if saluting me. “Let’s go see the new body.”

  Mason navigated his way through the emergency vehicles and press that had already gathered at the house. I wondered how the press had found out so quickly, but it didn’t matter, they were here, and soon the news of bodies in boxes was going to be all over the media.

  I got out of the cruiser and looked around. The swanky neighborhood wasn’t one that I would pick for such a package to appear. The multi-level houses with perfectly landscaped lawns dotted the street, all the same shape, color, and feel. It reminded me of something out of a movie. No, this wasn’t where bloody bodies usually showed up.

  Mason cleared his throat. “Your least favorite person is here.” He jerked his head to the left, and I saw the tabloid reporter who was the biggest pain in my side, Stephanie.

  Her hair was done up in a tight bun, and her red lipstick made her face pale. Glasses perched on the end of her nose, adding to the sexy secretary look she always seemed to be sporting. The black jacket blended into the pencil skirt that barely covered her butt, leading to long legs in stilettos.

  I turned away from her and headed towards the PIB crime tape that had been put up. “Why is this labeled as a PIB case again? Not even an hour ago we decided that it wasn’t my case.”

  “When you see what’s under the blood, you’ll understand.” He followed me and motioned for me to go faster. “She’s coming.”

  There were a lot of bad things that Stephanie could unbury about me to put in her tabloids, but most of it seemed to focus on my love life, or lack thereof right now. The last piece I had read talked about how murders of local wolves had torn my werewolf lover and me apa
rt. It wasn’t the truth, but it was the best she could come up with.

  Mason and I slipped under the tape before she could catch up to us. I let out a sigh of relief; I didn’t want to deal with her today. There was a group of women standing with a police officer on the porch, each with a glass of wine in their hand. I looked down at my watch, it wasn’t even eleven yet, but of course, if someone sent a body to my home, I might have busted out the wine as well.

  Mason motioned to where forensics had gathered. “Take a look.” He hated to give away anything that might influence my opinion, but this was ridiculous. I’d seen the body at the PIB office; my opinion was already starting to form.

  Forensics had the body stretched out and in a body bag, but it wasn’t zipped up yet, so the contorted face of the woman was visible. I looked down at the blood-matted blonde hair, hair-pinned curls plastered to her carefully made-up face. Not a single drop of makeup was out of place, had it not been for the blood, she would have looked like a sleeping doll.

  I looked down at the box, same type of box as the one at PIB, a popular online retailer box, taped with unassuming packing tape, but this time the label was readable. I pulled out latex gloves from my bag and put them on.

  I wanted to know what I was going to find in the box; anxiety was already knotting my stomach as I flipped the edges open. I reached into the inch of blood that pooled in the bottom of the box, and my fingers touched a raised object.

  A shock jolted through me, and I cried out as the jab of pain hit my heart, raising the hairs on my arms and touching my magic. Fuck. The blood in the box disappeared as if the box absorbed the already congealed liquid, and it formed into a magical rune.

  At first, I thought it was the language of The Cult of Ra, an Egyptian-based cult that thought it was their duty to make sure people were practicing magic as they saw fit, but the base was different. The base wasn’t a coven language that I knew off the top of my head. But we were dealing with a witch or a warlock that was using some very serious black magic.

  “Cult?” Mason asked from behind me.

  I shook my head. “No, someone different. Someone that Cult would probably go after. I stepped away from the box. “Do the women know the victim?”

  He nodded. “Says that she used to be part of their group. She left when her ex-husband gained custody of the kids.”

  “Did they say why he gained custody?” I turned to see the group of women through the open door of the house. The five of them had moved to sit on the couch, each one sipped their wine and dabbed at the tears in their eyes.

  “I didn’t ask.” Mason motioned to them. “Do you want to talk to them?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, probably best to do it now. If I need more information, I can talk to them alone, but right now they are grieving and probably need each other to lean on.”

  “Or they’re all in it together.” Mason muttered, “Stepford wives shit.”

  I chuckled. “Maybe, we’ll have to gather our evidence and see.” I made my way over to the couch and sat on the ottoman and faced the ladies. “Rough way to start the morning. Someone take the kids for you guys?”

  “All of our kids are school age.” The tallest one spoke up. She had the same features as the deceased, the only difference being her hair wasn’t curled. “I’m Tracey.”

  I nodded. “I’m glad the kids weren’t here to see this. Detective Mason mentioned that you knew the deceased.”

  “She was part of our group. She left probably about six months ago because she no longer had the kids. Her husband won custody due to something strange going on at home. She never spoke to us about it. One day the kids were there and the next they were moving to another state.” Tracey shrugged. “She cut off contact, and we figured she was trying to put her life back together. There were rumors that she had gotten into some hardcore drugs, but you know how rumors go.”

  I glanced over at the box and shook my head. “With a rune like that, she wasn’t putting her life back together; my guess is she ended up dealing with some dark things. “Was she a witch?”

  They shook their heads together. “No, she was a shifter.”

  Well, that was interesting news. I wondered what the blood test would come back as on the other victim. “Are all of you shifters as well?”

  There was a collective agreement across the board, and I tried to hide my smile. They were a moms’ group of shifters. A community that went well beyond just being a mom. “That’s helpful. Do you know if she was friends with any witches or warlocks?”

  They exchanged looks, and I was wondering if they were debating on lying to me. That was one of the problems of interviewing in a group, but since they weren’t suspects, there was no reason to separate them.

  “There was this one guy, someone she used to hang out with. He was a warlock; she used to brag about how she helped him with spells.” Tracey shrugged. “We didn’t think anything of it at the time because we felt she was just trying to make her life seem glamorous.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was something normal women did or not. I never needed to make my life seem glamorous or adventurous because it was dangerous and filled with dead bodies. “Did he have a name?”

  “Nope. She never gave us one. I think I have a phone number for her ex-husband though.” Another one of the women sat her wine down and dug in her purse. She pulled out her phone and scrolled through a few times. “Ah ha, here we go. Carl Tortania.” She showed me the phone, and I copied the number down into the notes section of my own.

  “Thank you, that’ll be a great starting point. I’m sorry for your loss. I know it’s never easy to lose someone from your community.” I bowed my head in respect and went back to the body.

  Forensics had zipped up the body bag now, and I knew in a few moments they’d be loading her up and taking her to the morgue, where Jason would see what he could find out about the body. My interest lay in the rune at the bottom of the box. I took a picture of it. I’d need to run it through a database to find its origin, or run it by someone else who was a bit better with languages than me. The only time I’d seen a spell suck up blood was during a tracking spell.

  “What are you thinking, Abby?” Mason interrupted my thoughts.

  “I’m wondering what on earth this spell is and what it means. The woman was a shifter, so it could be related to that. Was her cause of death the same as the last body?”

  “From our initial observation, yes.” Mason flipped through his little notebook. “So runes and shifters, can we call this a PIB case?”

  I let out a dramatic groan. “I guess. Drive me back to the office, and I’ll see what I can pull up on this ex-husband and why they divorced and he got the kids.”

  “Sounds good. Stephanie is waiting for us outside the police line. There’s still media out there waiting for a statement. Do you want to make it?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “No, why don’t you make it, and I’ll sneak out the back door and meet you at the car?”

  “You’re a chicken, Collins.” He laughed.

  “I don’t like the media, Mason. All it brings is trouble to my investigation. And if I make a statement, there could be mass hysteria that there’s a paranormal creature on a killing spree.”

  Mason motioned to the back door. “Fine, go.”

  I snickered and snuck out the back door and waited to hear him start talking to the press. I heard his booming voice from behind the house and snuck around to the car. I climbed in and ducked my head until he finished.

  Chapter Two

  Mason dropped me off at the building, and I headed up to my office. To my pleasant surprise, someone was sitting in the hall with a bag of fast food. His caramel colored hair was cut just above his ears, and his hazel eyes shone under the lights in the hall. He looked up at me and smiled.

  “I was starting to give up hope that you were going to come back for lunch.” He stood and grabbed the bags. “Here I am sitting outside your office like a sad puppy.”

  I snorted. He was
a werewolf, alpha of the local pack. We’d dated a bit before, broke up due to responsibilities, but as of right now we were trying out friendship again. “I’ve had two bodies in one day.” And there was something in me that said that I would be having more.

  “Oh, do I need to go then?”

  I shook my head. “No, company would be nice. I’ve just got to pop a few names into the system and try to figure out why someone was divorced.”

  “That sounds more like private investigation than PIB.” He motioned to the door. “After you.”

  I swiped my badge and let us both in. Simon glanced at the desk and then to me. “Are they planning on giving you a new partner?”

  “Don’t think so. I just don’t think anyone has realized that the desk is still here.” I shrugged and held my hand out for the bag. “So what made you decide to bring me lunch?”

  “I thought it’d be nice to do something normal for once. When we’re at your place your…cat…is always there, or Levi is always popping in to check on you, or that creep Mario—”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Hold up, Mario’s been at the house?”

  Mario was a visiting vampire. I never did learn exactly what he was to Levi, but the fucker had yet to leave the territory. I hadn’t known he’d been hanging around my house though. He must be avoiding where the magical barriers were to keep from notifying me.

  “Osiris mentioned it; I figured he’d said something to you.” Osiris was the name of my cat, also the code name for Merick. He was a member of the Cult of Ra who refused to let me go unprotected for his own reasons. What those reasons were, I didn’t know. He was masquerading as a cat to keep most people from knowing he was there. The only two people besides me that knew were Simon and my uncle, Oliver.

  “No, he hadn’t. I’ll talk to him tonight when I get home. I’m sorry that there are a bunch of people interrupting our time together.” I dug in the bag and found a burger and fries. “It’s not like I planned my life to be chaotic.” But it was one of the reasons that we didn’t date anymore.